A Changed Man by Francine Prose

What’s wrong? Why didn’t someone call me?” In the early days of their marriage, when it turned out that Meyer wasn’t yet ready to give up the freedom he’d won at such cost, Irene used to confide her sorrows and jealousies in Minna. Everyone, including Meyer himself, had thought he would never get married. That was twenty years ago. Irene was almost forty, married to a multimillionaire businessman. She’d left Vienna just before Hitler, a different Europe from Meyer’s.
    “An aneurysm,” says Meyer. “They fixed it. She’ll be good as new. I meant to call you. I—”
    “Thank God.” Irene pauses, then looks down at her plate. “Thai soup with lemon grass. I wish you’d called. I would have waited five minutes.”
    There’s no reproach in Irene’s voice. She means what she says. She would have waited five minutes. With another woman, the ease with which she’s segued from Minna’s illness to the subject of dinner might indicate a shallow character. But that’s not true of Irene, who cares deeply about Minna and whose insistence on a good meal in the face of—as a charm against—illness and pain is part of the reason Meyer married her, and why they have stayed together. Meyer takes his seat at the far end of the table and looks across at Irene. He still thinks she’s beautiful, even if she doesn’t. If there’s one thing he would change about her, it would be her inability to accept her aging, the way Meyer tries to accept his. He knows it’s easier for men. Or so Irene tells him.
    Babu appears with another bowl of soup. Meyer thanks him, and Irene says, “Babu, you’re a genius.”
    Babu bows. “It is my duty.” For all Babu’s formal subservience, his role in the household is more powerful than he lets on. He’s Irene’s second in command. Together, they keep the complicated domestic machinery oiled and running. Meyer sometimes feels like the indulged child of two loving but distant parents.
    The soup is a tangle of cellophane noodles with basil and coconut milk. Irene knows that coconut’s bad for Meyer’s cholesterol. And she’s told Babu. Meyer realizes that Irene and the cook aren’t conspiring to kill him, but rather to give him pleasure. Meyer is glad that Irene isn’t one of those women who make you constantly aware of your diet, your health, your mortality. She’s careful, but she takes breaks in which they are free to enjoy themselves—and live.
    Not until Babu clears the plates does Irene ask about Meyer’s day. A weaker man might tell his wife about the Dickens letter and the unsold benefit tickets, wanting reassurance, needing her to say: You’re not a telescopic philanthropist, dear! And the tickets will sell. But Meyer keeps it to himself, taking satisfaction in the fact that, after all these years, he and Irene still make an effort to preserve their own, and each other’s, dignity. Perhaps it’s because they’re European. They haven’t bought into a culture in which it’s considered normal to confess your secrets on a TV talk show.
    Meyer says, “Irene, do you remember when those Iranians came for dinner?”
    “Of course.” The sit-down dinner for twelve she arranged. She probably still knows the menu.
    “Do you remember this one quiet guy, he didn’t say a word, a short guy with thick black glasses?”
    Irene won’t remember. Because now Meyer recalls that she spent the dinner chatting with the most handsome Iranian, the leader of the group and, as far as Meyer could tell, the biggest stooge and spy. Why should Irene care what he did in his own country? He made her feel young. Should Meyer have been jealous? They give each other latitude. Which also seems European.
    “What about him?” Irene says.
    “He’s in jail,” says Meyer. “In Tehran.”
    “That’s terrible,” says Irene. “Is there anything you can do?”
    Something’s slightly off. Perhaps on the way to the disturbing thought of the jailed Iranian, Irene’s been sidetracked by the