Guided Tours of Hell by Francine Prose Page B

singer’s, the woman’s broken heart, for the abject pure nobility of her languorous self-debasement. She assumed that his reason for playing those songs was to convey a message he couldn’t say: that what was about to happen between them was not only about sex, but about romance, love beyond reason, love beyond death, love beyond the reaches of time, the love that still haunted the voices of these women, dead for so many years. He was telling Nina that she was capable of such passion. And that same night, in Leo’s bed, this turned out to be true. That anything could feel like that had focused Nina’s attention and convinced her that her whole life, prior to that moment, was a ripped magazine she was leafing through until her appointment with Leo.
    But later, she listened harder—of course she went out and bought the CDs and played them over and over—and began to think that Leo’s playing the Billie Holiday song was less about his ideal of love than about his idea of how a woman in love should behave. After a blissful few weeks when they were constantly together, she’d come to believe that the lyrics were meant to be prescriptive: an etiquette lesson on what Nina should—and shouldn’t—do and say. Hush now, don’t explain if Leo disappears for a whole weekend. Hush now, don’t explain if he doesn’t answer his phone. Nor will Nina be asked to explain. Well, she won’t have anything to explain! She’ll spend the weekend by the phone, waiting for Leo to call.
    With subtle expression changes, brief sharp withdrawals of interest, Leo had taught Nina that some things were not to be discussed. And Nina was such a good student they never had to discuss them, so there was never any unpleasantness, which Leo wouldn’t have liked. At her most uncertain moments, Nina had to wonder: Was she a passionate person…or an evasive proud one, only too ready to play by the rules that Leo had set down?
    But what should she have done that first night? Turned and run for her life while Leo was off in another room, hiding from Billie Holiday’s pain or discreetly hanging back while Billie gave his new girlfriend instruction by example?
    She could never give Leo up. Their love was worth it, all worth it. How many people felt a sexual buzz just going to work in the morning? Nina did, she was joyous—because she knew that Leo would be there. That was almost the only time she did know, except when they traveled on the research trips that were merely excuses to devour each other in a series of French hotels. She’d never been happier than she was on these trips! But she couldn’t even say that .
    They’d been to Paris three times in the last seven months. But now he’d sent her here by herself, to check out the Hotel Danton and write a piece on the small new hotels and secret bistros of Montparnasse.
    Two weeks ago, just before Halloween, he’d called her into his office. All that morning, at her desk, Nina had entertained herself by recalling moments from the night before with Leo. What made it all the more erotic was that they’d arrived at the office and gone directly to their separate rooms. There was a game they played: who could hold out longest, until Nina went in to see Leo, or the light flashed on her phone.
    Nina had run down the hall, then stopped to catch her breath outside Leo’s door. When she walked in, she was embarrassed, as if he knew what she’d been thinking all morning. That he alone in the world could have known made it all the more thrilling.
    Leo sat, smiling, behind his desk. How oddly handsome he was! For a man who worked in an office and hated sports and had never, as far as Nina knew, been in a physical fight, Leo looked like a veteran of bar brawls in every seedy port on the planet, or like one of those French move stars—Eddie Constantine, Yves Montand, all those craggy, ravaged guys with tire tracks on their faces. His nose seemed to have been broken and left to mend on its own; his face was