BELLE

BELLE
Maybe I wanted him from the very time he said ‘ Tu es belle’ you are beautiful. It was the first thing he ever said to me, and till this day, there are no words he ever spoke that I remember more than ‘ Tu es belle’ and I remember every word he ever said to me, to my husband, to anybody, as long as I was there.
His voice. His voice. There was nothing special about his face, or the way he looked at first, but his voice, it undid me from the very first time, every single time. The first time he spoke to me, it upset me. I wasn’t as nice to him as I would have been to any other guest, but I doubt he noticed, my husband didn’t, but I knew I could have been much nicer, if his smile didn’t make me tremble, if his voice didn’t make me want to close my eyes and breathe slowly.
He was an old friend of my husband, back when my husband schooled in Paris. He was a writer and liked to travel to the location of his book settings before he started.. This time, he was in Nigeria, in my living room- brown eyes, dark skin, tall, blue shirt and the smile of a movies star. We would share the same air, eat on the same table, and speak to each other. A part of me already knew that I would grow to want him, more than anything in the world.
Maybe it only struck me at dinner the day he arrived, when I served him and mistakenly brushed my hands on his. His touch set me ablaze and it felt like I had never been touched before until then. I was afraid of the way my body would react if he touched me again, so I stayed as far away as possible. I had to try not to fall for his skin, his eyes that looked at everything like he was about to worship it, his voice that always sounded like what heaven would sound like if it were a sound. I had to try.
For days I avoided him. Our conversations were never more than a hello, good morning, or directions of places he wanted to visit. I kept them as shallow as possible.
I wasn’t prepared when my husband asked me to drop him off at the museum since it was on my way to work. How was I to act like I was unaware of him, when the distance between us was such that I was forced to smell him, his hair, his perfume for almost an hour.
He kept his gaze on me, while I focused on the road harder than I ever have, on the steering wheel. Was he staring at me because he knew I was trying not to look at him. Did he see through me then? Despite trying to avoid him, I could still see what kind of man he was. Laid back, yet alert, everything he did he calculated, his words were premeditated. He could see through people as easily as you’d see through water. What drew me to him was neither of these, but the way he could listen to anybody speak about anything with all of his attention, and make sense of it, no matter how senseless they would appear.
why did I always say sorry, he had asked the second time I drove him. I did always say sorry. Sorry I stepped on you, when someone mistakenly hits me I still say sorry, when I’m caught staring. I was afraid of ever getting in people’s bad books, even strangers. I shrugged.
‘It’s almost like you’re apologizing for existing. For breathing’
‘It is?’ I stopped to think about what he was saying and I realized that if I could apologize for existing I would. How could he just casually tell me something about myself, something I’ve never been able to admit to myself. How could he be so casual about everything, about the way he called me ‘belle’, kissed my hands before parting, stared at me when he thought I wasn’t looking and even when he knew that I knew. Such a casual man.
It was on the third drive that he asked me to accompany him to the art gallery. Asked me if I would. ‘if’ I would. I wanted to tell him that I would do anything if he asked that I would begin and end anything, and all he had to do was ask, for I was his. I was his. I was his every time he looked at me.
‘yes’.
I could have convinced myself that I was deluded, sinful or just plain stupid. That I wasn’t completely in love with his laughter or that i didn’t tremble at the sound of his voice. That I didn’t wake up every day since I saw him with only the desire of seeing him again. I could even have believed that I wasn’t pretending to be interested in art literature, and French music, so he would think we had those things in common. I could have, but there I was that early afternoon on one of his last days in the country, standing in his room, naked, my robe pooling around my feet. The soft wind trailing through my bare breast as he stared at me. I wanted him to never stop looking at me. I stood for what seemed like forever holding his gaze, afraid that if I blinked, I would realize what I was doing, realization was the last thing I needed. I needed him to look at me, to touch me but still hold my gaze. I needed to feel the roughness of his palm on my skin.
He reached for me, and then my robe, but he never stopped looking at me. He could read my mind. I loved it when he did. He covered my body with my robe, I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face when he whispered, ‘belle’.
The rest of our days before he went back to Paris were somewhat similar. I was either leaving work to come home to him, or leaving work to go somewhere with him. We would do all the things you’d mostly find teenagers doing, in dark places, corners, at the back of the movie theatre. We would make love at home, and sometimes I would just listen to him speak. It was the happiest I had ever been and when I look back and want to feel ashamed of myself, I always end up smiling. It was on one of these last days, as we lay on bed that he asked me to come with him to Paris. It meant to leave my family, and my life in Nigeria, to be disowned by my family, to leave with a man to a strange country with strange people. I said yes! All he needed to ever do was ask. I would follow a week after him once I sort my Visa.
The day he left, I spent fantasizing about when we would be together. It was during my fantasizing that I received a call from my husband.
‘I lost my friend Jacque. His plane crashed’
My husband, he had no idea what news he had just delivered. He didn’t lose his friend Jacque. Not a clue that I was the one who lost the love of my life Jacque, lost myself, lost everything that would have ever mattered. I felt- I think I’ve never felt that way before, I can’t describe it exactly. I felt everything in me bitterly contracting, if death was a feeling, I died. I can still feel my heart tearing to pieces, and it always hurts. I shut my eyes, say the word belle, and he appears sometimes, brown eyes, dark skin, blue shirt and he’s calling out to me. ‘Belle. Belle. Belle”.