have gone to all that trouble.’
‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I also want you to know that I’ve worked through my issues around us and I totally forgive you.’
‘For what?’
‘Everything,’ she said, blowing me a kiss down the line.
I could hardly find room to accommodate what was going on. See my daughter? See her now? Was it too late? Never too late for a photo shoot.
In the bedroom there was a letter for me on the pillow, this time from Angelique.
My darling,
I’m sorry we had such a horrible lunch. It’s all my fault. I find myself faltering as we approach the moment when we must separate. I cannot bear to lose you. I have never known a passion like ours. I have never given myself so completely. It’s very hard for me, I’ve always been so frightened of getting close to anyone. I’ve never told you this before, but both my parents were killed in a car accident when I was three. I was always told what a ‘terrible misfortune’ it was, and ever since I have been fascinated by bad luck. I gamble in order to get close to Maman and Papa. Only by losing can I enter the mysterious absence which constitutes their love.
Don’t you see that I cannot let you stay, I cannot fall more in love with you when you will soon be dead. It’s not the money, my darling, it’s just that I’ve found a system for coping with my unhealable wound and I cannot allow you to destroy that system when you will not be here to hold me among the ruins.
Let’s come back early tonight and make love as never before. Now you know my terrible secret, make love to it, go to the heart of it, make love to my wound with your own desperate desire to live and then let’s part before the dawn, like the two vampires we really are, belonging more to death than life; let’s not wait for the beams of the reproachful sun to discover us together, staining our love-soaked sheets with tears.
Come to me soon, my darling. I long to be with you.
Angelique
Of course I didn’t believe a word of it. Still, I felt an involuntary stiffening in my trousers. I was sure that if I hunted around the flat I would find the prototype of this letter, customized for each bankrupt lover. It was too smoothly written not to be rehearsed. I couldn’t help admiring the way she proposed to get rid of me before breakfast.
I paced around the room indignantly rereading the letter. Then the terrifying possibility that she was telling the truth stabbed through my contempt, like a dagger through an arras. Even if the letter was carefully written, that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Authenticity doesn’t have to be inarticulate. What if my own root fear (which I was now over-fearlessly confronting) made me want to believe she was a cold, selfish bitch, when in fact she was someone who couldn’t afford to love me any more than she did? I started to spiral as I attempted to catch sight of the distorting effect of my proudly unveiled terror. How could I see through my fear without looking through it at the same time? I was already lost and I hadn’t even proposed an extra day to Angelique.
Needless to say, as Marie-Louise would say, things didn’t improve when I arrived at the casino. Angelique came running over and kissed me on the mouth.
‘Did you get my letter?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
She threw her arms around my neck. ‘Hold me,’ she whispered. ‘I feel so vulnerable after telling you those things.’
I held her in my arms and I could tell from the trembling in her body that she was telling the truth. I opened to her completely. We pulsed with love, our bodies flowering effortlessly, and at the same time a terrible apprehension rushing over me.
‘What have we done?’ I said. ‘Falling in love is so dangerous.’
‘That’s why I got angry when you said that I only gambled with tokens and substitutes. First, because it used to be true and secondly because it isn’t true any longer.’ She looked at me with a shattering combination of trust and
‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I also want you to know that I’ve worked through my issues around us and I totally forgive you.’
‘For what?’
‘Everything,’ she said, blowing me a kiss down the line.
I could hardly find room to accommodate what was going on. See my daughter? See her now? Was it too late? Never too late for a photo shoot.
In the bedroom there was a letter for me on the pillow, this time from Angelique.
My darling,
I’m sorry we had such a horrible lunch. It’s all my fault. I find myself faltering as we approach the moment when we must separate. I cannot bear to lose you. I have never known a passion like ours. I have never given myself so completely. It’s very hard for me, I’ve always been so frightened of getting close to anyone. I’ve never told you this before, but both my parents were killed in a car accident when I was three. I was always told what a ‘terrible misfortune’ it was, and ever since I have been fascinated by bad luck. I gamble in order to get close to Maman and Papa. Only by losing can I enter the mysterious absence which constitutes their love.
Don’t you see that I cannot let you stay, I cannot fall more in love with you when you will soon be dead. It’s not the money, my darling, it’s just that I’ve found a system for coping with my unhealable wound and I cannot allow you to destroy that system when you will not be here to hold me among the ruins.
Let’s come back early tonight and make love as never before. Now you know my terrible secret, make love to it, go to the heart of it, make love to my wound with your own desperate desire to live and then let’s part before the dawn, like the two vampires we really are, belonging more to death than life; let’s not wait for the beams of the reproachful sun to discover us together, staining our love-soaked sheets with tears.
Come to me soon, my darling. I long to be with you.
Angelique
Of course I didn’t believe a word of it. Still, I felt an involuntary stiffening in my trousers. I was sure that if I hunted around the flat I would find the prototype of this letter, customized for each bankrupt lover. It was too smoothly written not to be rehearsed. I couldn’t help admiring the way she proposed to get rid of me before breakfast.
I paced around the room indignantly rereading the letter. Then the terrifying possibility that she was telling the truth stabbed through my contempt, like a dagger through an arras. Even if the letter was carefully written, that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Authenticity doesn’t have to be inarticulate. What if my own root fear (which I was now over-fearlessly confronting) made me want to believe she was a cold, selfish bitch, when in fact she was someone who couldn’t afford to love me any more than she did? I started to spiral as I attempted to catch sight of the distorting effect of my proudly unveiled terror. How could I see through my fear without looking through it at the same time? I was already lost and I hadn’t even proposed an extra day to Angelique.
Needless to say, as Marie-Louise would say, things didn’t improve when I arrived at the casino. Angelique came running over and kissed me on the mouth.
‘Did you get my letter?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
She threw her arms around my neck. ‘Hold me,’ she whispered. ‘I feel so vulnerable after telling you those things.’
I held her in my arms and I could tell from the trembling in her body that she was telling the truth. I opened to her completely. We pulsed with love, our bodies flowering effortlessly, and at the same time a terrible apprehension rushing over me.
‘What have we done?’ I said. ‘Falling in love is so dangerous.’
‘That’s why I got angry when you said that I only gambled with tokens and substitutes. First, because it used to be true and secondly because it isn’t true any longer.’ She looked at me with a shattering combination of trust and
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