Читать книгу A Woman, In Bed - Anne Finger - Страница 16

Raptor

One by one, two by two, the guests said their goodnights, and drifted off to bed, until only Jacques, Albert, and Simone were left in the parlor. Mme. Vidal, who had been upstairs dozing in the rocking chair with her grandson in her arms, tiptoed down the stairs and warned her daughter against staying up too late. “You need your sleep…” she said, glancing at the couch: And remember, I’m sleeping on the settee tonight.

Simone nodded back, gave a tight smile: Oh, just sleep in my bed until I get there. I’m not about to give up the chance I have for some real company for your sake!

Simone filched a bottle of homemade mirto from the pantry. “From the berries of the myrtle bush. It will give us vivid dreams.”

“Are you Circe, a knower of herbs and potions?”

“This”—Albert draped an arm around his pal’s shoulder—“is why we keep him around. He lifts up the tone of the gathering with his classical allusions—”

“I need to excuse myself for a minute.” Simone’s breasts were milk-filled and aching.

Albert yawned, “We should be heading off to bed—”

“Oh, no! I mean, not on my account. I am just so glad to have some—but, of course, if you are tired…”

A little after midnight one of the other guests came down and asked, as a special favor to the elderly, if the young people could please be a little more quiet. After that, they whispered, which made them laugh. They held their hands over their mouths, which only made them laugh harder.

A full moon shone through the window.

As she refilled their glasses, Simone’s hand brushed against Jacques.

“You’re warm.”

“I have a slight fever—it’s nothing. Probably from…” she glanced downwards, uncertain if she should say the word “nursing,” wavered back and forth, will it make her seem bovine, slovenly? Not to say it would be prudish, yes, she determined to finish her sentence, to say the word, and blurted it out rather too harshly: “nursing.”

“Ah, the sacrifices the race of noble mothers makes—” Albert said.

Because she wanted to drive off the notion of her being exalted by maternity, she said, “I quite enjoy a slight fever…”

Jacques’ eyes fixed on her, like those of a raptor on its prey.

She’d been about to say “A fever is like wine, too much leaves you thick and dull, but the right amount…” but now to say that would make her foolish.

His eyes accused her of being a woman who needed stimulation, whether from wine or fever or the admiration of men.

The next gesture he made took her aback, laying his flat palm upon her forehead, leaving it there. Under the influence of drink—Jacques was on his third glass of mirto—some men reveal a hidden streak of cruelty. Jacques revealed a well-concealed vein of tenderness.