The Swan Thieves

The Swan Thieves Page 70

Her room in their boardinghouse overlooks the water; his, she knows, is on the same floor at the other end of the corridor, so that it must have a view back into the town. Her furniture is simple, an assortment of old pieces. A polished shell sits on the dressing table. Lace curtains veil the night. The innkeeper has lit lamps and a candle for her and left a tray under a cloth: stewed fowl, a salad of leeks, a slice of cold tarte aux pommes. She washes in the basin and eats ravenously. The fireplace is dead, perhaps abandoned for the season, or to save fuel. She could request a fire, but that might involve Olivier--she prefers to remember their kiss on the station platform, not see him now, with his weary face.

She takes off her traveling dress and boots, pleased, glad she has not brought her maid. For once, she will do things for herself. Beside the cold fireplace, she removes her corset cover, unlaces her corset, and hangs it temporarily over a chair. She shakes out her chemise and petticoats and slips out of them, pulls the tent of her nightgown over her head, its scent her own, comforting, something from home. She begins to button up the neck, then stops and takes it off again; she spreads it on the bed and sits down in front of the dressing table wearing only pantalets. The chill of the room makes her skin prickle. It has been a year or more since she has sat looking at her body, bare from the waist up. Her skin is younger than she thinks of it; she is twenty-seven. She can't remember when Yves last kissed her nipples--four months, six months? During the long spring she has forgotten to coax him even at the right time of month. She has been distracted. Besides, he is usually traveling, or tired, or perhaps he has all he wants elsewhere.

She puts a hand over the swell of each breast, notes the effect of her rings catching the candlelight. She knows more now about Olivier than about the man she lives with. Olivier's decades of life lie open to her, while Yves is a mystery who shuttles in and out of her house, nodding and admiring. She squeezes hard with both hands. In the mirror, her neck is long, her face pale from the train trip, her eyes too dark, her chin too square, her curls too heavy. Nothing about her should add up to beauty, she thinks, taking the pins out of her hair. She uncoils the heavy knot at the back; she lets it fall over her shoulders and between her breasts, sees herself as Olivier might, and is ravished: self-portrait, nude, a subject she will never paint.