Visions of Isabelle (5 page)

Augustin took her into town, brought her to a Viennese pastry shop and there she was surprised by the appearance of her brothers and a fabulous confection ordered especially by them–a cake embellished with scallops of frosting and chips of candied fruit, her name emblazoned at an angle in an elaborate cursive script. Below it was a symbol of her life, an ax (for she was known in the family as the best of them at chopping wood) and a quill pen (since they knew she loved to read and longed to write). These two objects were crossed into an emblem, and the decorated piece was the one she devoured first. She was touched by this attention, and also by the way the boys included her in their talk, asking her opinion about politics and people, promising to introduce her to suitable young men. After tea they proceeded to a portion of Lake Geneva that had been cleared of snow and skated out among hundreds of young people, the three De Moerders clearing the way, mimicking trumpet flourishes and courtly bows as if introducing their younger sister to the grown-up world.

Isabelle's skating was excellent, though more forceful than balletic. She had a special walk, a gait that would remain with her all her life. It was a strong, sliding stride, similar in ways to the famous desert pace of the foreign legionnaires of France. When applied to ice with bladed shoes, it allowed her to sweep about, hands behind her back, to glide with a swiftness that had more grace than all the coquettish pirouetting of the other girls who came to the lake in pairs to meet young men.

With her brothers as a phalanx, on account of her special sense of herself at being seventeen, it was not long before she was a center of attention, and mobs of youths, students, soldiers, even young doctors and frivolous millionaires were trailing behind her, gliding at her side, trying, by various means such as racing ahead of her, sliding suddenly to a stop, then skating back past her, to catch her eye. She neither ignored them nor showed much interest. She set her face into a warm but abstracted smile and raced about as she saw fit, weaving in and out, cutting across their paths without much regard for their elaborate and mistimed attempts to intercept. Her brothers were delighted, cheered her on, took turns sweeping beside her, grasping her hand and leading her at racing speed far out to the edges where ice met snow. These mad dashes charged her body with a glow and filled her head with that special exhilaration obtained so easily by the limber and the young.

Gliding back from one of these wild forays she spotted a familiar form sliding across the ice. She was struck at once by this person's graceful ease, the way he skated among the others with the superior air of a champion racehorse amidst a herd of mares. He wore a red sweater and a pair of elegant riding trousers with leather patches at the knees. A moment later he was joined by Nicolas, and the two of them slid along while deep in animated talk. Then Vladimir swooped down to them and they skated up to her three abreast.

"Ah," Augustin whispered in her ear, "it's Rehid Bey."

A moment later he stood before her and she was struck by the tiniest ridge of frost that clung to the tips of his arched eyelashes. He greeted her warmly, and while her brothers tried hard to conceal their smiles complimented her on her magnificent carriage.

"You skate," he said without the slightest trace of irony, "like a Russian princess among Finnish serfs."

She glowed with pleasure but felt weak-kneed. Suddenly her ankles gave way, she tried to recoup her balance, but fell awkwardly upon the ice. Augustin began to giggle, but Rebid Bey knelt to help her up. While Nicolas looked on amused and Vladimir gawked and Augustin turned his face away, Rehid Bey gravely placed one of her hands upon one of his, and with a nod of his head motioned for her to step out. She did, then he swooped forward himself and bore her away.

It was as if wings had sprouted from her shoulder blades, as if they were two eagles glinting through the sky, as if they were twanging through space, zinging on rosewood skis through powdered snow, darting faster than time, flashing forward on thunderous stallions, a pair of pebbles rolling over and over in a cascade of foaming glacier melt. Before, she had been one of the attractions for the other skaters, but now, with him, she was the single attraction on the lake. "The brown-eyed Levantine and me," she kept saying over and over to herself as they gleamed before a multitude of witnesses, twirling dervishes, her hand on his, their skates flashing the cold February light.

Strange
, she thought to herself,
that the colder it becomes the warmer I feel, the more I flush, the hotter become my lips, so hot I believe they could sear.

When, finally, after a wide-sweeping duet, during which they made ten great circles around the entire rink, perhaps fifteen slashes down its diagonals and several promenades down its central corridor, they shot together to a brilliant finale, all flashing blades and chips of ice which spattered the gaping spectators, embers burning flesh. Standing, then, together, their lungs heaving, their foreheads dripping sweat, they laughed, and Isabelle was seized with an unrequitable desire–to kiss the steam of Rehid Bey's frosty breath.

With her brothers they sat down to mugs of hot chocolate at a small glass-enclosed pavilion that adjoined the lake. There the four young men toasted her seventeen years and wished her many more, which, Augustin noted, should be even more delicious than those she'd already endured.

This led to a discussion of the meaning of life, upon which each had his own opinion. Nicolas said that one should aspire to nobility, face each moment with bravery, believing it may be the last. Vladimir said that survival was the only purpose he could divine in human existence, and amplified this depressing thought with nothing more than an enigmatic smile. To Augustin life was a privilege that must be earned–the great sin, he said, is to let it pass one by, to sit while others run, when clearly the point is to lead the pack.

Isabelle listened impatiently to these sentiments, for she had heard them all for years. She wanted to hear from Rehid Bey whom she noticed had been most attentive to the others and whom she feared had suddenly lost all interest in herself. She was about to turn to him, to insist on hearing his manner of coping with existence, when he turned, at the same moment, to her, and began to speak in serene and mellifluous French.

"It seems to me," he said, "–and I speak from a pedestal here since I'm twenty-seven years old–that the point of life is to perfect the spirit. Your brothers have mentioned some of the ways, and there are many more besides. I know mystics who devote themselves to contemplation so that they may rend the curtain that separates men from God. I know believers in man–humanists, they're called–who worship at the altar of human culture. And it seems that everyone I know is trying to express himself in a poem or a novel or a play. Then," and he glanced at her brothers, "there are the political revolutionaries who want to alter the social order by subversion and force–a popular mode, this season, among young Russian intellectuals of my acquaintance.

"But I believe in the senses–the pursuit of physical sensations wherever they may lead. For instance, Isabelle, our experience today–the way we felt when we skated the ice. It seems to me that a man must strive, as best he can in his limited tenure on earth, to hone each feeling to its sharpest point. Requital of desire, total satiation–by this route I hope to perfect my spirit, and avenge myself against the germ that will bring my death."

He stared at her, and her alone, the entire time he spoke, his eyes growing bigger, it seemed to her, in the dwindling afternoon light. When he was finished, he blinked and added that in his opinion the same theory held true as much for a woman as a man. There was a moment of silence and then the conversation shifted to something else. Vladimir started speaking in Russian, the three De Moerders were off upon one of their political disputes, and after a few moments Rehid Bey leaned toward Isabelle and whispered subtly into her ear:

"Have lunch with me tomorrow. Come to the Turkish consulate at a quarter after twelve."

S
he was in the city by eleven o'clock, and having nothing to do, amused herself for a while at the Maison Vacheron-Constantin where she watched the workmen, all of them old and wearing identical black cravats and light blue smocks, assembling watches in elaborate casings, including one, she was told, for the emperor of Japan.

Despite the cold she strode around the old part of town, finding her way to the Russian church whose eight gold onion domes filled her with nostalgia for a homeland she had never seen.

Finally, at the exact time, which she read off the giant clock in the tower of the Hotel de Ville, she entered the lobby of a baroque mansion which housed the Turkish consulate. Here she paused for a moment before the concierge's grate, rubbed her hands to relieve the freeze, unwrapped her long white scarf which Old Nathalie had embellished with blue fleurs-de-lis, and quivering with excitement, entered the office door.

She found herself facing an empty desk. In another room she could hear muffled conversation, then, finally, an "
au revoir
." A serious-looking woman with thick black curls and an intense expression came out to the anteroom, looked Isabelle up and down and strode out the door. A minute passed, then another girl appeared. She asked Isabelle whom she wished to see.

"Ah, Mr. Bey," she said. "The new vice-consul is
so
charming!"

She walked back into the other room, but Isabelle could hear her speak.

"A lady is here, and I must say she looks quite young."

"Thank you very much, Mademoiselle, and you should feel free now to take your lunch."

The secretary walked out of the office without giving Isabelle a glance. Rehid Bey appeared a moment later dressed in splendidly cut pants of pinstriped wool and over his starched white shirt a gray suede vest.

"How marvelous to see you! How splendid you've come!" He took her hand, squeezed it, then brought it to his lips.

"I've been looking forward so much to seeing you alone. After yesterday's race across the ice–which was, positively, the best time I've had all winter–I felt we should come to know one another well." By this time he was guiding her out the door, and she found it odd that he was wearing neither jacket nor coat. "I'm very fond of your brothers–they're quite intelligent and very enthusiastic, too. But you–well–" At this moment he turned up from the crouch he'd assumed while locking the door. "–you strike me as being very special." The lock clicked in place.

"One hears a great deal about people from relatives and mutual friends and so often one is disappointed. Do you know what I mean?" She nodded–they were walking then across the lobby, though not, she noticed, toward the front door. Suddenly she became self-conscious. The concierge was looking at her and smiling and she could hear the echo of her footsteps on the marble floor. "But you, Isabelle, do not disappoint. And I have heard a great deal about you."

He paused then at the foot of stairs that curled out of the lobby in a spiral loop. "I hope you won't think I'm presumptuous. I had thought of taking you to an elegant restaurant for lunch. Then it occurred to me there would be too many distractions–waiters, other diners, that sort of thing. So I am asking you to lunch with me at my home, which just happens to be up this flight."

Isabelle was astonished and at the same time delighted by the strange things that befall one in life. She had not really imagined what their lunch would be like, though she'd had a vague notion they'd sit together in a café. The thought of visiting his apartment, though it had never crossed her mind, seemed natural and appropriate to what she suddenly. realized had been her interest all along. She had wanted, for more than a year, to be expertly seduced by a man. When she'd first laid eyes on Rehid Bey, she'd thought him entirely suitable for the task–his charm, his ease, his radiance were all she'd ever imagined her first lover would possess.

"Yes," she heard herself say, "to lunch with you upstairs would be very nice."

The landings were decorated with elegantly proportioned mirrors in gilded frames. Cherubs crafted out of malachite supported balusters which supported a railing of burnished bronze. As her eyes swept the mirrors, she was struck by her youthful appearance–her short cropped hair, her innocence among all these glittering refinements and in the company of so sophisticated a young man. She paused before one of them and then, to her amazement, spoke of her own unease.

"I overheard your secretary saying that I look very young. And she was right. Just look at me. I'm a child of seventeen. Whatever am I doing here with you?"

Rehid Bey laughed. "Isabelle," he said, "you are not a child at all. You are a stunning young woman who at this moment just happens to be dressed like a boy."

"But this is how I always dress."

"I know, I know," he said. "What I mean is that it seems to me you can be anything you want."

He led her to a lavishly bordered set of doors, opened them and showed her in. She was delighted with the apartment which had once been, he explained, the private chapel of the house. The living room was a miniature nave arched by a series of groined vaults. There was a fireplace where the altar had been, ablaze with crackling logs. Before the fire a table was set, and beside the table there stood a silver bucket, glistening with moisture, icing a bottle of champagne. Rehid Bey called out a name, a servant appeared in pantaloons and fez, and a few words of Turkish were rapidly exchanged.