The Superrationals by Stephanie LaCava

Author:Stephanie LaCava
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The MIT Press

Mathilde

October 2015, still Paris

I walked faster and Tom followed me. I could feel his gaze going along my back. A small sign hung over the metal bin next to us. It had once said “Offrandes pour les Cierges,” but letters had been scratched out and added.

Offerings for Candles to Offerings for Virgins. “Offrands pour les Vierges.”

Candles for a donation to light in memory of someone who has passed.

I took five Euros out of my purse and dropped them in the padlocked box. Tom watched as I picked a taper and stopped for a moment feeling his hand at my shoulder. He reached into his pocket and offered me his lighter. I urged him to do it by flicking my chin and then, placed the thin candle in the glow and the wick caught fire. Tom brought the light to the bottom and it took me a moment to realize why he was doing this, melting the base so it wouldn’t tumble from the candelabra. I stuck it in an empty bronze cup and it hardened there. Wax tenon in brass hole. I looked at him. He couldn’t hear me thanking him or the secular prayer I offered for my mother.

“Where to now?” he whispered in my ear.

“Do you want to go back to your hotel?” He nodded and we walked through the church in single file.

As soon as we were outside, he was quick to be clear he wasn’t presuming anything. “I think you will like to see the place. It’s where Twombly used to stay and some other painters and jazz musicians.”

“What’s it called?”

“La Louisiane.”

“You know Carolee Schneemann recorded the sounds in ‘Meat Joy’ by dangling a microphone out of one of its windows, down to the market stalls below.”

I didn’t tell him that my hotel was just around the corner.

We walked in silence. Our arms occasionally brushed one another. I had to mind my skirt. There were puddles everywhere from the rain.

The facade of La Louisiane was unassuming, locked between two other buildings, a pharmacie and an open air fruit seller, directly across from the butcher’s stall. In front, were parked a number of scooters. I remembered that someone had told me that the digits on the license plate corresponded to where the driver was from.

All five ended in three eights. Three times eight = Twenty four.

Inside Tom’s hostel, there was no doorman, just a disgruntled boy sitting behind a desk and an outdated pinned to the wall, rough stone foundation pillars in the sitting room, two old desktop computers for Internet access and standard supply issue floor covering. “It’s not very fancy,” Tom said. “Probably not up to your standards.” His delivery a dig to me, not him.

Still, I followed up the stairs. They were carpeted in a worn pattern of diamonds and brown flowers falling inches short of the wooden steps at either side, tacked in place by gold rods. We went into his room and sat together at the edge of the bed.

Neither of us closed the door.

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