A Perfect Stranger by Roxana Robinson

Author:Roxana Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307430434
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

Assez

That summer we rented a house in France, with friends.

It was Steven who found the real estate agent. She sent us photographs, and Steven and I spent an evening in Westchester, looking at bright glimmering images of Provence. We sat at the kitchen table, shuffling the pictures back and forth, and finally Steven slid one over to me.

“This looks nice,” he said.

I held the photograph up to study: it was a long farmhouse of golden stone, with a faded orange tile roof. In front of it was a flat stretch of pale gravel, shaded by wide trees. The swimming pool was shimmering turquoise, surrounded by high green hedges; along the garden paths were cypress trees—cool dark sentinels against a light-filled landscape.

I nodded: it looked like paradise. Also, I would have agreed with anything Steven said then.

We were the first to arrive. We took the overnight flight to Nice, and then rented a car at the airport. Dizzy with sleep lack and jet lag, we set out across the bottom of Provence to the village of Saint-Emilion, between Aix and Avignon. It was a three-hour trip on the crowded highway at eighty miles an hour, German cars surging terrifyingly past us, the hot glare of the Midi sun in our eyes. Along the highway were enigmatic messages in lowercase letters. BASTIDE ANCIENNE, one sign announced austerely, and we searched among the hillsides until we made out, for a moment, a distant stone silhouette. At Salon, we turned off the highway, and drove more slowly across a strange flat landscape: dusty fields, slightly ragged, empty in the sun. In the distance was a range of steep miniature mountains with bare jagged peaks: the Alpilles.

When we finally drove into the little stone courtyard of our house, it was early afternoon, and we were dazed with speed and heat and fatigue. Steven turned off the car and we sat still for a moment. Everything was silent in the afternoon heat, and the air shimmered. On two sides of the courtyard were the rough stone walls of the rambling house; beyond the other walls we could see the narrow silvery leaves of olive trees. All around us we heard a weird high insect shrill.

The front door was unlocked, and we stepped into the cool stone darkness of the hall. The shutters were closed against the sun, and the whitewashed walls were muted and mysterious after the bright light outside. The house was quiet, the air dry and sweet and aromatic. Steven was beside me, and he leaned over to set down a suitcase. As he straightened, his face moved into a soft shaft of light from a crack in the shutters.

Steven is tall and rangy, with dark hair and eyes, and thick beetling eyebrows. He is an intense man, with a dark and forceful manner, and there are times when his darkness and forceful-ness are frightening. But just then, the beam illuminated a small intimate portion of his face: the tender hollow of darkened skin around his eye, damp with the heat.

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