Chicken Skin – Chapter XIII

From the very beginning of the month of September, Christine, whose classes at the university hadn’t started again yet, began to look for an apartment to rent in the city where Antoine’s firm premises were located.

They wanted a place a little larger than the flat Christine inhabited in a small city of the neighborhood.

She viewed several two-bedroom apartments before she finally found the one she was almost sure Antoine would like as well.

He came and see it with her the afternoon of the following day, having succeeded in getting away one hour between two appointments.

As Christine had thought, the apartment with its wide bay windows, its large balcony and its bright rooms, exactly pleased Antoine who made a decision at once.

They agreed with the real-estate agent who escorted them that Christine would sign the lease agreement at the beginning of the following week. That is what she did.

Then, Christine managed to move her things and furniture. Antoine, who was, by that end of September, particularly busy during the week, was immutably spending the Saturday and the Sunday as a family. He hadn’t been able either, by finding an excuse to give to his wife, to go and give a hand to Christine, not even one time, every evening of that same week having been busy anyway with real professional appointments.

Christine moved all that she could from her place with a rental car. She hired a mover for the furniture. Once she had arranged all of it into the rooms, and tidied her things up, the apartment, that was a lot larger than the one she lived in before, looked empty.

Net curtains were still missing as well to dress the bay windows.

Through the week that Christine spent arranging the apartment, Antoine didn’t have time enough even just to pop in.

Christine, as for her, faithful to her habits, spent one day at Antoine’s firm.

The secretary had regained her place.

Christine wasn’t any more impressed by her. Now that she had occupied her place for the whole month when she took her vacation, that she had taken her own habits in the firm, and, above all, that she had come in further in Antoine’s life, she didn’t feel any more intimidated under her eyes, by the bye always cheerful, of the secretary.

Christine let her know her new address. Whether the secretary guessed the real reason of that move that, would you believe, was bringing Christine closer to Antoine, she didn’t let it slip, in any way, contrary to her habit.

She noted down, without any further comment, without one of those amused looks that she so often had had to the great trouble of Christine, her new address.

Christine, of course, was far surer of herself. The commitments that Antoine had taken with her, the evolution of her own feelings during the month they had spent alone, had strengthened her in a position that wasn’t that confortable only a few weeks before.

She saw Antoine only a few minutes that day. He had literally been drowning in work since the beginning of September.

He had sorry eyes when he told her, as they kept themselves to themselves for a while to have a talk in Christine’s study, that he wouldn’t have a single minute to give to her before the following week. He spoke again about hiring a salesperson to help him in the field. He didn’t have much time for himself those last weeks, and he was seriously thinking about having a full-time member from October.

He indeed looked tired, commented Christine while giving him a kiss on the cheek. He should find at least a while during the week to switch off a little.

He promised to keep for himself an evening with her, by pretending at his home he had some outdoors appointment.

That is how, the very following day, a Thursday evening, he came at last to discover the apartment the way Christine had begun to arrange it. He found it somehow empty, without much soul. As he told Christine about these thoughts, she answered him that the soul of a place was growing up with the time, with the habit to live in it, with the story that was taking its place in it little by little, and the memories that would finally people it. That was a fact, of course, but it was just as true that were missing there some pieces of furniture and curtains for the windows.  At bottom, they agreed with one another: Christine had done exactly the same comment to herself.

Antoine promised Christine to give her the money that was necessary to some purchases that seemed good to do to her, to fill the emptiness that they both considered had to be. He wanted a cozy decor, relaxing, in which he would be able to rest easily after the tensions due to his days at work.

As Christine was starting university again only by the month of October, she would have time to deal with that. She also had to meet Benjamin who was probably already back from the United States. She hadn’t called him yet. As for him, he only by then possessed a phone number that had no subscriber any more as she couldn’t have it transferred on its new line that was in another city than the one in which she lived before. Christine’s number had changed and if he already had tried to call her, he was probably asking himself many questions.

Christine and Antoine only had time enough to have dinner and to lie down for a while on the bed that Christine had moved from her previous apartment.

The day after, Christine came to Antoine’s firm premises. He had left for her, in her study, an envelope that contained the necessary money for the furniture and arrangement purchases she had to do.

In the morning, she had finally called Benjamin whom with she made an appointment at his home, at the very beginning of the afternoon of that same day.

Their interview didn’t last long. Christine had considered lengthily the way she was going to present the situation to him.

She discovered that Benjamin had more or less already guessed what she was coming to announce him. He told her he had felt a change in her since the start of her internship at Antoine’s firm. He had seen her trouble, then had observed the evolution upon her of the seduction Antoine had obviously exerted over her from the very beginning.

In fact, Benjamin confessed to her being disappointed because she didn’t say anything to him, because she made a secret of her new condition. He didn’t refuse to remain friends of course but he would need time to forget what he considered after all like kind of a treason. The reasons Christine had alluded to to explain her initial mutism hadn’t convinced him. He had found them bad, selfish. At deep, she just had wanted to protect herself knowing perfectly well that he was the one whom she would finally sacrifice.

Benjamin wasn’t really wrong. Christine din’t admit it in front of him, but as she told him good bye, she was feeling kind of a dizzy spell deep within herself. She finally headed to the stores where she would, as it was not that late, do some purchases reserved for her new nest.