Beautiful(59)

He didn’t approach her again until late that afternoon, when he found her sitting on the steps of the dormitory before dinner, wearing a big straw hat to shield her from the late afternoon sun. Her wearing it made it look glamorous.

“I like your hat,” he said and meant it.

“Thank you.” She smiled up at him. He didn’t know how to broach the subject and tell her he knew who she was. It sounded offensive, as though he was prying, and he didn’t want to upset her.

“Would you let me take a photograph of you for my article?” He’d taken pictures of everyone else, so it wasn’t an odd request.

“No,” she said simply and firmly.

“Why not?” he said boldly.

“Why do you think? I don’t like having my photograph taken.” She thought it should have been obvious to him.

“The left side of your face is perfect. I could take you in profile, with the Angolan landscape behind you.”

“That would be cheating,” she said, frowning at him.

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“Yes, it would. That’s not how I look anymore.”

“The scars don’t make a difference. You’re still incredibly beautiful,” he said solemnly, impressed by her honesty and her courage.

“Thank you for saying so, but I don’t think so.”

“Then you’re wrong. The scars aren’t you or all that’s left of you. They were added to you. They didn’t replace you. They don’t cancel out how beautiful you are.”

“Thank you.” She decided to be honest with him, to some extent. She looked him in the eye, and it struck her again how sad his eyes were. “I don’t want to be an object of pity, or look like a freak.”

“There’s nothing pitiful about you. You’re here. You’re in Angola, you’re helping people, making a huge difference, as you put it. You’re not sitting home and crying or brooding, that’s admirable, not pitiful. I’d say you have the upper hand. You’re a strong woman. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here. This isn’t exactly the Ritz in Paris.” She laughed.

“You don’t know how I got the scars.” He could tell that she didn’t like to talk about it.

“No, I don’t,” he said, not liking the fact that he did and was lying to her. He liked her, and he didn’t want to lie to her. “No, that’s not true,” he corrected himself and she was surprised. “I googled you when I figured out who you are.” He didn’t want to rat out Prudence and say that she had told. “So I do know. You’re alive, Véronique, alive enough to be here and doing good work. The bad guys didn’t win. You did. And I’ll tell you something that I don’t usually tell people either. I was in Paris at the Bataclan, a year ago last November. My wife wanted to go to the concert. I hate that kind of music, and I went for her because it was in Paris. She was shot and died in my arms. We’d been married for six months. She was a fantastic woman, everything I ever dreamed of. And I would give anything to have her back, with a thousand scars, or no arms and legs, instead of having lost her. These attacks are savage. They don’t just kill people, they kill people inside even if they survive, like you and me. Don’t let them do that to you. Don’t let them win. They killed her and they destroyed my life. Fuck the scars, Véronique. You’re incredibly beautiful, even with the scars. You’re doing the right thing being here. You don’t need to hide that side of your face, or even owe people an explanation for it, and surely not an apology. You are still beautiful, and you will be until your teeth fall out and you go bald.” She laughed and so did he.

“Why should I go bald? Isn’t this enough?” She looked incensed, or pretended to be.

“Well, eventually you’ll be toothless and bald like the rest of us. Until then, you are still the most gorgeous woman on the planet, scars and all. And you are certainly not pitiful.”

She stared at him for a moment, stood up, and put her hands on her hips. “Fine, go ahead, take my picture.”

He couldn’t believe she’d said it. She was ordering him to. “Like that, with you scowling at me? You look like you’re going to kick me. I will not take your picture.”

“You called me bald and toothless!” She appeared to be outraged and he laughed at her.

“I did not. I said you will be bald and toothless, I did not say you already are.”

“Well, I’m not, so take my picture,” and then her voice softened and she grew serious, “and I’m sorry about your wife,” she said gently.

“So am I. She was fantastic. Not as beautiful as you, but no one is. She was a great woman and I loved her. She was full of courage, like you.” She sensed it was true. “She was half Italian and half English, fire and ice. She was an incredibly talented journalist, far better than I am. I write junk compared to her. She wanted to write a novel, and she would have written a great one. We came from two different worlds. I came from a stuffy, pompous family of upper class intellectual snobs. Her father owned a trattoria in Venice. She had none of the prejudices I grew up with, and she turned me into a human being. And then, she was gone and nothing made sense anymore. Why did I survive and she didn’t? She was so much better than I am.” He sounded as though he meant it.