The List of My Desires Read Free Page B

them did meet Mr Right she would share him with the other.
    Then they wanted to go dancing at the Copacabana club; they might find a couple of good-looking guys there, said one twin. Two Mr Rights, said the other, laughing. I didn’t go with them.
    I haven’t gone dancing since that thirteenth birthday of mine when I danced to ‘Indian Summer’ with my budding breasts.
    The twins disappeared into the night, taking their laughter and the slightly vulgar click-clack of their heels on the pavement with them, and I went home. I crossed the Boulevard de Strasbourg, I went up the Rue Gambetta to the Palais de Justice. A taxi passed, my hand trembled; I saw myself hailing it, climbing on board. I heard myself saying: Far away, please, as far away as possible. I saw the taxi drive off with me in the back, not turning round, not waving, not making any last gesture at all, with no regrets; I saw myself leaving, disappearing without a trace.
    That was seven years ago.
    But I went home instead.
    Jo was asleep with his mouth open in front of the Radiola; a trickle of saliva shone on his chin. I switched off the TV. I put a blanket over his sprawled body. In his room Romain was fighting in the virtual world of Freelancer. In hers, Nadine was reading the conversations between Hitchcock and Truffaut; she was thirteen years old.
    She raised her head when I opened the door of her room, she smiled at me and I thought how beautiful, how very beautiful she was. I loved her big blue eyes, I called them eyes full of the sky. I loved her clear skin, on which no injury had yet left any mark. I loved her silence and the smell of her skin. She moved up to the wall and said nothing when I lay down beside her. Then she gently stroked my hair as my mother used to, and went on reading, out loud in a low voice this time, as grown-ups do to calm a small child’s fears.

A journalist from L’Observateur de l’Arrageois came to the haberdashery shop this morning. She wanted to interview me about my tengoldfingers blog.
    It’s only a modest little thing.
    I write every morning about the pleasures of knitting, embroidery and dressmaking. I’ve helped people to choose fabrics and wools; sequinned ribbons, velvet, satin and organdie; cotton lace and elastic; rat-tail cord, waxed shoelaces, braided rayon cord, anorak cords. I sometimes write about the shop, a delivery of Velcro for sewing or tapes of press fasteners. I also send waves of nostalgia flowing out through the air to the embroiderers, lacemakers and weavers: their souls are the souls of women who wait. We are all like one of the Nathalies of Eternal Return , the Isolde figure in that film.
    You already have over one thousand two hundred hits a day on your site, cries the journalist, one thousand two hundred, and that’s just here, in the local area.
    She’s the age of a child you’d be proud of. She’s pretty, with her freckles, her pink gums and white teeth.
    Your blog is so unexpected. I have masses of questions to ask you. Why do one thousand two hundred women visit your site every day to talk about clothes? Why this sudden passion for knitting, dressmaking . . . the sense of touch? Do you think we suffer from a lack of physical contact these days? Has the virtual world killed off eroticism? I stop her. I don’t know, I say, I don’t know. Once people would have kept a private diary, now they write a blog. She tries again. Did you ever keep a diary? I smile. No. No, I never kept a diary, and I don’t know the answers to any of your questions. I’m terribly sorry.
    Then she puts down her notebook, her pencil, her bag.
    She looks deep into my eyes. She puts her hand on mine, squeezes it and says: My mother’s been living alone for over ten years. She gets up at six every morning. She makes herself a coffee. She waters her plants. She listens to the news on the radio. She drinks her coffee. She has a quick wash. An hour later, at seven, her day is over. Two months ago a neighbour told