English country brought that side of it all back to me, and I was so relieved to be through and out.But I must admit I felt a pang of jealousy: it was the idea of him looking after her, I guess. Like seeing you or Daddy being really nice to someone other than me! I mean, I wasn’t jealous jealous: I didn’t want to swap places with her or anything, and I certainly didn’t wish her any harm. I felt sorry for her: she looked so out of place, so uneasy, and so determined. I suppose it must be rough being dragged off to meet “the wife,” even an estranged wife, as he once put it (neither of us has mentioned a divorce yet).
Anyway, he was looking great: better than any time since we got engaged.He’s stopped trying not to smoke and is back to forty cigarettes a day, except it’s Freiburg and Tryer now, not Rothmans. He’s terribly chic and he’s in a bearded phase.He looks like a gentleman sea captain. We all shook hands and smiled and I asked about the journey and we said they’d picked a lovely day for it. Then I took them to the best that the town had to offer in the way of cafés, a large room full of senior citizens and irate young mothers. It all smelled of frying, and they in their Bond Street outfits looked like posh relatives come to give a poor student a treat.
So we had tea and I felt terribly like some mother being shown her son’s new girl, and like a mother I thought, She’s not good enough for him, which she isn’t. She isn’t pretty enough and she doesn’t have that unwavering serenity he needs. She probably is in love with him; it’s hard not to be. But also I think she’s edgy and restless and won’t be happy with him and won’t make him happy. I also fear there must be some gold-digging element there because she’s so obviously on the make and he looks prosperous. I don’t think his money can possibly last very long, though. A year maximum—and I don’t know what he’ll do then.
Well, they drove off to the Lakes, a battery of cameras on the backseat and all that. And he phoned to say the hotel was every bit as lovely as we had thought it was when we had dinner there with Mario two and a half years ago. Three days later he came back alone to say good-bye. He said he’d left her in town to do some shopping, but who on earth was going to shop in a little town in the north when they could shop in London in a couple of hours? She just didn’t want to go through the meeting-the-wife routine again and I don’t blame her.
Windermere, England
11/24/78
She met us at the station and she was so friendly I could have thrown up. Eastern inscrutableness, I guess. Her name is Asya. It actually means Asia in Arabic. He says it can also mean “the cruel one” and “she who is full of sorrow.” She insisted on taking us for tea at this dump that reeked of stale frying oil—except of course neither of them would know what that was. They must have thought it was quaint and picturesque because it was down a dirty, cobbled lane backing onto the marketplace. Everybody else there was either some bearded old woman out for her week’s supply of cheap cabbages or a harassed young mom with overloaded baskets and stroller. People that couldn’t go anywhere better. It was a depressing scene. (It was like a parable, actually: youth on its way through a lousy life to old age. It makes me wonder why we all bother to go on.)
We sat there picking at some greasy pastry and drinking overboiled tea and making dumb conversation:
She: It’s quite a long trip up from London really, is it not?
Me: You must have made it lots of times?
She: At least twenty, I should think.
That kind of thing.
Except then they got started on Sadat’s Jerusalem trip and couldn’t stop. Well, finally she asks for the bill,and holding it between two slim brown fingers, she raises her eyebrows with just the hint of a smile (very charmingly done): “This is hardly worth fighting over, is it?”
She left what must have been a 50
Anyway, he was looking great: better than any time since we got engaged.He’s stopped trying not to smoke and is back to forty cigarettes a day, except it’s Freiburg and Tryer now, not Rothmans. He’s terribly chic and he’s in a bearded phase.He looks like a gentleman sea captain. We all shook hands and smiled and I asked about the journey and we said they’d picked a lovely day for it. Then I took them to the best that the town had to offer in the way of cafés, a large room full of senior citizens and irate young mothers. It all smelled of frying, and they in their Bond Street outfits looked like posh relatives come to give a poor student a treat.
So we had tea and I felt terribly like some mother being shown her son’s new girl, and like a mother I thought, She’s not good enough for him, which she isn’t. She isn’t pretty enough and she doesn’t have that unwavering serenity he needs. She probably is in love with him; it’s hard not to be. But also I think she’s edgy and restless and won’t be happy with him and won’t make him happy. I also fear there must be some gold-digging element there because she’s so obviously on the make and he looks prosperous. I don’t think his money can possibly last very long, though. A year maximum—and I don’t know what he’ll do then.
Well, they drove off to the Lakes, a battery of cameras on the backseat and all that. And he phoned to say the hotel was every bit as lovely as we had thought it was when we had dinner there with Mario two and a half years ago. Three days later he came back alone to say good-bye. He said he’d left her in town to do some shopping, but who on earth was going to shop in a little town in the north when they could shop in London in a couple of hours? She just didn’t want to go through the meeting-the-wife routine again and I don’t blame her.
Windermere, England
11/24/78
She met us at the station and she was so friendly I could have thrown up. Eastern inscrutableness, I guess. Her name is Asya. It actually means Asia in Arabic. He says it can also mean “the cruel one” and “she who is full of sorrow.” She insisted on taking us for tea at this dump that reeked of stale frying oil—except of course neither of them would know what that was. They must have thought it was quaint and picturesque because it was down a dirty, cobbled lane backing onto the marketplace. Everybody else there was either some bearded old woman out for her week’s supply of cheap cabbages or a harassed young mom with overloaded baskets and stroller. People that couldn’t go anywhere better. It was a depressing scene. (It was like a parable, actually: youth on its way through a lousy life to old age. It makes me wonder why we all bother to go on.)
We sat there picking at some greasy pastry and drinking overboiled tea and making dumb conversation:
She: It’s quite a long trip up from London really, is it not?
Me: You must have made it lots of times?
She: At least twenty, I should think.
That kind of thing.
Except then they got started on Sadat’s Jerusalem trip and couldn’t stop. Well, finally she asks for the bill,and holding it between two slim brown fingers, she raises her eyebrows with just the hint of a smile (very charmingly done): “This is hardly worth fighting over, is it?”
She left what must have been a 50
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