A Neverending Affair (5 page)

Ronia passed through the doors of
La Belle and looked around. She asked reception for Olaf and was told he was out of his room.
Oh well,
she thought.
He is perhaps out for a bite or seeing friends.
She really didn’t know much about him. But then he heard his voice from the restaurant and felt a surge of joy. She walked there. When entering, she saw him and Selma engaged in deep conversation, and halted. She felt that she shouldn’t interfere and disturb them.
Perhaps this guy is charming all the women he meets,
she thought.
Selma is a good catch.
She retreated rapidly.

She took an early evening and
watched some silly reality TV show. She had no TV at home so there was a certain excitement to watch it for a while. Some nuts from the minibar, a sip of wine and a sandwich with goat’s cheese from the farm kept her satisfied. She read the
Nouvel Observateur
. Ronia rarely read the daily news or listened to news broadcasts. In general, she kept away from politics. She was, however, very interested in the big developments in society, but maintained that you don’t see them if you get too involved in all those day-to-day politics.

She pondered which forces really shape human soci
ety, the effects of technology, the economic system and long-term cultural changes. So when some claimed the fall of the Berlin wall as the final victory for capitalism, she saw almost the opposite. True, the Soviets were defeated, and communism and socialism were thrown in the dustbin of history. But that was the short view. The long view was that when the threat of communism was gone, when the ghost had disappeared, critique of the capitalist project could no longer so easily be dismissed or discredited. What she feared was that when the threat of communism disappeared, the military industrial complex would find new threats to motivate continued spending on useless armaments, and if there were no new threats to be found, they would manufacture them.

R
onia believed that there was more to learn from history than what to expect from the future and today. Instead of daily news, Ronia read serious magazines and books on politics and history. She usually skipped articles about how new technologies would change the world. She had read once that for each generation, all technologies that would shape the lives of that generation would already have existed when they were born. And that certainly had been true up to her parents. But she was less sure about her own generation. And for a change, this evening she read an article predicting that the “internet” could become a forceful tool for revitalizing democracy.
Or for manipulating people,
she thought cynically,
just like the radio and TV. They also had great democratic potential, but look what happened to them.
    

She
found it hard to fall asleep. She thought about Olaf and Selma, that she probably had misunderstood his signals. And what signals had he actually sent anyway? And even if he had sent signals did they mean anything? The guy is married, in the first place. Thoughts like that came, went and came back.

She woke up early, feeling restless and went for an early walk. Coming back to the hotel around seven, she passed by the breakfast room and found him there.

“Hi,
” she greeted him as she approached his table. “Can I join you?”

“Of course, you are most welcome
,” he said, folding his newspaper, the
International
Herald Tribune.

“Please go ahead reading if you want; you can tell me what has happened in the
world. I rarely read any newspapers.”

“How is
it possible to be without the lifeblood of a daily news injection?”

“I see it more like death blood
,” she said. “Ninety-nine percent of the news is about deaths, torture, rape, war, and natural disasters, just to mention a few.”

“I see your point. Let’s test the theor
y, and I will see how much positive news I can find in this issue.”

He initiated a stream of words in a speed you nor
mally associate with sports reports on the radio.

“Ah, here is the first one: There is
a cease-fire in Chechnya, but honestly who cares, most people don’t even know where Chechnya is, and would you mind trying to spell to Chechnya and Grozny or Oshogoshtjuktjikstan? Next: Peace talks begin in Northern Ireland without Sinn Féin. Is it good that they talk or bad that Sinn Féin is not at the table? Depends on their table manners, I guess. And then the killer one: Steffi Graf defeats Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the longest ever women's final at the French Open, to win her 19th Grand Slam title. So good for sweet Steffi and so cruel for poor Arantxa—but what can you expect with parents naming you thornbush, which is the meaning of her name. I don’t know what to say about the weather report. Warm in Geneva, but far too cold in Scandinavia and blasting hot in Saudi Arabia, tornadoes in the States. And how to judge the rising property prices in London? It depends on whether you are a buyer, a real estate tycoon or if you just sit there in your ever more valuable flat and feel good about it. It gets really tricky to judge the review of the latest thriller by John Grisham. It seems to be on the critical side. But hell, the guy will sell millions anyway, so why bother about a critical review in IHT. The only news piece I can find from Sweden is that the female party leader of the former communist party goes public, on TV, about her alcoholism. Is that good or bad? Admitting the problem is the first step to recovery. It is almost like a cease-fire with Chechnyan rebels.” At this point the people at the neighboring tables had started to stare at him. “And, listen to this one: a woman, an American woman—who else would even dream about it—has sued her therapist because of her divorce. The couple had been to marriage consulting five times trying to fix their broken marriage, but in the end the guy still wants a divorce, and now she sues the therapist. She wants him to pay damages of 20 million dollars. Is that not good news?” He panted, catching his breath.

She burst out laughing, not so much for what he said but how h
e said it and the speed at which he spoke. “Enough, enough, I give up. I can’t eat breakfast and listen to this mesmerizing account of the beauty of this world.” 

He folded the newspaper and looked her sternly into the eyes: “
There is a nasty world out there, ma’am” (trying, not so successfully, to sound like Clint Eastwood or perhaps John Wayne. He wasn't so sure of which) and then with a rapid shift of expression,

“
The trick is to make it warm and cozy inside and go out as little as possible, and when you go out, you do it with friends.”  

“Is thi
s how you entertain your wife at breakfast?” she said and then blushed as it might be understood as a pass, comparing their sitting there with his matrimonial situation.

“Uh
,” he said, “our breakfast ritual is quite different. It goes like this. I wake up, I put on the coffee and set the table with the most popular items. Then I try to find my wife. She is normally either out on a quick walk or if the weather is really, and I mean really, bad she works out with a torture machine in the basement. I tell her the coffee is ready, and she looks at me like I am her servant and says, ‘I hope it is good.’ ‘Of course it is good, milady,’ I respond. Then we sit and have breakfast together. It’s actually the only time of the day when we are almost always together. Lunches we take at work, dinners we often skip or eat out, each one of us alone or with some colleagues. We both work a lot, I must say. Too much, frankly. During weekends we spend more serious time together. That means that we take the fifteen minutes of breakfast together as a time to discuss things like managing our life, who will fix that, buy food, clean up, do the laundry, etc., etc. It is basically a business meeting, sometimes including stiff negotiations, but mostly just plain organization. Not a lot of entertainment there, not a lot of fun,” his voiced trailed off and he looked down with a bothered expression.

She sat quiet.

“And you, how is your breakfast?”

“Oh, breakfast is
quite serious for me. Once I get going with my work, I easily forget to eat, so I force myself to take heavy breakfast, inspired by the traditions where I live, in total opposition to my upbringing, which didn’t really include breakfast. I make an omelet, with something seasonal such as mushrooms, tomatoes, parsley or carrots, fry some potatoes, eat sausages and goat’s cheese.  I drink milk, goat’s milk, and I drink herbal tea. Rarely coffee in the morning. I save the coffee for the day, where it keeps me going all through to supper.”

“One would not believe that a thin perso
n like you could have such a heavy breakfast,” he said. It was not really true that she was thin, but Olaf thought most women wanted to hear that they are thin even if it is not true.

She froze
. “Olaf, please don’t do that. I know who I am. I know how I look. I know I’m not thin. I also know that I’m not really fat. I’m quite close to what would have been ideal seventy years ago, which means I am fifteen kilos too heavy for today’s standard. But I tell you what, I don’t care at all about that. And I don’t want you saying things to keep me happy when they are not true.”

She sat silent for a while and then corrected herself
. “I don’t care too much about it is perhaps more correct. The truth is that the constant flow of impressions from billboards, news and media in general is so forceful that even stubborn feminist revolutionaries like me
are
affected by the views of how a woman should look.”

“Sorry
, Ronia. You know we Nordic people are always said to be a bit rude, not sophisticated enough, and our gender equality obsession means that we treat everybody the same. We don’t open doors for women, we don’t pull out their chairs, and we don’t flatter them. I guess I just tried to be a bit chivalric. Knowing your French heritage, I assumed you would expect that. But you come out as a real Norse Amazon.”

“By the way, I certainly know where Chechnya is
,” Ronia told him, changing the subject. “Mind you, it is not far from Armenia as things are. And I do live in France, but I am half Armenian, a quarter French and a quarter Dutch Jew.” She added some detail about her mother and father’s descent.  

They discussed the day. He suggested that they would walk to the Centre
, and she agreed. During the walk, he recounted a story about his recent sales to a Swedish hotel and she told him about her latest painting. He asked if she would mind sharing dinner with him that night. She agreed.

“What time
?” he asked. “Is six fine?”

“Can we say six thirty
?”

“OK, deal. See you in reception then
.” 

The day passed with the normal deliberations of a serious meeting. They developed an action plan for the project for the coming two years. It was agreed that both Ronia and Olaf would participate in the next major event, which was the FairArtFair at the Gent art and handicraft fair in September.

Ronia w
as at the reception desk at six-thirty. Olaf was not there. He arrived fifteen minutes late. Ronia looked cross and said, “I thought you Swedes were punctual?”

“Hm, mostly we are, but I might not be an average Swede. I had to speak with my wife about
an upcoming event.” He immediately wondered why he had chosen that language, “had to speak…” as if he hadn’t chosen it. He was the one calling her. He didn’t admit it to himself, but the reason he called now was that he could truthfully say that he was in the hotel, that he was alone and that he planned to go out for a bite. He wouldn’t like Liv to call him after returning from dinner with Ronia and ask what he had eaten and with whom. It was not like Liv was jealous. It was more that she wanted to know everything, part of her need to be in control, he guessed.

He himself could be fiercely jealous sometimes. But it happened mostly when they were together and he saw the looks of other men. Strangely
, he trusted her more when she was on her own. Partly it had to do with her very composed and controlled self. Remembering how rationally she had approached him and their relationship, as well as her super rational attitude towards children, he could not imagine her running off with another guy out of passion.

For Olaf, the real threat would be if she found another man that could match her professionally and be attractive and secure enough. Ultimately, Olaf was quite confident that Liv needed his more emotional and spontaneous wa
y as a counterweight to her own sober and somber self. She might not fully realize that herself. When they were together with others, for some reason she sometimes played out her sexuality, her appeal, in a way she hardly ever did with him. It did make him jealous, but it also turned him on. More than once, after a party, he would ask her why she had spoken so much with Mr. Y, or why she had let her shoulder band slip when she was sitting next to Mr. M.

She would look at him and say
, “Because I know it turns you on. Come on, tiger, make my day, or rather, make my night.”

And they would make love. Never had his jealousy led to any real conflict
, as Liv cleverly knew how to turn it into something positive.