yesterday,’ she clarified.
‘Oh I see,’ said Hector.
After this vivacious answer, they decided to work together. Fake travellers to the ‘
Staaaaaaaaaates’
had to help each other. They sat in big armchairs to revise. Their knowledge of the United States was relative to their desire to see each other. After a few days, they were under the obligation of creating new states.
For the first time, Hector worried about whether he was attractive. He looked at himself at length in the mirror, and bought himself a tie. He decided to speak to Marcel about it, as he was a specialist in women, at least in the capillary part. Marcel had never been as happy to be somebody’s friend. At the bar where they met, there was even an order for alcoholic beverages. The place was reminiscent of a giant Turkish bath. Marcel was shouting a bit too loudly, gesticulating all over the place, and it was his way of implicating himself in Hector’s love life. He really took this mission to heart, and beneath his airs of an alcoholic adventurer, beneath his airs of a Russian athlete, beneath all his airs, a sentimental air could be unearthed. The very fact of evoking the potential entry of a woman in his friend’s life made tears rush to his eyes. Although he was meant to be reassuring and advising, it was Hector who had to raise his spirits; sentimental stories always filled Marcel’s heart, they sprinkled it with rose petals.
At the library’s exit, Hector and Brigitte formed a couple. Without really knowing what fate wanted from them, they positioned themselves side by side, facing life. It was one of these moments preceding love where people unveil themselves in the innocence of the obvious. Hector spoke about his past as a compulsive hoarder, Brigitte confessed having had spots until the age of seventeen and a half, in a nutshell they were laughing foolishly, like all those who we have seen laugh foolishly in parks; it is one of the rare moments where idiocy is a positive attribute. A new life was now revealing itself, and to celebrate it in a burst of poetry, there was at that moment the charm of a ray of light after an angry dark sky. Hector gained self-assurance just by looking at Brigitte. He felt important, like a limousine leaving an airport. Brigitte, usually ensconced in her restraint, allowed herself to be transported, without yet really knowing the erotic potential that was wastefully dozing in her.
Erotic potential, the expression was enticing. Indeed, we were entering the immediate hope of sensuality. Brigitte, never nominated elsewhere, was standing at the front of the stage. The last time Hector had seen a naked woman was on a television screen. The idea of sex was like a fish that wakes up with legs. The future lovers had spoken little since their exit from the library. Brigitte’s apartment was located on the top floor of a building in the centre of town, the noise coming from the street cradled the room, the co-owners had recently voted for the installation of a lift. They were allowing themselves to slide into love. Hector acted like he was used to this type of thing by partially drawing the curtains; of course, he dreamed of being in the most complete darkness. He was afraid that their bodies would not be at the height of their encounter. He stayed in front of this window, an instant, an instant that was becoming rather long, an instant that was not really an instant anymore but the outline of eternity. Behind him was the body of a woman that was no longer hidden by anything. Hector had heard the sound of feminine clothes vanishing into the ground, this sound of nothing that justifies men having ears. Hector lifted the sheet; Brigitte was naked. In front of the beauty of that moment, he collapsed while remaining standing; his spinal column slid towards his feet. In the face of this emotion, Hector was flesh with no foundations. He laid his body on her body, and placed his lips on her lips. Everything was then but an
James A. Michener, Steve Berry