P. D. nodded to Cuneo, the chubby barman, who advanced towards the dance floor. He seemed to grow lighter as he walked – light and wondrously gallant in his restrained, deferential movements. His dancing partner was taller than he was, and yet she moulded herself to him, brimming with trust.
P. D. Olson leaned closer to Perdu and whispered, ‘What a magnificent literary figure this Salvatore Cuneo is. He came to Provence as a harvest worker, to pick cherries, peaches, apricots – anything that requires delicate handling. He worked with Russians and Moroccans and Algerians, then spent a night with a young river pilot. She disappeared back to her barge the next day. Something to do with the moon. Ever since, Cuneo has been scouring the rivers for her. It’s been twenty years. He works awhile here, awhile there, and he can now turn his hand to almost anything – especially cooking. But he can also paint, repair a fuel tank and cast horoscopes; whatever you need done, he can do it. And if he can’t, he learns in a flash. The man’s a genius in the guise of a Neapolitan pizzaiolo.’ P. D. Olson shook his head. ‘Twenty years. Imagine that! And for a woman!’
‘Why not? Can you think of a better cause?’
‘You would say that, John Lost.’
‘What? What did you call me, Olson?’
‘You heard. Jean Perdu, John Lost, Giovanni Perduto … I’ve dreamed about you on occasion.’
‘Did you write Southern Lights?’
‘Have you danced?’
Jean Perdu downed the rest of his pastis.
Then he turned and surveyed the women in the room. Some looked away; others held his gaze … and one shot a glance at him. She was in her mid-twenties. Short hair, a small bust, firm muscles between her upper arms and her shoulders, and eyes blazing with a boundless hunger, as well as the boldness to assuage that hunger.
Perdu nodded to her. She stood up without a smile and walked halfway towards him – halfway minus exactly one step. She wanted to wrench that final step from him. She waited, a raging cat, coiled to pounce.
At the same instant the band finished its first song; and Monsieur Perdu strode towards the hungry cat woman.
Her face said ‘Let battle commence!’
Her mouth demanded ‘Subjugate me if you can, but don’t you dare humiliate me. And woe betide you if you’re too timid to challenge me. I’m soft, but I only feel that softness in the heat of passion. And I can protect myself!’ said her small, firm hand, the quivering tension that held her body upright, and her thighs, which melded themselves to his.
She pressed against him from chest to toe – but when the first notes rang out, Jean transmitted his energy to her with a thrust of his solar plexus. He eased her down further and further until they both had one knee bent and the other leg stretched out to one side.
A murmur ran through the line of women, but it immediately ceased when Perdu pulled the young woman up, winding her free leg quickly and smoothly around his knee. The backs of their knees kissed gently. They were entwined as closely as otherwise only naked lovers could be.
Jean throbbed with long-dormant power. Could he still do it? Could he return to a body he had not used for so long? ‘Don’t think, Jean! Feel!’
Yes, Manon.
Manon had taught him not to think during lovemaking, foreplay, dancing and conversations about emotions. She’d called him ‘typically northern’ because he tried to hide his bad moods from her behind stock phrases and a poker face, because he paid too much attention to what was proper during sex. And because he would pull and push Manon across the dance floor like a shopping trolley instead of dancing the way he wanted to – as the impetus of his will, reactions and desire dictated.
Manon had cracked open this stiff outer casing like a nut, with her hands, her bare hands, her bare fingers, her bare legs …
She freed me from my misanthropy, silence and inhibitions. From my compulsion to only make the right moves.
They say that men who are at one with their bodies can sense and smell when a woman wants more from life than she is getting. The girl in his arms longed for a stranger, for a permanent traveller: he could smell it as he felt her heart beating against his chest. The unknown man who rides into town and gives her one night of adventure, laying at her feet all the things she cannot find in this village, lost among silent wheat fields and ancient woodlands. This is her only means of protest, of ensuring she does not become bitter in this rural idyll where only land, family and offspring matter, never her, never her alone.
Jean Perdu gave the young woman what she desired. He held her the way no young carpenter, winemaker or forester ever would. He danced with her body and with her womanhood unlike any of the people for whom she was plain ‘Marie, the daughter of the old blacksmith who shoes our nags’.