A Masterpiece of Revenge by J.J. Fiechter Read Free Book Online Page A

compelling — the latest elections in France, developments in the Middle East, the stock market. Most compelling of all was the possibility that a lost Lorrain painting had been found.
    I found myself looking with interest at the woman sitting across the aisle from me. There was, I found, something very appealing about her. Her head was leaning to one side, affording a view of what looked like an extremely comely earlobe.
    I have always found ears sensual parts of the female body, whether chaste ears, white and fine, or voluptuous ears with fleshy lobes, such as the ones you find in a Toulouse-Lautrec portrait.
    The pearl-like specimens belonging to my neighbor on the plane made me want to nuzzle them. Ever since the death of Sophie, I have had no real love life, though now and again the dull roots will stir, set off by something small usually — a smell, a freckle, an ear. Desire is bittersweet, for I am always reminded by these twinges that I can never again share them with Sophie.
    Before Sophie, love was to me what it is to so many men: a form of exchange. These dalliances poison the soul, I am sure of it. Worse, they instill boredom.
    Sophie had tumbled into my life on the eve of my fortieth birthday, by the purest of chance and the most unlikely of places: a museum devoted exclusively to Chinese puzzles, located in a suburb of Paris.
    What first drew my attention to her was her laugh — the quality of it, the true joy it seemed to express. I turned my head to find its source and found myself looking at dimpled cheeks and eyes the color of pine pitch, eyes alive with mischief.
    She was with another young woman, and the two of them were giggling uncontrollably before an ivory bague
-naudier
, one of those games of dexterity designed to drive one crazy.
    Our eyes met. From that moment onward my one overriding fear in the world was losing her. I followed the two women out. Luck was with me. When we got to the museum’s exit, it was pouring rain. I was standing with them in the entryway. They were debating how to get to the train station without getting soaked. I offered to share my umbrella and then, throwing caution to the winds, invited them to join me at the café across the way. That way, I said, we could wait out the rain.
    Before we had even finished our coffee I knew I wanted her. I wanted to live with her, I wanted her to have my children. My love was immediate and authentic. I had found the real thing.
    By the time we parted company that day, I knew everything I needed to about her: that she was single, lived alone, and composed music. I even found out where she lived.
    The next day I hurried over to the corner where her building was located. I had no particular plan in mind. I suppose I simply hoped that “by accident” we would meet. A fierce thunderstorm was brewing. Walking beneath the windows, I heard someone making beautiful sounds, sounds that seemed to come from some other universe. A piano. I found the spot where I could hear it best and stood there, transfixed.
    In my mind now the music I heard merged with that late-summer thunderstorm, expressing the eternal combat between light and dark, between power and grace. Whoever had created that sound was not one of those poor scribblers who crowd contemporary music with atonal, passionless sounds. It was her music. It was she. She was becoming a work of art to me, a painting broken free, gloriously free, of its frame.
    I would have waited a week in that summer storm, there on that corner. But the heavens smiled. The rain stopped, the music stopped, and Sophie emerged from her apartment. I ran around the corner, turned around, buried my nose in a book, and rounded the corner again — two steps ahead of her. Oops!
    â€œWell, well,” I said, sounding as casual as I could, “isn’t this a surprise!”
    She burst out laughing. “Sorry I’m late. I was practicing scales. So, shall we be off?”
    I looked at