Adultery (19 page)

The elevator doors open. There are two or three photographers in the lobby. We proceed to the main hall, which has a 360-degree view of the city. It looks like the eternal cloud decided to cooperate with Darius and lifted its gray cloak; we can see the sea of lights below.

I don’t want to stay long, I tell my husband. And I start chattering to ease the tension.

“We’ll leave whenever you want,” he interrupts.

The next moment we are busy greeting an infinite number of people who treat me as if I were a close friend. I reciprocate even though I don’t know their names. If the conversation drags on, I have a foolproof trick: I introduce my husband and say nothing. He introduces himself and asks the other person’s name. I listen to the answer and repeat, loud and clear: “Honey, don’t you remember so-and-so?”

So cynical!

I finish greeting them, and we go to a corner where I complain: Why do people have a habit of asking whether we remember them? There’s nothing more embarrassing. They all consider themselves important enough to be etched in my memory, even though I meet new people every day because of my job.

“Be more forgiving. People are having fun.”

My husband doesn’t know what he’s talking about. People are just pretending to have fun. What they’re really looking for is visibility, attention, and—every now and then—the opportunity to meet someone and close a business deal. The fate of people who think they’re so beautiful and powerful as they walk down the red carpet lies in the hands of an underpaid guy from the news department. The paginator receives the photos via e-mail and decides who should or shouldn’t appear in our small world of traditions and conventions. He is the one who places images of people of interest in the paper, leaving a small
space for the famous photo with an overview of the party (or cocktail hour, or dinner, or reception). There, with a little luck, one or another might be recognized among the anonymous people who consider themselves very important.

Darius takes the stage and begins to share his experiences with all the important people he interviewed during his program’s ten-year span. I’m able to relax a bit and go to one of the windows with my husband. My internal radar already detected Jacob and Mme König. I want distance, and I imagine Jacob does, too.

“Is there something wrong?”

I knew it. Are you Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde today? Victor Frankenstein or his monster?

No, darling. I’m just avoiding the man I went to bed with yesterday. I suspect that everyone in this room knows it, and that the word “lovers” is written on our foreheads.

I smile and say something he’s tired of hearing, that I’m too old to go to parties. I would love to be home right now, taking care of our children instead of having left them with a babysitter. I’m not much of a drinker—I already get confused with all these people saying hello to me and making conversation. I have to feign interest in what they’re saying and respond with a question before I can finally put the hors d’oeuvre in my mouth and finish chewing without seeming rude.

A screen is lowered and a video clip starts, featuring the most important guests who’ve been on the program. I’ve worked with some of them, but most of them are foreigners visiting Geneva. As we all know, there’s always someone important in this city, and going on the show is obligatory.

“Let’s leave, then. He already saw you. We’ve done our social duty. Let’s rent a movie and enjoy the rest of the night together.”

No. We’ll stay a little longer, because Jacob and Mme König
are here. It might seem suspicious to leave the party before the ceremony ends. Darius starts calling some of his show’s guests to the stage, and they make a short statement about the experience. I nearly die of boredom. Unaccompanied men start looking around, discreetly seeking single women. The women, in turn, look at one another: how they’re dressed, what makeup they’re wearing, if they’re here with husbands or lovers.

I look out at the city, lost in absent thoughts, just waiting for time to pass so we can leave quietly without arousing suspicion.

“It’s you!”

Me?

“Darling, he’s calling your name!”

Darius just invited me to the stage and I hadn’t heard. Yes, I had been on his show with the ex-president of Switzerland to talk about human rights. But I’m not that important. I never imagined this; it hadn’t been arranged, and I didn’t prepare anything to say.

But Darius gestures to me. The people all look my way, smiling. I walk toward him. I’ve regained my composure and am secretly happy, because Marianne wasn’t called, nor will she be. Jacob wasn’t called up, either, because the idea is for the evening to be enjoyable, not filled with political speeches.

I climb the makeshift stage—it’s a staircase linking the two areas of the hall at the top of the TV tower—give Darius a kiss, and start telling an uninteresting story about when I went on the show. The men continue their hunt, and the women continue looking at one another. Those nearest the stage pretend to be interested in what I’m saying. I keep my eyes on my husband; everyone who speaks in public has to choose someone to serve as support.

In the middle of my impromptu speech, I see something that absolutely should not happen: Jacob and Marianne König
are standing next to my husband. All this had to have happened in the less than two minutes it took me to get to the stage and start the speech that, at this point, is already making the waiters circulate and most of the guests look away from the stage in search of something more attractive.

I say thank you as quickly as possible. The guests applaud. Darius gives me a kiss. I try to get to my husband and the Königs, but am waylaid by people who praise me for things I didn’t say and claim I was wonderful. They’re delighted with the series of articles on shamanism and suggest topics, hand me business cards, and discreetly offer themselves as “sources” on something that could be “very interesting.” All this takes about ten minutes. When I finally approach my destination, the three are smiling. They congratulate me, say I’m a great public speaker, and deliver the bad news:

“I explained to them that you’re tired and that our children are with the babysitter,” my husband says, “but Mme König insists on having dinner together.”

“I do. I suppose no one here has had dinner?” says Marianne.

Jacob has a fake smile on his face and agrees like a lamb to the slaughter.

In a split second, two hundred thousand excuses run through my head. But why? I have a fair amount of cocaine ready to be used at any moment, and what better than this “opportunity” to see if I’ll carry out my plan.

Besides, I have a morbid curiosity to see how this dinner goes.

It would be our pleasure, Mme König.

Marianne chooses the restaurant at Hotel Les Armures, which shows a certain lack of originality, as that’s where everyone usually takes their foreign visitors. The fondue is excellent, the
staff strives to speak every language possible, and it’s located in the heart of the old city … 
but
for someone who lives in Geneva, it is definitely nothing new.

We arrive after the Königs. Jacob is outside, enduring the cold in the name of his nicotine addiction. Marianne has already gone in. I suggest my husband also go in and keep her company while I wait for Mr. König to finish smoking. He says that the reverse would be better, but I insist—it wouldn’t be polite to leave two women alone at the table, even if just for a few minutes.

“The invitation caught me off guard, too,” says Jacob, as soon as my husband is gone.

I try to act as though nothing is wrong. Are you feeling guilty? Worried about a potential end to your unhappy marriage (with that stone-cold bitch, I’d like to add)?

“It’s not about that. It’s that—”

We’re interrupted by the bitch. A devilish grin on her lips, she greets me (again!) with the three customary pecks on the cheek and
orders
her husband to put out his cigarette and come inside. I read between the lines: I’m suspicious of you two and think you must be planning something, but look, I’m clever, much more intelligent than you think.

We order the usual: fondue and raclette. My husband says he’s tired of eating cheese and picks something different: a sausage that is on the visitor menu. We also order wine, but Jacob doesn’t sniff, swirl, taste, and nod—that was just a dumb way of impressing me on the first day. While we wait for the food and make small talk, we finish the first bottle, which is soon replaced by a second. I ask my husband not to drink anymore, or we’ll have to leave the car again, and we’re much farther away from home than we were the previous time.

The food arrives. We open a third bottle of wine. The small talk continues; Jacob’s new routine as a member of the Council
of States, congratulations for my two articles on stress (“a rather unusual approach”), and if it’s true the price of real estate will fall now that banking secrecy is disappearing and if the thousands of bankers will go with it. They are moving to Singapore or Dubai, where we spend the holiday season.

I keep waiting for the bull to enter the arena. But it doesn’t, and I lower my guard. I drink a bit more than I should and start to feel relaxed and cheerful. Then the doors swing wide open.

“The other day I was talking with some friends about the stupid feeling of jealousy,” says Marianne König. “What do you think about it?”

What do we think about a topic that no one talks about at dinner? The bitch knows how to choose her words well. She must have spent the whole day thinking about it. She called jealousy a “stupid feeling,” intending to leave me more exposed and vulnerable.

“I grew up witnessing terrible displays of jealousy at home,” says my husband.

What? He’s talking about his private life? To a stranger?

“So I promised myself I would never let that happen to me if I ever got married. It was hard at first, because our instinct is to control everything, even the uncontrollable, like love and fidelity. But I did it. And my wife, who meets with other people every day and sometimes comes home later than usual, has never heard a criticism or an insinuation from me.”

I’ve never heard this explanation. I didn’t know he’d grown up with jealousy all around him. The bitch manages to make everyone obey her command: let’s have dinner, put out your cigarette, talk about the topic I picked.

There are two reasons for what my husband just said. The first is that he is suspicious of her invitation and is trying to protect me. The second: he is telling me, in front of everyone,
how important I am to him. I reach out my hand and touch his. I never imagined this. I thought he simply wasn’t interested in what I did.

“And what about you, Linda? Don’t you get jealous of your husband?”

Me?

Of course not. I trust him completely. I think jealousy is for sick, insecure people with no self-esteem, people who feel inferior and believe anyone can threaten their relationship. And you?

Marianne is caught in her own trap.

“Like I said, I think it’s a stupid feeling.”

Yes, you already said that. But if you found out your husband was cheating, what would you do?

Jacob goes pale. He restrains himself from drinking the entire contents of his wineglass.

“I believe my husband meets insecure people every day who must be dying of boredom in their own marriage and are destined to have a mediocre and repetitive life. I imagine there are some people like that in your line of work, too, who will go from junior reporter straight to retirement …”

“Many,” I reply with zero emotion in my voice. I help myself to more fondue. She stares me right in the eyes.
I know
you’re talking about me, but I don’t want my husband to suspect anything. I don’t care one bit about her and Jacob, who must have confessed everything, unable to stand the pressure.

My cool surprises me. Maybe it’s the wine or the monster having fun with all this. Maybe it’s the immense pleasure of being able to confront a woman who thinks she knows everything. “Go on,” I say, as I dunk the piece of bread in the melted cheese.

“As you all know, these unloved women aren’t a threat to
me. Unlike you, I don’t have complete trust in Jacob. I know he’s already cheated on me a few times. The flesh is weak …”

Jacob laughs nervously and has another sip of wine. The bottle’s empty; Marianne motions to the waiter to bring another.

“… but I try to see it as part of a normal relationship. If my man wasn’t desired and pursued by these sluts, then he must be completely uninteresting. Instead of jealousy, you know what I feel? Horniness. I often take off my clothes, approach him naked, spread my legs, and ask him to do to me exactly what he did with them. Sometimes I ask him to tell me how it was, and this makes me come many times.”

“That’s all in Marianne’s fantasies,” says Jacob, rather unconvincingly. “She makes these things up. The other day she asked if I would like to go to a swingers club in Lausanne.”

He’s not joking, of course, but everyone laughs, including her.

To my horror, I discover that Jacob is enjoying being labeled the “unfaithful male.” My husband seems very interested in Marianne’s reply and asks her to talk a bit more about the arousal she gets from knowing about the extramarital affairs. He asks for the address of the swingers club and gazes at me, his eyes shining. He says it’s about time we tried something different. I don’t know if he’s trying to manage the almost unbearable atmosphere at the table or if he is actually interested in trying. Marianne says she doesn’t know the address, but if he gives her his phone number, she’ll send it to him by text.

Time to spring into action. I say that, in general, jealous people will try to show exactly the opposite in public. They love to make insinuations and see if they can get some information about their partner’s behavior, but are naïve to think they’ll succeed. I, for example, could be having an affair with
your husband and you would never know, because I’m not stupid enough to fall for that trap.

My tone changes slightly. My husband looks at me, surprised at my answer.

“Darling, don’t you think that’s going a little far?”