The Reinvention of Love

the tags at the base of the trees.
    “Dog’s Snout,” I say, triumphantly.
    “Sheep’s Head,” she says.
    It takes a while to find another animal name. I pull her off the path, kiss her deeply. She runs her hands down my back. Someone wanders past and we break apart.
    “Mouse,” she says. “Catshead.”
    “Mermaid,” I say.
    “A mermaid isn’t an animal.”
    “It’s half animal.”
    “Half fictional animal.”
    “Miller’s Thumb,” I say.
    “That’s a man.”
    “Man is an animal.”
    Adèle strokes my arm. “You are hopeless,” she says.
    We walk through the orchard. We move through other subjects.
    “Love,” says Adèle.
    This time I’m the one who wins.
    “Perpetuelle,” I say. “Fail Me Never. Open Heart. Everlasting.”
    She is left with First and Last, and the rather dubious Neversink.
    “Never sink,” she says, dramatically clasping me around the waist. “Float, my sweet darling. Float! Float!”
    We pause before the label on a slender tree.
    “Why would you want to eat an apple with that name?” I ask.
    The tree bears the tag Great Unknown.
    “Maybe it’s a description of the taste,” says Adèle.
    “Surely they could be more specific than that.” I imagine this apple-namer as a man of melancholy nature, someone who has lost faith in words and yet is still expected to attach them to meaning. But who would propose a name like this? Wouldn’t they just ask someone else to name the apple more appropriately?
    “I wish we could eat one,” says Adèle. But the blossom has just faded, and the apples aren’t yet growing on the tree. We won’t be able to taste the Great Unknown until the autumn.
    We walk in silence for a while, although I keep looking at the names on the trees. We have just over an hour before Adèle has to return home. This is not long enough to go to the small hotel where we sometimes manage an entire exquisite afternoon – if we are lucky. Our life together is broken into different locales, depending on how much time we have to spend. The geography of our love corresponds absolutely to the clock.
    Increasingly, I feel despair when I think of our future. Idon’t know how we are to resolve this problem of not having enough time together. Some days I entertain the idea of telling Victor. Would friendship be able to triumph over adultery? On the days when I am feeling happy and optimistic, this seems entirely possible. On the days when I despair, like today, I fear Victor would kill me if he knew of his wife’s affair with me. Certainly he would challenge me to a duel and, since he is more robust, a better sportsman, and likely to be filled with moral outrage and vitriol – he would probably kill me with his first shot.
    “I wish that we had time to go to our hotel,” says Adèle. “Or that we could be naked here, under the trees.” She squeezes my hand, and I manage a smile. Each time I drift away from her, she manages to snag me back, and I am so grateful for that, so grateful for her. I mustn’t poison what we have by thinking of the future. I close my eyes briefly. I can smell the last of the blossom, a perfume so clean and sweet that it is hard to imagine anything more perfect.
    The names of the apples that I like best are the simple names. I find them more profound than the poetic ones, because I imagine the simple titles bear witness to the places or the circumstances where the apples were first found.
    River. Sunrise. Field. Day. Sunset. Star. Hunger.
    “If you could name an apple,” I ask Adèle, “what would you call it?”
    I think she will pick a flowery name, something poetic that makes a tangle in the mouth. But she answers swiftly, as though she was thinking of the question long before I asked it.
    “I would call it after you,” she says.
    “Charles?”
    “No, not Charles,” she says. “Your other name. Charlotte.”

I ARRIVE FIRST AND TAKE A SEAT near the back of the church. It is afternoon. The building is empty except for me, and my slightest movement echoes loudly in the cavernous chamber. The pew is uncomfortable and when I shift on the hard wooden bench the rustle of my skirts can be heard throughout the vaulted room.
    When our time is short and the day is a good one, Adèle and I meet in the orchard. When our time is short, and the weather is inclement, we meet in the church. Today it is rainy and cool outside, and the unheated church feels damp. So much easier to believe in God when the sun is shining and the stained