by Sarah Hina
He volunteers a healthy bite of his injera, with spiced lamb heaped on top. I hesitate, before gingerly taking it into my mouth. It is so tender it curls on my tongue. Closing my eyes, I treasure the subtle flavor. I would never eat lamb, or veal, at home. But I would never remove my shoe in a restaurant and slide my foot up to my sweetheart’s crotch, either.
“Yummy. But it’s not French.” I laugh, wiggling my toes. He squirms, and I dig in harder.
But playtime is interrupted. The couple to my left, whose female elbow I could touch, is jawing at one another. They whisper in French, spewing their animosity across a delightful looking vegetarian dish, tainting the poor turnips with venomous spittle. I felt real generosity toward the pair only moments ago, when I saw the smiling waiter set the food down before them. I have always admired vegetarians in the same way I admire nuns or monks. I could never do it, but you have to respect their devotion and sacrifice. They seem like more empathetic creatures than the rest of us. Outside the crooked imagination of some reality-television creator, it is impossible to think of monks fighting with monks or nuns fighting with other nuns. And it would have been nearly as impossible for me to imagine the girl vegetarian reaching over and yanking out her partner’s eyebrow stud with a twist of her fingers, if I hadn’t just seen it with my own two eyes. She tosses the piece of silver into the turnips and heads for the stairs, unmoved by her boyfriend’s moans, as he patches his eye with one hand while digging through the veggies for the stud. Jewelry claimed, but self-respect in tatters, he throws some money on the table for the half-finished food and follows his hot-blooded mate up the stairs. Maybe it was just too spicy for them.
Dumbfounded, I allow my foot to fall and lean in toward Mathieu, who takes the melodrama in stride, working methodically away at his lamb and glass of vintage Bordeaux. His imperturbation reminds me of my father, whose natural state is to exist as his own island.
“What were they fighting about?” I whisper. Everyone in our cozy, model United Nations anxiously eyes the scattered remains of the absent diners’ food, like they might hold the penetrable secret of this failing country’s civil war.
Mathieu, the equitable secretary-general, shrugs. “She thinks he has been cheating. He does not deny it to her satisfaction.”
“Really? And so he admitted it just now?”
“No, not at all. He told her that she was being absurd.” He licks his finger. “She did not appreciate this so much.”
I sit up. “Who would? The bastard!” I gulp some wine, barely tasting it. Mathieu wants to laugh at me, of course. He is amused that I automatically take the woman’s side. I’m sure he thinks it quite irrational. “Have they been together long?” I demand. “And he’s already cheating on her … Jesus! Were they planning to marry?”
Mathieu holds up his hands in defense. “Have mercy, Daisy! I cannot know. I heard one minute’s worth of conversation.”
I nod, somewhat accepting of this.
He continues, “Why do you get mad at me? Does my being male make me complicit?”
I consider. “Maybe. You see, that could be us at some future dinner table.”
“When?”
I am a little light-headed. The wine, I guess. I frown at my food and shove it away. “Any time, I suppose. Now. We have had sex, you see. So in the space of a single day, I’ve gone from being the lovely temptress to an old hag, jealously guarding her happiness.” Placing my head in my hands, I groan, “And God, I’ve just realized that I am such a little tramp.”
Mathieu motions for me to lean in. I do. He plants a sweet kiss that cools my mouth off. “Mmm, yes, sex changes everything—especially sex with slutty American college girls.” He draws away, adding, “It makes everything tastier,” before grabbing my knee to squeeze it.
“But for how long?” I ask, not entirely distracted. “Until people decide to get married, there is that tension. That paranoia about what the other person’s doing, or thinking. If he’s going to duck out on you. No one can ever achieve total relaxation in a relationship.”
I think unhappily of Andy, acknowledging my suppressed suspicion that he simply found somebody, more available for Saturday night karaoke and the silly, sloppy sex that follows, to replace me. Perhaps I needed him less than his complete devotion.
Can it be a coincidence that I only started fantasizing about marriage once we were apart?
“You have a lot of faith in marriage, Daisy.”
“Maybe I do.”
“But why?”
“If my parents can last as long as they have, anyone can.”
“And they are so happy?”
“No. But they’re faithful,” I reply, with some force.
“Faithful to what?” he asks.
“I don’t know … an idea, I guess. A very American idea of what happiness should be. Nice house, two kids, members of several philanthropic organizations to lessen their class guilt.” I squirm, feeling like I’ve betrayed them. “Don’t get me wrong. They do love each other—in a way. It’s just not passionate. I’m not sure if it ever was. It’s more like they’re caretakers of one another. Lifelong protectors against loneliness.”
“You make it sound so romantic.”
I swat Mathieu on his arm. “It’s not romantic. But it’s—Idon’t know—” I shrug, embarrassed. “It’s sweet, I guess. And a little brave. Or cowardly. I can’t decide which.”
Mathieu nods and sits back. “Then that settles it.”
“Settles what?”
He snaps his fingers. “We are now married.”
I laugh, pulling my plate back to break off some bread. “Cute.”
He leans forward. “I am serious. If marriage is only an idea, then what stops me from having this idea and making good on it? If I say we are married, and you agree, then whose authority do we need?”
“Oh, I don’t know … the state of France might have something to say about you marrying a no-account American alien, who doesn’t have a green card, and more importantly, couldn’t figure out for the life of her why the Bastille wasn’t where it was supposed to be when she looked for it a week ago.” My fluttering heart belies my light tone.
“You are talking about legalities. A social contract.” Mathieu grabs my hand with the bread still pinched in it. “I am talking about a union of two people responsible only to each other. For this one night, we are married. In fact, we have been married for years now, yes?” His eye invents a new sparkle, and he summons the crooked smile that slays me. “As long as your parents, at least. And we have a history. A beautiful tapestry we have threaded together, over time, which cannot be unraveled.”
He squeezes my hand, the bread drops. “Tell me again, Daisy—my memory is so poor lately—what was the name of our first pet? That little furball on Rue Lepic in Montmartre?”
The waiter sweeps away the memory of the unhappy couple to our right. Just like that, there is a fresh linen tablecloth sanitizing the table, and two new wineglasses waiting to be filled. Soon a new couple, with hope in their hearts, will sit down and drink. I look into Mathieu’s face; he’s waiting for me to play my role. A scratch tickles my throat. I do not acknowledge that this is our one crackat having a history because I can see the bittersweet knowledge of it reflected in his eyes. I swallow any regret and say, “I can’t believe you don’t remember, honey. Our Jack Russell was named Fonzie.”
He slaps the table. “Yes, of course. You named him. I had wanted to call him Balzac.”
“That would have been tragic. Poor little guy would have had to put up with nonneutered dogs thinking we were making fun of his ball-lessness.”
Mathieu crinkles his forehead, and I giggle.
Smoothing my napkin across my lap, I continue, “Still, darling, would it have killed you to pick up little Fonzie’s poop from time to time? I could never let you walk him because it embarrassed me to leave it lying there on the sidewalk.” I shake my head in what I consider to be my best approximation of the scolding wife. “I will never
understand, after living here for twelve years, why a French person cannot bend down to retrieve some dog waste. Something in the French backbone will not allow it.”
“Twelve years?” He frowns, the static of confusion interfering with our picture of domestic happiness.
“When you take into account our half-years in New York, of course.”
He coughs. “Of course. New York is lovely in the spring,” he says, almost managing wistfulness. “All the trees … blooming like they do.”
“How would you know, dear?” I ask, popping more bread. “We spend the autumns and winters in Greenwich Village.”
“New York is lovely in the autumn. All those leaves … turning in Central Park.”
“Mmm.”
“The Christmas windows in Macy’s.”
“Mmm.”
“Ice skating in front of Rockefeller Center.”
“Mmm … yes.” For someone who doesn’t like America, he has an awfully Normal Rockwell vision of the place. Or maybe he’s seen more Nora Ephron movies than he cares to admit.
“Taking the kids to the Met.”
I cough. “Oh yes, the kids.”
“Colette and Jean-Paul loved the Picassos there.”
“Well—er, Colette?” I raise an eyebrow, and he nods. “I believe Colette, with her keen eye for color, was more enamored with Matisse’s Dance.”
“She gravitates toward the obvious choices,” he laments, before smiling broadly. “Now Jean-Paul takes after me.” Mathieu thumps his chest like a daddy gorilla, and I don’t try to dampen my smile.
I pick at something on the table. “Yes, that’s true. The boy will not shut up. Just the other day, Madame Pompadour told me that he stopped her outside the grocery store, when he saw her buying …” I look around, before whispering, “A frozen quiche … from Italy.”
I shake my head sadly. “The poor lady—afflicted with Meniere’s disease because, as you know, scientific funding has been cut in France in favor of more triumphal arches—anyway, she just couldn’t handle making a five-course meal anymore, what with the dizziness and ringing in her ears, but Jean-Paul stood there and berated her for not understanding the ‘historical origins and cultural implications’ of buying locally overfed goose livers for a good fifteen minutes. She said she wanted to faint, but she was afraid of offending such inspired self-righteousness.”
Mathieu, chin resting on his hand, observes, “Such a fine boy.”
I reach across the table and take his hand. “Yes, he is.” I smile and squeeze his fingers. He brushes the inset of my wrist with a kiss.
Mathieu clears something from his throat and releases my hand. “I have to say, Daisy, that I am overjoyed we still make love so often.”
“What? Twice a week?”
“More like six times by my count,” he says, grinning wickedly. “And that is only because you insist on taking Saturdays off.”
“Did I convert to Judaism at some point? Am I forgetting this?”
“No, Saturdays are the days you teach your art school program at the Orsay. It really wears you out, does it not?”
“Mmm, it does. Just last Saturday, I was doing a tour and little Philippe took out his Magic Marker and drew a moustache on an Ingres nude. I told him he has great instincts, but he needs to work on his form. Then I asked his father for a check.” I sigh. “That’s why I am so relieved to get back in the lab on weekdays. It’s just me and my electron microscope.”
He pouts at the microscope but brightens and strokes my knee. “I adore making love against your electron microscope, listening to you talk dirty about my ear cells.”
I burst out laughing. “Yes, well, it’s not always that comfortable, but I’m just so happy that after twenty-five years of marriage, you’re still willing to take your chances and fuck me against a million-dollar machine. Some couples, you know, aren’t so lucky. Some married couples, I am told in confidence, experience a total evaporation of their desire and passion for one another.” I shudder dramatically. “I know it’s impossible to believe such a thing.”
Mathieu looks into my eyes. “I think you are more beautiful now than when we first met.”
I swallow something in my throat. “I believe you. I have never wanted you more, mon mari.”
He is touched by my remedial French. I am delighted to find him so easily touched. We are giddy with our playacting, but there is an undercurrent of poignant recollection as we sit and imagine things that will never become. I see Mathieu at fifty in the flickering candlelight, graying at the temples but undaunted by age (no cornered look in his eye), his jowls loosening, softening him, thosemarvelous lips thinning but still vibrant and warm as he presses them to my slackened skin, mapping the familiar terrain. He makes a fine fifty. Less strident, more measured, but still eager to jump into a debate with me and conquer imaginary worlds with all the weapons his words can devise.
Still eager to jump into a debate with someone, I correct myself. Some shadow woman who watches Truffaut films, nibbles brie, and is the final authority on Simone de Beauvoir. She is out there, even now, absorbing The Razor’s Edge in a single sitting while lounging in a gorgeous black-lace chemise, her red, manicured nails smoothing the pages as Erik Satie’s piano drips a ghoulish melancholia into her soul.
I cannot hate this woman. But God, I envy her so.
Two men come and sit at the adjoining table. One of them is a puffy-faced but commanding gentleman in a three-piece suit with blue tie. I blink at him, uncomprehending.
It’s Al Gore.
He gives me an inscrutable look as he lays his napkin over his lap, and I could swear, really swear, that it is Gore, the same man destroyed by a butterfly ballot in Florida and labeled a psychopath by the media upon his impassioned objection to America’s first preemptive war. His look makes me feel complicit, guilty. We lock eyes, and then he turns to face the wiry, stooped man across from him. He’s got a face for listening. It zeroes in on you.
Mathieu smiles quizzically. “You have escaped me again,” he murmurs, playing with my fingers.
Tearing my eyes away from the bizarre hallucination, I try to smile. “You will just have to keep coming after me.”
His eyes are clear and wide. Like a bruised Paris sky.
“I always have.”
Chapter
17
It has become freakishly cold out. Luckily, the alcohol is a slow drip of warm solvent through my veins.
It being our twenty-fifth anniversary and all, we walk to the place where the deal was sealed. My memory must be hazy—it’s gotta be the two, or three, or seven, glasses of wine fogging me over—because I keep thinking he will take me back to Luxembourg Gardens, or to the Orsay: someplace whose meaning can be met halfway by our infant selves and the derivative couple we shadow. But no, we are walking, a bit slatternly, toward the Seine. I am a little nervous that we took the plunge on a river cruise, unsure that my forty-eight-year-old, inebriated stomach can handle a boat ride right now. I kind of want to lie down on the little cobblestone pillows and explore the intoxicating idea that I might be exhausted and/or stupid drunk.
“Wouldn’t be prudent … at this juncture,” I mumble, hiccupping.
“What did you say?” Mathieu asks. His arm feels like pudding.
“I said the first George Bush was a real hero, a can-do kindof guy, a regular mutton chop of a presidential person when you consider what a raging fuckup little W is.” I list to the side, and Mathieu steadies me.
“I had forgotten what a light drinker you are,” he says, propping me up. “I like it when you drink. You are so honest. And loud.”
“W … can you imagine the childlike brain that answers to that nickname?” I feel wonderfully chatty, extraordinarily intuitive, so I answer my own question. “No, of course you can’t. Do French people even have nicknames, or does it corrupt the language?”
No reaction from the Frenchie on this.
“Anyway, little W needs to go back to presidential preschool, wher
e he can take a shellacking from Papa Rove, his strict constructionist, no longer isolationist, thumb-up-your-assist governess, before taking refuge in Karen Hughes’ matronly bosom.” I giggle. “I’d love to see Rove in pantaloons, wouldn’t you? And definitely a bonnet. He has that nice, bland Midwestern face about him. It’s so deceptively dull—not nearly Machiavellian enough. He looks like he should be the general manager at the South Des Moines Walmart. But put him in a bonnet, and it’d be precious—I could almost start to like the bastard—like he was a pudgy monkey playing dress-up, and not the puppet master of the free world.”
Mathieu only gives me a look. I have to work harder.
“I can hear George and Babs scolding the little shit, can’t you? Georgie Porgie, you’ll never be as bright as big brother, Jebbie, so take a spoonful of Texas sugar, let the inferiority complex go down, and maybe in fifty years, after a Republican amount of repression and resentment, it’ll explode like an oil well to make a cowboy of you.” Hiccup. “Too bad the rest of the country, and the world, has to endure a Freudian pissing match with his dad, but what’re you going to do?” I absorb a small stumble over the undulating sidewalk. Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down. “Such a shame that Daddy didn’t show him that arms are for hugging.”
Mathieu loses his amusement and nods stiffly at some she-person supported by a cell phone. The instant we pass her, I step on a sheet of newspaper rolling like tumbleweed down the narrow Parisian street. The thing sticks to my shoe before I shake it off, and it goes tumb-a-ling, tumb-a-ling again. I shiver and look across my shoulder. “She was pretty, I think. And shaken to see you.”
He gives me no lead. And so I take it. “Why is it that you only know pretty people, Mathieu? Where’s that boulangerie you were talking about? I would like to see your fat, jolly, old friend about now. I’m a little bothered by this parade of beautiful women you attract, especially beautiful lesbian women. They have this weird side effect of making me feel for Georgie.”