“Is mercury really poison?” Catherine asks.

We have the same thought suddenly, but we both dismiss it. Poison him? No, in all these years she hasn’t tried to, and statistics say that that’s the most common way a woman does it. But Catherine isn’t the common woman. And poison is too easy, too quiet, too full of internal workings.

She wants the spectacle—the sudden violent act. The anticipation of blood. She is the French woman I saw in Marseilles eating the plate of raw hamburger, a raw egg on top, and fries and not comprehending when I told the chef that I wanted my meat without blood. Pas rouge. Without red.

Bien cuit. Tres cuit. Well done.

“Well done? Does that mean without blood?”

She wouldn’t attempt anything that was without blood. Or without theater. It had to be theatrical, even if I was the only fool in the audience. Always the anticipation of the final scene. And the final scene was always murder. And like the Marseilles woman, she couldn’t comprehend murder without blood.

“Poor beef, all juice gone. You no like blood? Blood good for you. Blood builds blood. I no like meat without blood. I no understand meat with no blood.”

39

She’s sitting across the table from me, sketching my shoulders—a study for some new piece she’s working on.

“Undo your blouse some.”

I undo it some.

Catherine’s eyes are green. Today I wish they were darker. Today I feel they are not dark enough.

“Tell me about the last one who called you darling,” she asks.

I laugh. “No one ever called me darling.”

“No one ever? I can’t believe that. Someone must have.

Should I call you darling?”

“Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

She sketches. Pauses. Watches me. Rats’ eyes? Chameleons’?

“Ernest called you darling once.”

I frown. “He’s never called me darling.”

“Yes, he did. That morning. That morning when he brought us that basket of pears.”

“He called you darling. He said, ‘Darling, how are you?’ ”

“And then he looked at you and called you darling too. He said, ‘Darling, how are you today?’ He called us both darling. Well, someone’s called you darling.”

She sits with her arms folded, a Cheshire cat. Her smile lights up her face.

“No, he didn’t call me darling, Catherine. Now I remember. He called me doll. I remember now. He called you darling. He said to me, ‘Doll, how are you today?’ He said doll.”

Catherine frowns, leans into her drawing again.

I remember now, because I was thinking I’d never been called doll before. That was the first time any man had ever called me doll. I remember it, because I’d never liked the word doll for a woman, and somehow when he said it I liked it. Almost. But I didn’t really feel like a doll. And it confused me that I almost liked it. I was too much flesh and blood to be any doll. Women who seemed like dolls frightened me.