Man Who Was Late by Louis Begley

Author:Louis Begley [Begley, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-76125-5
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

Notaben 401, dated “begun 22/ix/70” (excerpt);

V spends last night at rue du C-M. Paul in London, where I caused him to be sent. He telephones late and gets Joos. She gives him my home number, as V has told her I am giving a dinner—and so I was, for her and me, so technically speaking V was not lying. Around three-thirty in the morning, he calls again, once more waking the unfortunate Joos. No Monsieur, Madame toujours pas rentrée. Thereupon, the telephone rings beside my bed, but I am not out, I am not asleep, I am inside Madame. She asks me to answer; what if something has happened to Laurent. P demands furiously to know whether V is with me. I feign confusion due to deep slumber, eventually ask him if he realizes what time it is and offer to call the police or go over to his apartment and make sure everything is OK. He hangs up on me. Bad sign.

I urge V to go home at once, as he is certain to try their apartment again, but she says it makes no difference. It is already so obviously past the hour at which she would have been in her own bed if she had returned directly after my dinner that it is necessary to tell Paul the truth or another lie—no matter what, that she has gone to an all-night laugh movie—and let him storm as much as he wants. Perhaps he will beat her; that may reanimate their sex life.

A horrible, shameful surge of desire—and for the first time something like jealousy—comes over me. I reach for her. We make love again, intently. I think she knew the effect her words would have. Then we talk. She asks why, if I really love her, I don’t want her to tell the truth. My house is large enough for her and Laurent; they can move in the next day; Laurent likes food just as much as she; what a nice change Gianni’s cooking will be from what he gets in Arpajon or at rue de la Pompe. She adds, We would be like this every night.

I ask if she has really thought about the consequences—scenes with Paul and in the family, how Laurent will take it, the custody fight and its unpredictable result (French courts might favor the father in this sort of case where the mother is “at fault” and I am not French), and the general upheaval in her life, as I am not going to stay in Paris forever. She is drinking the rest of the champagne Gianni put on the night table, then crosses the room to get a langue-de-chat to dip in it. She puts it in my mouth. Seeing her naked, paper thin and soft, although she strides like Diana the Huntress, her strangely long breasts swaying (I sometimes think of certain photographs in National Geographic), breasts she is so proud of and that I kiss and comfort and praise like wounded children, brings tears to my eyes.

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