A literary journal with a speculative accent. We feature writing from around the world, with an emphasis on imagination and superb language.

Halina Duraj

Alice woke beside Ben from a dream in which she’d been dressing a deer—something she’d never done in waking life. But in the dream she knew exactly what to do, and she knew that the deer was Wendy-from-clinical-trials, even though it was also just a deer. She didn’t dream about Wendy often these days, especially not here in southern France for Ben’s sabbatical, but when she did, there was nothing to do but get up and get busy. Besides, there was plenty do. Their guests would arrive that evening, and Ben wanted to make paella.

Alice dressed without waking Ben, made coffee, and went to the Saturday market. It was held in the town square; the castle wall bordered one side, and storefronts behind arched colonnades bordered the others. At the fish stand, a throng of customers pressed toward a glass case filled with fish and seafood on crushed ice. Alice stood next to a tall, blond man in a V-necked sweater and khaki shorts. He was coldly, symmetrically beautiful, like the actors cast as Nazi officers in World War II movies. He wore shiny leather loafers without socks and held his phone out slightly in front of his stomach. Smiling, he aimed it at the woman crouching in front of him, rearranging the vegetables and paper-wrapped parcels in a wicker basket at her feet. The intimacy in his smile suggested to Alice that the man knew this woman, his wife perhaps, or his lover, though it was an odd moment in which to photograph someone. The bent woman’s shirt rode up in back and her pants slipped low on her hips, revealing the tiny white triangle of her thong. In the breeze, the pink satin tag fluttered against her tailbone. The man held the phone out for longer than you’d need for a photograph. Alice glanced at the man’s phone screen; she was close enough to recognize the red button of the video feature at the bottom of the screen.

The woman straightened, tugged her shirt down, and hoisted the basket onto her arm. Then she merged with the crowd and wove her way among the rows of booths. She did not acknowledge the man in any way. She did not know him, Alice realized.

Alice stared at the man, hard, until he glanced at her. When their eyes met, he looked away, but did not stop smiling. Go ahead, Alice thought, look at me. But he did not.

Alice plunged into the crowd of the market square, looking for a blonde braid. She moved and nudged and searched, finally spotting the braid in question at the cheese stand. Breathless, she squeezed her way beside the woman. “Excusez-moi,” she said, then didn’t know how to proceed. The woman looked at her with the polite, shuttered face of the French—it always made Alice feel boring until proven interesting. She knew her French was not good enough. She tried anyway: “An homme a faisait un cinéma de vos pantalons.”

The woman raised her eyebrows, flared her nostrils. The cheese vendor smiled, looked at Alice, shook his head, then said something to the woman so rapidly Alice couldn’t understand. But she understood the Frenchwoman’s reply, accompanied by a short laugh and a shrug: “Les Americains, non?”

Alice’s cheeks burned. “Pardonnez-moi,” she whispered, and slipped back into the slow river of the market crowd. She had visited this cheese stand many times—the tiny rounds of herbed chèvre were divine. Now, she vowed never to go back. Not even for the chèvre. She worked her way back to the fish stand, glancing around for the pervert as she moved. She did not know what she would say to him, if anything.

She bought mussels and clams and left the market. She walked along the ring road, under the sycamores. She knew a shortcut but didn’t take it. She didn’t particularly want to get back to the apartment. The mussels and clams might begin to spoil, but Alice didn’t care. So what if she got the shits, she thought, as long as everyone else at dinner got them, too.

Alice had never been inside the town’s castle—it had been under renovation since they’d arrived, but its spires and turrets were visible from Alice and Ben’s terrace, and it always impressed their guests.

Guests were something they nearly always had this spring in southern France. Everyone from everywhere had promised to visit, as if Ben and Alice had gone to France to open a special, private bed-and-breakfast just for their vacationing friends. Alice and Ben weren’t on vacation, though. Not exactly. Ben had a semester’s sabbatical from his research position at the university, and he was trying to finish his second book, a compendium of the latest treatments for cystitis. Alice was a freelance graphic designer, work she could do from anywhere, as long as they had a robust internet connection.

But Ben’s med-school friends Ivy and Sergei were honeymooning in Paris, for Christ’s sake. It would be rude not to host them, if they wanted to come. Alice had asked Ben: wasn’t it strange to want to visit another couple on your honeymoon?

“I don’t know,” Ben had said. “Getting married in your fifties isn’t like getting married in your twenties, is it? When you’ve been living together for a decade anyway?”