The Quality of Her Tears

I chose the not. So there were only a few new shootings after that. My career days were over. Beauty and perfection can take you far, but now there suddenly were these murmured remarks at auditions about my lack of warmth and lack of sex appeal. I appeared to suddenly have lost the mysterious but all-important "it." I could have strangled the lot of them, but what can a girl do? Dilemmas.

I lost interest in showing off my beauty. To be honest, I started hating it. I became the college nun and graduated in record time, ending up near the top of my class. I turned into the most beautiful nerd God created. I told myself to be proud and enjoy my educational excellence, as did my parents.

That was when I decided to go to Europe for a year.

Carl.

"Stop this now, Carl," he said. "If you don't want to lose a friend." He was John. He'd been my brother for 26 years. His face looked calm, but I saw he only barely curbed the rage below. I knew him well enough to notice.

I called him from the car and was now drinking a beer with him, seated on the roof terrace of his apartment. The city hummed deep below us.

"Sorry, John," I said. "This is all too new to me. I don't know what to think anymore."

I had given him the picture. He had looked at it, taken a swig from his beer and said: "I see."

"What do you see?" I asked.

"I can see how you may think that is me," he answered. "But it isn't."

"The birthmark," I said. He sighed and returned the picture.

"I can only ask you to believe me."

I put down my beer.

"You ask a lot," I said.

Then he did the line about losing a friend and I told him I was sorry. I really was, but mostly for confronting him. Maybe I should not have. I needed to see his reaction, but it didn't work. He never gave me a hint of his involvement. But he didn't convince me of his innocence either.

John and I grew up together. We were never really close, though. He is eight years younger than I, which is a wide gap when you are kids. I left home for college when he turned eleven. After that it was just holidays and the occasional weekend. By then he'd plunged into the quagmire of puberty that I had just wrestled myself out of.

But yes, I knew him well enough to read his face, I thought. Right now, however, I wasn't sure. The man in the picture had his build, his hair color and most of all: the same black dot on his left cheek. Or was it a shadow, after all?

I rose.

"I'm sorry to have bothered you," I said, pocketing the picture. He rose too.

"You never bother me, you know that," he hastened to say. "I can see how this could upset you. Damn, who would have thought..." I shrugged and thought: right response brother dear, but just a bit late. Self defense first, empathy later. Wrong priorities I'd say.

Only then it struck me how, within a few hours, everything I felt safe about had turned hostile. All I had taken for granted now had to be rationalized. Nothing seemed to be as it used to.

When I came home, Mia wasn't there. I assumed she'd told me she would be out on an errand or something. I shrugged and realized that there had been a time, not long ago, that such assumptions might have been enough. Not anymore.

I put away my golf bag and took a shower. When I rummaged through my wardrobe for a fresh polo shirt and khaki slacks, a thought came to me. I walked into her closet, amazed as always by the amount of outfits and shoes.

There were too many dresses, skirts and tops to even start wondering if maybe I hadn't seen some of them before. Her zillions of pumps, sandals and boots would have shamed Imelda Marcos.

I just did a superficial search, never really knowing what to look for. There were loads and loads of underwear in three separate drawers – bras, panties, stockings, camisoles and slips. And there was one special section containing her workout lycras and another to hold her sexy lace and silky playthings.

I knew I was lost in this sea of textiles. I touched them, moved them around and even smelled them. It only pushed new tears against my eyeballs.

That was when I found the small photo album. It was leather bound and closed with a lock. I knew it. She had shown it to me shortly after we got together. It contained pictures from her time in Paris during the year she went to Europe, after finishing college. It also held diary-notes.

I returned it, fleetingly wondering why it should be locked. I closed her closet doors and was on my way down when the front door opened and Mia walked in. She looked freshly showered and carried her sports bag. I hugged and kissed her cheek.

"You glow, honey," I said. She smiled.

"Yes," she said. "I worked out hard and now I'm hungry!" She pecked my lips and walked over to the kitchen.

"Care for a sandwich too?" she asked. "Tuna? Chicken?"

We sat on the deck, munching. The chicken and the ruccola salad were mixed with homemade mayonnaise. The bread was a freshly baked baguette. You had to eat carefully or the sauce would squirt on your clothes. The fresh buttermilk held a promise of summer.

"I did the eighty kilo's twice on number five," Mia said, smiling proudly.

"Good girl," I said.

Mia was very competitive and liked to trump the kilometers I ran with the kilo's she pushed. Ah well, we all have our incentives.

"You are quiet, honey," she then said. "Something bothering you?"

I observed her – the calm eyes, the relaxed movements, and I wondered. Would she start giving things away if I acted out of the ordinary? Or would I just be telegraphing my new knowledge to her – my assumed new knowledge? "Dilemma's," she'd say. She loved that word.

"Yes," I said. "Something is bothering me. But I am not sure yet if it will become important. I'll let you know when it does." I smiled and she mirrored the smile, after a moment of hesitation.

"Mmmm," she said, pouting. "You are being mysterious and it seems you like it." I pointed at the corner of my mouth to indicate where a crumb of bread stuck to hers. She instinctively touched the wrong corner as most people do. We laughed. It was an amazingly relaxed laugh.

I guess reality hadn't reached all my niches yet.

Later that same night when we were in bed, reading, her hand traveled up my thigh and found my cock. We slept in the nude as we always did. She caressed me in a casual way, her warm hand wandering. I responded without thinking, finding her firm thigh. A minute of gentle stroking caused my cock to fill out in her hand. We didn't take our eyes off the books we read, but the words started making less and less sense.

She put down her novel and rolled over in my direction. I looked aside to catch her perfect eyes, knowing they must be perfectly lying – and my erection dwindled in her hand. She looked down and then up to me and said:

"Honey, whatever's bothering you just became important."

I knew her remark was supposed to make things lighter. It was meant to defuse the embarrassing moment. But of course it was only barely covering her concern – we'd never had erectile problems in our marriage.

She threw back the covers and sat up, studying the dead, naked fledgling in the palm of her hand. It felt slightly wrong, as if she had no right to touch it anymore. I pulled back and sat up too.

"Yes," I agreed. "I guess it did get important. But I also think I don't want to discuss it – yet. I have to leave early tomorrow, as you know, and I do need my sleep."

My bluntness seemed to shake her. Her hand rose to her throat. Then she said: "Of course." I cupped her face with one hand, holding her eyes with mine.

"This is for the best, honey, believe me. Talking now would be useless. Let me give you some time. When I return you may have to tell me things."

I turned away from her, not waiting to see how she took it. She asked twice what I meant; the second time she shook my shoulder. I switched off my bed light and refused to respond.

I faked sleep for the rest of the night. Maybe she did too.

Mia.

So after college I went to Europe. I guess it was just to get away, really – to change the scenery and see what might happen. Who knew, maybe the guys over there would be blind? Maybe they were all gay or might prove immune to my healthy, American variety of beauty? You never know, it's Europe, isn't it?

I hate to make long stories short – this is the story of my life and it is short enough as it is. But okay, I'll zip through those first few weeks in Europe. The place proved to be just as the brochures tell us ("If it's Tuesday this must be Copenhagen.") We flitted through all the appropriate tourist routines – London, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Venice, Barcelona, you name it, we went there. 'We' being I and two girls I might call friends if I stretched the concept. I had studied with the one and shared a room for a short while with the other. I could give you names, but again that would be stretching the depth of our relationship.

In Barcelona our ways parted. I went back to Paris and to a totally different kind of Europe. I planned on upgrading my French there and had a job waiting. The girls flew on to Berlin and Scandinavia, after which they would return home. Apart from a few phone calls, text messages and the exchange of snap shots on the net, they virtually left my life. I felt okay with that.

In Paris I found a tiny apartment in the district called Montparnasse. It is close to the touristy Left Bank, but far out enough to give you a taste of the real thing. The apartment was stuffy and had this rickety elevator you always see in old French movies. To me it was paradise.

I loved to just go out and walk around. While doing that I found out how very different this new world was, compared to the places I grew up in. Back home it would be considered dirty and chaotic. In my town half the buildings would have been torn down long ago. Hell no, most of them would never have been built in the first place.

Montparnasse still has a vaguely remembered reputation as an artists' neighborhood. Well-known modernist painters like Picasso, Kandinsky and the notorious surrealists lived there at the start of the 20^th century – mainly because the rent was low and the red wine cheap. American writers went there too, like Hemingway and Scot Fitzgerald. And let's not forget Lenin and Trotsky, before they grabbed their chance and took over Russia.

Montparnasse was built in the heydays of the Bel Epoque, which was the end of the 19^th century, right until World War One wiped it all away. It has wide avenues lined with plane trees and elegant housing blocks. It also has an ugly skyscraper dumped right at the center of it. On the corners are café's with street side terraces and burgundy awnings against the sun. There are shops and kiosks and galleries. There is a small street market filled with fruits and vegetables, snails and crabs and silvery fish. A legendary café is La Closerie des Lilas. And of course there is La Coupole, Paris' most famous brasserie. Ever since the 1890's it has been seating a thousand guests daily, and feeding them delicious food, served by the fastest waiters in the world.

I loved Montparnasse. From the moment I opened the doors to my tiny balcony and was engulfed by the sounds and fragrances of the busy streets, I was sold. I spent hours on the sidewalk terraces drinking the tiniest sips of tea, chatting a bit and watching Paris walk by. There was a boulangerie on my corner that I frequented just to smell the newly baked bread. There were bookshops where I read whole chapters of novels before not buying them. And there were the petits zincs, the little bars I visited just to hear the short, swarthy men discuss the world in sentences too fast to follow.

My French wasn't bad and it improved quickly. After a few days I was able to understand normal conversations and take part in them. I even started getting the hang of the exotic street-patois that in recent years gobbled up more and more idiom and accents from the former French colonies.

My job was with the American consulate on Avenue Gabriel, close to the Arc de Triomphe. I got it through friends of my father and soon discovered that it was a fake job, really. I was supposed to be there four days a week, but they hardly seemed to have enough work to fill part of my mornings.

So I asked for and got permission to enroll into a French literature course that would occupy me during afternoons and some of the evenings. They were held in a gloomy building in the Latin Quarter; it was part of the Sorbonne University.

That was where I met Jean-Luc – not at the course proper, but at a café close by where some of my fellow students gathered after school. I initially refused to go with them – old habits die slowly. But I'd noticed from day one that French guys and girls are different from the ones back home. Maybe I was being naïve or just desperately alone and wanting to belong in this strange city. Whatever the reason, I felt at ease with them – so I joined them after lessons.

The guys sure looked me over and their eyes sparkled as they did, but they never gawked. And thank God they never made these sickeningly smug cliché passes while finding transparent ways to "accidentally" touch me, as did most guys I knew. Through the years I had grown tired of those quasi-casual remarks. I knew they were only meant for the other guys they hung with. They were meant to prove how macho they were, but never to compliment me – or even to convince me they liked me.

Here guys really talked to me when they talked to me, and not through me to their friends. And amazingly, most of the time their eyes were not on my tits.

The girls just seemed to accept me for what I was: a foreign student with a funny accent. I was welcome if I wanted to – as long as I didn't expect them to slow down their quick French gossip or explain the clues of their jokes.

Jean-Luc seemed a few years older than us. He had a dark, Mediterranean skin, black, unruly hair and brown eyes framed by dark-rimmed spectacles. He was about as tall as I, which is pretty tall for a Frenchman, I'd noticed. His English was passable, but heavily accented – at times I understood his French better. He looked good in a casual way, dressed in jeans and a linen jacket over a tight white t-shirt. It suggested a trim body. He wasn't extravert in the well-known Gallic way, but he wasn't shy either. The word is unassuming, I suppose.

My friends from the course seemed to know him, so he got kind of sucked into our group. But I knew at once that there was a difference. The usual relaxed kind of camaraderie was going on, but with Jean-Luc there always seemed to be a distance. When he gave me a hand and introduced himself, I understood – he was an arts professor at the university. A very young one too, I thought, smiling. The open and relaxed way he mirrored my smile attacked a wall I had put up ages ago. I could almost hear it crumble and shatter around my feet.

It made me feel like I'd never felt before.

Okay, cliché of all cliché's – American girl in Paris falls for dark and handsome Frenchy. Oh-la-fucking-la. And I fell hard. I guess all the pent up feelings of the last half-decade were released at once – like air shrieking out of a balloon.

The evening at the café was on a Friday. I never saw my little flat again until Monday next. Jean-Luc took me everywhere and he took me – everywhere. He was surprised about my tightness. I was surprised that I could even take half of him in.

I also thanked God for the pill.

Carl.

The Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg asked me for a second opinion on a Ruisdael. A rich Russian gas tycoon planned on acquiring the painting from a private source and leasing it out to the museum. All the lab tests and microscopic research had been done; there seemed to be no problem as to the piece being a genuine Dutch master, painted with the right paint on the right surface and in the right period.

It depicted an Italianate landscape with a water mill and a group of travelers. The theme was familiar for this painter and so were the colors and the touches of his brush. Funny thing was, though, that the painting had been absolutely unknown till it surfaced at an auction. There were no written sources, just one or two sketches and an etching of roughly the same subject.

No one knew how to call the painting or even where to place it in the well-researched life of the artist. The signature was there, though, and all other indications were right – both technically and art-historically.

I had long discussions with the head conservator of the museum and two of his restorers, one of whom was a piece of fine art herself. She seemed not yet thirty, petite in a well-curved way and with those high cheekbones so many pretty Russian girls are endowed with. Her name was Natalia. I asked her if she knew a nice place for drinks, after we finished.

Asking her surprised me. Well, not the asking by itself. I'd asked women out before for an innocent drink or dinner on my lonesome trips. But it had been a long time since I felt a rush of excitement while asking.

Natalia was sweet. She took me to a lovely café and over drinks she told me about herself. Once again I was impressed with the way the Russians train their talents. Natalia could easily run with the best in her field should she decide to come to New York or London. She would also triple her income. Here in Russia she was treated as just one of many, and it didn't seem to bother her.

We had a nice evening. We even danced and had dinner. I also drank way too much vodka, but when she asked me up for coffee I found enough remnants of sobriety to know it would be unprofessional to respond to her invitation. She laughed at my careful refusal. Then she kissed me on my cheek and whispered: "It would really just have been coffee. See you tomorrow."

In the morning of the third day I advised them to be wary of the painting. I had no hard proof against its authenticity, but I shared their gut feeling. There was something not entirely kosher about the suddenness of its appearance. I promised them to put more research into it back home and let them know what I found.

Natalia took me to the airport. At the gate she rose to her tiptoes and kissed me. I don't know about Russian etiquette for public kissing, but I'm almost sure Natalia's interpretation pushed a few envelopes. My cock still twitched when I tightened my seatbelt over it.

She was on my mind during the entire flight. Not just her obvious attraction (or my natural response to it), but mostly the thought how easy it had felt to go further this time. I am a one-woman guy, but I don't wear blinkers. That means I see women and am attracted to them when they appeal to my sense of beauty and sexuality. But that's it – or was, up till now. What had changed?

I guess the very act of marrying Mia had severed a connection between my easy arousal and my acting upon it. I could flirt with women, touch them, dance with them and even kiss them – and never have the slightest inclination to follow up on it. I didn't even think of straying. But with Natalia things were suddenly different.

I could and would have fucked her then and there, that evening – there would not even have been a trace of guilt. The only reason I didn't go through with it must have been the shock of surprise about my own feelings – and the alarming notion of what it might mean.

I wondered how finding one simple snapshot could have changed my attitude so fundamentally. I would not normally have fallen for a girl like Natalia – not before I found out about Mia's cheating. I had met many like her on my travels. She didn't stir special feelings. She was just another sweet and pretty girl – damn sexy too.

But this time I might have cheated on my wife, and there would not have been remorse. Flying back home I started wondering about something I'd never wondered about before. I wondered if I'd ever really loved Mia – and moreover: I wondered if she'd ever really loved me. To anyone else this might seem a legitimate question; to me it was a shock – like pondering if one could live without breathing.