But this time she didn’t wait, it’s very unusual for her not to wait, for her to have got to Saint-Germain so quickly.
‘Obviously you’re going to visit her!’
It’s what he was hoping to avoid, why did I ever bring up visits? ‘You’re going to visit your trollop.’
Didn’t waste time getting to the crude abuse.
‘You’ve been back there already.’
Chin starts to tremble, sob in the throat, she chokes it back, and to restore her voice she clears her throat and then snarls:
‘Your whore!’
Straight into the tantrum.
‘Does a good blow job, does she? The whore!’
She’s angry, for God’s sake don’t say ‘calm down’.
Say anything except that. Let the first squalls pass over.
‘And your whore will do anything you want!’
This word ‘whore’ is new from her, maybe she’s got mad just so she can test it. She threw the braces in his face left-handed, she missed and they land on the floor at the foot of the bed.
‘She paid you, the whore, you’ve been back there, don’t lie to me!’ A fine display of sobbing follows, jealous recriminations, body shaking, tremors, lulls, obscenities, she whips up her unhappiness with obscenities, catches her breath, the other woman isn’t a whore, she’s more the high society type, but it’s her misfortune to be The Other Woman, not Another Woman, there are others and Muriel never says anything about them, the one in Moscow for instance, she knows about her, even that her name is Vassilissa, but she says nothing, acts as if she didn’t exist, she doesn’t want to give the impression that she knows, but this Other Woman, the one in Saint-Germain, dates from before her time, a friend of hers actually, she hates her, de Vèze hasn’t been back to see her and it wasn’t she who bought him the maroon braces, that was Vassilissa, but he doesn’t want to make an issue of it.
The danger with tears is that she might go weepy on him, calm down, sigh, jiggle her legs about, pester him, she’s quite capable of playing up in the most unsubtle way, to make him late, because she is more important than anything else, to ensure that de Vèze is unable to manage anything more than short visits, the very thought makes de Vèze angry, he breathes a sigh of regret and just says:
‘Needs must…’
That’s good, just the right amount of impatience in the truncated platitude to make him insufferable, it’s my only chance, she has to think I’m insufferable, but she didn’t calm down, anger and desire jostled together, as much was visible in the way she looked at him, her unhappiness was seductive as she knew very well, de Vèze remained firm, he picked up his braces, his shoe wasn’t far under the bed, his visits, he should never have said anything about the visits he had to make that afternoon, a mistake, absolutely routine visits, but a mistake.
‘You’re just a coward, all this pretence for a whore, oh, just go!’
She will never forgive him for her descent into vulgarity, she, a distinguished university professor, wife, ex-wife, of a leading light at the Collège de France, normally so refined.
De Vèze managed to get away, he’ll never understand why she is jealous, she never asks him anything about what he gets up to when he goes abroad, but the moment he’s back in France he’s not allowed to speak to another woman, he said nothing, he left without trying for a parting shot.
‘A remarkable officer, Henri old man,’ said the Minister as he introduced the plumber with the cockerel strut, ‘and a great expert on matters of interest to us.’
An expert, in other words a tool, thinks de Vèze, not much good will come from this meeting, they didn’t haul me back from Moscow so I could have a three-way chat with an expert like him, French interests or no French interests, God! wherever you go there’s the same nauseating atmosphere, whether it’s the Quai d’Orsay or the Élysée or any of the ministries; since getting back from Moscow de Vèze has not succeeded in having one serious conversation with any of his old colleagues, all he’s met are edgy types, shiftier than usual, the smell of fear.
And the more scared they are the higher their rank, two of them, men he’d fought alongside during the war, accepted his invitation to dinner only to cancel at the last minute. De Vèze had never known anything like it, not even in the darkest days of Gaullism, during the generals’ putsch, it’s as if I’ve got the plague, and they’d been adventurers together!
The only one who came, not to greet him — in the Quai d’Orsay everyone says hello to everyone else — no, the only one who lingered longer than the thirty seconds demanded by etiquette and had, as they say, struck up a conversation, was Xavier Poirgade, he was coming down the great staircase as de Vèze was arriving, Poirgade, the grey diplomat, they’d known each other for over ten years, they’d met in Singapore, the least adventurous of diplomats, nowadays he’s not even a diplomat, he left the Foreign Office to direct an institute for strategic studies at ten times the salary, Poirgade’s got a good head on his shoulders, with his little beard, grey suit, manicured hands, has all the time in the world to chat pleasantly at the head of the great staircase with a man who’s got the plague, does it because he likes to provoke, so pleased to see you again, Mr Ambassador, peculiar atmosphere, don’t you think? A little tête-à-tête, people walk up, walk down, stare at them.
Poirgade stares at the starers, head tilted back, index finger under his chin, a defiant stance that says I refuse to allow the fact that de Vèze the bruiser is in a pickle to make me look like a poltroon in public, the Ambassador is wearing well, that little green ribbon in the lapel keeps a man young, he doesn’t like me but he’s happy to have me on hand so that he can be seen on the great staircase, I can’t stand his sort, a skirt-chaser, a show-off, a big mouth, serve him right this business is catching up on him now, albatross around his neck, won’t be long before he’s all washed up, got to be nice to the flotsam so they last longer, I loved the interview you did for Le Figaro, Mr Ambassador, you won’t have pleased everybody by reminding them of the Atlantic and the Urals, but really first-rate, enjoy it while you can, Excellency, you’re nowhere near getting yourself out of the mire, you know, I’m younger than you, I never knew those days, not as an adult, but I agree completely with you, I support your ideas unequivocally, you have no idea how far I go to support you, Sexcellency, I support you as the rope supports the hanged man, and I am prepared to be so supportive as to untie the rope just as you’re about to choke, but only so that I can pull it tight again.
De Vèze doesn’t like Poirgade, he has ‘I can talk to you because I’m above suspicion’ written all over him, Poirgade tells him: look at these people, they say hello but when they walk past they stay close to the wall, they scuttle, de Vèze could have stayed silent, he’s going to be late for the Minister, but he can’t resist adding a word about his comrades from the days of that Great Adventure who are now making themselves scarce, do you remember, says Poirgade: ‘The Great Adventure is buggered!’ shows we’re getting old, must have been a dozen years ago, I reckon? De Vèze remembers very well, the dinner in Singapore and over the meal the exclamation, the last word, at the time he didn’t give a damn, ‘The Great Adventure is buggered!’ words spoken by a drunk, and today the fear is everywhere, old companions backing off, de Vèze can’t stand Poirgade and yet here he is speaking to him in confidence, the weakness of his old companions who are ditching him, why are you telling him all this? you’re a coward too, you’re only talking to this grey diplomat because he dares to be seen with you in public, a beard which just circles his mouth, like a monkey’s bum, you never did like the man.