from dawn to dusk, portable radios turned on full blast, saluting him cheerily as he walked past, offering him sandwiches or a drink. He asked one of them how long the refurbishing was going to last and learned, to his dismay, that four rooms were being renovated, and then a scaffolding was to be installed, and the entire building restored, as well. The embellishments would take at least six months.
Nicolas gradually understood that no writing would go on in his monk’s cell. And after that, an even more bitter realization emerged. There would be no writing at all. There would be no book.
H OW PEACEFUL IT IS to be here, tucked away from the turmoil of the world, the worrying news of a global crisis, bloody bombings, the sexual scandal involving a New York hotel maid and a French politician.
Nicolas’s hand is itching for his BlackBerry, but he knows he cannot look at it with Malvina sitting next to him. Especially with a new BBM from Sabina. Sometimes he marvels at this woman he has seen only once, sending him such intimate messages. What is he sure of? Very little. In the beginning, when their messaging was still trivial, she mentioned she was married, that she had two daughters, not much older than he. She lived in Berlin, in Prenzlauer Berg, with her husband. Nicolas likes to think back to the short moment she stood in front of him when he signed the book for her. He can bring it all back: her trench coat, the way the belt was drawn tightly around her slender waist, her sleek ash-blond bob, and the way she looked at him. Younger women never had that expression. They were too coquettish—they tittered; they minced—or they were drunk and swaggered vulgarly like men. She stared down at him with a tiny smile, and those catlike eyes—translucent, like little pools of water—never blinked. When she handed him the piece of paper with the BBM PIN code on it, their fingers had touched, but that was the only time their skin made contact. To take his mind off the unread BBM and its enticement, Nicolas reaches for his father’s Hamilton Khaki, tucked away next to his phone in his bathrobe pocket. He looks at it quietly and feels a kind of peace flow through him. He thinks of his father going to buy the watch for his son’s tenth birthday. Did his father already know what he was going to purchase, or was he advised by a salesperson? He thinks of the Hamilton Khaki lying in his father’s palm, the blue eyes gleaming down at it, examining it, and then, later, the memory of the long fingers fixing the strap on to Nicolas’s wrist. He can still feel those fatherly fingers against his own skin.
One last boat roars in. At first, Nicolas thinks it has to do with a trick of the setting sun, some sharp gleam of the light on the sea, an odd reflection. That face on the boat. He puts the watch away, takes off his sunglasses, places his hand visorlike above his nose, has another look. His pulse quickens. The face comes steadily closer with the approaching boat. He puts his sunglasses back on, a little too fast, fingers fumbling, and looks again. His notebook and the Montblanc fall to the ground with a thump. The boat is near now, bobbing up and down as it begins its approach, weaving its way through the other Rivas lined up along the pier, the purr of its motor subsiding. He leans forward, gropes around under his deck chair for his cap, screws it tight to his head.
“What is it?” asks Malvina, intrigued. Nicolas does not answer.
Mesmerized, he watches the woman clumsily get out of the boat, helped by a hotel attendant in black. There are two people with her, but he barely notices them. She is the last to set foot on the concrete beach. Her bulky figure is swathed in a white djellaba. He makes out the telltale snow-white ponytail à la Karl Lagerfeld beneath the panama, the curve of the nose, the tight red stretch of the lips. He has never met her in real life, never seen her in the flesh, but he has seen enough television
Nicolas gradually understood that no writing would go on in his monk’s cell. And after that, an even more bitter realization emerged. There would be no writing at all. There would be no book.
H OW PEACEFUL IT IS to be here, tucked away from the turmoil of the world, the worrying news of a global crisis, bloody bombings, the sexual scandal involving a New York hotel maid and a French politician.
Nicolas’s hand is itching for his BlackBerry, but he knows he cannot look at it with Malvina sitting next to him. Especially with a new BBM from Sabina. Sometimes he marvels at this woman he has seen only once, sending him such intimate messages. What is he sure of? Very little. In the beginning, when their messaging was still trivial, she mentioned she was married, that she had two daughters, not much older than he. She lived in Berlin, in Prenzlauer Berg, with her husband. Nicolas likes to think back to the short moment she stood in front of him when he signed the book for her. He can bring it all back: her trench coat, the way the belt was drawn tightly around her slender waist, her sleek ash-blond bob, and the way she looked at him. Younger women never had that expression. They were too coquettish—they tittered; they minced—or they were drunk and swaggered vulgarly like men. She stared down at him with a tiny smile, and those catlike eyes—translucent, like little pools of water—never blinked. When she handed him the piece of paper with the BBM PIN code on it, their fingers had touched, but that was the only time their skin made contact. To take his mind off the unread BBM and its enticement, Nicolas reaches for his father’s Hamilton Khaki, tucked away next to his phone in his bathrobe pocket. He looks at it quietly and feels a kind of peace flow through him. He thinks of his father going to buy the watch for his son’s tenth birthday. Did his father already know what he was going to purchase, or was he advised by a salesperson? He thinks of the Hamilton Khaki lying in his father’s palm, the blue eyes gleaming down at it, examining it, and then, later, the memory of the long fingers fixing the strap on to Nicolas’s wrist. He can still feel those fatherly fingers against his own skin.
One last boat roars in. At first, Nicolas thinks it has to do with a trick of the setting sun, some sharp gleam of the light on the sea, an odd reflection. That face on the boat. He puts the watch away, takes off his sunglasses, places his hand visorlike above his nose, has another look. His pulse quickens. The face comes steadily closer with the approaching boat. He puts his sunglasses back on, a little too fast, fingers fumbling, and looks again. His notebook and the Montblanc fall to the ground with a thump. The boat is near now, bobbing up and down as it begins its approach, weaving its way through the other Rivas lined up along the pier, the purr of its motor subsiding. He leans forward, gropes around under his deck chair for his cap, screws it tight to his head.
“What is it?” asks Malvina, intrigued. Nicolas does not answer.
Mesmerized, he watches the woman clumsily get out of the boat, helped by a hotel attendant in black. There are two people with her, but he barely notices them. She is the last to set foot on the concrete beach. Her bulky figure is swathed in a white djellaba. He makes out the telltale snow-white ponytail à la Karl Lagerfeld beneath the panama, the curve of the nose, the tight red stretch of the lips. He has never met her in real life, never seen her in the flesh, but he has seen enough television
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