Jean linked his arm with mine and pulled me after him toward one of the covered gateways, Brunette bounding eagerly ahead of us. From there, we passed through a lit portico to a dim stairwell, damp and chilly, until we reached a higher level, a corridor the length of which was lit by several pale torches lining the walls and near several doors. We went intoone of the rooms with embroidered tapestries covering the stone walls, long windows with latticed panes, and a huge-looking fireplace in one of the walls; I sank into a chair with a sigh and closed my eyes. I was drenched in cold sweat, and my heart was beating like crazy. My head fell back.
“This cannot be,” I muttered in Hebrew, my eyes still closed. I thought I had gotten used to this improbable reality by now, but the short time I had spent in the fortress—surely less than ten minutes had passed since we had come through the gate—totally destabilized me. I felt confused, weak, and terribly slow of thought, like the first time I traveled between the centuries, on the mushroom trip, which suddenly felt very far away.Hundreds of years away …
“Maybe I should get back …” I said in French.
I felt Brunette’s wet nose nuzzle into my palm.
I opened my eyes and did not see Jean anywhere in the room. I leaped up in fright and looked around the beautiful, slightly damp room, at the big wooden door and at the walls that the tapestries appeared to have sunken into. A thousand different horrifying scenarios flooded my imagination in the two seconds that passed until Jean pulled back the curtain—and came out from behind it carrying a pile of fabrics.
“Is something the matter, my lady?” He hurried over to me and set his pile down on one of the armchairs, or whatever it was, took my hand, and then turned my face to the light that streamed through the long, narrow window.
“Sit,” he said in his lordly tone. “You do not feel well.” He supported me as I collapsed into a wide wooden chair with armrests, padded with cushions. I could barely keep my eyes open.
“Where is that stupid boy?” Jean muttered, irate. He was fiddling with the wood stove and brought me a goblet. “Drink,” he said, placing the goblet in my hand. “It will give you strength.”
I obeyed numbly and sipped a strong wine that made me cough until I nearly choked.
“Water,” I finally managed to splutter.
“I will go and seek Hugh,” said Jean and turned toward the door.
“Wait,” I said. “Don’t leave me here alone.” Jean returned and knelt beside me.
“Do you want me to bring you back to the spring, Lady Édith?” he said gently, as if he were speaking to a sick child. Brunette rested her head on my thigh.
I reached out for my bag and took out the bottle of water that I had brought with me. I drank and drank, emptying the bottle, took a deep breath, and then said, “Soon. But give me a moment.”
I was still unable to fully pull myself together, but I was not willing to give up yet. If I went back now, I would waste a wonderful opportunity—that much was clear to me.I have to pull it together, I repeated to myself.Soon, I will go back to my spring.
I woke up with a start and a stiffness in my neck and realized that I had fallen asleep on the balcony, sitting on the folding wooden chair with my head drooping. Dawn was rising in the east. A noise made me jump. I peered into the house, which was still dark. As I stretched, intending to go back to bed, Halimi appeared on the threshold of the balcony in a T-shirt and boxers, holding a glass of water. I allowed myself a moment of pleasure at the sight of his long legs as he settled in front of me on a chair on the balcony. He smiled at me, still groggy.
“Couldn’t sleep,ma belle?” he asked. I did not bother to try to consider if there were some subtext in his question. I simply answered, “Yes.”
“Want to talk about it?” Halimi asked, taking a cigarette from its packet.
I shook my head and got up. I went over and sat on him, resting my head against his chest. He was still warm from bed, his smell familiar and dear to me. His arm folded around me, and his hand stroked my back, his other hand still holding the cigarette.
Suddenly, I wanted to ask him how it felt to be in love with both Nina and me at the same time, but I knew that this would spoil the mood. Yet I truly wanted to know. I had no precedent for this expansion of the heart, to be able to cuddle up to the beloved and familiar, while at the same time soaring, borne on this dream of a new, totally irrational love. For the first time since I had discovered their affair, the thought of Nina did not feel like venom spreading through my body.
Halimi was unusually quiet. He had just woken up a few minutes earlier and was not even absorbed in his phone, as he usually was whenever he wasn’t doing something else.
“And you, Limush?” I asked from where I was nuzzled into his shoulder. “All good with you?”
Halimi murmured in the affirmative but did not elaborate. The first ray of sun pierced through the sky from the east, and the gray sea in the west turned a light blue.
“I think I’ll go back to bed for another hour or so, ’til Lily gets up,” I mumbled, still nestled into the crook of his shoulder.
“Good night,” said Halimi.
We returned to normal. Lily got better and went back to daycare, where we had decided to continue sending her for another year because the teacher was wonderful. I resumed my translations, which I had neglected during the month when I had been tormentedly surveilling Halimi. Halimi went back to work at the magazine, after the days off that he had taken to be with us when Lily was sick, and made sure to come home at regular hours. Relations between us had become careful, almost polite.
I was unable to ask him if he had broken it off with Nina. I knew that he saw her at the magazine’s office—though most of the writers did not actually come in too often, she was a high-handed type, and I knew that she was very involved in the way her articles were published.
“What’s your problem?” my sister asked, after several days during which I had not spoken to her.
I did not reply and only shook my head helplessly.
“Do you want me to come?” she asked abruptly.
