I Married You for Happiness (15 page)

Then it begins to rain again—not the heavy downpour of the day before but a light drizzle.

Let’s stop and have lunch, Philip says.

We just finished breakfast, she answers.

It must be the sea air. I’m hungry again, Philip says.

In Landéda, they eat more crêpes—crêpes coquilles St.-Jacques this time.

And drink homemade cider.

Nina licks her lips; she is thirsty.

In the bathroom, without turning on the light, she pours herself a glass of water.

The water will clear her head.

Too cold to swim and, anyway, they did not bring bathing suits.

No one’s on the beach, we could just take off our clothes and run in, Philip says.

Already he has kicked off his shoes and is taking off his shirt, unzipping his trousers.

Come on, he shouts to her.

Back in bed, Nina shivers.

Frigid, the water takes her breath away.

She swims a few strokes, then quickly turns back to shore.

That was a test, Philip tells her as he comes out of the water.

Shivering, her back to him, Nina tries to dry herself with her clothes. A test for what? she asks.

Nina, he calls to her softly.

Turning, she starts to say, What—

Naked, Philip is on his knees in the sand. Will you marry me? he asks.

On their way back to Tréglonou, it starts to rain again; then, all of a sudden, the sun breaks through the clouds and, directly in front of them—at their feet almost—a rainbow.

Make a wish, Nina tells Philip.

No need, Philip answers as he begins to sing:

Anything can happen on a summer afternoon

On a lazy dazy golden hazy summer afternoon

As they bicycle past a field, a dappled gray horse stops grazing and, raising his head, pricks up his ears to listen to Philip.

I can’t believe Dad proposed to you naked, Louise says.

And you were naked, too.

I had on my underwear, Nina tells her.
In the car, late at night, as she is driving Louise through the Boston suburbs to get her to go to sleep, a policeman in a patrol car, flashing his blue lights, makes her pull over.

You went through a stop sign, he tells her.

A ticket already in hand, he stands by the car window.

Can I see your license?

In her hurry, Nina has forgotten to bring her purse.

Officer, I can—she tries to explain when, in the backseat, Louise begins to cry.

Can you step out of the car, please.

Under her coat, Nina’s nightgown trails to the ground; on her feet, she wears bedroom slippers.

Ma’am—the policeman starts to say.

Okay, go on home, he says instead.

How did their argument start?

On their way home from dinner—Philip is at the wheel—Nina made a remark about how much Louise is spending on her new condominium on Russian Hill, only she does not remember it.

It is during the Christmas holidays.

And I don’t see why you need a decorator.

Mom, it’s none of your business what I spend on a decorator or on furniture or, for that matter, on my bathroom fixtures. I want the place to look good.

I know, Louise, but don’t you think there’s a limit?

A limit to what?

Well, just as I said, to spending money, especially when one thinks about how people in the rest of the world—

Mom, give me a break, Louise says. I don’t see you making huge lifestyle changes to accommodate how people in the rest of the world live.

I try to volunteer—

Just so you know, I make a lot of money and I have the right to decide how to spend it, Louise interrupts.

Hey, ladies, can you keep it down a little, Philip says. I’m trying to drive.

I’m serious, Louise continues, turning her attention to Philip. I am thirty-two years old and I don’t see what business she has telling me how I should spend the money I work hard making.

The three are silent for a few minutes.

Furthermore, Louise starts up again, addressing Nina this time, it’s not as if you ever made any money of your own, Mom.

Lulu, Philip says.

It’s okay, Nina says. Let her say what she wants. And for your information, Louise, I was working when I met your father and I have also sold quite a number of my paintings.

Yeah, yeah, to your friends, Louise says.

No one speaks.

You’re being rude and unkind to your mother, Philip says finally.

She is tempted to laugh.

Philip’s shrunken penis is all but hidden in the thick bush of his pubic hair as, thin, naked, and wet, he kneels in front of her on the beach.

Ploudalmézeau, Tréglonou—again, she mouths the names.

You’ll catch cold, she tells him.

Is that your answer? he asks.

Yes, she says.

Yes.

Naked is to be oneself and nude is to be seen naked by others, Nina says, to convince Philip to take off his clothes while she is doing his portrait.

Nudity is to be put on display, she also says.

I am not sure I want to be put on display, Philip says.

If you look at European paintings of nudes—Ingres’
La Grande Odalisque,
for example, Nina continues, warming up to her subject, and look at the way the model stares out from the canvas, it is clear that she is aware that someone is looking at her, admiring and desiring her. The nude in the portrait is both the compliant object and the seductress.

What about nakedness?

Nakedness is you and me taking off our clothes before we go to bed at night. Nakedness has no disguises, nakedness has no surprises.

I haven’t smoked in years, Philip says, but all of a sudden I really want a cigarette.

You surprised me, Philip tells her after they make love in Tante Thea’s apartment on rue de Saint-Simon. Your body. Somehow, I pictured it differently.

Differently how? Nina asks him.

Fatter?

No, not fatter. Just different.

Can you be more specific?

Not as beautiful, Philip says.

It snowed the day before but the narrow country road they are driving on has been plowed and is clear. As they turn a corner, the car headlights pick up two deer eating the salt by the side of the road. Startled, the deer raise their heads and start to run across the road.

Damn, Philip says as he applies the brakes.

Swerving into the other lane, the car lurches to a stop as the first deer disappears into the woods and as, behind it, the second deer just manages to clear the car’s front fender.

Nina lets out her breath but does not say anything.

That was close, Philip says, once they are back on the right-hand side of the road.

Is everyone okay? he also asks, glancing toward the backseat.

Did you have your seat belt on? he asks Louise.

I couldn’t find it, she says. I landed on the floor, she adds, settling herself again on the backseat and rubbing her knee.

How old is this car? she asks. Isn’t it time you bought a new one?

For a while no one says anything as Philip slowly drives on. Oh, and, Dad, your windbreaker, Louise mumbles. Don’t you have a decent-looking jacket? It’s embarrassing.

Lulu, honey, this happens to be my favorite jacket. If your mother ever decided to throw it out, I’d leave her.

They are silent during the rest of the drive home.

Once in the house, Nina goes straight upstairs, without saying good night to either Louise or Philip.

She undresses and gets into bed. Too agitated to sleep, she waits for Philip.

At dinner, did Louise drink too much?

Where did all the anger come from?

Downstairs, late into the night and until, finally, in spite of herself, she falls asleep, Nina can hear laughter. What, she wonders, are they doing?

Tossing pennies?

Whatever it is, Philip and Louise have forgotten about her and Philip has forgotten Louise’s harsh words.

In her dream that night, Nina conflates the deer crossing the road with Iris.

Soon, it will be light.

Depending on how it is observed, light is both a wave and a particle—this much she knows for certain.
The next morning, at breakfast, Louise apologizes.

If you can bring yourself to forgive me, Mom, she says, I would love to have one of your paintings to hang in my apartment. I’ll give it pride of place in the living room.

Yes, of course, Nina answers, putting down her coffee cup. I am honored—only it will cost you.

In her portrait of him wearing red boxer shorts, Philip is holding a cigarette in his hand.

A Gauloise Bleue.

Nina opens her mouth and exhales loudly as if exhaling smoke.

Shutting her eyes, she slowly runs her hands down along her body—a body, covered in the red silk coat and Philip’s old nylon windbreaker, that she can hardly feel and that does not feel like hers.

How long ago everything seems to her.

And how unreal.

She cannot imagine a life without Philip.

Nor does she want to.

Philip is young, good looking, and they are about to meet.

Vous permettez?
he asks, pointing to the empty chair at her table.

Je vous en prie,
she shrugs, without looking up at him.

What is your book about? he asks her after a while.

Again she shrugs.

Hard to explain, she says, not looking at him. It’s about trying to capture and transform into language the manifestations of the inner self, the vibrations and the tremors of feelings on the threshold of consciousness. In other words, the book is an attempt to try to put into words what essentially is nonverbal communication.

Sounds like a thankless task, Philip says.

Already, she is in love with him.

A love that has not yet manifested itself on the threshold of her consciousness.

A love whose vibrations and tremors she cannot yet feel; a love it will take her some time to become aware of.

And put into words.

In the meantime, she will resist him.

And, so far, she has barely glanced at him. If she were asked, she would have a hard time describing him: tall? dark-haired? a nice voice.

She is scarcely civil.

He raises his arm to get the attention of the waiter.

Are you a student? he also asks.

No, she replies.

You’re French, right?

No, she says again.

He laughs.

I am not either.

She looks up at him.

Where are you from? he asks.

All over, she says. Most recently, Massachusetts.

Me, too, he says.

What are you doing in Paris?

Do you want another coffee? he asks.

Deux cafés crèmes,
he tells the waiter before she can answer him.

Outside, in the garden, she hears birds chirping.

She takes only a small sip of the
café crème
he has ordered for her.

She does not want to be beholden to him.

Too much caffeine, she tells him. It might give me a migraine.

You get migraines? he says, sounding concerned. Already she has divulged too much. She does not yet want his sympathy.

They must be terrible but the good news is that they’re working on a new group of drugs that constrict the blood vessels in the brain and may prove to be very effective for relieving migraines.

Are you a doctor?

A mathematician, he says. And you, what do you do?

She hesitates.

I paint.

How do you approach a painting? Philip asks while he is posing for her in his boxer shorts. I don’t mean a portrait. That’s obvious.

Do you know what the painting will look like when you finish it? he continues. I am interested in the process—how people create. How it applies to mathematicians as well.

I start with a line, a color, and then I look for something else—it’s hard to describe what exactly, Nina answers.

Is it random? Do you just stumble accidentally on whatever it is?

Sometimes. But, no, not always. Stand still, she also tells him.

She is painting his long legs, exaggerating how thin and long they are, like a Giacometti sculpture, making the lump larger in the left one.

I read somewhere that art is about navigating the space between what you know and what you see, Philip says.

I look for clarity, Nina tells him.

In a class Philip once took, Richard Feynman described the size of an atom by telling his students to think of an apple magnified to the size of the earth, then the atoms inside the apple are the approximate size of the original apple.

Clarity.

For a dollar, Nina sells Louise one of the near-monochrome
Migraine
paintings and, as promised, Louise hangs it on the living
room wall of her new Russian Hill apartment. Most of Louise’s furniture is modern, stark, and white, and Nina’s red painting stands in sharp contrast.

It looks great, like a Rothko, Louise tells her mother.

How will she tell Louise?

What will she say?

I’m so sorry but Dad—

I don’t know how to tell you this, but your father—

Or, simply,
Dad died—

She cannot think properly, she thinks.

The brain is a three-pound bag of neurons, electrical pulses, chemical messengers, and glial cells, Philip likes to lecture Louise during dinner. There’s the right brain, the left brain, the four lobes: the frontal lobe, the occipital or the visual cortex, which is in the back of the brain—

Please, Dad, I’m eating.

You’re not eating much, Philip says, looking over at her plate, before he continues. The parietal cortex, the temporal lobe, which is behind the ears—can you pass the broccoli, Nina? The lamb chops are delicious. The limbic system, the seat of emotion and memory, the brain stem, the seat of consciousness that keeps us awake or puts us to sleep at night. I wish they would teach the geography of the brain in schools the way they teach
the geography of the world—Ecuador, Nigeria, Bulgaria, can you tell me where those countries are, Lulu? he asks.

Dad, please! Louise says.

We know that our brain functions have evolved to react to atoms in reliable ways but we still have no real understanding of the physical basis of consciousness in the brain, Philip goes on, glancing again at Louise’s plate—aren’t you going to eat your meat?—and this brings me back to the question—since we accept the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics—what does that cat inside the box experience consciously?