by Louis Begley
The glories of the cathedral, including the stained-glass windows that were spared in the First and the Second World Wars, surpassed all my expectations. There reigned in it, however, completely unexpected, the cold of the lowest circle of hell. I had not brought warm clothes with me to Paris and felt each and every one of my bones, down to the very smallest, turn into ice. I don’t fall sick often. But already at lunch after the cathedral I knew it was coming, the chill, the fever, and the heat of Nebuchadnezzar’s oven. Léa at the wheel, we made it back to Paris, to the lovely and warm apartment, and the suddenly maternal Madame Marie, who set to preparing various restorative soups, none of which I wanted to touch for some days. I knew what I wanted: it was Léa, for immediately after that delirious and bibulous lunch I had discovered that to mount her cool and lithe body while mine burned was the fabulous converse of what I had experienced with Daphne and almost forgotten. Pierre arrived, summoned by Madame Marie, took one look at me, and wanted to pack me off to the hospital in Paris where rich Americans go to die. Not feeling quite ready for heaven, I refused, and we settled for suppositories supplied by his doctor. The fever continued unabated for almost a week, winning me respite from the film and Loss while I puttered around the apartment, the surrender to my passion for Léa quite complete. Also respite from calls to Lydia and lies I had been forced to tell her. I sent her a fax announcing that I had lost my voice and would telephone as soon I recovered it. Madame Marie’s disapproval no longer mattered. Léa dropped in to check on me during the day—sometimes more than once. Right away, we would bury ourselves under the covers of my sweaty, disordered couch.
North downed a fresh whiskey and soda, as though he were still in a fever. You think my behavior was crazy, he said to me.
I nodded.
You are right, I was half crazy, he said, from the fever and from the sex. All the same, in spite of everything that happened, I don’t think that I would give up that week with Léa even if I had the power to change the past.
A long pause ensued, after which he said: Among the innumerable book prizes that each fall occupy the minds of French novelists, publishers, book reviewers, cultural journalists, and literary hangers-on, to the exclusion of most other subjects, there exist two that are available for novels published that year in French translation. One is considered quite good. In truth, neither counts for much among the French who are in the book business, because they take little interest in writers who don’t write in French. It’s a case of perfectly reasonable endogamy that doesn’t necessarily interfere with the love of all concerned for foreign literature. I began to receive hints that The Anthillmight receive one of those prizes—though not the better one, because the fix was in to give it to an exiled Iranian novelist writing in Farsi. Since members of French literary juries usually work for publishing houses as editors or members of committees that select manuscripts for publication, rumors of fixes circulate wildly in Paris. Some claim that a jury must give a prize to the novel published by this or that house for no better reason than to even the score. In that setting, I was not surprised that the first hint should come to me from my own publisher: he would have been speaking to his member on the second-best jury. In fact, I imagined them devising together the winning strategy. The second hint came from Léa. It made me uneasy. To have this information about a second-rate prize, not exactly something on everyone’s mind at Vogue,I said to myself, she must be snooping, which means she is asking about my chances and so forth, which in turn means that she is showing her special interest in me. The frequency of hints accelerated. Also, now they were all about the better prize, not the second best. They became more specific: For instance, jurors X, Y, and Z were clearly for me; the only question was whether juror B could be brought over; what could be done to give him confidence that next time around he could count on X if not Y? Were we sure that juror D had an acquaintance with my oeuvre extending beyond The Anthill, which he had read in English as befitted a specialist in the Victorian novel and a biographer of Dickens? There were days when both my publisher and Léa had news to report, and it wasn’t unusual for Léa to be the first with juicy anecdotes that my publisher either had not heard or else had not bothered to repeat.
Finally, my publisher felt confident enough to suggest that, all things considered, I might want Lydia to be present when the prize was announced on Tuesday of the following week, because I would be receiving it. The way he put it suggested some possibility that he thought Lydia and I had broken up— and why would he think such a thing if it wasn’t on account of Léa?—or of some reluctance on my part to have her at the place of honor for the festivities. I told him I would telephone Lydia that very evening; unless her work made it impossible to be away, I was sure that she would be there. By that evening I meant midnight Paris time, which was the best moment to reach her at the hospital, in her own office. Having been to dinner at her parents’, Léa had just arrived at avenue Gabriel, and we had not yet made love. I found it difficult not to take her right away, especially since I could sense that she too wanted it, but I thought I had better talk to Lydia first. You probably think it was shameful to call my wife with my mistress at my side, and I suppose you are right, but compromises of that sort are forced on one by the difference in time zones. Besides, when I told Léa that I was about to telephone Lydia, she had a way of leaving the room without a word from me, so discreetly that I would not always be immediately conscious of her absence.
I believed that she had left the study that time as well. I was explaining to Lydia that my publisher’s celebration dinner would be a large affair but that it wouldn’t be particularly dressy, because tradition obliged us all to be astonished when the prize was announced. Thus, the dinner must seem improvised. Suddenly, I sensed Léa was in the study after all, but completely naked. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders in what she called her gypsy princess style. She was doing a sort of belly dance as she moved toward me, writhing and touching herself languorously on the breasts and between the legs. I gestured for her to leave the room; as you have had occasion to notice, my gestures are quite expressive. But she shook her head, knelt down in front of me—I had in the meantime stood up—and shifted her caresses to my dick. Keeping my voice under control, I said to Lydia that I had left the water running for my bath, that by now the bathtub must have overflowed, and that I would call as soon as I got the mess under control. I hung up. Léa had already opened my fly and was working on me, intent and concentrated. She finished and with hardly a pause asked whether I had really told Lydia I wanted her to be in Paris on the day of the prize. I asked how she could think it would be otherwise. She replied that she had thought that day was to be for her; for me and her together. I made no comment, and nothing more was said between us on that subject.
Once again, my friend fell silent. I sensed the imminence of another confrontation he was perhaps reluctant to describe. But who were the actors? Himself and Léa or Lydia? Or was it between the two women?
Receiving the prize, North told me, turned out to be a not-so-funny comedy in four acts. Act 1 was a lunch with my publisher at a Right Bank restaurant to which he also invited Lydia. His wife, my editor, and Alix, the head of public relations, were there as well. To my horror, said North, I saw that Léa, arriving late, was the remaining guest. I will return to Léa’s role in these festivities. We waited for the official news from the jury, which was having a more leisurely lunch while deliberating at Fouquet’s. Except that they weren’t deliberating; that too was just a part of the pantomime, good for the prize, though, because it builds suspense. Before coffee, a telephone call is made to the publisher of the book they have chosen, and the publisher together with the lucky author, who just happens to be at his publisher’s side, rush over to Fouquet’s in a waiting cab that just happens to have been ordered in advance. Act 2 was played in a private dining room of Fouquet’s, North told me, and asked whether I knew that institution on the Champs-Elysées.
I shook my head.
A wonderful relic of Parisian life between the two world wars, he said. Downstairs, it’s a café where gentlemen of a certain age, embonpoint,and income may sit on the terrace and eye younger ladies having their coffee or drink alone at a table. These ladies tend to be so well groomed and so dressed up that one is able to guess at a glance that this one is a manicurist, that one does facials, and the one near the potted palm sells ladies’ hats. One may turn out to be wrong, of course, any one of them may be a bonne bourgeoise,married to exactly the sort of gentleman who is ogling her. Upstairs there is a restaurant that serves standard good food in the brightly lit main room and in private rooms, like the one we were ushered into. At a table that had been cleared of everything but flowers and glasses of brandy sat the five jurors, obviously in the best of humors. Effect of the meal, the wine, and the cognac, or of the satisfaction of having agreed on the right novel? I was introduced by Xavier, kissed the hand of the sole female juror and was kissed by her on both cheeks, and then kissed the cheeks of all the others. Very sweet people, I must say, and authors of decent books. I had more or less expected the president to clear his throat and harangue me for a couple of minutes about the merit of my book before handing over some sort of diploma and an envelope with a small check, but nothing of the sort happened. Congratulations and kisses were all I got. Act 3 consisted of interviews in an adjoining but larger private dining room. All sorts of journalists, television cameras, and photographers. Alix, who arrived after Xavier and me, was the ringmaster. I don’t think I need to describe the circus to you. It was like all the circuses that you have seen. A longish intermezzo separated Act 3 from Act 4. It was played out at my publisher’s office. There I gave interviews that Alix had decided were important. I bared my soul to the elect, over coffee and scotch and sodas. Rather like here, don’t you think?
I nodded, and for some reason that made North laugh.
Intermission is over, said North. Act 4 is the impromptu dinner for two hundred guests or more at a not-quitefirst-class hotel. I had never been there before for any purpose, public or private. As I have told you, Lydia was at the lunch. Both at lunch and at the dinner, she was seated on my publisher’s right. Since the intermezzo was a solo performance by me, she told me she would return to avenue Gabriel and rest, and then work until dinner on a paper she was giving at the New York Academy of Medicine. A perfect plan, I said, I’ll pick you up there. Of course, I didn’t think this was a good plan at all; I didn’t want her to spend two hours or more alone with Madame Marie, but I didn’t see what I could do about it. My shock at finding Léa at the lunch, on my left, Xavier’s wife being on my right, was redoubled when she reappeared at my table for dinner, once more seated on my left. I found this bizarre and thought that the weight of Voguemust be far greater than I had supposed, unless there was a current or former great love, so far unknown to me, lurking within Xavier’s publishing house who arranged these things for her. Worse yet, I found Léa’s behavior appalling. When I introduced her to Lydia, Léa spoke to her in English though Lydia had addressed her in French, and Lydia’s French is flawless and elegant, which could not be said of Léa’s English. But in the same conversation Léa persisted in speaking to me in French, although in my exasperation I spoke to her only in English. After a moment of this, I realized why she was so insistent about speaking French to me: it was to be able to demonstrate our intimacy by using the familiar tu in every sentence, although I pointedly used the neutral vous.That was willful and unnecessary and unexpected in a girl as well brought up as Léa. She reached the summit of obnoxiousness, I thought, at the end of dinner, when Lydia and I were on our feet, receiving congratulations from quite a crowd, including many who were complete strangers. I found Léa at my other side, her arm under mine, leaning against me—to get the full effect you have to be able to visualize her cleavage—and saying to Lydia that she envied her, because she was married to the most desirable man in Paris. Then she corrected herself: in Paris, New York, and East Hampton.
What a marvelous evening, said Lydia when we left. I am very proud of you.
It had been pouring during dinner. The rain had stopped, but when we got to avenue Gabriel the sidewalk was still glistening. The air smelled of autumn and rotting horse chestnuts. Lydia wanted to walk a little. Afterward, she took a long bath. By the time I had taken my own bath, she had turned off her reading lamp. It was clear that she wanted to make love. I was surprised. She had come to Paris on the night plane, and it had been a long day. But I was relieved too, because she did not seem to hold against me whatever it was that Madame Marie might have told her or what she had inferred from the events at lunch or dinner. We slept late. I woke up first and waited very quietly until she opened her eyes. What a lovely room, she said when I drew aside the curtains. I asked whether she would like to have breakfast in bed—that was our habit when we traveled. Naturally she said she would, whereupon, in accordance with my arrangement with Madame Marie, I went to get it in the pantry where it was waiting with the newspapers. I set the tray in the middle of the bed so that it would be between us, and offered Lydia the Herald Tribune.The Figarowas bound to have an article about the prize and I was eager to see it. There was nothing wrong with it and I showed it to Lydia. She read it at once, squeezed my hand, and kissed me. A little later she asked why Madame Marie hadn’t herself brought up the lovely tray. Was it because I had told her to respect my privacy while I was still in bed? I laughed, and said she had seen right through me.
We were in a taxi on our way to the airport when she asked who Léa was. I reminded her about the interview and the painting I had put in my office. It was curious that she had forgotten. Of course, said Lydia, how silly. Such an energetic young person! She seems very fond of you. But then why shouldn’t she be? I replied that Léa must be taking her first steps as a literary groupie. There could be no other explanation for the fuss she made about a minor figure like me. That was a foolish thing to say, and Lydia made no comment.
The Paris shooting of The Anthillwas soon completed. I found myself more satisfied with the result than I had expected. I gave up the apartment on avenue Gabriel, said goodbye to Madame Marie, who accepted my large cash gift with stiff politeness, and returned to New York on Christmas Eve, glad to have left Paris and Léa. My relationship with her had changed. I was angry and made no attempt to disguise it. She was defiant. In our sexual encounters, we competed to inflict pleasure on each other. When she announced that one week before my scheduled departure she would leave for Megève to ski with her older brother and his family, I didn’t pretend to be disappointed. The truth is that I was glad.
North was silent while the waiter emptied the ashtray, took away glasses in which the ice had melted, brought fresh ice and clean glasses, and set out canapés. Then he spoke again.
I think you realize, he said, that I have brought you to a watershed in my story. The affair between Léa and me had been carefree in the main and on the surface harmless. It is about to take on another coloring. If I tell you truthfully what followed, which is what I would like to do, there may be moments when I will feel overwhelmed. We both need to gather strength. The food is mediocre here. But it’s harmless, if one sticks to the simplest offerings. Will you risk dining with me?
Of course, I answered.
Good. Then take a look at the menu. I know it by heart. Meanwhile, I will collect my thoughts.
I followed North’s lead and chose the sort of fare that any establishment with a name like L’Entre Deux Mondes should be able to prepare competently even with the chef asleep at the stove. Normally, I would have felt obliged to keep up some sort of conversation during dinner. But North had the distant look of someone deep in thought and I was reluctant to disturb him. We finished our meal in silence broken only by the orders he gave to the waiter with a peremptory precision that seemed habitual. Both of us took coffee. After the table was cleared he asked for a cognac. I declined to have one. I had decided to continue with the red wine until the bottle was empty, and o
nly then to switch to whiskey. I expected North to disapprove.
I wasn’t wrong. Shaking his head, he told me that too much red wine leaves one sluggish, not to speak of what it does to one’s girth. But suit yourself, he said. We have other things to talk about.
Thereupon, he pushed his chair away from the table and stretched out his legs. I suffer more and more often from cramps, he said, carefully massaging first one calf and then the other. That task accomplished, he made sure that the cigar on which he was puffing drew correctly and went on with his story.
From the beginning of the new year, time seemed to pass with such unaccustomed haste that I needed to consult my pocket calendar several times a day just to find my bearings in the week or the month. Lydia had been invited to speak at a nephrology congress in Kyoto about those sclerotic capillaries in babies and research into new forms of treatment which, if successful, would make dialysis unnecessary. This area of pediatrics was receiving increased international attention. She asked me to come with her. I knew that I should, and mostly I wanted to: she had been especially tender toward me ever since I returned from Paris. Often, her tact and gentleness brought tears to my eyes. Nevertheless, I couldn’t bring myself to say yes. For one thing, I really found it difficult to imagine giving up my work for ten or twelve days as the trip would require, even if we skipped all sight-seeing in Japan outside of Kyoto and Nara. That in itself was a problem, because I knew that she had her heart set on seeing the Inland Sea of Japan and the Japanese Alps. But she also wanted to go afterward to Taiwan to visit the museum in Taipei and to see the treasures that Chiang Kai-shek stole when he fled from the mainland. She was particularly curious about the Kang Xi emperor’s collections on account of her maternal grandfather, the husband of the lady she had loved so much and who taught her German. He had been a connoisseur of objects from that period and left many very good pieces to the museum in Boston. But the pressure of the tasks that lay ahead was bringing me close to panic. I was rewriting Lossalmost from scratch, moved by a reconsideration of the concessions and mutual accommodation that may be necessary in a marriage. On top of that, there was my new project. I had gotten along well with the director of The Anthill,and he asked me to try my hand on an adaptation of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda. That is a work I admire enormously, as much as her Middlemarchand Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend.For me, these are the three peaks of the Victorian novel; I would gladly enter them in a contest with the best of what was written at the time in French and in Russian and would expect any one of them to place, if not to win. Besides, I have always thought that Daniel Derondashould be filmed. It seems made for the camera, one scene after another. Take the bad couple—Gwendolen Harleth and Grandcourt. They have real Hollywood glamour. Of course it’s a frightful oversimplification to call Gwendolen bad; she is like one of those magnificent young women who inhabit the novels of Henry James—for instance Kate Croy— who would have been good if only they had inherited a little money. Grandcourt is my special favorite. I looked forward to the screen treatment of the breakfast scene with the dog. Just think of it: The innocent and quite beautiful animal is slobbering over Grandcourt with affection. Grandcourt considers the problem and addresses his loathsome toady Lush. “Turn out that brute, will you?” is what he says quietly, without raising his voice or looking at Lush. Lush complies at once. He lifts the dog, although she is heavy and he doesn’t much like stooping, and disposes of her somewhere. A beautiful example of economy in malevolence: the spaniel and the toady are humbled in one instant. Why would anyone, however decadent, want to humiliate a dog? You tell me. I didn’t want to miss the chance to do this film, even if the completion of Losshad to be postponed for some months, and I was obliged to work on it with less than my usual intensity, perhaps only a couple of hours a day. The thing was to keep at it. It is an incalculable risk to lose contact with a book you are writing. With each day of absence, you think about it less. Your grasp of the characters weakens. It may happen that when you finally return to them, you find yourself face-to-face with strangers. That’s when inconsistencies in psychology develop. Sometimes these off-the-wall new insights are really very good— valuable—and on rereading you don’t want to delete them. But in that case you become involved in tricky fiddling to make the inconsistencies fit.
