The Rendezvous (9 page)

‘How long are you staying in New York?' Amstat asked.

‘I don't know,' Terese said. ‘Bob and I only came back to spend a little time with Ruth and her husband; Bob prefers Boston.'

‘And you,' he said. ‘Which do you prefer?'

‘New York, I think. It's more my home in a funny way. Vera was quite right, you know, when she said that the Boston house is like a museum. I've lived there for fifteen years and I've never liked to move even a chair from its place. It's that kind of house, you see …'

‘I see,' he said. ‘But that doesn't excuse her being rude to you. Nothing would excuse that.' She looked at him with surprise; he had been so vehement, as if he minded personally about the stupid woman's insults. She had cared for Bob, because it was Bob's present to her which was being denigrated. ‘Don't take any notice of Vera,' she said. ‘She's nasty to everyone; half the time she doesn't mean it. We're all so fond of Joe we just put up with her. Perhaps she senses that.'

‘If I were your husband,' he said, ‘I wouldn't have her in the house. Your friend Dr. Kaplan may be a great psychiatrist, but he obviously can't choose a wife for himself.'

‘She wasn't always so unpleasant,' Terese said. ‘I expect all this is very odd to you, because I'm sure there's no race prejudice in Switzerland, but over here, you see, someone with a family like Vera's couldn't accept a Jew as a son-in-law. All sorts of people dropped them flat after they married. It must have been very hurtful.'

He didn't answer that because he couldn't. He had stood in the middle of a wood in Lodz, with the snow thick on the ground and the tree branches bending under its weight, obeying an order to have an entire Jewish community dig their own graves before his men machine-gunned them into the open pits. There was nothing he could say about prejudice against the Jews.

‘I hope you decide to stay on a while,' he said. ‘It would be so nice for me; you must remember I'm even more of a foreigner than you are.'

‘Oh, you're different.' Terese played with the coffee-cups, pouring out some for herself which he realised was too cold to drink because she put it down after one sip. ‘You've got a great career – lots of our friends have mentioned you – you're a bachelor in the most social city in the world. It's not the same at all with me.'

‘Why not?' he said it quietly. ‘You've given a list of all my advantages. What about yours? You're a woman, and beautiful; you have a multi-million-dollar husband and a museum in Boston all your own. You can't still feel a foreigner after all that. Besides, I've only been here six years. A lot of things are strange to me still.'

‘Yes,' she said, and now she looked straight at him and left the refuge of the coffee-tray. ‘But it's different, as I said. I'm the one who's strange, not the other way about.'

‘In what way?' Amstat asked her. They were very close on one of the comfortable upholstered sofas, and he had let his arm lie along the back of it. When she bent backwards her head rested against the arm. It was one of the few physical contacts between them, beyond shaking hands or her guiding him to show him the picture; they had brushed against each other leaving the dining room, and he had put his hand on her arm when he apologised. It was like touching a live switch. He had no idea whether she noticed anything, whether the current flowing so strongly out of every sexual nerve-ending in his body was strong enough to communicate itself to her. But there was something a little too relaxed about her; she leant backwards and let her hair brush his wrist, and stayed like that for some time, half turned and looking up at him.

He had never kissed her. He could remember holding her face between his fingers so hard that when he let go there were red thumb and finger marks on the line of her jaw. She had been crying then because she was so ashamed of her own body, and the betrayal it must lead her into, when his telephone rang, and the course of both their lives had split into completely different channels. Now by some extraordinary coincidence the two lines of existence had converged again in New York, twenty years later. He had never kissed her, and he wanted to do it, to find out what it was like. He repeated his question. ‘In what way are you the stranger? I don't see it.'

‘Oh, it's not important really. You know you're a very unusual person, Karl? I mean that quite sincerely. One day I shall probably tell you what I mean by “strange”. And I don't think I've ever talked about it to anyone before.'

‘I'd be flattered,' he said. ‘I think perhaps we might lunch one day – unless, of course, you go back quickly to Boston, or your husband objects to me taking you out?'

‘No to both,' Terese said. ‘We're in no hurry to leave, and Bob would be delighted. I can tell he likes you.'

‘So soon?' He looked across at her husband; he was laughing at something the psychiatrist had said. She was wrong, of course. The husband didn't like him, just as he didn't like the husband. Being an American he probably wouldn't dare forbid his wife something so innocent as a date to have lunch. It was a very curious society, all these rich people with their personal loves and hates, transforming everything into a problem with a capital P. You had a problem in your business, or a problem if you were too rich to need to work, because this was a breaking of taboo and you had to take up space and waste time going to some broker's office for part of the day. The women had problems when they grew older, because youth and sexual desirability were idols worshipped in every American woman's heart. As a place of refuge for so many millions over the last few centuries, America was the worst place in the world in which to fail, fall sick, get old or die, because then your problems had crystallised into the unforgivable sin. Failure. That was why he was safe and enjoying Bradford's superb brandy, with money behind him and people ‘mentioning' him as Terese had said. Because he had succeeded. But it could change. It could change with one big flop in design; within three months he would be as friendless as he was when he first stepped off the train at Grand Central. Within minutes people like these would be holding their noses and screaming for the police if they knew about the other thing. But they would never know. He finished his brandy, aware that he was a little drunk, or high, as these ridiculous people called it, their vocabulary a bastard version of every language spoken under the sun. A word from Italy here, or Germany, or Poland, Jewish words come into common use, English distorted until the same word could mean two completely different things. Yes, he was a little drunk. Not enough for anyone to notice; he had been watching that kind of thing for years and he would never lose the habit, or rather the inhibition, to really be himself in case some slip came out. But Terese knew who he was. Sitting beside him, bombarded like an enemy target with the neutrons of his unconcluded desire – she knew in some recess of her brain that Alfred Brunnerman was sitting there right in the middle of them, smoking a cigar and offering to take her out to lunch. And he would. He'd call and do it, because it was safe, perfectly safe. It was like having a doll to play with, secretly in a locked room.

‘Julia, have you seen the time? Forgive me, we've stayed far too late – I have a lot of work to do tomorrow morning before I go to my office.'

Everybody stood up and the party was over; he saw Vera Kaplan go up to Terese and kiss her; the custom nauseated him.

‘Darling, it's been such a lovely party. And I adore your picture – I really do!' Amstat saw Kaplan say goodbye; he too kissed Terese, but it was friendly, quite without guilt. There was nothing there; that wife was a fool as well as a bitch if she were jealous for that reason. And he was glad. He would have hated someone like Kaplan to touch her.

‘Goodbye, Terese.' She held out her hand to be shaken and he turned it palm down and kissed it.

‘Thank you for a wonderful evening. I will call you and perhaps we can have lunch.'

‘I'd love to,' she said. ‘Don't forget.'

‘I won't. Early next week. Good night.'

He and Julia drove back without speaking; she seemed in a good mood. Though she didn't talk, she turned and smiled at him, and when he drew up before her apartment she held out her hand.

‘Darling, come on up.' Her fingers twisted in between his, and, leaning forward she kissed him on the mouth. ‘Leave the car here; the porter can put it in the garage.' He didn't want to make love to her, but it was difficult to refuse. He didn't want a scene with Julia, or to break off with her. They had been lovers for a long time. When they made love it was very successful and she went to sleep beside him almost immediately. He didn't sleep, because he had been thinking of Terese Masson while he made love and the force of passion which had so satisfied his mistress was mentally expended upon someone else.

When all their guests had gone, Bob came up to his wife and kissed her. ‘It was a lovely party, darling, I'm only sorry that bloody woman took a crack at you. But you handled it beautifully.'

‘I can take care of myself,' Terese said. ‘I don't take any notice of her. I just feel so sorry for poor Joe, that's all. I'm tired, Bob, aren't you?'

‘We'll go to bed, then. We can have all the post mortems in the morning. By the way, that's a very pretty dress, I like it.'

‘Yes, I liked it too. I was just passing Bergdorf's this morning and I went in …'

There were a dozen cocktail suits and dresses in her closet; she normally bought twice a year from the Jacques Heim collections and that was the way she had shopped for clothes for the past ten years. She had never walked into a shop and bought an expensive dress, just casually like that. But that morning she had gone out and bought the dress specially for that dinner party.

Not to attract her husband or Joe, or compete with the other women, but because she wanted something new to wear so that Karl Amstat would think she looked nice. That was the reason for the senseless piece of extravagance, and the realisation shocked her. She sought safety in the one direction where it was always to be found.

‘Darling, do you like me in this? Really?'

‘Of course I like it, I told you. It's quite a sexy dress. You'd better buy there more often. That Amstat guy couldn't take his eyes off you all evening.'

They were in the bedroom; she was undressed and brushing her hair. She had begun to panic that he would want to make love to her because tonight, for some reason, she mightn't be able to pretend. He might realise that he had never pleased her, that his caresses were agreeable, even stimulating, but in spite of everything, her emotional virginity was still intact. ‘I'm exhausted,' she said. ‘I don't know why, really.'

It was such a clumsy subterfuge; it made her feel cheap as soon as she said it. And he deserved so much better, so much more than she had ever given him. She turned round and said, ‘Do you mind very much, Robert? Just tonight?'

‘You know me better than that,' he said. ‘Come on, sweetheart, stop looking so guilty. I'm pretty tired myself.' He put his arm round her in bed and kissed her. ‘It's not a crime, you know,' he said.

‘Most men would have a mistress,' Terese said suddenly. ‘Have you ever had one, Robert?'

‘No. You're all I need, or ever will. Just don't ask that sort of question again, will you, please?'

‘Don't be angry. I just feel such a failure sometimes. Darling, Karl Amstat asked me out to lunch one day.'

‘I'll bet he did,' Bob said. He laughed and they both relaxed. ‘Do you want to go?'

‘Not particularly, but would you mind if I did?'

‘Why should I? Or do you want me to be jealous and say I'll beat the hell out of the guy for asking?'

‘You don't need to be jealous of anyone,' Terese said. ‘Not of anyone, ever in our life.'

The next morning she took two phone calls, one from Vera which was short and the result of a row with Joe who insisted she rang up to thank the Bradfords, the other from Julia, which was long and unnecessarily fulsome, as if they were old girl friends. By mid-morning two dozen red roses were delivered addressed to Terese, with a card inside.

‘Thank you for a delightful evening. Can you lunch with me next Tuesday. Karl Amstat.'

She put the roses in a bowl and arranged them, knowing that she hated doing flowers. It was an American custom to send candy or flowers after a party. There was nothing unusual in that. She looked up her diary and found that Tuesday was free for lunch. She had known it without looking, but she made herself go through the motions, pretend that it was nothing out of the ordinary.

Lunch on Tuesday. It was very quick to follow up. He was Julia Adams' lover and she had noticed how much Julia seemed to be in love with him. They were both sophisticated, and their relationship was so very ordinary these days; people lived together and sometimes they married and sometimes they never got around to it. There was no reason why she should mind about it; no moral objection to account for her dislike of the idea. He was a very attractive man. He must be, she had even bought a new dress to please him. And she wanted to go out to lunch with him. She wanted to see him again, because he was amusing and charming – no, that was a lie, he wasn't amusing. He was attractive; she liked him. And there was no harm in it. There couldn't be any harm in having lunch. They could talk about architecture.

It was a small restaurant, about twenty-five miles out of New York City, in Banksville, the kind of place which was crowded at weekends. They drove there through the maelstrom of midday traffic, and down the narrow straight highway past Brooklyn Bridge. It was the beginning of spring and the countryside was turning green and yellow under a mantle of trees in bud. It was one of the sights of New York state, its beauty immortalised in a once popular love song, and Terese knew the restaurant very well. It was both exclusive and expensive. She had never been there on a weekday before and there were only four other couples there. She watched Amstat go up to the head waiter; he had a curious authority when he wanted something. He was the kind of man who got served first, who could come late and always find his reservation had been kept. He was very foreign, very un-American, when you watched him closely. They chose a table by the big bay window, where they could look out on the slightly undulating wooded view. There was no one near them.