Shipwreck Read online

  North had gotten himself into such a lather that I felt an urge to laugh. He understood me before I had opened my mouth.

  I know, he said. My concern about how an interview will turn out. The utter implausibility of my having been so timid. All right. Don’t forget the long years of my marriage to Lydia. I was seriously out of practice. Besides, I was too busy to think clearly. The press release about the prize was out. Had I been in New York, he continued, my editor or one of the publicists would have taken many of the calls from the media asking for a telephone comment or an interview with me. Alone in Paris, and not having thought to ask Xavier for help in fending off at least the French journalists, I had to deal with the calls myself, although, in fact, I was waiting for only one—from the girl. I supposed she had probably tried, maybe more than once, and had been told my line was busy. I was right. A message was finally brought to my room. She wanted to know whether she could come over. The article was ready. Ha! Could she come over? Yes, but not before I had made arrangements to change hotels. I was fond of the Pont Royal, where Xavier always put me up, fond enough to use it also whenever Lydia and I came to Paris on our own. All the staff knew us. That was a reason to remain, but also to leave if there was going to be anything for them to gossip about. The money from Hollywood gave me an inspiration: a long weekend at the Ritz. I made a reservation for arrival that very afternoon. While I was at it, I also booked a table for dinner at the restaurant. How would I explain the move to Lydia? I would say that the Pont Royal couldn’t keep me through the weekend. Ah, so you went to the Ritz all by yourself! A voice of mild regret. Sweetie, all of Paris is like the Pont Royal, full of tourists. It was a stroke of luck that the Ritz could take me. We’ll stay there together next time.

  Yes, I was like the man preparing to commit murder. Fully concentrated, he assembles the necessary paraphernalia and checks them off against a list. After he has finished, he will put a lighted match to it. Latex gloves, passkey, duct tape, syringe and vial of morphine, and a Solingen dagger, because one can’t be too careful. They’re all there. In the same cheap black attaché case, he packs his passport and an envelope thick with cash. Some twenties and tens; the rest are used fifties and hundreds. He snaps the case shut, checks the fuel gauge of his car, and makes sure he has the necessary roadmaps. There is no turning back. Nothing will stop him.

  Murder of whom? a listener less subtle than you might ask, added North. Isn’t it all too clear? Murder of my adored Lydia.

  As though exhausted by the tension of his own story, North fell into a reverie. I too was thinking. Could it be true that he really took to heart, au tragique,as he might say, an infidelity that was so wretchedly banal? A man who likes women, who has known many women, is away from home on a business trip, in another country. A sexy young thing is planted in his path. She flatters him. There is reason to think she is available. If he tries his luck and succeeds, where is the harm, so long as he goes on loving his wife? I would have liked to put the question to him, but decided not to. He was a novelist, he might be spinning a yarn he would write someday. Why should I interfere? One way or the other, it was his story. I concluded I would let him tell it as he thought best.

  I asked her to come to lunch, North resumed, at the bar of the Pont Royal. I had a strange yearning, which amused her when I confessed it, for a club sandwich washed down by a gin martini. At the time, you could get both, of excellent quality, at that bar. All through the meal, I behaved very correctly. To be sure, I was busy at first reading her text, and then, after a request of such diffidence and modesty that it made me melt, I answered some questions she had written out about the prize: what it meant, who were my predecessors, and so forth. Of course, she wanted to know about the film too. Toward the end of the lunch, she became oddly flustered. She said she intended right after lunch to add to the article what I had just told her. Could I possibly review the revised version? She didn’t want to inconvenience me, but her deadline was the next day. She hoped I knew that magazine deadlines are very rigid. I laughed, because she had just given me the opening I wanted. Look, I told her, nice things have happened to me and it seems wrong not to celebrate in some minor way. Would she like to have a dinner with me? A good dinner, on the pompous side. Dining alone isn’t much of a party. Oh yes, she replied, nothing could make her happier, she would come to the hotel and bring her papers with her, but could it be on the late side? Perhaps around nine? I was to learn only gradually, over subsequent dinners and lunches, the meaning to Léa of “around” nine or any other hour. So I said that would be perfect; nothing could make me happier either. I told her to come to the Ritz, not the Pont Royal, and to look for me in the bar on the rue Cambon side. I gave her the same reason for the move as I had given to Lydia. I didn’t see how I could tell her the truth, and I thought that she would look down on me if I said that I had upgraded my hotel because I had won a prize and was coming into some money.

  I took possession of my quarters at the Ritz after lunch, and decided they would do except for one detail: there were no flowers in the room. That was, I supposed, because I had never stayed at the hotel before, although I was certainly an old patron of the bar. I had been drinking there with great enthusiasm ever since my father first brought me, and was, in fact, treated as a friend by the august bartender, to whom, when I began to be published, I never failed to send inscribed copies of the French translations of my books. There was a new wave of telephone calls and messages. I was too feverish to deal with them well and took advantage of the first pause to hurry to the nearby florist in the rue de Castiglione and get bouquets of spring flowers for the tiny living room and the bedroom. The latter, I had been happy to note, was ample in its proportions. I might have spared myself the trouble and expense. Léa noticed flowers only in their natural setting. In hotel rooms they were invisible to her; she judged a hotel’s standing mainly by the quality and quantity of chocolates provided by the management—she consumed large numbers of them on the spot and took away the rest to eat at home. Her lithe and perfectly muscled body seemed impervious to the huge intake of sweets, bread, cheese, pasta, and wine of which she was capable. Soap, shampoo, and skin unguents weighed in her judgment as well. She liked large cakes of soap and pouted if I unwrapped a large soap. It’s a waste, she would tell me, you won’t be here long enough to use up even the smallest soap. And if you do, the chambermaid will bring another one. Léa would pack the loot in her huge pocketbook, which, if she was to spend the night with me and then go directly to the magazine, contained, in addition to her address book, a full-size desk calendar, hairbrush, and comb, as well as jeans and a black turtleneck sweater to take the place of the white crêpe de chine blouse with plunging neckline and the tiny black velvet or silk skirt she would have worn to dinner.

  I took a short nap late that afternoon. Afterward, I went down to the bar. Resisting the blandishments of my friend the bartender, I had only one martini. Having finished the drink, I asked him to hold a corner table. I also checked on the restaurant. The table was all right; we would sit side by side on a banquette. Normally, I dislike that arrangement, preferring to look at the person I am talking to—even if it is a young woman— over real or imagined physical intimacies. But not that evening. Then I went back to my room and gave an unaccustomed amount of thought to what I would wear. This would be what Lydia called a grown-up dinner, which meant I shouldn’t dress like an artist. That ruled out the ratty tweed jacket she had already seen me wear three times in a row. Fortunately, I had packed what the occasion called for: a pin-striped suit. It fit me well and didn’t need to be pressed. I had the right necktie to go with it, and a cream-colored shirt that also fit, I suppose because it dated from the days before I began, in the interest of economy, to have my shirts made in Hong Kong. Incidentally, the first generation of those shirts was just fine and I would have recommended the shop to you. It was only later, without my having lost weight, that they began to hang on me as though on a scarecrow. Just look at the one I have on
right now. It’s loose at the neck and too full across the chest. That is why it wrinkles in this bizarre way. You might ask why I haven’t had the pattern adjusted by the Hong Kong fellow. It’s a good question. I suppose I prefer to leave bad enough alone. The Chinaman might take revenge by making up shirts that are tight, and I detest that, or with sleeves that are too short. Sleeves that are too short are somewhere near the top of my list of bêtes noires.What else is on the list? So much that if I were to tell you, there wouldn’t be enough time left for my story.

  North laughed at his own joke. I managed a smile.

  To get on with the story, said North, my toilette finished, I took a stroll around the place Vendôme. The days were already long and the sky had not yet turned dark, but a three-quarter moon peeked from behind high clouds like an old cocotte. Worries about Lydia, misgivings, impatience with the time— to say nothing of the money—that I was wasting on a silly adventure with this girl had begun to oppress me, as did the thought that instead of having dinner with her and whatever tasteless proceedings might follow, I could be seeing Bérénice performed practically next door, at the Comédie Française. Perhaps under the influence of the beauty and grandeur all around me, these thoughts gradually gave way to exhilaration. This is a prank, I told myself, a harmless prank, just the sort of escapade you need. When you begin to think that your books are pointless exercises of a certain skill you happen to have, you are allowing your critical judgment to be distorted by boredom, by your stale bourgeois routine. Up at seven-thirty, because Lydia must get to the hospital and you had better get to your writing table and squeeze some pages out of your poor head, lunch at the Chinese restaurant down the street from your office or, if Lydia can get away for three-quarters of an hour, at the delicatessen two blocks from the hospital, after lunch read and answer the absolutely important letters or write three more pages of text, most nights late dinner with Lydia at home, and then to bed. With Lydia. Make love to Lydia. Unless the roof has fallen in at the hospital, you spend the weekend in East Hampton. Alone with Lydia. Drive home to the city on Sunday night with Lydia, and da capo.The boredom may be affecting your work as well. When do you break out of your routine? Rarely, and then Lydia does everything she can to be with you, which is very nice but keeps you from real contact with anything outside this world made for two. Perhaps whatever comes of this girl will be the shock you need to restart your system. It’s true that you can’t go to see Béréniceany night you please, but you can read Racine tomorrow morning and every day of every week. Can you fuck Léa any night you please? No. Does one need to see Bérénice onstage? Not if one has seen it performed at least once, with a decent cast, which you have. In that case, the little theater in the head can serve quite nicely as you sit in your chair and read the immortal lines. Is it necessary that you fuck Léa? No again, but, however it goes with this girl, you will have a memory to nourish and revisit. How long has it been since you had a secret memory like that?

  The voice of temptation was persuasive. I rushed back to the hotel, emptied myself, and inspected the bedroom. The chambermaids had put out those odious terry-cloth slippers that I take to be a monstrous amenity intended for Japanese guests. Why they have to be inflicted on the rest of us I do not know. I threw them into the closet along with mint chocolates and the weather forecast that had been placed on the pillows. Even the breakfast menu seemed to strike a jarring note: it spoke of an orderly and unromantic progress to bed. Such as an old married couple might enjoy. Or lovers so accustomed to their trysts that ordering breakfast is the first thing they think of when they enter the bedroom. I stuck it into the desk drawer.

  She was not very late that evening. A mere fifteen minutes. She explained that she had hurried so as to be on time, but imagining that I would want her to change for dinner she went home from the magazine and then, of course, there were no taxis, not even in front of the Lipp. Did I like what she had on? Yes, I did. It was a skirt as short and as tight as the one she had worn when I saw her at the Lalondes’, but it was black, the color I decided went best with her skin and her hair, and one of those crêpe de chine tops I have already mentioned. A long string of beads filled her cleavage. I was sure that her breasts were hard, but even so she wore one of those bras that push them up. Perhaps it was really intended to cover her nipples, which would have other wise shown through the fabric like large brown buttons. She gave me her new draft and, while she drank a glass of champagne, I read it attentively. I had realized that she was very serious about her writing and that my comments had better be precise. I read slowly, because she was looking over my shoulder and I liked the warmth of her arm against mine and the smell of her perfume, which oddly enough was not the same as the one she wore the night before. I thought I recognized lilies of the valley. When I asked, just to see whether a personal question would anger her, she said, with a smile I found encouraging, that she varied her perfume according to the occasion. The other perfume made her feel old.

  I was relieved to find that the article was really very good. I told her so, and added that the excessive praise of my work was a matter to be resolved between the writer and her editor. I wasn’t going to complain. But she’s your biggest fan, Léa blurted out and blushed. As we talked over dinner, the impression I had formed at the Flore, that she was intelligent, was solidified. I noticed, however, an oddity in her speech: When she talked about her work as a journalist, she was articulate and enunciated words clearly. As soon as she began to speak about personal matters—for instance, in the next sentence, when she was telling me about her studio, which I must visit, and her paintings about which she wanted to know my opinion—she became nearly incoherent. Words were half swallowed or mumbled. Often I simply didn’t understand what she was saying. It occurred to me that perhaps she had overcome a speech defect, but only in certain contexts, in this case, her job, the way a stutterer can learn to make a toast without stumbling but has trouble asking you to pass the salt. I wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter. My desire seemed to grow with every oddity I discovered.

  She was not a picky eater; in fact, we both found the menu of the restaurant at the Ritz a touch too newfangled. The desserts consoled her, as did the wine, of which she drank more than I. I listened intently as she mumbled about vacations and her brilliant older brothers, and spoke with great authority about Georges Perec, only one of whose books I don’t detest. All the while, I worried about my next move, which had to come soon, since we were about to be served coffee. I did not dare to say anything on the order of, Look, I want you, what do you think, shall we go to my room? So I tried what must be the oldest trick, of the sort that proved to Lilly Leffingwell that I was a jerk. I had kept a chaste distance from her on our banquette, and, contrary to habit, gesticulated with my right hand to emphasize whatever idiotic statement I was making. While she replied, I would let my hand rest peacefully on the plush between us. During a moment of quiet I felt her hand touch mine. I did not stir. Instead I asked whether she would like a cognac. Oh yes, she would, she told me and, as though to confirm her enthusiasm for the decision she had just made, allowed her hand to cover mine and to caress it. This called for a new initiative. I touched her knee with mine, and to make sure she understood the contact was intentional, I pressed harder and turned my face toward her when I noted that her knee had not withdrawn. She responded with a look that I read as submissive.

  What followed, after more coffee and another glass of cognac, was not the orderly seduction I had anticipated, based on my ancient exploits, and which is the sort of thing you would have found all too often in my novels if you had read them: The lady is shy and nervous about anyone—particularly the concierge and his minions—seeing her go upstairs with the protagonist. They negotiate that perilous passage safely. In the elevator, mindful of surveillance devices, they stand side by side, but stiffly and not too near each other. He doesn’t even hold her hand. The elevator door opens. It’s his floor. Immense relief! No cart loaded with towels, sheets, and toilet paper
warns of a housekeeper’s imminent appearance, not a chambermaid or bellhop anywhere in sight. Now they hold hands; still holding her hand, he raises his so that he feels the outline of her breast. They reach the room. He takes the purse and the shimmering evening shawl from her trembling hands and puts them on an armchair. They kiss. She opens her mouth and moans. As the kisses grow more passionate, she bites his lip. Hard. He dislikes being marked, so he breaks the kiss and begins to fondle her breasts, at first delicately through the silk of her blouse, as if only to learn their shape and heft, and then, when he has lifted them out of the bra, almost brutally. Her narrow skirt is a hindrance. He drops to his knees. She leans back against the armchair and, with a sigh, opens her legs just wide enough for his right hand to explore her while the left hand is busy with the nipple of her right breast. Another moment, and he has pushed her skirt up over her hips so it is no longer in the way, her panties and stockings are at her ankles, she thrusts her pubis at his fingers, lips, and tongue. He undresses her. Waiting, face pressed against the pillows, she curls up on the bed. Her behind, white unlike the rest of her suntanned body, is a provocation. He bends over it and finds he is welcome. In great haste, he throws his clothes on the floor and returns to her fully opened body.

  Did you enjoy that description? North asked me abruptly. Yes, I replied, but I guess hardly as much as you.