As he sat down de Vèze’s foot encountered another, he couldn’t tell if it belonged to Malraux on his right, or to Max or even to the young woman sitting opposite him, he said sorry, very quickly, without looking at anyone in particular, no one reacted, they were served lobster mayonnaise, the pink diplomat looked startled, de Vèze has forgotten his name again, he remembers that the grey diplomat with the monkey-arse beard around his mouth is called Poirgade, Xavier Poirgade, Xavier suits him, suits his inflexible outlook, already one of our major strategy experts so the Consul told him, he is very well-connected in Paris, sometimes too close to certain American positions, an Atlanticist, but he has the ear of many people, the Consul raises his right hand to the right side of his face, palm slightly upturned, the pink diplomat’s Christian name, it would be amusing, a less rigid sort of name, to complement ‘Xavier’ — Jean-Philippe, Jean-Jacques — de Vèze doesn’t remember.
The pink diplomat stares at his mayonnaise, he should have known, here we are in the middle of Asia and the Consul decides to serve dinner à la française, and you give us lobster mayonnaise, why not give us pan bagnia while you’re about it? afraid of Asian cuisine, there must be a halfway house between lobster mayonnaise and roast puppy with honey, but who around this table except me knows anything about good eating? Not the Consul, he’s not eating anything, mostly he just puffs on his pipe and dyes his eyebrows and plays out time while waiting to be promoted to ambassador, nor his wife who is anorexic; Malraux? he’d be happy running on Pernod right through to the dessert; the young couple? not yet; the Ambassador at Rangoon, this de Vèze, probably scoffs tinned monkey when he’s by himself to help him remember Bir Hakeim; and as for the esteemed Xavier he can’t stand mayonnaise, yellow dribbles on grey silk, horrid thought, I wish he’d drop some down himself, this mayonnaise is tasteless, they must have made the olive oil go further by adding ground-nut oil, and no one here to notice, and the lobster has no flavour, overcooked, you don’t get that aroma of iodine, it was a medical orderly who cooked it for sure, these people are only interested in words, instead of appreciating a meal they listen to a story and ask the limelight-hogging Max to explain that reform of the Royal Navy.
‘Very simple, children!’ says Max, ‘in 1933 the Admiralty ruled as follows: henceforth, the command “starboard” will mean that the helmsman shall turn his wheel to starboard so that the ship steers directly to starboard, like everybody else.’
‘Which put an end to the accidents,’ says the pink diplomat, to shorten Max’s peroration.
‘Except those caused by old habits,’ Max went on, ‘1942, the Argus, English aircraft carrier, the Med, convoy heading for Malta, three Italian torpedoes, off the port bow, if the ship holds its present course it will be hit, the answer’s simple, change course immediately in the direction of the torpedoes — to port — close the angle, the torpedoes will pass under the bows, the Captain has grasped the situation, not for nothing is he Captain of the Argus, pure instinct, he orders “hard to starboard”, that’s right, a slip-up, obtuse angle, the entire ship’s side, 230 metres long, it will be exposed to the torpedoes, shush! don’t speak, an English captain screaming orders, never been seen before, the helmsman panics, a pre-1933 reflex, puts the wheel over to port, and there you have it, the Argus veers to port, acute angle, torpedoes avoided, I love stories involving changes of direction.’
The conversation has reverted to the Americans, massive bombing of North Vietnam will never work, it works sometimes, says Max, it depends on the bombings but sometimes it does work, but only if you target civilians, they’ll never agree to that intervenes Malraux, Johnson ruled it out precisely because he knows it won’t work, he needs a failure, in his head de Vèze mulls over what he would like to say to Malraux, the day is ending, the sea-breeze, the yellow flowers, the young woman, behind her the trees slowly turn dark blue, no one dares ask Malraux why Johnson needs a failure, de Vèze hasn’t been as close as this to Malraux since the Liberation.
What he finds surprising is that Malraux seems to be taking an interest in him, out of the blue he has asked de Vèze, in front of the assembled company, in front of the young woman:
‘Tell me, de Vèze, Bir Hakeim…’
And the young woman has looked at de Vèze and smiled, how does she do it? only a modest neckline but so inviting, you feel you could slip your hand inside, any time, with every confidence, it would be the right move, neither aggressive nor shy, she’s expecting it, she’d be a teeny bit miffed that you should behave like this, but she’s expecting it, all you need is a manoeuvre to get you halfway there, hand suddenly very close, a few words away, but no pressure applied, just a stage, not like in the days of the first films you saw with a girl in the dark, when your hand settled on her shoulders in that relaxed, good pals sort of way, your hand was instantly shrugged off and that was it for that day, or else the girl let you do whatever and was ready for the rest without going through the good pals rigmarole, de Vèze had known one girl who had taken the hand he’d put on her shoulder and pressed it unambiguously to her breast saying now can we watch the film? Snatches of adolescence in the cinema, Morgan, Gabin, a few kisses, another time he and the girl canoodled and smooched their way through the entire picture.
He’d spent the rest of his youth in a Free French training camp and the films he saw then had been taken by movie cameras mounted on aeroplanes, he wanted to be a fighter pilot, but that took time, they sent him to Africa, but here, with this woman, she knows exactly what a hand on a breast feels like, the gradual approach is out, make a natural move, don’t come at her from below, still maybe start by stroking the material, no, go straight for skin, the grain of the skin, start high from the shoulder, but where should he be positioned? Behind her? No, facing her, both standing, after dinner, behind the trees, look at her, extend right hand, crook wrist, fingers out, go in down the cleavage, palm over the nipple, change angle of wrist, fingers pointing down, the whole breast in your hand, its weight, one single move, de Vèze thinks of the inevitable pear, pretty pears, but pears are too hard, they don’t say anything true about breasts, breasts shaped like pears, the whole breast in his hand, but you hardly squeeze at all and the breast swells in your hand, Moine’s wife in the restaurant, she wore a low neckline, bigger breasts, with your finger-tips you feel something beating, you are aware of being clumsy, it’s exactly what they expect, they expect you to be clumsy at such moments, for you are now entering a region in which all true knowledge is theirs, that of their pleasure, and they will run a mile from men who are too sure of themselves.
Or else do nothing with your hands, actually this business of dropping a right hand down inside a cleavage is pretty complicated, no, keep it simple, hands held behind her back, defenceless, drop head, kiss top of cleavage, the beauty spot, just a simple kiss, a stolen kiss.
*
‘I’m sure you’ll go on playing your part to perfection,’ Lilstein tells you, ‘because now you really want to be the character you’re playing, you always half wanted it, to send me packing, become like them, a man of the right, of the Parisian right, very chic, it’s like me, every time my secretary forgets something I act like a ruthless capitalist, but you, you would like to be a genuine reactionary with your feet under the table but at the same time you don’t want to end up resembling your own family, not all the time, so sometimes, as they say in English, you chop and change, or as we say, you dance at two weddings at the same time.