The Reinvention of Love Read Online Free PDF

bone. The invisible streets pass by. Adèle is undoing the buttons on my trousers. I have forgotten my words for the river. I am only here. And love opens me.

THERE IS AN ORCHARD in the Jardin du Luxembourg where we like to walk. Sometimes we have the children with us, but I prefer it when we are alone, when we are not worried about whether an errant touch or a stolen kiss will be reported, innocently enough, to Victor.
    There are hundreds of apple trees in the orchard, and we like to play a game with the names of the different varieties, grouping them into categories. Often we choose a category before we get to the orchard.
    “Animals,” says Adèle today.
    It is a beautiful late spring afternoon. We are blessedly without the children today. We walk between the trees languidly, our hands brushing against each other, the heat from our two bodies the same temperature as the air that surrounds us. Adèle looks to the left, and I look to the right, reading the names written on the tags at the base of the trees.
    “Dog’s Snout,” I say, triumphantly.
    “Sheep’s Head,” she says.
    It takes a while to find another animal name. I pull her off the path, kiss her deeply. She runs her hands down my back. Someone wanders past and we break apart.
    “Mouse,” she says. “Catshead.”
    “Mermaid,” I say.
    “A mermaid isn’t an animal.”
    “It’s half animal.”
    “Half fictional animal.”
    “Miller’s Thumb,” I say.
    “That’s a man.”
    “Man is an animal.”
    Adèle strokes my arm. “You are hopeless,” she says.
    We walk through the orchard. We move through other subjects.
    “Love,” says Adèle.
    This time I’m the one who wins.
    “Perpetuelle,” I say. “Fail Me Never. Open Heart. Everlasting.”
    She is left with First and Last, and the rather dubious Neversink.
    “Never sink,” she says, dramatically clasping me around the waist. “Float, my sweet darling. Float! Float!”
    We pause before the label on a slender tree.
    “Why would you want to eat an apple with that name?” I ask.
    The tree bears the tag Great Unknown.
    “Maybe it’s a description of the taste,” says Adèle.
    “Surely they could be more specific than that.” I imagine this apple-namer as a man of melancholy nature, someone who has lost faith in words and yet is still expected to attach them to meaning. But who would propose a name like this? Wouldn’t they just ask someone else to name the apple more appropriately?
    “I wish we could eat one,” says Adèle. But the blossom has just faded, and the apples aren’t yet growing on the tree. We won’t be able to taste the Great Unknown until the autumn.
    We walk in silence for a while, although I keep looking at the names on the trees. We have just over an hour before Adèle has to return home. This is not long enough to go to the small hotel where we sometimes manage an entire exquisite afternoon – if we are lucky. Our life together is broken into different locales, depending on how much time we have to spend. The geography of our love corresponds absolutely to the clock.
    Increasingly, I feel despair when I think of our future. Idon’t know how we are to resolve this problem of not having enough time together. Some days I entertain the idea of telling Victor. Would friendship be able to triumph over adultery? On the days when I am feeling happy and optimistic, this seems entirely possible. On the days when I despair, like today, I fear Victor would kill me if he knew of his wife’s affair with me. Certainly he would challenge me to a duel and, since he is more robust, a better sportsman, and likely to be filled with moral outrage and vitriol – he would probably kill me with his first shot.
    “I wish that we had time to go to our hotel,” says Adèle. “Or that we could be naked here, under the trees.” She squeezes my hand, and I manage a smile. Each time I drift away from her, she manages to snag me back, and I am so grateful for that, so grateful for her.