Private House by Anthony Hyde Read Free Book Online Page B

automatic. Did the pain she’d just felt confirm this or deny it? Was Adamaris the same as herself in those regions or not? It was a question, too, that seemed to be raised by the expression on her face, or rather the lack of it. The great dark eyes were still, the mouth perfectly composed. It was as if the passing of the money was inevitable, the result of some natural law about which neither of them had a right to a feeling—as if they, the two women, were merely the ether through which the lightning flashed or the fluid displaced by the body. No feeling, no expression—no trace of will or desire: although, surely, it was this point that Adamaris had willed and desired most strongly. And of course there wasn’t a hint of thanks . . . and then the money had disappeared inside her little bag.
    â€œI will call tomorrow, if that is all right.”
    â€œI’m promising nothing, you know. Surely, you’ve done quite well.”
    â€œWould one time be better than another?”
    â€œWell, I’m going out . . . but that isn’t settled.”
    â€œYou will be seeing someone . . . ? Perhaps I could help.”
    The pain was jabbing at her again, but she managed to smile. “Look, Adamaris, I have my secrets too.”
    She had no response to this. She simply rose in one motion and moved away. Mathilde turned . . . and for an instant saw her again, a silhouette in the bright oblong of the hotel entrance. Then she was gone.
    Mathilde relaxed on the sofa. She wondered about Adamaris. Apparently she had felt nothing at all; but then, did the rabbit exist for the fox? Mathilde closed her eyes. The pain was pinching her again. In her belly? But definitely not. Was it her uterus? But she forced her mind to return to Adamaris, for now something had occurred to her. She, Mathilde, was everything that Adamaris most desired to be. A journalist. Free. Wealthy. I am her fantasy of herself, Mathilde thought, I am herself, fulfilled. Yet there was a corollary to this, for it made Adamaris her doppelgänger , or at least her shadow. She remembered now the need in her face as she’d sucked her Coca-Cola. Does that mean that I have such a need, too? But before she could answer this question, the pain came again. She frowned. Her period? But she’d finished a few days before she left Paris. A last spurt? She pressed her legs together . . . and felt no catastrophe there. It was nothing, she thought. She needed to lie down for a while. She was about to get up, to go over to the elevator, when a woman came past her. Mathilde had seen her before. She was an “old hand,” like herself; she’d been here for several days, while everyone else only seemed to come for a night. Rather Anglo-Saxon. A blond, her hair streaked with grey. Tall. She wore loose lemony trousers and sandals: brave on these streets. Her bag was too big, though. And she looked a little hot, as if she’d had quite a day, and was carrying her straw hat in her hand.
    She recognized Mathilde with a smile, and Mathilde smiled back; but Mathilde let her go up in the elevator by herself.

T UESDAY , M AY 3, 2005
    1
    Lorraine looked around the breakfast room. Was she too late? She couldn’t be; the mahogany windows, ten feet high, were all turned open, and in the street children in their red shorts and skirts and bright white shirts were marching along to school.
    â€œWhat is going on?”
    Lorraine turned. She hadn’t noticed the woman come up, though she was the only other familiar face in the hotel: they had arrived the same day. She’d spoken in English, but Lorraine knew at once she was French, what is going on? translated at the very last moment from qu’est-ce qu’il se passe? And she wanted to reply—it was on the tip of her tongue— je ne sais pas , but what came out was, “I don’t know. We can’t be early .”
    The round mahogany table, usually piled high with sweet Cuban