Late-night assignment

[Noémi Jourdain]

Noémi’s lips parted, but either she chose not to share her response, else she was content upon the waves of his distraction: to give full attention instead to the manner in which he leaned closer. His intensity should have been overwhelming; it dominated her senses, but it felt like being alive after an aeon’s slumber.

“You are interviewing me,” she teased. The slim stem of the champagne flute twisted lightly in her grasp. She did not mind the tirade of questions; whatever he sought from her, she could not imagine not giving it willingly. But if this moment was all she could ever have of him, and that seemed realistic no matter how her soul protested, she did not wish it to pass entirely to his mercy: to become a forgettable face in a sea of them, blurred by time and distance the moment his eye wandered anew. She wanted to know something of him, as well as be known in return.

Noémi placed her glass carefully down, still untouched, and slipped gracefully from her seat to join him instead.

“May I?”

She sought out his gaze as she reached for the flute in his grasp; paused as though she truly was seeking permission, or perhaps to delay the intimate brush of her fingertips against his. The proximity was more intoxicating than the alcohol could ever have been, and the heady rush of it surprised her, especially when she realised that by now he must be aware of his scent imbued on her skin. It was an innocent touch, as innocent as a handshake in a crowded room, but it was powerful too. She had never experienced anything quite like it.

“Tell me what you would truly like to drink,” she coaxed, amused. He had not taken so much as a sip, and while she was sure the champagne must cost more than several months worth of rent on her apartment, it was clearly a part of the smoke and mirrors glamour. Noémi was not so naive as to think a drink was the real pretext of this meeting, of course, and perhaps he would do no more than brush her observation off, but she desired something more real, something more intimate, something more true. If he would allow it, she would pluck the glass from his hand, and lean to place it alongside its companion.

“In a way it was part of a promise,” she said thoughtfully, in answer to the question he had asked. “One I made a very long time ago. There is no one to hold me to it any longer, but I feel it around me still. The strongest of love is like that, no?” Sorrow swept its subtle touch into her expression; a deep and abiding loss, its edges long since softened by acceptance. Noémi was a woman of composure, but she was not without feeling, and nor did she try to be. She would not easily speak of her childhood privations; she wanted neither his pity, his indifference, nor to remind him of the vast ocean that separated their lives. For she had come to Moscow to build the life she had always promised to her maman. She took the job anyone would have taken, to pull themselves from the downtrodden gutter.

But as she spoke the words she wondered if they ran deeper, like echoes in the bottom of her melancholy soul layered the meaning. Wondered too if such things really did transcend the veil of death. Close enough to see the constellation of colour in his pale eyes; close enough, even, to feel the faint stirrings of his breath on her skin, it was easy to believe in the bindings of fate. It captivated her, and she let it, because such moments were to be lived in fully.

If he remembered anything after, she did not wish for it to be for beauty; she wished to leave as indelible a mark as he had already left on her. To haunt as sure as she knew she would be haunted. “What do you see?”