Read Online The List of My Desires by Grégoire Delacourt - Free Book Online
Authors: Grégoire Delacourt
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it. I get to my feet. He’s already standing up. He offers me his arm. I take it. My fingers feel the warmth of his tanned skin. Salt has left white marks on it. We leave the beach. We walk along the Promenade des Anglais with barely a metre between us. Further on, when we are opposite the Hôtel Negresco, his hand takes my elbow; he helps me across the road as if I were blind. I like the sense of vertigo. I close my eyes for a little while; I do as he wants. We go into the hotel. My heart is racing. I’m losing my mind. What has come over me? Am I going to go to bed with a stranger? I’m crazy.
But his smile reassures me. And then his voice.
Come on, I’ll get you a cup of tea.
He orders two orange pekoes.
It’s a light-bodied Ceylon tea, a pleasant afternoon drink. Have you ever been to Ceylon . . . Sri Lanka?
I laugh. I lower my eyes. I’m fifteen years old, a romantic schoolgirl.
It’s an island in the Indian Ocean less than fifty kilometres from India. It became Sri Lanka in 1972, when—
I interrupt him. Why are you doing this?
He delicately puts his cup of orange pekoe down, and then takes my face in his hands.
I saw you on the beach from behind just now, and I was overwhelmed by the loneliness of your whole body.
He’s good-looking. Like Vittorio Gassman in Scent of a Woman.
I raise my face to his, my lips seek his, find them. It’s a strange, unexpected kiss; a kiss warm with the flavour of the Indian Ocean. It’s a kiss that goes on a long time, a kiss that says everything about what I lack, what he wants, my sufferings, his impatience.
Our kiss is my rapture; my vengeance; all the kisses I never had, from Fabien Derôme in my class in middle school, from my timid ‘Indian Summer’ dance partner, from Philippe de Gouverne whom I never dared approach, from Solal, Prince Charming, Johnny Depp, Kevin Costner before the implants, all the kisses that girls dream of; the kisses before Jocelyn Guerbette’s.
I gently push my stranger away.
I murmur: No.
He doesn’t insist.
If he can read my mind just by looking at my back, now he can see in my eyes how afraid of myself I am.
I’m a faithful wife. Jo’s cruelty isn’t a good enough reason. My loneliness isn’t a good enough reason.
I went home to Arras the next day. Jo’s anger had died down. The children had made toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, and were praising the merits of The Sound of Music.
But nothing’s ever as simple as that.
S ince that article was published in L’Observateur de l’Arrageois , the world’s gone mad.
The shop is never empty. The tengoldfingers blog gets eleven thousand hits a day. Our mini-merchandising site receives over forty orders daily. I’m sent thirty CVs a week. The telephone never stops ringing. People ask me to hold sewing workshops in schools. Embroidery workshops in hospitals. A hospice asks me to give knitting lessons, simple things like scarves and socks. The children’s oncology department of the local hospital wants caps in cheerful colours. And sometimes gloves with two or three fingers. Mado is run off her feet, she’s taking Prosoft, and when I worry she replies, with a nervous laugh twisting her mouth: If I stop, Jo, I shall fall down, and if I fall down I’ll bring the whole place down with me, so don’t stop me, keep pushing me, Jo, please keep pushing me. She’s promised to go and see Dr Caron, to eat more salmon, to hang on. In the evening Jo gets me to recite the rules of nutritional safety and the principle of the cold chain, which he has to know for his exam to be a foreman. ‘Deep-frozen foods’ have undergone the process known as ‘deep-freezing’ in which the maximum crystallisation zone is passed as quickly as necessary, the effect being that the temperature of the produce is maintained (after thermal stabilisation) uninterruptedly at values below or equal to -18ºC. Deep-freezing must be carried out without delay on produce of healthy and marketable quality using
But his smile reassures me. And then his voice.
Come on, I’ll get you a cup of tea.
He orders two orange pekoes.
It’s a light-bodied Ceylon tea, a pleasant afternoon drink. Have you ever been to Ceylon . . . Sri Lanka?
I laugh. I lower my eyes. I’m fifteen years old, a romantic schoolgirl.
It’s an island in the Indian Ocean less than fifty kilometres from India. It became Sri Lanka in 1972, when—
I interrupt him. Why are you doing this?
He delicately puts his cup of orange pekoe down, and then takes my face in his hands.
I saw you on the beach from behind just now, and I was overwhelmed by the loneliness of your whole body.
He’s good-looking. Like Vittorio Gassman in Scent of a Woman.
I raise my face to his, my lips seek his, find them. It’s a strange, unexpected kiss; a kiss warm with the flavour of the Indian Ocean. It’s a kiss that goes on a long time, a kiss that says everything about what I lack, what he wants, my sufferings, his impatience.
Our kiss is my rapture; my vengeance; all the kisses I never had, from Fabien Derôme in my class in middle school, from my timid ‘Indian Summer’ dance partner, from Philippe de Gouverne whom I never dared approach, from Solal, Prince Charming, Johnny Depp, Kevin Costner before the implants, all the kisses that girls dream of; the kisses before Jocelyn Guerbette’s.
I gently push my stranger away.
I murmur: No.
He doesn’t insist.
If he can read my mind just by looking at my back, now he can see in my eyes how afraid of myself I am.
I’m a faithful wife. Jo’s cruelty isn’t a good enough reason. My loneliness isn’t a good enough reason.
I went home to Arras the next day. Jo’s anger had died down. The children had made toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, and were praising the merits of The Sound of Music.
But nothing’s ever as simple as that.
S ince that article was published in L’Observateur de l’Arrageois , the world’s gone mad.
The shop is never empty. The tengoldfingers blog gets eleven thousand hits a day. Our mini-merchandising site receives over forty orders daily. I’m sent thirty CVs a week. The telephone never stops ringing. People ask me to hold sewing workshops in schools. Embroidery workshops in hospitals. A hospice asks me to give knitting lessons, simple things like scarves and socks. The children’s oncology department of the local hospital wants caps in cheerful colours. And sometimes gloves with two or three fingers. Mado is run off her feet, she’s taking Prosoft, and when I worry she replies, with a nervous laugh twisting her mouth: If I stop, Jo, I shall fall down, and if I fall down I’ll bring the whole place down with me, so don’t stop me, keep pushing me, Jo, please keep pushing me. She’s promised to go and see Dr Caron, to eat more salmon, to hang on. In the evening Jo gets me to recite the rules of nutritional safety and the principle of the cold chain, which he has to know for his exam to be a foreman. ‘Deep-frozen foods’ have undergone the process known as ‘deep-freezing’ in which the maximum crystallisation zone is passed as quickly as necessary, the effect being that the temperature of the produce is maintained (after thermal stabilisation) uninterruptedly at values below or equal to -18ºC. Deep-freezing must be carried out without delay on produce of healthy and marketable quality using
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