said.
He was still smiling, but there was no feeling behind it. Keep on smiling, you could see him thinking. The smile came from the same carload as the handshake. Together, in seven months’ time, they were going to lead him to electoral victory. Even if this head were to be pelted with rotten eggs, the smile had to remain intact. Even behind the remains of a cream pie pressed into his face by an angry activist, the smile could never, ever fade from the voters’ view.
‘Hi, Serge,’ I said. ‘How you doing?’
Meanwhile, behind my brother’s back, Claire was seeing to Babette. They kissed – that is to say, my wife kissed her sister-in-law’s cheeks – and hugged, then looked into each other’s eyes.
Did Claire see what I had seen? Did she see the same red-rimmed despair behind the tinted lenses? But just then Babette laughed elatedly, and I missed seeing how she kissed the air beside Claire’s cheeks.
We sat down. Serge diagonally across from me, beside my wife, while Babette – with the manager’s assistance – sank into the chair beside me. One of the black-pinafore girls saw to Serge, who stood with one hand in his pocket for a moment, looking around the restaurant, before settling himself down.
‘The aperitif of the house today is pink champagne,’ the manager said.
I took a deep breath, too deep apparently, because the look my wife gave me was trying to tell me something. She rarely rolled her eyes or cleared her throat apropos of nothing, and she never, ever kicked me under the table to warn me that I was about to make a fool of myself or had already done so.
No, it was a very subtle something in her eyes, a shift invisible to the uninitiated, something between mockery and sudden earnest.
Don’t, the look said.
‘Mmm, champagne,’ Babette said.
‘Okay, sounds good,’ Serge said.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said.
APPETIZER
8
‘The crayfish are dressed in a vinaigrette of tarragon and baby green onions,’ said the manager: he was at Serge’s plate now, pointing with his pinkie. ‘And these are chanterelles from the Vosges.’ The pinkie vaulted over the crayfish to point out two brown toadstools, cut lengthwise; the ‘chanterelles’ looked as though they had been uprooted only a few minutes ago: what was sticking to the bottom, I figured, could only be dirt.
It was a well-groomed hand, as I’d established while the manager was uncorking the bottle of Chablis Serge had ordered. Despite my earlier suspicions, there was nothing for him to hide: neat cuticles without hangnails, the nail itself trimmed short, no rings – it looked freshly washed, no signs of anything chronic. For the hand of a stranger, though, I felt as though it was coming too close to our food; it hovered less than an inch above the crayfish, and the pinkie itself came even closer, almost brushing the chanterelles.
I wasn’t sure I would be able to sit still when that hand, with its pinkie, was floating over my own plate, but for the sake of a pleasant evening I knew it would be better to restrain myself.
Yes, that’s exactly what I would do, I decided: I would restrain myself. I would keep a hold of myself, the way you hold your breath under water, and I would act as though there were nothing strange at all about the hand of a perfect stranger waving over the food on my plate.
To be honest, though, there was something that was starting to get on my nerves, and that was how long everything took. Even while opening the bottle of Chablis, the manager mucked around. First as he installed the cooler – one of those buckets with two handles that you hook over the edge of the table, like a child’s seat – then while presenting the bottle, the label: to Serge of course. Serge had asked our permission to choose the wine, at least he’d been civil enough to do that, but all this I-know-everything-about-wine business irritated the hell out of me.
I can’t remember exactly when he first presented himself
He was still smiling, but there was no feeling behind it. Keep on smiling, you could see him thinking. The smile came from the same carload as the handshake. Together, in seven months’ time, they were going to lead him to electoral victory. Even if this head were to be pelted with rotten eggs, the smile had to remain intact. Even behind the remains of a cream pie pressed into his face by an angry activist, the smile could never, ever fade from the voters’ view.
‘Hi, Serge,’ I said. ‘How you doing?’
Meanwhile, behind my brother’s back, Claire was seeing to Babette. They kissed – that is to say, my wife kissed her sister-in-law’s cheeks – and hugged, then looked into each other’s eyes.
Did Claire see what I had seen? Did she see the same red-rimmed despair behind the tinted lenses? But just then Babette laughed elatedly, and I missed seeing how she kissed the air beside Claire’s cheeks.
We sat down. Serge diagonally across from me, beside my wife, while Babette – with the manager’s assistance – sank into the chair beside me. One of the black-pinafore girls saw to Serge, who stood with one hand in his pocket for a moment, looking around the restaurant, before settling himself down.
‘The aperitif of the house today is pink champagne,’ the manager said.
I took a deep breath, too deep apparently, because the look my wife gave me was trying to tell me something. She rarely rolled her eyes or cleared her throat apropos of nothing, and she never, ever kicked me under the table to warn me that I was about to make a fool of myself or had already done so.
No, it was a very subtle something in her eyes, a shift invisible to the uninitiated, something between mockery and sudden earnest.
Don’t, the look said.
‘Mmm, champagne,’ Babette said.
‘Okay, sounds good,’ Serge said.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said.
APPETIZER
8
‘The crayfish are dressed in a vinaigrette of tarragon and baby green onions,’ said the manager: he was at Serge’s plate now, pointing with his pinkie. ‘And these are chanterelles from the Vosges.’ The pinkie vaulted over the crayfish to point out two brown toadstools, cut lengthwise; the ‘chanterelles’ looked as though they had been uprooted only a few minutes ago: what was sticking to the bottom, I figured, could only be dirt.
It was a well-groomed hand, as I’d established while the manager was uncorking the bottle of Chablis Serge had ordered. Despite my earlier suspicions, there was nothing for him to hide: neat cuticles without hangnails, the nail itself trimmed short, no rings – it looked freshly washed, no signs of anything chronic. For the hand of a stranger, though, I felt as though it was coming too close to our food; it hovered less than an inch above the crayfish, and the pinkie itself came even closer, almost brushing the chanterelles.
I wasn’t sure I would be able to sit still when that hand, with its pinkie, was floating over my own plate, but for the sake of a pleasant evening I knew it would be better to restrain myself.
Yes, that’s exactly what I would do, I decided: I would restrain myself. I would keep a hold of myself, the way you hold your breath under water, and I would act as though there were nothing strange at all about the hand of a perfect stranger waving over the food on my plate.
To be honest, though, there was something that was starting to get on my nerves, and that was how long everything took. Even while opening the bottle of Chablis, the manager mucked around. First as he installed the cooler – one of those buckets with two handles that you hook over the edge of the table, like a child’s seat – then while presenting the bottle, the label: to Serge of course. Serge had asked our permission to choose the wine, at least he’d been civil enough to do that, but all this I-know-everything-about-wine business irritated the hell out of me.
I can’t remember exactly when he first presented himself
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