Man Who Was Late (22 page)

Poor Ben, she said and put her hand over his. Now you have explained the first letter. But what about the second? How could you have written that one—so callous, so wounding? Why did you not come back to Paris? Tell me what happened between the two letters.

The waiter brought his grilled sole. He watched him bone and reconstitute it with quick movements, arrange it on the plate together with the perfectly formed steamed potatoes, before the fish could cool. No, he didn’t want the beurre blanc, not even on the side. He tried a small piece of the fish; it was perfect, it had always been perfect, one could suppose it would be perfect each time in the future. The conjugation was endless. Véronique was eating steadily, her eyes fixed on her plate. She must have told the truth when she said she was starved.

First I went, quite unintentionally, to a sort of orgy, he said, and then, quite intentionally, I took a short, idyllic vacation with the nicest of the girls I met at the orgy. When I returned to Rio de Janeiro, I wrote that second letter. I did not think I could return to you straightaway.

I want a description.

As he complied, he noticed that his voice had returned to normal and that he was telling the story well, as he might have told it to me. A large erection was tugging at his trousers. Véronique had stopped eating. She did not resist when he took her hand.

You enjoyed being with a whore, she said. That is what you really wanted. You should have come to me immediately. I am better than your Lotte. I do everything. I have always wondered about the things you did not ask me to do, why you never beat me. You know one can. Can we go to your room now? Isn’t that why you had me come here?

When she took off that offending dress—unbuttoning it, her fingers were ahead of his—he saw that she had nothing underneath, not even stockings. She stood before him waiting, eyes downcast, her feet red instead of pink where her shoes had pressed against them, stomach delicately veined and oddly round, like Dürer’s Eve. He put his hand on her belly button and caressed it.

You can feel its head, she said, guiding him. It has even begun to kick. And then, pushing his hand away, do it to me hard, as hard as you can, from the back, right here, in your clothes. I am all hot. You have kept me waiting.

Except for the hoarse cooing of the pigeons on the wire mesh that was stretched over the courtyard to keep them off windowsills, no sound reached the bedroom. She had torn the stately covers from the bed. They were on the floor now, a wrinkled, ancient mountain. The wall on the other side of the courtyard glowed yellow in the late afternoon sunlight. Where they were, in the shade, the light was still very bright
but cold. Véronique had pulled up the blanket over them. Head in the hollow of Ben’s shoulder, she was asleep. She, too, had told her story.

By some quirk both of Ben’s letters had reached her in Verbier on the same day, and after she had read them she decided to return at once to Paris, alone. She had no clear idea of what she would accomplish in Paris. Try to reach Ben through his secretary? Take a plane to Brazil in the hope of finding him? Wait for a telephone call or the next letter, telling her that he had been drunk, that she was not to worry? Perhaps there was nothing to be done at all, but she thought she could not continue to tremble so and stay in Laurent’s and Paul’s presence and be on show in the chalet at evening meals. She told Paul she was bleeding at the wrong time and was scared. Fear of unknown gynecologists was something even he could sympathize with, and the panic she felt about Ben made it easier to convince him of her distress. The snow was excellent. He agreed to stay with Laurent and the babysitter until the Monday after New Year’s Day, just as had been planned.

The planes from Geneva were full; she waited in the airport for a cancellation and finally got a seat on the last evening plane, in the last row of the tourist cabin. She was exhausted and fell asleep immediately at takeoff, only to be wakened a few minutes later when dinner service began. Next to her, on the aisle side, sat a man not fat but of enormous size: his arms, his thighs, overflowed in her direction. She refused the meal and asked instead for a blanket and began to doze again. When slowly and reluctantly she awakened she felt a warm
thing, huge and insistent prying her legs open, stroking her, making her horribly wet, then going inside, exploring, withdrawing, returning, pinning her down with irresistible weight. She opened her eyes, the man winked and then smiled pleasantly, and with his left hand lifted his glass to her. His right arm, she saw it, in shirtsleeve, was buried up to the elbow under her blanket, moving slightly, while what she understood were his fingers had enlarged their activity, another one now penetrating her at a lower place with slow pressure until the wall between these intruders seemed to have been grasped by a cautious, relentless clothespin. His elbow pressed against her belly, below her ribs, knocking out her wind. There was no resisting it. She came in bursts so violent she bit her arm not to cry out. At once, the hand responded. Quiet now and fraternal, it retreated gently to her furry part, which it scratched, patted, and comforted, like the head of a cat.

For the first time, he spoke. It was to say he had only begun. He called her
ma cocotte
. While his tray table was cleared and folded, the attendant bending over him, the fingers descended again imperturbably, as though familiar with the terrain, more rapid, their demands capricious and larger, growing, she thought, as he drank his brandy and she writhed.

They spent the night in the hotel at Orly. He was Swiss traveling to Stockholm; the connection was early; he had no need for sleep. From his suitcase, an aluminum box really, he took a camera and a folded tripod. There was an envelope of color photographs. He showed them to her, one by one.
On certain of them, he identified the woman. A large number were of his wife. When he paused, it was to enter her and ejaculate almost immediately. Toward dawn, when she was so sore her juices ran pink, he took pictures of her alone and also with him, before the tripod. Later he showed her how to work the camera and shoot him with the focus on his face. It grinned above the member he held in two fists, like an eyeless trout.

It’s your fault, you bastard, she hissed at Ben, you broke me, you made me do it. He was nothing, just a monstrous machine you sent. He smeared and mashed me and now it’s your turn and you are so small you don’t even fill me.

She left the bed and rushed from one end of the room to the other, with her hands twisting the ends of her breasts or pounding her stomach.

Abruptly, she became completely calm, sat down beside Ben, and stroked his face. The child is that man’s, she said. I hadn’t been sleeping with Paul. As soon as I realized I was pregnant, though, I got him to do it. I said I wanted it so badly I couldn’t sleep; he could pretend I was someone else if he was still angry at me. It takes time with him, but I can always make him do it when I want to. Now I will make you do it and when you go soft I will make you do it some more. I want to be pink again, like underdone veal.

Note on Crillon stationery (undated):

A
ND AFTERWARD?

It would be pleasant to report that Ben traveled widely, visited countries difficult and perilous of access, paused before exotic landscapes and celebrated ruins, knew other loves and other disappointments, until at last, weary and yet, in his growing indifference, more tolerant, he learned to accept from a companion the viaticum of serenity—perhaps even happiness. That is not how it turned out.

He left Paris for Geneva the next day, took care of his business there, and returned briefly to New York. I was still in the city, alone. It may be that he tried to reach me at home while I was out; certainly he left no message at the magazine. One more trip to Geneva took place in July. He passed through Brussels, for meetings in his clients’ ornate, almost deserted headquarters building. All he had done on their behalf in the previous meetings with the Japanese parties—the concessions he had proposed and the ones he had obtained—gained approval. The talk was slow, with endless summaries of what had already been exposed, as specialists were called in successively to state their opinions; out of ingrained habit, and to prevent his eyelids from closing, Ben scribbled in his notebook. During pauses in the deliberations, he stood before the huge windows of the boardroom and
stared at the royal palace on the other side of the avenue. The Belgian flag was high on the mast. Somewhere inside that building, therefore, were the childless king and queen and their courtiers with complicated, harsh-sounding names, just like the names of these cordial bankers, reminders of lost provinces and tales of chivalry.

In Geneva, he found the Japanese group less certain of its positions than before—evasive, seemingly ready to put all previous informal agreements in question; a New York lawyer, unknown to Ben, had been added to the Japanese team. During an acrimonious negotiating session, while his employers chattered among themselves in Japanese, he challenged Ben’s tax assumptions, and, what seemed more grave, the relationships to be created after the settlement took hold, all of which Ben had considered adopted, at least in principle. These were the essential elements of the settlement. But Ben had had his bank’s law firm study the tax issues the New York lawyer seized upon, and his understanding of them had been confirmed; he thanked his stars and his solid early training for having taken that precaution. Telephone conversations ensued with New York and then among teams of lawyers assembled in New York; the work in Geneva was suspended, yet no one dared leave lest departure be taken to signal the collapse of the negotiations. Ben watched over his clients and their morale, determined to prevent premature compromises.

Several days passed in this manner. It was very warm. Toward the evening, Ben visited antique shops in the Grand’Rue and along the streets adjacent to the cathedral, knowing there was nothing he wished to see or buy. He kept
thoughts of Véronique at bay, until her image appeared only at an impossibly vast distance, as though of a dancer trembling, on pointed toes, at the center of a brilliant and icy stage, perceived through the converging lens of opera glasses. Finally, the New York lawyer declared himself satisfied with Ben’s initial construct; the feeling of relief was general, and plans were made for meetings at which all remaining outstanding items would be resolved and the final documents signed. The meetings would begin on August 3. That left enough time for Ben to spend a few days in New York. The bank’s lawyers would come to Geneva to work on the documents; he needed to see them beforehand to go over various problems. In addition, he wanted van Damm, from his Paris office, to be present, as well as a financial specialist to verify projections both parties had been making. In van Damm’s case, this implied finding a New York partner to replace him in Paris while he helped Ben. Europe was changing. One could no longer confidently leave an office unattended in August, counting on the month-long sleep of finance and industry.

This time, I was at home when Ben telephoned. I suggested that we meet for dinner, but he said that was impossible. It occurred to me that he was with Marie-France in the evenings and preferred not to have me tag along. Surely that was what I hoped. We settled on lunch at the Veau d’Or. The place was uncharacteristically empty. It would be closing for the summer vacation in a few days; Gerard, in fact, had already left for France. We were greeted by a nod and some inaudible phrase of welcome from Gerard’s mute partner. A harassed and badly shaved waiter showed us to the same table as on
the previous occasion. I asked Ben whether he had seen Véronique in Paris. He replied, Yes, but that was weeks ago, and offered no comment. As I had not heard from her at all, I might have pressed for some hint of what had taken place, but Ben abruptly changed the subject.

Have you by chance read any Jouve? he asked. I don’t know if he has been translated. The novels are beautiful and transparent. You won’t have any difficulty. Read
Le monde désert:
it’s the last word on what may happen when one has been soiled.

I told him I had not even heard of Jouve and wondered what he meant by this subject at which this author excelled.

A condition worse than dishonor or disgrace, Ben replied. You always make me correct my English, and quite rightly so. In English, “soiled” is probably the wrong word, because it suggests dirt at the surface. I should have said “defiled.”

There was a silence. A feeling of shapeless worry—but it may have been only curiosity and the pleasure I had always taken in talking with him about books—impelled me to return to Jouve. Why should you and I be particularly interested in defilement and works on this subject? I asked.

I am not ready to tell you that, Ben replied, but I will tell you something about this novel.

Imagine a writer with a head like a large egg, just a bit darker than the usual sort of supermarket white, on which a clever hand has drawn eyes, wire-rimmed glasses, and a long nose—really a Jouve look-alike, called Pascal. Luc Pascal, not Blaise. Enviously, secretly, Jouve lurks also in the protagonist, Jacques, the son of a great Geneva divine. Jacques is gorgeous, a Nordic Narcissus who can’t keep his hands off
little boys. The feeling between Luc and Jacques is very strong—the sort of exaggerated pre-World War I friendship that leads two men to spend long summer holidays in Alpine chalets or cottages on the seashore, with room enough for one to write and the other to paint or compose music. Although it might have fitted the story, there is no sexual attraction between them; none anyway we are authorized to infer. Ostensibly, it’s because Luc loves only women; I think the better reason is that Jouve will not allow himself to be on view.