Visions of Isabelle Read online

  Strange, she thought to herself, that the colder it becomes the warmer I feel, the more I flush, the hotter become my lips, so hot I believe they could sear.

  When, finally, after a wide-sweeping duet, during which they made ten great circles around the entire rink, perhaps fifteen slashes down its diagonals and several promenades down its central corridor, they shot together to a brilliant finale, all flashing blades and chips of ice which spattered the gaping spectators, embers burning flesh. Standing, then, together, their lungs heaving, their foreheads dripping sweat, they laughed, and Isabelle was seized with an unrequitable desire–to kiss the steam of Rehid Bey's frosty breath.

  With her brothers they sat down to mugs of hot chocolate at a small glass-enclosed pavilion that adjoined the lake. There the four young men toasted her seventeen years and wished her many more, which, Augustin noted, should be even more delicious than those she'd already endured.

  This led to a discussion of the meaning of life, upon which each had his own opinion. Nicolas said that one should aspire to nobility, face each moment with bravery, believing it may be the last. Vladimir said that survival was the only purpose he could divine in human existence, and amplified this depressing thought with nothing more than an enigmatic smile. To Augustin life was a privilege that must be earned–the great sin, he said, is to let it pass one by, to sit while others run, when clearly the point is to lead the pack.

  Isabelle listened impatiently to these sentiments, for she had heard them all for years. She wanted to hear from Rehid Bey whom she noticed had been most attentive to the others and whom she feared had suddenly lost all interest in herself. She was about to turn to him, to insist on hearing his manner of coping with existence, when he turned, at the same moment, to her, and began to speak in serene and mellifluous French.

  "It seems to me," he said, "–and I speak from a pedestal here since I'm twenty-seven years old–that the point of life is to perfect the spirit. Your brothers have mentioned some of the ways, and there are many more besides. I know mystics who devote themselves to contemplation so that they may rend the curtain that separates men from God. I know believers in man–humanists, they're called–who worship at the altar of human culture. And it seems that everyone I know is trying to express himself in a poem or a novel or a play. Then," and he glanced at her brothers, "there are the political revolutionaries who want to alter the social order by subversion and force–a popular mode, this season, among young Russian intellectuals of my acquaintance.

  "But I believe in the senses–the pursuit of physical sensations wherever they may lead. For instance, Isabelle, our experience today–the way we felt when we skated the ice. It seems to me that a man must strive, as best he can in his limited tenure on earth, to hone each feeling to its sharpest point. Requital of desire, total satiation–by this route I hope to perfect my spirit, and avenge myself against the germ that will bring my death."

  He stared at her, and her alone, the entire time he spoke, his eyes growing bigger, it seemed to her, in the dwindling afternoon light. When he was finished, he blinked and added that in his opinion the same theory held true as much for a woman as a man. There was a moment of silence and then the conversation shifted to something else. Vladimir started speaking in Russian, the three De Moerders were off upon one of their political disputes, and after a few moments Rehid Bey leaned toward Isabelle and whispered subtly into her ear:

  "Have lunch with me tomorrow. Come to the Turkish consulate at a quarter after twelve."

  She was in the city by eleven o'clock, and having nothing to do, amused herself for a while at the Maison Vacheron-Constantin where she watched the workmen, all of them old and wearing identical black cravats and light blue smocks, assembling watches in elaborate casings, including one, she was told, for the emperor of Japan.

  Despite the cold she strode around the old part of town, finding her way to the Russian church whose eight gold onion domes filled her with nostalgia for a homeland she had never seen.

  Finally, at the exact time, which she read off the giant clock in the tower of the Hotel de Ville, she entered the lobby of a baroque mansion which housed the Turkish consulate. Here she paused for a moment before the concierge's grate, rubbed her hands to relieve the freeze, unwrapped her long white scarf which Old Nathalie had embellished with blue fleurs-de-lis, and quivering with excitement, entered the office door.

  She found herself facing an empty desk. In another room she could hear muffled conversation, then, finally, an "au revoir." A serious-looking woman with thick black curls and an intense expression came out to the anteroom, looked Isabelle up and down and strode out the door. A minute passed, then another girl appeared. She asked Isabelle whom she wished to see.

  "Ah, Mr. Bey," she said. "The new vice-consul is so charming!"

  She walked back into the other room, but Isabelle could hear her speak.

  "A lady is here, and I must say she looks quite young."

  "Thank you very much, Mademoiselle, and you should feel free now to take your lunch."

  The secretary walked out of the office without giving Isabelle a glance. Rehid Bey appeared a moment later dressed in splendidly cut pants of pinstriped wool and over his starched white shirt a gray suede vest.

  "How marvelous to see you! How splendid you've come!" He took her hand, squeezed it, then brought it to his lips.

  "I've been looking forward so much to seeing you alone. After yesterday's race across the ice–which was, positively, the best time I've had all winter–I felt we should come to know one another well." By this time he was guiding her out the door, and she found it odd that he was wearing neither jacket nor coat. "I'm very fond of your brothers–they're quite intelligent and very enthusiastic, too. But you–well–" At this moment he turned up from the crouch he'd assumed while locking the door. "–you strike me as being very special." The lock clicked in place.

  "One hears a great deal about people from relatives and mutual friends and so often one is disappointed. Do you know what I mean?" She nodded–they were walking then across the lobby, though not, she noticed, toward the front door. Suddenly she became self-conscious. The concierge was looking at her and smiling and she could hear the echo of her footsteps on the marble floor. "But you, Isabelle, do not disappoint. And I have heard a great deal about you."

  He paused then at the foot of stairs that curled out of the lobby in a spiral loop. "I hope you won't think I'm presumptuous. I had thought of taking you to an elegant restaurant for lunch. Then it occurred to me there would be too many distractions–waiters, other diners, that sort of thing. So I am asking you to lunch with me at my home, which just happens to be up this flight."

  Isabelle was astonished and at the same time delighted by the strange things that befall one in life. She had not really imagined what their lunch would be like, though she'd had a vague notion they'd sit together in a café. The thought of visiting his apartment, though it had never crossed her mind, seemed natural and appropriate to what she suddenly. realized had been her interest all along. She had wanted, for more than a year, to be expertly seduced by a man. When she'd first laid eyes on Rehid Bey, she'd thought him entirely suitable for the task–his charm, his ease, his radiance were all she'd ever imagined her first lover would possess.

  "Yes," she heard herself say, "to lunch with you upstairs would be very nice."

  The landings were decorated with elegantly proportioned mirrors in gilded frames. Cherubs crafted out of malachite supported balusters which supported a railing of burnished bronze. As her eyes swept the mirrors, she was struck by her youthful appearance–her short cropped hair, her innocence among all these glittering refinements and in the company of so sophisticated a young man. She paused before one of them and then, to her amazement, spoke of her own unease.

  "I overheard your secretary saying that I look very young. And she was right. Just look at me. I'm a child of seventeen. Whatever am I doing here with you?"

  Rehid Bey laughed. "Isabelle,"
he said, "you are not a child at all. You are a stunning young woman who at this moment just happens to be dressed like a boy."

  "But this is how I always dress."

  "I know, I know," he said. "What I mean is that it seems to me you can be anything you want."

  He led her to a lavishly bordered set of doors, opened them and showed her in. She was delighted with the apartment which had once been, he explained, the private chapel of the house. The living room was a miniature nave arched by a series of groined vaults. There was a fireplace where the altar had been, ablaze with crackling logs. Before the fire a table was set, and beside the table there stood a silver bucket, glistening with moisture, icing a bottle of champagne. Rehid Bey called out a name, a servant appeared in pantaloons and fez, and a few words of Turkish were rapidly exchanged.

  While they waited for lunch he showed her his library which was filled with religious and poetic texts. The books were in all languages, but the ones that fascinated her were written in Arabic, a language which interested her enormously and in which she was quite well-versed. She had read the Koran with Trophimovsky, because, Vava had explained, despite its "superstitious nonsense," it was a great work of literature which every educated person should know. Rehid Bey owned a large collection of ancient Korans, some of them enclosed in leather boxes and locked by jeweled clasps. He took one of these out, and they sat side by side to study the elegance of the Arabic script.

  Isabelle became so enraptured by the interweaving of the border designs that she tried to trace a line around a page but soon became hopelessly lost. Rehid Bey then placed his index finger back at the beginning of the design, placed the same finger of her hand on top of his own, told her to ride him "piggyback," and carried her through the border without a fault. She was delighted, suggested they do it again. He turned the page, and this time her little finger rode his thumb. They were so amused that they did it on the next page, and on the next, until they drew so close on the velvet divan that Rehid Bey had no choice but to pull his head around and press down his lips.

  The kiss was long. Their fingers slid off the book and began to interlace. The precious Koran started to slide to the floor, and would have landed there if the Turkish servant hadn't accidentally jarred one of the crystal glasses with a fork. At the sound they both snapped around and Isabelle caught the book just in time.

  As soon as lunch was finished (partridge "en chartreuse," floating island), their embraces began again. And again they used their fingers to trace, but this time upon each other's flesh. An hour went by (though both, by then, had lost all track of time), and Isabelle, heated by his tender kisses and tickling fingers and strong arms and flattering words, found herself slipping into a novel mood. A sweetness filled her that she had not known before. She felt suffused by a blush, a glow, and felt that for the first time in her life she was being tended with the care that old Vava only lavished on his fondest plants. It was the "brown-eyed Levantine's" attentiveness that made her feel this way. It was as if each and every one of his caresses was a delicate stroke of a master painter's brush–a lick here, a lick there, until she felt like an image on a canvas glowing with life.

  There came a time after they had thoroughly embraced that Rehid Bey led her to the balcony above his drawing room nave and there to a great four-poster canopied in paisley silk. Here, dazed and flushed, she opened herself to him, ready to endure what she guessed would be nearly unendurable pain.

  Ah, such pain! No drill puncturing brass, no searing rivet probing into steel, no immovable object attacked by an irresistible force–none of these images suited the case. She felt neither the sting of the bee nor the sharp pain of vodka poured over a gushing wound. It was not like a spark in the eye, a splinter in the knee, or a piece of flesh opened by a gnawing rake. But what was it like? At the very moment it was happening to her, she was struggling to define its nature. More like a filling of soft rich cream. More like a swallow of chocolate soufflé. It was as if she had a tongue down there and was licking at something with a sublime soft taste. This food (or whatever it was) was so delicious, in fact, that she lost completely her self-control. So good it was that it inspired an unquenchable hunger, and she was forced to eat at a faster and faster rate so that all that was offered she could more rapidly devour. This desire to pin down the essence of the event was soon abandoned, obliterated by the joys of the experience itself. She gave way to it entirely, lost all sense of what was going on, until she woke herself out of the whole frenetic dream by a cry that flew in soft whisper from her lips.

  "Archivir," she said, and without knowing quite what she meant by it, or by what process the word had come into her mind, repeated it several times, trying it out with various mellifluous intonations until she achieved a pronunciation combined with an affectionate gasp. It was, she decided later, a splendid word that had been locked for many years inside her heart. Finally she had found something that deserved its caress. And that was how she happened to give it as nickname to Rehid Bey, whom she never called again by his Byzantine name, and, only rarely, by that phrase she'd coined for him the first time they met. Forever after he would be "Archivir" to her, and only on occasion "the brown-eyed Levantine."

  In the middle of the afternoon Rehid Bey escorted Isabelle down the stairs. He asked her to wait in the lobby a few moments while he picked up his jacket and coat inside.

  "I'm going out," she heard him say to the secretary.

  "But the consul wants you to finish those reports before he returns from Bern."

  There was a silence and then she heard Archivir's reply. "Let the consul be hanged."

  He took her to a little photographer's shop around the corner from the Cathedral St. Pierre. The photographer, a stubby little man who sucked on the stump of a cigar, greeted him like an old friend. He ushered them into a back room where a wall was painted neutral gray. Facing it, mounted on a stand, was a Beaulieu camera, mahogany with fittings of brass and a magnificent set of bellows that reminded Isabelle of the ruffled collar of a clown. Archivir flung himself upon a sofa, lit a cigarette and peered about.

  "Jacques," he said, "we must dress this young lady up. What do you suggest?"

  "A sailor suit?"

  "A little young don't you think?"

  "It's really quite splendid–the latest thing from Britain."

  "Well, give it to her then, and after that we'll try something else."

  Isabelle was shown to a dressing room that smelled of camphor. A huge variety of costumes were displayed on hooks. Obediently she put on the sailor suit, and when she reappeared in the studio, Archivir gasped.

  "Marvelous! I love the name on the hat–'Vengeance.' Jacques, take her just like that. And be sure to catch the confused expression–she's just been pressed into service, and though she doesn't know it yet, she's going to have a great career."

  Isabelle was shown to a decaying cane chair, seated there by Jacques who disappeared behind the camera and then came out again to adjust the angle of her head.

  "Now you must sit very steadily," he urged her. "Frown a little–I think that's what Monsieur wants. Your ship, you know, is called Vengeance, a powerful British man-of-war. There's no fooling aboard her. The English flog disobedient sailors. That's right–hold it–don't blink–" and he lit the powder that ignited in a flash.

  After appearing as a sailor she was photographed as other things: a Syrian banker, a Turkish gallant, a Bedouin warrior, a Spahi sergeant. The session took up the entire afternoon. Jacques and Archivir coaxed and admired, and by the end she was posing like a professional, assuming studied stances, glaring with Tartar eyes.

  Finally, when she grew impatient with all this changing in and out of clothes, she cut the whole thing short with a flamboyant challenge, a race on skates with Archivir, twenty-five times around the rink on the lake.

  He won the race, but not by much. Afterward they went back to his apartment, and again made love in the balcony above the nave. She did not return until late to Villa Neuve
, and when she did no one asked her where she'd been.

  Over the next weeks she met Archivir every day for lunch, and after each repast (each more elegant than the one before–lamb in pastry crust with pommes dauphines; duck breast filets with green apple puree), they indulged in new ecstasies upon the four-posted bed. Never in her life, she thought, had she learned so much so fast, not even during the most oppressive years of Vava's tutoring when it seemed he wanted to convey to her everything he knew.

  Archivir, she discovered, had studied in Paris, was extremely well-educated and cultured in the literature of half a dozen lands. A lover of poetry, he could quote her vast texts by the hour, including most of the great speeches from Shakespeare's plays. He was extremely tough on her favorite Russian authors, especially on Nádson whom Isabelle adored. "He's smooth and lifeless," Archivir said, and when she mentioned the name of Pierre Loti he launched into a diatribe of scorn. Isabelle and Augustin had read Loti over and over. From him they had acquired a longing to visit the Middle East and an attitude of romantic gloom haunted by premonitions of death. Archivir would have none of this. He called Loti a dreamer and a fake whose romanticization of the lives of simple people was erroneous and in poor taste. "I could hardly believe it," he told her, "when he was elected to the Academie Française. But that particular body has always been a haven for overrated fools."

  She listened to him with great attention, and occasionally argued back. But usually he overwhelmed her with his superior knowledge, and since he was teaching her so much about the requitals of the flesh, she was attentive to his views on everything else. Sometimes he surprised her by flinging himself down, after one or another of their bouts in bed, and stammering melancholy oaths at the uselessness of everything except the satiation of all physical desire.

  "Divine food, great wine, expert love–they are the only important things in life," he said after a particularly violent session during which he taught her the sweet pleasures of the giving and taking of moderate pain. "I wish I could feel–only feel. I despise my education. I hate the curse of being intellectual, the need to impose words upon experience. If I could only just feel–FEEL!" And at that he beat with his fists upon the linen while Isabelle watched him, puffing on a gold-tipped Turkish cigarette.