Forgetfulness by Ward Just Read Free Book Online Page B

armchair after strenuous exercise. She peed and peed some more, such a strange sensation lying on her back but so welcome; and at last she was done, her bladder empty, and she wondered how she had endured it as long as she had. But the men were gone. She had nothing to fear, nothing at all save for the possibility that Thomas would not find her. The mountain was as broad as the world itself.
    So she clasped her frozen hands and prayed to God, first in
French, then in English, finally in Latin. Her English was not good enough for the prayer. She thought she had forgotten her Latin but she spoke as fluently as any cleric at the altar of her church, until she forgot where she was in the prayer, the sense of it, what she was saying and whom she was saying it to and why. The words had flown away. She was forgetting even as she lay alone in the darkness, unquiet, diminished, snow collecting all around her. She was dependent on the mercy of others and that made her cross. She had shied from turmoil her whole life, even as a little girl; there was turmoil enough within the four walls of her own house. Her regret was that she had no children but that was God's will, and now she was being punished again for no reason she could understand. She had never been adventurous, and now she was lying frozen on a mountainside waiting for rescue. Other people were adventurous. The boy she had been interested in had ridden away on his motorcycle one afternoon in the spring. He promised he would write her from Paris. When he was settled he would send for her. They would conquer the capital together, just like all those provincial characters in Balzac's novels. If you pushed hard enough, Paris gave way. They would work as a team, she preparing her assault on the Place Vendôme, he at Place Pigalle. And if she failed—well, a great film director would see her one day on the street and offer a screen test. She would be the new Moreau, her face on the cover of magazines and her voice on the radio. They would have a fine apartment and he would be a respected gangster with men of his own and money to burn. They would take midnight drives in the Bois du Boulogne in his yellow Alfa-Romeo convertible, she with a summer breeze in her hair, and over his left shoulder the tapering candle of the Eiffel Tower. But she never heard from him and always wondered whether he had gotten to Paris, and if he had, what he was doing there. Had her Lord of Misrule realized his dream? She hoped so. Tante Christine believed he would be driving a bus, that was what happened to boys from the country who ran off to Paris to make their fortune. Boys never understood the odds. Boys did not know how hard Paris could be when you arrived there alone, penniless, frightened,
friendless, every hand turned against you. Montparnasse station was the gate to perdition. Florette had smiled at her aunt's vehemence, the natural contempt of the country woman for the city. Of course she spoke the truth as she saw it. But even so, Florette wanted to think of him as a great success in his chosen life of crime, a respected gangster with men of his own and money to burn, driving his yellow convertible through the Bois du Boulogne at midnight, the Eiffel Tower over his left shoulder.
    Florette's mind continued to reel, memories tumbling from it, her spirit becoming lighter as it freed itself of its burdens. What once was thick was now loose; and all this time her thoughts were escaping and dispersing like a plume of breath on a cold day. The yellow convertible in the Bois du Boulogne disappeared. She could no longer remember the boy's name. She was further inside herself than she believed possible but this was comforting. She was no longer so cold and was content now to wait. The present moment slipped away, irretrievable. She tried now to gather her memories but they continued to elude her, dancing away into the night. They were quicker than she was. Florette was consoled and in limbo and