surprise, what she said was, ‘You know, darling, I think I ought to ring my sister.’
‘Of course, of course,’ he said, in his obliging and all-tolerant role. ‘Of course, should I go or stay?’
‘Stay, stay, of course,’ she said, restraining him, and he sat there while she rang England to beg for reassurance. She tried to conceal from him the extent of her suppliance, having been unable to allow him to leave the room in case he suspected worse, and when he heard her speak, he knew (she was right in this) that at least worse was not happening, there were no tears, no moans, no evident regrets. He heard it all, he heard her out, so close that he could touch her – which, when she put down the receiver, he did. She turned to his touch, and her face seemed to respond to his enquiry with the full measure of its possible, indestructible appeal. ‘Oh, they’re all right,’ she said, and laughed. ‘Of course they’re all right. God knows, a week of it won’t kill them, will it?’ She looked at him, and her eyes narrowed and fixed on him. ‘And if it did,’ she added, ‘I wouldn’t much care. Come on, let’s go and eat before everything shuts up.’
So they went down to the restaurant, and sat and stared at the menu: he had always believed himself the equal of any language, at least on the menu level, but German, amazingly,defeated them both. They thought they recognized the word for eggs, and the word for meat, but as she said, lowering her typed list, raising her eyebrows at him: ‘ What meat?’ Dangerous stuff, meat, she said: not in any way a safe bet. Eggs were better, she advised him: she chose eggs, but he, always rather ashamed of his interest in food (particularly when accompanying her Spartan tastes, for his wife at least in this, if not in other things, was more indulgent), rashly ordered a steak tartare. Neither meal, one would have thought, could have required much preparation, and they had expected to be able to eat it quickly and get to bed; but, alas, it did not arrive for three-quarters of an hour, allowing him time to reflect that he had, quite certainly, a temperature, that his throat was getting worse and worse, and that she, for all her apparent fidelity, must, after so long an affair, be sick of the sight of him, and was not waiting, as he fondly imagined, with an anxiety equal to his own, to feel his arms around her yet again. Characteristically, the last of these fears, being the only one from which any amusement could be extracted, was the only one that he voiced, and they filled the time quite agreeably by discussing whether or not she still loved him, whether he even admitted that she had ever loved him, what she had loved him for, and when she had started (supposing that she had) to do so; they embarked upon the theme of how kind they would have been to each other if circumstances had given them half a chance (a safe topic, for the alignment of circumstances against them was so formidable that they would never be expected to take on commitments more serious than those of the heart), and as they were explaining to one another their infinite resources the food, at last, arrived. The highly artistic arrangement of the steak tartare explained in part, he said, the delay: a good five minutes at least it would have taken, she replied, to lay out those enticing little piles of pepper and salt and onion, butwhat of the remaining forty? She winced at the sight of his raw egg.
When they finally got to bed, he was tired and aching in every bone. He collapsed and lay flat. She got in after him, having spent more time than usual (she was the least vain of women, punitively careless of her appearance) in combing her hair, and washing her face: and he knew what she was going to say.
‘You’re too tired,’ she said, getting in beside him, sitting high up on the round scroll of pillow, looking down at his limp form. ‘You’re too tired, my darling, go to sleep, shall I read to you? I
‘Of course, of course,’ he said, in his obliging and all-tolerant role. ‘Of course, should I go or stay?’
‘Stay, stay, of course,’ she said, restraining him, and he sat there while she rang England to beg for reassurance. She tried to conceal from him the extent of her suppliance, having been unable to allow him to leave the room in case he suspected worse, and when he heard her speak, he knew (she was right in this) that at least worse was not happening, there were no tears, no moans, no evident regrets. He heard it all, he heard her out, so close that he could touch her – which, when she put down the receiver, he did. She turned to his touch, and her face seemed to respond to his enquiry with the full measure of its possible, indestructible appeal. ‘Oh, they’re all right,’ she said, and laughed. ‘Of course they’re all right. God knows, a week of it won’t kill them, will it?’ She looked at him, and her eyes narrowed and fixed on him. ‘And if it did,’ she added, ‘I wouldn’t much care. Come on, let’s go and eat before everything shuts up.’
So they went down to the restaurant, and sat and stared at the menu: he had always believed himself the equal of any language, at least on the menu level, but German, amazingly,defeated them both. They thought they recognized the word for eggs, and the word for meat, but as she said, lowering her typed list, raising her eyebrows at him: ‘ What meat?’ Dangerous stuff, meat, she said: not in any way a safe bet. Eggs were better, she advised him: she chose eggs, but he, always rather ashamed of his interest in food (particularly when accompanying her Spartan tastes, for his wife at least in this, if not in other things, was more indulgent), rashly ordered a steak tartare. Neither meal, one would have thought, could have required much preparation, and they had expected to be able to eat it quickly and get to bed; but, alas, it did not arrive for three-quarters of an hour, allowing him time to reflect that he had, quite certainly, a temperature, that his throat was getting worse and worse, and that she, for all her apparent fidelity, must, after so long an affair, be sick of the sight of him, and was not waiting, as he fondly imagined, with an anxiety equal to his own, to feel his arms around her yet again. Characteristically, the last of these fears, being the only one from which any amusement could be extracted, was the only one that he voiced, and they filled the time quite agreeably by discussing whether or not she still loved him, whether he even admitted that she had ever loved him, what she had loved him for, and when she had started (supposing that she had) to do so; they embarked upon the theme of how kind they would have been to each other if circumstances had given them half a chance (a safe topic, for the alignment of circumstances against them was so formidable that they would never be expected to take on commitments more serious than those of the heart), and as they were explaining to one another their infinite resources the food, at last, arrived. The highly artistic arrangement of the steak tartare explained in part, he said, the delay: a good five minutes at least it would have taken, she replied, to lay out those enticing little piles of pepper and salt and onion, butwhat of the remaining forty? She winced at the sight of his raw egg.
When they finally got to bed, he was tired and aching in every bone. He collapsed and lay flat. She got in after him, having spent more time than usual (she was the least vain of women, punitively careless of her appearance) in combing her hair, and washing her face: and he knew what she was going to say.
‘You’re too tired,’ she said, getting in beside him, sitting high up on the round scroll of pillow, looking down at his limp form. ‘You’re too tired, my darling, go to sleep, shall I read to you? I
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