Читать книгу A Woman, In Bed - Anne Finger - Страница 19

Rock

He stopped by Marcel’s cradle, crouched down, rocked it.

“I have a son, too.”

Simone hoped the room was still dark enough that he couldn’t see the look of shock on her face. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might have a wife, and more than a wife, a child. What was he doing roaming about with Albert? Or he might not be married, the child could be the product of a liaison, he’d left some girl from the lower orders shoved off in a garret somewhere. Of course, she herself had a husband and a child, but he had known that before their encounter began.

“He’s a year or so older than your baby. It’s strange: a growing child destroys each earlier version of himself. I miss the helpless infant, gone forever.”

Jacques brushed his index finger against Marcel’s palm and instinctively Marcel’s hand clasped it. It was his finger that had been inside of her, that smelled of her. What he was doing seemed sinful, almost incestuous, and yet two months ago the whole of Marcel had been inside of her, moving through her.

“May I pick him up?”

“All right. Just—”

“Oh, I won’t wake him. Don’t worry.” He rocked the cradle, and swayed his body back and forth in time with it, so when he lifted Marcel his movement was smooth and unbroken. He lay him on his left shoulder. “Yes, I remember this weight.” He inhaled deeply. “And this smell. At this stage they still smell of their mothers.”

She was not naive, she wasn’t, not the sort of woman who expected life to be like romantic novels—but nonetheless, there was something so—almost brutal—in the way he said At this stage they still smell like their mothers, as if Marcel were interchangeable with all other infants—and she were interchangeable with all other mothers.

“This one more than mine. My wife is a doctor, so she didn’t breastfeed. The smell of a nursed baby is purer.”

She took a deep breath and asked, “What’s your son’s name?” trying to sound off-hand, but her voice was tight with tension.

“Frédéric.”

He laid Marcel back in his cradle, rocked it a few times, whispered, “There, there,” kissed Simone and departed.