Rich Man, Poor Man

Gambit, Rudolph thought, but keeping his face agreeable. If I were Swedish or Greek, she’d say she liked Swedes and Greeks. He speculated on how she had spent her three years in Washington. Entertaining lobbyists, subverting congressmen in the bedrooms of motels for pay?

“I like some Americans myself,” he said.

She chuckled, a small, ladylike chuckle. She was definitely not a sister to the prowling, gaudy savages of the streets of New York, regardless of the bond of their profession. He had heard that there were well-ma

“And the French,” the woman was saying. “Do you like them?”

“Moderately,” he said. “Do you?”

“Some of them.” She chuckled again.

The waiter appeared, his face stolid, accustomed to movements from table to table. “La mimê chose? Un vin blanc?” Rudolph asked the woman.

“Ah,” she said, “you speak French.”

“Un petit peu,” Rudolph said. He felt playful, tipsy. It was a night for games, masks, pretty French toys. Whatever happened that night, the lady was going to see that she didn’t have just another ordinary American tourist on her hands. “Je l’ai étudié à l’école. High school. What’s that in French?”

“Collège? Lycée.”

“Lycée,” he said, with a sense of triumph.

The waiter shuffled his feet, a small reminder that he didn’t have all night to stand around listening to an American trying to remember his high-school French to impress a lady who had just picked him up. “Monsieur?” the waiter said. “Encore un cognac?”

“S’il vous plaît,” Rudolph said with dignity.

After that, they spoke in a mixture of the two languages, both of them laughing at the kind of French Rudolph managed to dredge up from his memory, as he told her about the bosomy French teacher he had had as a teenaged boy at home, about how he had believed he was in love with her, had written her ardent letters in French, had once drawn a picture of her, naked, which she had confiscated. For her part, the woman had seemed to be pleased to listen to him, to correct his mistakes in her language, to praise him when he got out more than three words in a row. If this was what French whores were like, Rudolph thought drunkenly, after a bottle of champagne, he understood why prostitution was such a respected fixture of French civilization.

Then, the woman—he had asked her name, which was Jea

“I’m sorry if I’ve wasted your time,” he said. His voice was thick and he was having difficulty getting the words out.

She stood up. “I’ve enjoyed it very much, Jimmy,” she said. He had told her that was his name. One more mask. He would not be traced. “But I expect an important call …”

He stood up to say good-bye, half relieved, half sorry that he wasn’t going to make love to her. His chair fell back and he teetered a little as he rose. “It’s been sharm—charming,” he said.

She frowned at him. “Where is your hotel?” she asked.

Where was his hotel? For a moment the map of France was blotted from his consciousness. “Where’s my—my hotel …” he said, his voice blurred. “Oh. Antibes.”

“Do you have a car?”

“Yes.”

She thought for a moment. “You are in no condition to drive, you know.”

He hung his head, abashed. Americans, he felt she was saying, scornfully, arrived in France in no condition to drive. In no condition to do anything. “I’m not really a drinking man,” he said, making it sound like an excuse. “I’ve had a bad day.”

“The roads are dangerous, especially at night,” she said.

“Especially at night,” he agreed.

“Would you like to come with me?” she asked.

At last, he thought. It would not be a sin now, merely a safety measure. As a businessman, he really should ask her what it would cost, but after the drinks together and the friendly conversation it would sound crass. Later would do just as well. Whatever the price turned out to be, he certainly could afford one night in Europe with a courtesan. He was proud of himself for thinking of the word—courtesan. Suddenly he felt his head clearing. “Volontiers,” he said, using her language to show her he wasn’t as far gone as she thought. He called loudly for the waiter: “Garçon,” and got out his wallet. He covered his wallet with his hands so that she couldn’t see how many bills he had in it. In situations like this, even though he was not used to them, he knew one had to be careful.

The waiter came over and told him, in French, how much he owed. He couldn’t understand the man and turned helplessly, ashamed, to the woman. “What did he say?”

“Two hundred and fifteen francs,” she said.

He took three hundred-franc bills out of his wallet and waved away the waiter’s fumbling effort to make change.

“You shouldn’t have tipped him that much,” she whispered as she took his arm and guided him out of the restaurant.

“Americans,” he said. “A noble and generous race.”

She laughed, held his arm more tightly.

They found a taxi and he admired the grace with which she raised her arm to hail the driver, the shapeliness of her legs, the warm curve of her bosom.

She held his hand in the taxi, no more. It was a short ride. The taxi now smelled of perfume, musky, just the hint of flowers in its past. The taxi stopped in front of a small apartment house on a dark street. She paid the driver, then took his arm again and led him into the house. He followed her up one flight of stairs, admiring her from below now. She opened the door with a key, guided him along a dark hallway and through a doorway and switched on a lamp. He was surprised at how large the room was and how tastefully furnished, although he couldn’t make out too many details in the shaded light of the single lamp. She must have a generous clientele, he thought, Arabs, Italian industrialists, German steel barons.

“Now …” she began to say, when the telephone rang.

She wasn’t lying, he thought, she was expecting a call. She hesitated, as though she didn’t want to pick up the phone. “Would you mind …?” she said. She gestured toward another doorway. “I think it would be better if I was alone for this.”

“Of course.” He went into the next room and switched on a light. It was a small bedroom, with a double bed, already made up. He heard her voice through the door that he had closed behind him. He got the impression that she was angry with whomever she was talking to, although he couldn’t make out what she was saying. He looked thoughtfully at the big bed. Last chance to leave. The hell with it, he thought and undressed, dropping his clothes carelessly on a chair and switching his wallet to a different pocket from the one he had been carrying it in. He got into bed and pulled the covers over him.

He must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew a warm perfumed body was in bed beside him, the room was dark, there was a satiny, firm leg thrown across him, a soft, exploring hand on his belly, a mouth against his ear, murmuring words he could not understand.

He did not know what time it was when, all nerves quiescent, his body glowingly at rest, he finally lay still, his fingertips just touching the now familiar body that had given him so much pleasure. Fragrant, accidental humanity lying in the bed beside him. All praise to the animal hidden in the black suit. Disregarded, gloriously disregarded the deprived Puritan. He raised his head, leaned on one elbow over the woman, kissed her gently on the cheek. “It must be late,” he whispered. “I have to go now.”