“I just meant,” he said, “that should you ever want to give an interview, I’d be so interested to talk to you. You could talk about what it is to run such a successful business—”
“It’s not my business.”
“Oh, I’m sure that isn’t true. I’m sure you must—”
“No.” I leaned across the table to emphasize the point, tapped out each word with a fingernail on the tablecloth. “The business is nothing to do with me. Comprenez-vous?” Do you understand?
“OK. Well.” He looked at his watch. “The offer still stands. It could be . . . more of a lifestyle piece. On you as the quintessential Parisienne, something like that. You know where I am.” He smiled.
I just looked at him. Perhaps you don’t understand who you’re dealing with, here. There are things I have had to do to get to where I am. Sacrifices I have had to make. People I have had to climb over. You are nothing compared to all that.
“Anyway,” he stood. “I better be going. I have a meeting with my editor. I’ll see you around.”
When I was sure he had gone I called the waiter over. “The 1998.”
His eyes widened. He looked as though he was about to offer an alternative to such a heavy red in that heat. Then he saw my expression. He nodded, scurried away, returned with the bottle.
As I drank I remembered a night early in my marriage. The Opéra Garnier, where we watched Madame Butterfly beneath Chagall’s painted ceiling and sipped chilled champagne in the bar in the interval and I hoped Jacques might show me the famous reliefs of the moon and the sun painted in pure gold on the domed ceilings of the little chambers at each end. But he was more interested in pointing out people, clients of his. Ministers for certain governmental departments, businessmen, significant figures from the French media. Some of them even I recognized, though they didn’t know me. But they all knew Jacques. Returning his nod with tight little nods of their own.
I knew exactly what sort of man I was marrying. I went into the whole thing clear-eyed. I knew what I’d be getting out of it. No, our marriage would not always be perfect. But what marriage is? And he gave me my daughter, in the end. I could forgive anything for that.
Now, I pause for a moment on the landing outside the third-floor apartment. Stare at the brass number 3. Remember standing in this exact spot all those weeks ago. I’d spent the rest of the afternoon at the restaurant, drinking my way through the 1998 vintage as all the waiters no doubt watched, appalled. Madame Meunier has gone mad. As I drank I thought about Benjamin Daniels and his impertinence, about the notes, the horrible power they had over me. My rage blossomed. For the first time in a long time I felt truly alive. As though I might be capable of anything.
I came back to the apartment as dusk was falling, climbed the stairs, stood on this same spot and knocked on his door.
Benjamin answered it quickly, before I had a chance to change my mind.
“Sophie,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise.”
He was wearing a T-shirt, jeans; his feet were bare. There was music playing on the record player behind him, a record spinning round lazily. An open beer in his hand. It occurred to me that he might have someone there with him, which I hadn’t even considered.
“Come in,” he said. I followed him into the apartment. I suddenly felt as though I was trespassing, which was absurd. This was my home, he was the intruder.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked.
“No. Thank you.”
“Please—I have some wine open.” He gestured to his beer bottle. “It’s wrong—my drinking while you don’t.”
Somehow he had already managed to wrong-foot me, by being so gracious, so charming. I should have been prepared for it.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want any. This is not a social visit.” Besides, I could still feel my head swimming from the wine I had drunk in the restaurant.
He grimaced. “I apologize,” he said. “If this is about the restaurant—my questions—I know that was presumptuous of me. I realize I crossed a line.”
“It’s not that.” My heart was beating very fast. I had been carried here by my anger, but now I felt afraid. Voicing this thing would bring it into the light, would finally make it real. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
He frowned. “What?” He hadn’t expected this, I thought. Now it was his turn to be on the back foot. It gave me the confidence I needed to go on.
“The notes.”