“Wasn’t it here that we came, the last time?”
“Not possibly. We were last together in . . . Trier, if my memory serves.”
“Mine, apparently, does not. Coming across you again, everything gets very déjà vu. The chandeliers, the flowers, even that waiter with the Hapsburg lip. They’re all exactly the way I remember them.”
“If this is what your déjà vu’s are made of, you’ve had an agreeable past.”
“Small thanks to you, darling.”
He touched her empty glass. “Once more?”
“Didn’t you say you were in a terrible rush? Besides, it wouldn’t show respect for the bisque. Which is already gliding to our table.”
The waiter with the Hapsburg lip performed deft rituals with the bisque, while they, with the preliminary skirmishover, made minor modifications in their strategies. The wine steward brought the Solera, its brittle label flaking from the glass.
“Yes,” he said. “Then, with the salmon, Coindreu Chateau Grillet.”
“And I’ve seenhim before too,” she said. “Did you notice the funny ring he was wearing. No, men never notice how other men dress. It’s delicious. If the venison is half so nice, I’ll marry you. Would you like that?”
“I might. I’ve never had a wife.”
“I’d make a very attractive wife for you, I think. You’d never have to feel embarrassed. I speak French, German, Polish, and probably something else. As I have my own income, I wouldn’t even be expensive–except at Christmas–though I’dlook expensive all the time. Whenever your self-confidence faltered—”
“It doesn’t.”
“—my skilful flattery would bolster you up. And I’m nottoo much younger. Am I?”
“Not at all.”
“Do you fear I’d be too frivolous? Do you take exception to the coloratura passages? You, if anyone, should realize that my serious side isjust as serious as yours. Make a serious face. Oh, like that! All those wrinkles–the strength of character they suggest.”
“It’s the supraorbital ridge that does that.”
“It’s so many things.”
“You have good points too.”
“Each complements one of yours. Imagine the two of us walking into the same room. We’re surrounded with whispers, the cynosure of all men’s eyes. The waltz swells about us, and you take me in your arms.”
“What are they whispering?”
“That you’re forty years old, and still single.”
“Thirty-eight.”
“C’est la même, darling. We’ll both have little secrets tucked away in dresser drawers, behind our stockings. Iwould have thought forty more likely.”
“You listen too much to the things people whisper.”
“Let’s leave them, then. They mean nothing tous . We’llgo off by ourselves. To the Seychelle Islands? Meshed? The Philippines? They’re said to be quite in now.”
“We won’t listen to what people say. We value our independence too highly.”
“Where shall we go, then? You tell me.”
“To Wales.”
“Oh, not Wales! One must draw a line between independence and ennui.”
“I’ve already signed the papers, love. I am committed.”
“This isn’t pretending, then?”
“I hope not, after all the money I’ve sunk in it.”
“Where in Wales?”
“The Pembroke coast. It has one of the quaintest nameson the map.”
“Oh, I know just what it will look like–all the cottages built out of marzipan, and an abbey church from the 14th century, the rustics brawling in the pub, fishing boats, sunsets. You’ll live in somebody’s converted toolshed.”
“A gatehouse, actually. I leased it through Chandler &Carr.”
“Who showed you photographs.”
“And a floor plan.”
“Though smallish, it possesses every convenience.”
“A majority, at least.”
“I don’t believe it. It isn’t you. What about yourwork ?”
He paused at this, the first point scored in the game.
“I’ve retired.”
“Idon’t believe it. You? Though, of course, if that’s what you’re supposed tosay . . .”
“It’s been my impression that it’s not at all what I was supposed to say. But I do say it, I have done it, I am retired.”
“Why, in God’s name?”
“That’s a secret I’ve tucked away in a dresser drawer, behind my stockings.”
Which tied it, one all.
“And the dresser? Off in the rural, implausible solitudes of Pembroke?”
“Still in London, most likely. I only bought it today. That’s why we met here. I’ve been up and down Bond Street all day, furnishing the place.”
“Andnot because we’re so convenient to Grosvenor Square?”
“I thought that might make it handier for you.”
“They won’t buy it, you know. You can’t just go and tell them you’ve lost interest in the whole thing, for heaven’s sake!”
“On the contrary, Liora–youcan .”
“You called me Liora. That was nice of you.”
“It’s your name.”
“It’s not the name on my passport. You are a darling, and you really do believe in integrity and honor and all of that. Yes, thank you, just a wee bit more. 1872! And without an expense account?” When the steward had left them, she continued: “Is that what you’d call a Masonic ring?”
“I forgot to look.”
“He also uses wax on his mustache. I’ve never kissed a waxed mustache. Remember where you kissed me, in Bergamo?”
“That was where I didn’t kiss you.”
A palpable hit. He moved into the lead.
“But you wanted to. Why are you looking seriously now? Is it about me?”
“Yes.”
“No, it isn’t. You’re having second thoughts about all that furniture. What did you get? Where? How much did they make you pay?”
He itemized on his fingers. “Four Chinese Chippendale chairs, at Mallett’s. A mahogany table from J. Cornelius, that copies one at the South Kensington. A Sirhaz carpet in the pear design. A Riesener secretaire that’s very much restored. Oh, and odds and ends. I forget how much—”
“Fantasy, all of it.”
“I did see them, and I might have wanted them. Actually I just picked out some bare essentials at Liberty’s. Here’s the salmon.”
Bare and essential, the salmon was presented. The Coindreu was open, tasted, and approved. Richebourg ’29 was suggested for the impending venison Diane. Their conversation, set against the backdrop of this restaurant, this meal, seemed to lack the element of chance. The ordered sequence of dishes dictated not only the wines they drank but also the words they spoke and the glances that passed between them. Even their errors were such as only the most expert players could have made.
Her serve.
“What do you intend todo in Wales? Fish? Think? Write your memoirs? Discover some new inner resource, or a hobby?”
“What’s customary for a country gentlemen these days?”
“Alcoholism.”
Which might have tied the score again, if the glance that accompanied it had not, so noticeably, grazed the net. She tried again.
“When do you leave?”
“From Paddington, at half past eleven.”
“Tonight?”
He nodded.
“How ridiculous! You asked me here . . . just to have dinner . . . and to tell me that you’re leaving town?”
“I thought you’d enjoy eating out, and that you’d want to say goodbye.”
“You don’t give me time to say much else. I’d hoped . . . Well, you knew what I hoped.”
“You didn’t hope. You took for granted.”
He had moved lengths ahead of her: she was reduced to being forthright.
“Whydid you want to see me? You won’t say you love me, and you won’t say you don’t. You sit there and decorate yourself with wrinkles and irony. You know, if you can’t trustme , you’ll never be able to trust anyone. You sit there with your enigma dangling in front of you like some fat gold watch chain. You’re just inviting someone to grab it my dear.”
She leaned back in her chair, touching the emerald pendant on her throat, while these points were added to her score.
The waiter with the Hapsburg lip replaced the china on the table according to a strict and clandestine geometry. The dinner approached its climax.
“Do you think I look Jewish?” she asked.
“You look dark and mysterious. Your face expresses great strength of character.”
“And you won’t postpone your trip just one night?”
“There isn’t a pullman every night. I’m sorry, Liora–I’ve made up my mind.”
“Someone has–that’s certain.”
But the game was clearly his, for all that. She smiled, conceding it, and began to talk about nothing at all.
He replaced the linen cloth with one slightly crisper, and on this, beside the new flowers, he put the small wooden plaque that indicated, in incised, gilt letters, the number of this table-6.