didn’t know whether to smile or get embarrassed.
“Okay, and so?”
“…”
“You certainly didn’t come to see me just to talk about my hair?”
“No … no …”
“All right, then. I’m listening.”
“…”
“Markus, are you there?”
“Yes …”
“Well?”
“I’d like to know why you kissed me.”
The memory of the kiss returned to the foreground of her memory. How had she been able to forget it? Each instant was being pieced together again, and she couldn’t hold in a pout of disgust. Was she crazy? For three years, she hadn’t approached a single man, hadn’t even thought about being interested in anybody, and then she goes kissing this inconsequential coworker. He was waiting for an answer, which was perfectly understandable. Time was passing. She had to say something.
“I don’t know,” murmured Natalie.
Markus would have preferred any answer, even a rejection, to this nothing of an answer.
“You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You can’t leave it like that. You need to explain it to me.”
There was nothing to say.
This kiss was like modern art.
Forty-four
Title of a Painting by Kazimir Malevich
White on White (1918)
Forty-five
Afterward, she thought about it: why that kiss? It just happened. We’re not the masters of our biological clock. In this instance it was the one that concerns mourning. She’d wanted to die, had tried to breathe again, had succeeded, then was able to eat, had even succeeded in going back to work, smiling, being strong, affable, feminine; and then time had passed with that wobbly energy of reconstruction, until the day she’d gone into that bar but fled, unable to bear the cruising game, certain she’d never be able to be interested in a man; yet the next day, she’d started walking on the wall-to-wall carpeting, had just done it, an impulse stolen from doubt; she’d experienced her body as an object of desire, its shape and hips, and she’d even been disappointed she couldn’t hear the sound of her spike heels … All of it had come out of nowhere, the unforeseen birth of a sensation, a lucid force.
And that was when Markus had entered the room.
There was nothing else to say. Our biological clock isn’t rational. It’s exactly like an unhappy love affair: you don’t know when you’ll get over it. At the most painful moment, you thinkthat the wound will never heal. And then, one morning, you’re startled to discover that you no longer feel this terrible burden. What a surprise to notice that the angst has disappeared. Why on that particular day? Why not later, or sooner? It’s the totalitarian decision of our body. Markus shouldn’t have looked for a tangible explanation of that impulsive kiss. It had appeared all in good time. Besides, most stories can often be summed up by that simple question of the right moment. Markus, who’d made a mess of so many things in his life, had just discovered his ability to appear in the field of vision of a woman at the perfect moment.
Natalie had read the distress in Markus’s eyes. After their last exchange, he’d left slowly. Without making a sound. As unobtrusive as a semicolon in an eight-hundred-page novel. She couldn’t leave him like that. She was terribly upset about having acted as she did. She also thought he was a nice man to work with, respectful of everybody, and that made her even more upset about the notion of wounding him. She called him to her office. He put file 114 under his arm, in case she wanted to see him for a work reason. But he didn’t give a good goddamn about file 114. In responding to the call, he made a detour by way of the restroom and splashed a little water on his face. Curious about what she was going to say to him, he opened the door to her office.
“Thanks for coming.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’d like to apologize. I didn’t know how to answer. And to be perfectly honest, I still don’t know …”
“…”
“I don’t know what came over me. It had
“Okay, and so?”
“…”
“You certainly didn’t come to see me just to talk about my hair?”
“No … no …”
“All right, then. I’m listening.”
“…”
“Markus, are you there?”
“Yes …”
“Well?”
“I’d like to know why you kissed me.”
The memory of the kiss returned to the foreground of her memory. How had she been able to forget it? Each instant was being pieced together again, and she couldn’t hold in a pout of disgust. Was she crazy? For three years, she hadn’t approached a single man, hadn’t even thought about being interested in anybody, and then she goes kissing this inconsequential coworker. He was waiting for an answer, which was perfectly understandable. Time was passing. She had to say something.
“I don’t know,” murmured Natalie.
Markus would have preferred any answer, even a rejection, to this nothing of an answer.
“You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You can’t leave it like that. You need to explain it to me.”
There was nothing to say.
This kiss was like modern art.
Forty-four
Title of a Painting by Kazimir Malevich
White on White (1918)
Forty-five
Afterward, she thought about it: why that kiss? It just happened. We’re not the masters of our biological clock. In this instance it was the one that concerns mourning. She’d wanted to die, had tried to breathe again, had succeeded, then was able to eat, had even succeeded in going back to work, smiling, being strong, affable, feminine; and then time had passed with that wobbly energy of reconstruction, until the day she’d gone into that bar but fled, unable to bear the cruising game, certain she’d never be able to be interested in a man; yet the next day, she’d started walking on the wall-to-wall carpeting, had just done it, an impulse stolen from doubt; she’d experienced her body as an object of desire, its shape and hips, and she’d even been disappointed she couldn’t hear the sound of her spike heels … All of it had come out of nowhere, the unforeseen birth of a sensation, a lucid force.
And that was when Markus had entered the room.
There was nothing else to say. Our biological clock isn’t rational. It’s exactly like an unhappy love affair: you don’t know when you’ll get over it. At the most painful moment, you thinkthat the wound will never heal. And then, one morning, you’re startled to discover that you no longer feel this terrible burden. What a surprise to notice that the angst has disappeared. Why on that particular day? Why not later, or sooner? It’s the totalitarian decision of our body. Markus shouldn’t have looked for a tangible explanation of that impulsive kiss. It had appeared all in good time. Besides, most stories can often be summed up by that simple question of the right moment. Markus, who’d made a mess of so many things in his life, had just discovered his ability to appear in the field of vision of a woman at the perfect moment.
Natalie had read the distress in Markus’s eyes. After their last exchange, he’d left slowly. Without making a sound. As unobtrusive as a semicolon in an eight-hundred-page novel. She couldn’t leave him like that. She was terribly upset about having acted as she did. She also thought he was a nice man to work with, respectful of everybody, and that made her even more upset about the notion of wounding him. She called him to her office. He put file 114 under his arm, in case she wanted to see him for a work reason. But he didn’t give a good goddamn about file 114. In responding to the call, he made a detour by way of the restroom and splashed a little water on his face. Curious about what she was going to say to him, he opened the door to her office.
“Thanks for coming.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’d like to apologize. I didn’t know how to answer. And to be perfectly honest, I still don’t know …”
“…”
“I don’t know what came over me. It had
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