The Reinvention of Love

at the
Globe
, writing my reviews.
    Adèle squeezes my thigh. “I love it when you’re petulant,” she says. “You get such a haughty look.”
    I reach across and squeeze
her
thigh and feel, through my fingertips, the shock of desire beginning its crawl along my nerves.
    “Damn him,” I say.
    “I’ll write to you in Belgium,” says Adèle. “I should be able to manage that.”
    Now, because I mentioned it in a moment’s rashness, I’m actually going to have to travel to Belgium. Why do I do these things? Why can’t I be stopped?
    “I’ll leave word of where I am at the Poste Restante in Bièvres,” I say, resigned to my ridiculous fate. I suppose I can convince the
Globe
editor to let me do my reviews from some cheap hotel in Brussels for a week or so.
    “Has Victor finished his book about Notre-Dame then?” I ask.
    “What?”
    “Well, he wouldn’t be prepared to travel away from his working routine if he was still writing that book.”
    “Yes, he’s moved on to thinking about a new play.” Adèle looks away from me, but I have seen the shadow of something cross her face. Victor must have told her that they were to make a change of residence because he wanted to revive their marriage, not because he had just finished a book and was waiting to fill up with inspiration for the next one. Victor must have told Adèle this, and Adèle must have actually believed him.

MY HOTEL ROOM IN BRUSSELS is horrid. It is cramped and has bed bugs. The view from the window is down into an alley. I sit in the room all day, trying to pen my wretched reviews, and in the evenings I slouch along the streets looking for an inexpensive place to dine. The only thing that keeps me from utter desolation are the letters that Adèle writes to me from Bièvres. They are letters of reassurance, proclaiming her love for me, telling me what a bore Victor is being. But I only half believe her. A small worm of doubt has wriggled its way into our love.
    I lie on the hotel room bed, with its litter of books and papers, and read Adèle’s letters over and over, looking for a word out of place, a word that can be pried loose and which will let down an avalanche of betrayal.
    But I don’t find this, and after a few days of re-reading the letters, I relax and trust again that all is well between us.
    And then I receive another letter, not one from Adèle, but from Monsieur Hugo himself. I don’t like to think how he has found my address – discovering his wife’s letters to me, or forcing her to confess – and I slit open the envelope with great trepidation.
    Victor writes to me in a mood of bonhomie that reads as false. I skip over the first few sentences, the friendly greeting and enquiry into my health and well-being. I skip down to the second paragraph. In my experience, what someone really wants to say is never in the beginning of a letter. It is in the second or third paragraph.
    And there it is, in Victor’s second paragraph, where he boasts that Adèle is doing well, that he has never known her to be so happy, that it was such a good idea for them to get away together. He writes that Adèle seems positively radiant with happiness.
    This is more than I can bear. I throw open my trunk and begin to toss in my clothes and books.
    After a brief stop in Paris to rid myself of certain belongings, and pick up other items, I take a coach south to Bièvres. It is easy to find accommodation in a local inn, and easy to find the château where Adèle and Victor are staying. Everyone knows the famous author.
    The château is surrounded by a forest, and for the first day I flit like a bird through the trees on the edge of this forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of Adèle leaving the grounds. But this proves futile, and really the forest is just a little too distant from the château to get a good look without a spyglass, so I change my plan.
    I change my clothes, and go as Charlotte to the local church. I know my Adèle. It will only be a matter of time before she feels a need to pray or confess.
    I go to the church and I sit in a pew at the back, and I wait.
    On the third day, the doors open and I watch as Adèle walks up the aisle of the church. Because she isn’t expecting me, she isn’t looking for me, and she walks right past me to sit in a pew several rows up. I wait until she has her head bowed in prayer and then I slip out of where I am and move up to her pew. She raises her head when I enter the row and immediately knows who