The Swan Thieves

The village where they stay is quieter than nearby etretat, but Yves says he likes it better for that very reason; their day in Trouville he found even more unsettling--in summer there must be as many people on the promenade there as on the Champs-elysees, he tells Beatrice. They can always take a horse-drawn cab to etretat for some quiet elegance, if they like, but this hamlet of houses in walking distance of the broad beach pleases all of them, and most days they stay there in serenity, walking the pebbles and the sands.

Every evening Beatrice reads Montaigne aloud to Papa in the rented parlor with its cheap damask chairs and shelves full of sea-shells. The other two men listen or talk in low voices near them. She has started a new piece of embroidery as well, to be sewn into a cushion for Yves's dressing room, a birthday present. She applies herself to this task day after day, straining her senses over the fine, small flowers in gold and purple. She likes to work on it while she sits on the veranda. When she raises her head, there is the sea, the gray-brown, green-topped cliffs off to the left and far right, the peeling fishermen's shacks and the boats pulled up on the beach, the clouds above a blustery horizon. Every few hours it rains, and then the sun breaks through again. Every day is a little warmer until a stormy morning suddenly keeps them inside; the next day is brighter still.

Her pastimes all help her avoid Olivier, but one afternoon he comes to sit beside her on the veranda. She knows his habits, and this is a change. In the mornings and again in the late afternoons, when the weather is fine, he paints on the beach. He has invited her to accompany him, but her hurried excuses--she doesn't have a canvas prepared--always put a stop to that, and he goes by himself, cheerfully, whistling, touching his hat as he passes her in her chair on the porch.

She wonders if he walks more briskly because she is watching; she again has that strange sense that he is shedding years under her gaze. Or is it merely that she has learned to look through his years, now more transparent to her--that she sees through them to the person they have made him? Whenever he takes leave of her, she watches his straight back, his favorite old painting suit retreating down the beach. She is trying to unlearn what she knows about him, to view him again as her husband's elderly relation who happens to be on holiday with them, but she knows too much about his thoughts, his turns of phrase, his dedication to his work, his regard for hers. Of course, he doesn't send her letters here in this house, but words linger between them--his slanting handwriting, the sudden leap of his mind on paper, his caressing "tu" on the page.

Today there is a book instead of an easel under his arm. He settles down next to her in a big chair as if determined not to be rebuffed. She is glad in spite of herself that she has put on her pale-green dress with the yellow ruching at the neck, which a few days before he said made her look like a narcissus; she wishes he were even nearer so that his gray-jacketed shoulder could brush hers, wishes he would go away, wishes he would get on a train back to Paris. Her throat tightens. He smells of something pleasant from his toilette, some unknown soap or eau de cologne; she wonders if he has worn this scent for many years, whether it has changed with time. The book in his lap stays closed, and she is certain that he doesn't intend to read it, a suspicion borne out when she sees the title, La loi des Latins; she recognizes it from the dull shelf just inside. He obviously snatched it up before coming to sit with her, a ploy that makes her smile down at her needlework. "Bonjour," she says with what she hopes is a housewife's neutrality.

"Bonjour," he answers. They sit in silence for a moment or two, and that, she thinks, is the proof, even the problem. If they were genuine strangers or ordinary family members, they would already be chatting about nothing in particular. "May I ask you a question, my dear?"

"Of course." She finds her tiny scissors with their stork's beak and embossed legs; she cuts her thread.

"Do you intend to avoid me for a full month?"

"It's been only six days," she says.

"And a half. Or six days and seven hours," he corrects her. The effect is so droll that she glances up and smiles. His eyes are blue, not elderly enough to put her off as they should. "That's much better," he says. "I had hoped the punishment would not last four weeks."

"Punishment?" she asks as mildly as she can. She tries in vain to rethread her needle.

"Yes, punishment. And for what? For admiring a young painter from a distance? After all my good manners, you could surely afford to give me a little cordiality."

"You understand, I think," she begins, but the needle is giving her unusual trouble.

"Allow me." He takes the needle and threads it carefully with the fine gold silk, then hands it back. "Old eyes, you know. They get keen with use."

She can't stop herself from laughing. It is this spark of humor between them, his ability to mock himself, more than anything else, that undoes her. "Very well. "With your keen eyes, then, you will understand that it is impossible for me to--"

"To pay me as much attention as you would pay a stone in your pretty shoe? Actually, you'd pay much more to the stone, so perhaps I will simply have to become more annoying."

"No, please--" She has begun to laugh again. She hates the joy that sparkles between them at such moments, the pleasure that might become visible to anyone else. Doesn't this man understand that he is part of her family? And elderly? She feels again the elusive-ness of age. What he has already taught her is that a person doesn't feel old inside, at least until the body claims its dismal due; that is why Papa seems old although he is younger, while this white-haired, silver-bearded artist seems not to know how he should behave.

"Stop it, ma chere. I'm too ancient to do any harm, and your husband thoroughly approves of our friendship."

"And why shouldn't he?" She tries to sound offended, but the strange pleasure of his closeness is too great, and she finds herself smiling at him again.

"All right, then. You have argued yourself into a corner. If there's no reason for objections anyway, you can come out and paint with me tomorrow morning. My fisherman friend down on the beach says it will be fine, so fine that the fish will be leaping into his boat. For my part, I thought they leapt higher on rainy days." He is imitating the dialect of the coast, and she laughs. He gestures toward the water. "I don't like your languishing here with all this sewing. A great artist in the making should be out with her easel."

Now she feels herself flushing from the neck up. "Don't tease me."

He turns serious at once and takes her hand as if without thinking, not as a gesture of courtship. "No, no--I am in earnest. If I had your gifts, I would not be wasting a minute."

"Wasting?" She is half angry, half ready to cry.

"Oh, my dear. I am clumsy." He kisses her hand in apology and lets it go before she can protest. "You must know what faith I have in your work. Don't be indignant. Just come out and paint with me tomorrow, and you'll remember how you love it and forget all about me and my clumsiness. I'll merely escort you to the right view. Agreed?"

Again, that vulnerable boy gazing out of his eyes. She passes a hand over her forehead. She cannot imagine loving anyone more than she loves him in this moment--not his letters, not his politeness, but the man himself and all the years that have polished him and made him both confident and fragile. She swallows, puts the needle neatly through her embroidery. "Yes. Thank you. I will come."

When they return to Paris three weeks later, she takes with her five small canvases of the water and the boats, the sky.