The Quirk (26 page)

Very civilized and adult. He wondered if she had been hiding a lot too. If they weren’t to be figures in a great romantic passion, it was nice to discover that she was more relaxed and easygoing than he’d realized. They exchanged lingering farewells, and he hung up and called Germaine. He was passed through servants, one male, one female, before the lady was on the line.

“Good morning, darling,” she said briskly. “I’ve been waiting for your call. Is it as heavenly as it looks?”

“Wonderful.”

“I’ve thought of the most perfect place for lunch. Nobody I know would dream of going. We’ll be the soul of discretion.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve told Nicole we’re having lunch together.”

“Never mind. It’s always a lark to be clandestine. Meet me at the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower. The food is excruciating, but it has a nice view. I’ll book a table in your name. About half an hour?”

“Fine.” He hung up feeling as if he’d been talking to a casual acquaintance with no sense of her being a woman he had been to bed with. So much for infidelity. Patrice was right as usual. He went out again into the balm of sun and was once more overwhelmed by beauty that had been hidden from him for months. His eyes were busy with the light effects that had caused this transformation and the color in what had been a misty monochrome landscape. He walked wishing someone he loved was with him, Nicole or Patrice or both of them, to share it.

Young lovers and Paris in the spring. Banal but potent magic. And he was off to lunch with a bitch whom he was going to try to con into salvaging his life. He doubted if last night’s lessons would mark her for long. Her invitation to lunch had sounded dangerously like a command. He had no intention of taking her to bed again unless she had something very good to offer in return. Unless. A whore’s thought.

Some of the bloom seemed to fade from the day. He crossed the vast open spaces of the Invalides, guaranteed to make even a megalomaniac feel uneasy, and followed the river, with the Eiffel Tower looming ahead of him. He wanted to turn back, run away from his meeting.

He experienced a strange massive slippage within himself, so physical that he stumbled and slowed down to recover an even stride. It scared him. He had known something was wrong. Everything in him was falling into a new precarious balance. Infidelity, his boy, money, his work, even love–looked at from a certain perspective–everything became trivial. He was filled with a sense of the futility of life. Little desires. Little fears. Little hops and ambitions. How could an artist transcend the general triviality of humanity?

He glanced up at the street sign. Quai Branly. The address on the prince’s card. The prince who was mad about him. Additional triviality. He came out into the Camps de Mars. The Eiffel Tower sat astride it, a contradiction in filigree power. Rod shrank from it; it was terrifying. In the distance he could see unusual activity in front of the Ecole Militaire. A number of police vans were drawn up, and a crowd was milling about. He wished they’d have their revolution and get it over with.

The unseasonable day had brought many people out as if they had been standing in the wings, fully mobilized, awaiting this call. The little ice-cream wagons were out, the balloon men, the children, and the mothers. It was a cheerful scene. He forced himself to see the gaiety in it.

The monstrous skeleton of the tower seemed to float just off the ground, lifted on a shimmer of pale sunlight. It straddled space like a huge mechanical beast. There was the beauty of impossible equilibrium in it, and he determinedly closed his mind to the menace he irrationally sensed in it. He wanted to suspend all the sensitive irrationalities of his senses. It was time to add a layer to the protective toughness that had barely begun to insulate him from the tough life around him. It was important to keep an upper hand with Germaine and beware of whatever danger Thillier represented.

Rod approached the foot of the tower reluctantly and took his place in the tilted elevator, alone with the operator. Gates clattered, the elevator trembled, and they ascended sideways across the sky.

The wide platform on which he was deposited was spliced into the sky. He hadn’t been in the elevator long enough to have risen so high. He was drawn irresistibly toward the edge. Paris lay far below him along the Seine. He caught his breath as giddiness plunged down through his stomach, and he was afflicted with a sense of the fragility of his human package. What did it all matter? One false move and it would all be gone–worries about money, worries about love, ambition, pride, determination. The void exerted a terrible pull. It was foolish to go on struggling when it would be so easy to stop. Giddiness rocked his stomach again, and he felt it unhinging his legs. With an effort he stepped back and turned away from the unsettling panorama. He stood for a moment to compose himself, feeling life take charge once more. He was getting really nutty, mooning over a low railing a mile up in the air. His heart was beating rapidly as he walked over to the entrance to the restaurant.

It was more elegant than he had expected from Germaine’s reference to it. His hand went immediately to his jacket pocket, forgetting that he was Germaine’s guest. He had brought only a few hundred francs. He supposed Patrice had taken charge of the stolen fortune for him. He was greeted by a mâitre d’hôtel in morning dress.

“You are looking perhaps for Madame Powers?” he asked in English.

Rod nodded. His attention was directed to a far corner of the big room where he saw Germaine silhouetted against a window, looking quite dazzling. In spite of himself he felt a little thrill of pride at having possessed her. She was dressed with stunning chic, but clothes couldn’t obliterate the memory of her as she had been last night. That she had been able to put herself together again so successfully was a small miracle. He approached her with a little swagger left over from his triumph over her.

“Well, there you are, cousin,” she said briskly as he stopped before her. Her eyes ran over him in quick appraisal. “Quite nicely dressed for a struggling artist. I won’t have to waste money on your clothes. If you leave me any.” She stirred about in the expensive litter she had created around herself–bag, gloves, jeweled cigarette box. “Here. Sit beside me. We’ll be tourists and gawk at the funny Frenchmen. My pocketbook will be within easy reach.”

The two references were fairly obvious. He was glad he didn’t have her money on him. He was still enough of a proper gentleman to give it back to her. “What’s that mean?” he asked as he edged in beside her.

“Oh, come, darling. You don’t really think I don’t know when I’m robbed do you?” she said. “It doesn’t matter. I’d have given it to you if you’d asked. I told you how I feel about paying once I know it isn’t a condition. I don’t mind at all. I’m really quite generous. There.” Her hand sought his under the table. He felt something being pressed into his palm. He started to pull away, but she was too quick for him. He had no choice but to accept the crisp paper left in his hand. He brought it up and put it on the table. Another 10,000-franc note.

“What’s this for?”

“Please, darling. Be a little discreet.” She looked quite flustered as her eyes darted around the half-empty restaurant. “It’s just to pay for lunch. Put it away for heaven’s sake.”

“Why can’t you ask for the bill and pay for it like anybody else?”

“Darling, you can’t expect a woman of my age to be seen paying for a young man’s lunch. Think of the way it would look.”

“I guess it would look as if you have more money than I have. Why didn’t you suggest going somewhere I could afford?”

“I would have thought you could afford almost anywhere today. But then it wouldn’t do for you to buy my lunch with money you stole from me. Now be a lamb and put that away.”

He did so, scoring the first round as a draw but pleased to have opened hostilities. He wasn’t going to make it easy for her to become a patron of the arts.

A waiter appeared before them, brandishing large cards. Germaine ordered authoritatively in a French way he didn’t like, adding sharp commands as to how the food was to be prepared and presented. It was knowledgeable in the way one might be knowledgeable about a machine. And for him it took all the pleasure out of eating. “Don’t you want to order the wine, cousin?” she inquired.

“No. You’re doing fine. Just make it two of everything.”

She finished her business with cards and waiters and took a cigarette from her box and handed him a small gold lighter that he dutifully operated for her. She blew smoke at him and smiled with a hint of the complicity of the night before. “It will all be quite dreadful,” she said, dismissing her efforts over the meal, “but we must keep them on their toes for the tourists’ sake. Wasn’t last night the first time you’d met Gérard Thillier?”

Rod’s attention quickened. “Sure.”

“That’s what I thought. How odd. He called a little while ago. He spoke of you–not exactly as if he knew you–I can’t quite put my finger on it–as if he knew a lot about you, I suppose.”

“He can’t possibly.” He felt that he must modify the force with which he had said it. “How so?”

“Well, he said what a coincidence it was meeting you, for one thing. He wanted me to make a particular point that it was very important for him to see you in the next day or two. I didn’t get the impression that it was necessarily about your work. Do you suppose he’s after you?”

“How do you mean?”

“Just that, darling. His reputation is quite lurid. I’ve heard things that have even shocked me. Have you ever heard of the
Cercle Vert?
”

“No,” he said, thinking of all the odd hints Patrice had dropped from the beginning.

“Well, you won’t hear about it from me. Ask Nicole. Green, I imagine, for Oscar’s carnation. A green club. She’ll tell you. She’s gone in more for the funny boys than I have. Come to think of it, why didn’t he call her if he’s so anxious to reach you? He knows her quite well. He must know she’s engaged to you.”

“I don’t know anything about it. Didn’t you talk about the big show?”

“Good heavens, darling. Did you think I wouldn’t after last night? I told him I’d definitely decided to back it whatever it cost. You see? You don’t have to rob me.” She dropped a hand to his thigh and moved it toward his crotch.

“If you’re wondering if my cock is still there, it’s all bunched up on the other side.” He shifted and opened his legs to make it more accessible. Doing so he stirred it to life; when she found it, it was no longer bunched up. “If you want a real grope, help yourself.” He unzipped his fly. He wondered how far she would play along with this shameless game. He felt her hand on his naked flesh. By the time she had freed it and lifted it out, it had begun to function on its own. “Carry on. A guy gets nervous if he’s left sort of twixt and between. He wants to make sure it’s going to go all the way.” He glanced at her as she caressed him. Her face was beginning to dissolve into the expression of blind hunger he had seen last night. He felt himself surge up in her hand. “That’s it. You’re holding a nice hard cock, and there’s nothing we can do about it. This is hardly the time or place to jerk me off.”

“How frightfully wicked of me. I’d love to see it.”

“I don’t know of any law that says a lady can’t look at her escort’s cock in a stylish restaurant. There it is.” He lifted the tablecloth and sat back, surveying the room to make sure they were unobserved. The hand on him did some interesting things, provoking a rigorous reaction.

“Gorgeous, darling. We’ll take care of it after lunch.”

“That remains to be seen.” He dropped the tablecloth. “Unhand me, madam. It can’t stay like that indefinitely, and I don’t want you to feel it getting limp.” She did as she was told. “Now then. We’d better talk about Thillier. I have a friend–I’ll tell you later.”

Waiters had arrived bearing dishes. They were held out for Germaine’s inspection. She nodded to them as if they were distant acquaintances. Plates were removed and replaced. There was a great whisking of napkins and brandishing of cutlery. Rod took advantage of the commotion to get himself back into his trousers. The sommelier brought up the rear. His bottle, too, had to be inspected, the cork removed, sniffed, and held out for Germaine’s approval. Food was put on her plate, a thimbleful of wine poured into her glass. They all stood back, side by side, in exquisite suspense. Germaine nibbled and sipped with regal indifference. Assured apparently that she wasn’t going to throw anything at them, the servants sprang into action once more around Rod. He expected them to start putting food in his mouth.

“Will you for chrissake tell them to go away?” he growled.

“
Ca va ca va,
” she said with a wave of her hand. They were immediately alone. “What were you saying about Thillier, cousin?”

“I’ve been thinking. I talked to a friend of mine this morning who knows him. He agrees with you that he’s pretty kooky. He told me he’d probably be after me, as you put it. I want you to hint that I’m interested. Push the show and tell him that I seem very anxious to get to know him personally. I can play games too.”

“Be careful cousin. From what I hear, Gérard is not a man to play with.”

“You let me handle this,” he said, thinking of Patrice’s warnings. “I want him to think that I’ve been mixed up with a boy, but I’m trying to get out of it.” This was for Nicole’s benefit, something he must remember to tell her. If Thillier carried any tales to her, she would think she knew the source. “I can play him along for a month or two, long enough to get a show on.”