all around and took our seats. The freshly minted husband pressed a cocktail menu on me and Dean, then miraculously caused a waitress to appear with our drinks.
I leaned back in my chair and felt—for the first time in a very long while—that all was right with the world.
A fist-sized cockroach climbed up over the baseboard, proceeding up onto the fuzzy red wallpaper.
“Charming little place,” I said. “You guys come here often?”
12
Christoph actually seemed like a decent guy, and interesting, both of which came as a surprise to me. He was probably twenty years older than us: slender, with the last of a summer tan warming his face and longish pale brown hair swept back to curl a bit just behind his ears.
The waitress placed a couple of plates of summer rolls on the table, their thin rice-paper wrapping aglow with the hues of shrimp and cilantro and chopped peanuts inside, and we were well into our second round of drinks.
“So we are importing these wonderful machines from Europe,” Christoph was saying to Dean, “but it is very difficult to teach the Americans to use them properly.”
My husband nodded, putting a roll on his plate. The rest of the food just sat there, more set decoration than sustenance.
Astrid, growing bored, laid a hand on her husband’s wrist.
“Darling,” she said, “Maddie’s a liberal.”
Christoph looked over at me with a wry smile, eyes crinkling up at the corners. “Really? How astonishing. You seem like such an intelligent woman.”
“Astrid has always considered my political worldview a sad flaw of moral fiber,” I said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever shared a meal with one of you before,” said Christoph. “Are you, in fact, one of these ‘Democrats’?”
“Quite so,” I assured him.
“This is remarkable! You must explain to me what this means. Do you, for instance, run about and plot to blow things up?”
“Mostly the patriarchy,” I said.
He nodded to Dean, grinning. “And you allow this?”
My husband shrugged. “These days one finds it necessary to foster the illusion of free will in women.”
Christoph laughed. “You Americans, really—such an amusing
people.”
“And you Swiss,” I said, “so very… Swiss.”
“Cuckoo clocks and chocolate?” he asked.
“I was thinking more of the memorial in this little park in Saanen, near Gstaad—a cannon, with a plaque on it commemorating an uprising throughout the countryside in the thirteen hundreds protesting the fact that the government in Berne had grown too liberal.”
“You know Saanen?” Christoph asked, surprised.
“My sister and little brother went to school there,” I said. “Charming village.”
Okay, so I wasn’t above trying to claim a bit of Euro cred as protective coloring. Pagan and Trace had gotten to ski the Alps daily; I figured I should end up with something as a consolation prize.
Christoph turned to Astrid. “Really, my dear, you have the most remarkable friends.”
She touched her throat. “Of course.”
He nodded to Dean. “You must come out to New Jersey with me sometime, to see my little company.”
We all shared a cab uptown, Christoph and Dean chatting about scientific stuff while Astrid pressed me to continue on with them to some new nightclub.
“Sadly, I have work in the morning,” I said.
“You’re writing, of course?” asked Astrid. “Forging the uncreated conscience of your race in the smithy of your soul?”
“Actually, at the moment I’m answering phones.”
She shook her head, face stern. “Maddie, for God’s sake, you’re an artist. I insist that you stop indulging in such distractions.”
I shrugged. “And our landlord insists on the rent.”
“A peasant,” she said.
“ Bien sûr.”
Astrid gave my knee a consoling pat. “ Courage, my sweet… ne désespères pas.”
She leaned forward toward Christoph, who’d claimed it was his pleasure, as the evening’s host, to ride up front beside our driver.
“Darling?” She snaked her hand through the little divider window, touching his hair. “Why don’t you bring this marvelous Dean out to New Jersey with you tomorrow? There’s really no point in our leaving for Southampton until Friday morning.”
Ten o’clock was agreed upon all around, as the cab pulled up in front of our building.
The four of us climbed out into the sultry evening for a round of doubled air-kisses—that display of affection Dostoyevsky described as the “gesture Russians tend to make when they are really famous.”
Astrid and I exchanged ours last, and she held on to my shoulders for a moment, whispering, “I do love you, Madissima.”
She’d let her guard down, just for that instant, and I realized I’d never heard anyone sound so fragile and alone.
Leaning in, I kissed her cheek for real.
“Do they ever eat?” asked Dean.
We