Monday, December 11, 2006
from "the book of revelation"; a novel
Being Brigitte, it had never occured to her that he might have missed her, that he might have been worried, and he knew her well enough to realise that, if he told her, she would not have understood. She might even have thought less of him for it. She would herself have been astonished.
"Nothing," he said, "It's nothing."
In retrospect, you could resent people who lived so entirely in their own skin that they had no idea of what it was like to be in yours. Not just no idea either, but no interest in trying to find out. The thought simply wouldn't have entered their heads.
This was why he was finding it so difficult to envisage how Brigitte would react to his disappearance. She was so used to being the centre of attraction - how would it be when that situation was reversed? Every time he tried to imagine what she might be doing, all he saw were the ordinary things, some element or other of her everyday routine. She was sprinkling food into the fish tank. She was lying in a hot bath, listening to Bob Dylan tapes (which she loved, and he always teased her about). She was sitting on the floor in the corner of the studio, stretching her legs out sideways, or touching her forehead to her knees. She was behaving normally, in other words. She was behaving as if he was still there. Was there a grain of truth in these images (not that his absence wouldn't affect her, but that she would carry on regardless)? Or did they simply indicate the poverty of his own imagination?
Another memory came to him. It had happened years ago, when they first knew each other. After rehearsal one afternoon he had gone to fetch his car, which he had parked a few streets away. He waited for her outside the studio, the engine running. At last the door opened and she climbed in. her skin smelling of the Chanel soap she always used back then, her hair still wet.
"You're staring at me," she said.
He could not deny it. He was captivated by her beauty, and there was nowhere he would rather look.
Even then, or especially then, perhaps, she had felt his love as a weight, a pressure, and at times it had exhausted her. This is not to say that she didn't love him, only that his love had preceded hers. His love had been instant, irrepressible and overwhelming, while hers had grown slowly, as a complement to his, as a response.
But if that was still true, if she sometimes felt his love weighed on her too heavily, and if that weight was then removed, in its entirety, would she, at some deep level, admit to a feeling of relief?
Or would she feel unanchored suddenly, unstable?
i feel the exact same way.
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