Hunting was Emma’s idea. A good way to fit in, she had said to him. We’ll never make it if you don’t fit in. The men around here have certain habits, pleasures you must share. The women will reject me, no matter what I do. But you, you have a chance. You could make it. Do it for us both. Do it for me. I can’t live alone. Even alone with you. Our love will die of it. We need other people. I need them. For us, so that you can go on loving me.
Tristan knows that if he were now brandishing the moribund rabbit, he would’ve won.
Beginner’s luck, the other three would laugh, but they’d grant him respect. Tristan would fit in and Emma would be reassured.
“In another time, I could’ve gone to church on Sundays,” she says. “That would have been enough. But no one goes anymore. So…”
“So fine, I’ll go hunting with them.”
“You’ll see, it’s nothing, it’s easy.”
“Easy to kill an innocent animal?”
“You won’t have to kill anything. You’ll go along with them, that’s all. You imitate them, you speak like them. You laugh at their jokes. You congratulate them. You ask their advice. They’ll take you under their wing.”
“They’ll treat me like a queer.”
“No! They don’t even know what that is. Trust me, my love. Go on. Straighten your shoulders. There. Make your manly face.”
He furrows his brow.
She bursts out laughing.
“Even you don’t believe it.”
“Yes, I do. I could eat you up…”
She kisses him. The scent rising from between her breasts, at once piercing and dull, intoxicates Tristan, hardens him, thrills him.
“Okay, fine, you win. I’ll go on Sunday.”
“Not to Mass, to the hunt. Hunting,” she says, “will always exist.”