Free The Bay of Foxes by Sheila Kohler Page A

spoken of these deaths, which mean more than anything else in his life. He has spoken in order to sing for his supper. Now they turn from him, from the emptied shell. They talk among themselves about something entirely unconnected to his tragic tale. “Have you heard about Michel’s review?” Simone says. “
C’est pas vrai!
” they say, obviously thrilled by someone else’s unhappiness. They speak of someone else they all know and he doesn’t, and he and his tale of blood and murder are fast forgotten. He has made a fool of himself, speaking of something intimate that they could never really share. He feels deflated, humiliated, pricked and airless like a balloon. He and his most intimatefeelings, the tragedy of his young life, his country, are but a moment of diversion.
    But when they part, Simone reaches up on the toes of her elegant black shoes to whisper into his ear, “Do come and see me sometime soon, darling. I am quite smitten.”

X

    “Y OU TAKE THE CALLS THIS AFTERNOON, DARLING , I WANT TO work,” M. says, waving a bejeweled white hand at him as he sits at her desk in the silk-covered Queen Anne chair. She drifts toward her bedroom. “Say I’m busy or whatever you like. If my editor calls, thank him for the dinner. We should have called him.”
    Gustave does indeed call. “M.? How are you?” he says, taking Dawit’s “Allo” for M.’s, as most people do.
    “Fine,” Dawit answers in her hoarse man’s voice, leaning back into the chair and waving a hand, though there is no one to see it. Increasingly, as he writes or talks in her voice, he feels he is M. He has stepped into her shoes both figuratively and literally.
    “Wonderful dinner, thank you so much. Meant to call but was distracted by my book.”
    “The book? How’s it going?” the editor asks, without great interest, it seems to Dawit.
    “Sentence by sentence,” he says, as she would. He is Dawit but he is also M., talking about her work. Indeed, he is correcting her sentences, improving them. Her work is not what it used to be, he feels. She has lost some of her earlier energy, and he understands why Gustave would have turned it down.
    “I have an author in town. He’d love to meet you. Le Clezio. Do you know his work?”
    “Of course,” he says. He would like to meet the handsome, gifted Le Clezio. He picks up one of the fat pens on the desk and twirls it in his fingers idly, staring at the trees.
    “Are you free for lunch next week?”
    “May I bring my Dawit?” he says.
    “Of course you may, he’s fascinating! What a handsome young man: those big black eyes; those slim hips! You lucky thing, you!” he says, chuckling conspiratorially. “And surprisingly smart—so much smarter than the one you had before.”
    “Indeed!” Dawit says.
    Gustave adds, “And by the way, I think my Simone rather fell in love with your Dawit. She can’t stop talking about him. You wouldn’t want to lend him out would you, just for a night? I was thinking of a birthday present for her at her party. She’s turning forty next month, and I’m planning something special. You have to come, if you’re still in town. You could deposit the present. I think Dawit would be a gift she might appreciate, don’t you? As you said, a brown diamond!” and he guffaws.
    Dawit says, “I’m not lending my brown diamond, not even to my most favorite couple in the world.” As he puts the pen down on the desk, he clenches his fists.
    “All right, all right,” Gustave says, laughing. “How about Wednesday at one at the Interalliée with Le Clezio for lunch?”
    “Perfect,” Dawit says and writes the appointment down in M.’s leather Hermès appointment book in her neat hand. He looks out across the trees at the Panthéon, thinking of the famous dead French citizens buried there.

XI

    O NE AFTERNOON, SHE COMES INTO HIS ROOM AND STANDS IN the doorway, leaning against the jamb and listening to him play the piano. Outside it is raining, and the sound