how everything I do with them, with these women I find, or who find me, from time to time - and particularly most recently with one I call Opera-tottie - how everything I do with them is an attempt to
make them repeat
what I did with
her
and she with me those halcyon days of three years ago, and Iâm talking of course about the fourth floor of the Hotel Racine in Rheims where we did everything and said we would love each other forever. Yes, yes, we went that far, and the curious thing was how we both really meant it and knew it meant nothing. All this must be taboo between Colin and myself, indeed is the difference between Colin and myself, is what is left of my self-respect.
At least we could ask her straight up, Colin says determinedly. I mean, ask her if she told him anything.
Vikram Griffiths has his fingers behind his neck, rubbing up and down intently. Dimitra turns to look up the aisle to check that
she
is still in her place, and Iâm struck by how completely unpleasant I find Dimitra, unpleasant in her busy busyness, the denim jeans, denim jacket, and in a sort of righteous truculence that glowers even under the brightest Greek smile and lipstick. What would it be like to fuck Dimitra? Daffy-dog has his wet nose in her crotch now. And why do you always ask yourself this question even of a woman you find so unpleasant? As if you were under orders somehow. As if in this controlled environment you had no control at all.
Then with that extraordinary smoothness he has, Georg says, lightly, that all this is distasteful and that it is a mistake to start naming names. What sort of example are we setting for the students who have come to support us and who want to see us united and helping each other, and showing group spirit, not fighting amongst ourselves? If thereâs a spy, then let him or her be, thereâs only so much harm they can do. Isnât there? We have nothing to hide.
Georg is right, or at least extremely persuasive, and above all
pacato
, as the Italians would add, which is as much as to say even and reasonable and calm, such admirable qualities. As
she
too wasÂ
pacata
, I remember, when saying almost the same thing to me: what did it or could it matter if there had been a betrayal, so long as we were so happy together? What difference did it make, what harm could it do? she demanded. Why should she tell me who it was? Why should I care to know the name? So that it wasnât so much the fact that she confessed, quite unnecessarily, what had happened that bewildered me, as that
she didnât see it as a confession
, she didnât perceive it as a problem. She was principally mine, she said, as I well knew, it was only - and really she was just trying to explain, not to apologize - only that there had been all those times, hadnât there, when she hadnât been able to see me because I was married and had a child and had insisted for so long on keeping up appearances so that inevitably â¦
She said these words to me in French, but I recall them now, and have recalled them if once a thousand times, in English, suggesting how quickly one makes things oneâs own, how everything that is said to you is as much your hearing of it as their saying. For indeed everything she said to me she said in French, or Italian, and ninety per cent of it I remember in English (though I believe it is what
sheÂ
said that I remember).
But what galls me now is that perhaps she was right about this. Perhaps she was right and had I behaved differently, one way or the other, I could at least have had something, or perhaps everything, I wanted, if only I had known or decided what that was (unless it was the not knowing that I wanted, the delirium of the impossible decision?). Yes, had I left home immediately our affair began, I could surely have had her, and had I let things ride a bit more and not been so intense and jealous, then I could still perhaps be married, even happily married, or at
make them repeat
what I did with
her
and she with me those halcyon days of three years ago, and Iâm talking of course about the fourth floor of the Hotel Racine in Rheims where we did everything and said we would love each other forever. Yes, yes, we went that far, and the curious thing was how we both really meant it and knew it meant nothing. All this must be taboo between Colin and myself, indeed is the difference between Colin and myself, is what is left of my self-respect.
At least we could ask her straight up, Colin says determinedly. I mean, ask her if she told him anything.
Vikram Griffiths has his fingers behind his neck, rubbing up and down intently. Dimitra turns to look up the aisle to check that
she
is still in her place, and Iâm struck by how completely unpleasant I find Dimitra, unpleasant in her busy busyness, the denim jeans, denim jacket, and in a sort of righteous truculence that glowers even under the brightest Greek smile and lipstick. What would it be like to fuck Dimitra? Daffy-dog has his wet nose in her crotch now. And why do you always ask yourself this question even of a woman you find so unpleasant? As if you were under orders somehow. As if in this controlled environment you had no control at all.
Then with that extraordinary smoothness he has, Georg says, lightly, that all this is distasteful and that it is a mistake to start naming names. What sort of example are we setting for the students who have come to support us and who want to see us united and helping each other, and showing group spirit, not fighting amongst ourselves? If thereâs a spy, then let him or her be, thereâs only so much harm they can do. Isnât there? We have nothing to hide.
Georg is right, or at least extremely persuasive, and above all
pacato
, as the Italians would add, which is as much as to say even and reasonable and calm, such admirable qualities. As
she
too wasÂ
pacata
, I remember, when saying almost the same thing to me: what did it or could it matter if there had been a betrayal, so long as we were so happy together? What difference did it make, what harm could it do? she demanded. Why should she tell me who it was? Why should I care to know the name? So that it wasnât so much the fact that she confessed, quite unnecessarily, what had happened that bewildered me, as that
she didnât see it as a confession
, she didnât perceive it as a problem. She was principally mine, she said, as I well knew, it was only - and really she was just trying to explain, not to apologize - only that there had been all those times, hadnât there, when she hadnât been able to see me because I was married and had a child and had insisted for so long on keeping up appearances so that inevitably â¦
She said these words to me in French, but I recall them now, and have recalled them if once a thousand times, in English, suggesting how quickly one makes things oneâs own, how everything that is said to you is as much your hearing of it as their saying. For indeed everything she said to me she said in French, or Italian, and ninety per cent of it I remember in English (though I believe it is what
sheÂ
said that I remember).
But what galls me now is that perhaps she was right about this. Perhaps she was right and had I behaved differently, one way or the other, I could at least have had something, or perhaps everything, I wanted, if only I had known or decided what that was (unless it was the not knowing that I wanted, the delirium of the impossible decision?). Yes, had I left home immediately our affair began, I could surely have had her, and had I let things ride a bit more and not been so intense and jealous, then I could still perhaps be married, even happily married, or at
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