Fighting the virus, gaining hope

chapter 4

Three days later the government did authorise selected businesses to reopen, with strictly limited numbers inside and outside. Jean had lucked out and had the whole day off, so that morning he and Charlotte had their first outing together in months to find a seat and enjoy some barista coffee with cake. It was a curious dance as each establishment courted a small crowd of customers, forming unofficial widely spaced queues of people impatient to get in but unnaturally wary of each other, even while happy to be out and about.

Jean kept his work clothes at the hospital so he had always commuted in his own casual wear, but Charlotte had not dressed to be seen in a while. She wore a loose white polka dot dress, because the blouse and skirt she had expected to wear were unable to close around her. She really had been eating well thanks to Jean, and although the uncooperative wardrobe had been a rude shock she looked healthier and happier than Jean might ever have seen. Fat on his wife’s form was no longer any kind of negative because he knew what it meant: she was taking care of herself, she wasn’t too stressed to eat and he was doing his bit to make her happy. He turned to her on the street, gently took her now rounder face in his hands and kissed her with a smile.

He turned back towards their destination (a boulangerie two blocks downhill) and stopped dead in his tracks. Sitting alone at a table outside a cafe was the woman from the window. The table held a large iced chocolate, a full bread bowl and about half of a pizza bianca; the remains of the other half were currently in her mouth.

The woman had to have ordered new clothes online. She was in a black dress made to rest lightly on a voluptuous woman, which she now very much was. Her breasts surged out beneath the satinesque fabric, and themselves rested on a belly now wide and full enough to support them both. Her thighs were together and yet spread all the way across the wooden chair; it occurred to Jean that he’d never even seen them before. A double chin was present and exaggerated by the extreme movements her jaw had to make to chew the enormous mouthful. Her eyes were closed, the better to savour the kind of meal she might not have had in years.

After a moment Jean caught himself, feigned having lost his bearings and caught up to Charlotte who had kept walking. As they were about to pass the beautiful young gourmand she looked up for a moment, caught Jean’s eye, and gave the best smile she could with half a slice of pizza behind it. He barely had time to smile back before they had passed her. His mind suddenly lit up with the questions he had been asking himself about her all those mornings, and in that moment he knew he would never ask her any of them. He no longer needed to.

Whatever drove the woman’s appetite, she had taught him so much by example. In the middle of despair, the simple things in life can still bring joy, even ecstasy. If you are doing what you truly want, it shouldn’t matter what others think, but even if it does you can pursue it anyway. Food can nourish the spirit as well as the body, and a well-nourished body is nothing to be ashamed of. Was he reading too much into the philosophy of a woman who stayed home and got fat? Probably, but it had helped him through the hardest months of his life thus far, and done his wife a world of good as well. Thinking of which, Jean wondered whether Charlotte would like pizza bianca for dinner, and where he could pick up a decent pizza base.