Read Online Foreign Tongue by Vanina Marsot - Free Book Online

and laughed.
    She looked at me, then tossed her head. “I’ll drive.”
    She walked back and swept up the keys with a fluid movement. I don’t remember how she found my car or how she got me into it. I tried to kiss her neck, but she pushed me aside.
    “But it’s an automatic,” I blathered.
    “I know what it is, you fool.” She drove quickly through the empty streets. At the place de Clichy, I realized we weren’t going to my place. I followed her up six flights of stairs to a sparsely furnished apartment under the eaves. She threw me a blanket, pointed to the sofa, and went into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
    I drank a large glass of water. I waited, then knocked on her door. There was no answer. I knocked again.
    She opened the door and looked at me, her eyes glittering. She slid her dress strap off one shoulder. The fabric fell to a puddle at her feet. She stepped out of it, dripping nakedness. I loosened my tie. She stepped away, removing the pins in her hair. As we stared at each other across the bed, the air became charged, almost too thick to breathe…
    As he read, Bunny’s reactions flitted across his face: a frown, a smirk, raised eyebrows, pursed lips. He turned the page. His hands were large, with thick knuckles and neat, broad fingernails. I knew how the skin on his cheek felt, I’d kissed it often enough: soft and papery. Perhaps to compensate for his height, he tended to stoop, but he moved gracefully. Just because he was old enough to be my father and I didn’t want to sleep with him didn’t mean he didn’t have a sex life. Despite myself, I wondered what he was like in bed, and suddenly sensed he’d be nervous and kind and surprisingly adept. I shook the thought away.
    Bunny shifted in his seat, and the corners of his mouth twitched.He’d gotten to that part: the short but graphic sex scene. He put the pages down, nodding.
    “Is there more?”
    “Nope. That’s chapter one.” I felt pretty pleased with myself and reached over to nab the square of dark chocolate off his saucer. He finished his coffee.
    “It’s a bit clinical—” he began.
    “Believe me, the original is worse,” I said.
    Nodding again, he looked at his coffee cup, then put it down, squaring his shoulders. “You’re going to have to do better if you want the job. The language is stiff and stilted. He doesn’t sound at all likable—in fact, you make him sound like a pompous—”
    “He is pompous!” I exclaimed.
    “—horse’s ass. Which may be the case, but he isn’t going to hire you for pointing it out.”
    “Wait. I’m supposed to pretty it up?”
    “Not the way you’ve done it. The way you’ve written it, it’s like a Harlequin romance. I hear they’re sexing those up.” His mouth twitched again as he tried not to laugh. Furious, I fumbled in my bag and shoved the original at him.
    “Read the French!” I said.
    “Look, I’m just saying—”
    “Read the original, goddamnit!” He read the manuscript while I fumed.
    He finished reading and put it down. “I apologize,” he said. “It’s a brilliant translation.” He signaled for the bill.
    “And?” I asked.
    “And nothing.”
    “Don’t play around, Bunny. It’s not nice.”
    He sighed. “Either you want to know what I think or you don’t.”
    “I want to know what you think. I respect your opinion,” I said, small-voiced.
    “Then stop biting my head off,” he said, glaring at me. “You’re not going to get the job if you turn that in,” he repeated, jabbing a finger at my draft. “It shows up every single pretension in his stupid prose and makes him sound like more of an imbecile than in the original, where a certain flowery elegance buys him some leeway, if not credibility. Here, it’s stripped down, literal, and”—he paused to push up his sleeves—“dreadful. I wouldn’t read any more unless I was being paid or had nothing else to do.”
    Stung and embarrassed, I looked down at my translation and the