Schmidt Steps Back (40 page)

The dozen or so boats in the water were all piloted by elderly types—in Schmidt’s opinion, retired postal clerks, shopkeepers, and café owners, if café owners who did not retire to their native hamlets in Auvergne existed—hunched over their control consoles. A regatta, complicated by a puffy breeze, was in progress. The lead boat, which had been barreling wing and wing toward a notional buoy, its location fixed by a mysterious agreement of the owners, rounded it, jibing noisily, and continued, close hauled, on a port tack. Moments later, the other boats also cleared the marker, and the entire armada was beating toward the far shore. They still had a ways to go when Schmidt’s attention to the race slackened. The afternoon might be mild, but he was shivering. He knew the reason: nerves and fatigue. He should have worn a sweater under his heavy tweed jacket.

What’s done cannot be undone. By him or by others. For instance: just then, coming about at the next buoy, the lead boat pinched its sails. In irons, the mainsail luffing helplessly, it lost precious seconds that Schmidt didn’t think could be made up. What had remained of his interest in the race vanished. The damage done in London, he suddenly concluded, was likewise beyond repair. He was insane to have come to Paris to plead his case. His reward would be a fiasco followed by the start of a new cycle of sorrow and remorse.

He checked the cell phone in his jacket pocket and shrugged: it was turned on, the battery was fully charged; Alice was still
at lunch confessing to the feminist director of conscience. Following the familiar route to Alice’s apartment, he left the Tuileries through a side entrance and walked along rue de Rivoli toward the gray vastness of the place de la Concorde. His reflection in the window of Hilditch & Key, before which he stopped because of the display of shirts and neckties on sale, frightened him. Red nose and bloodshot eyes, lips pursed up tight over the shame of stained and uneven front teeth, an expression so lugubrious, so pained, that it resisted his effort to smile. The features could not be rearranged; the mouth continued to droop. His mop of hair, once red and now discolored and streaked with gray, stood on end and stuck out over his ears. He knew who he looked like: the man, the monstrous chemistry teacher become a hobo reeking of carrion, Mr. Wilson, who had deflowered and would have, but for the strength of her character, perverted the fourteen-year-old Carrie! He had run over and killed Mr. Wilson in heavy fog on a Bridgehampton road. And now he had turned into the image of the man! Twinned with Mr. Wilson. Twinned with him in misery and disgrace.

Should he run away, leave Paris without seeing Alice? Turn off his cell phone, let the phone in the apartment ring unanswered, run before she can grant him an audience or deny it. He could pick up his kit, head for Roissy, and take a plane for most any place on the globe. What good was having an American passport and money if not for just such an escape? Once he got wherever he had decided to go, he would sit and think and send her a postcard if he found one he liked. After all, people change their plans all the time, on a moment’s notice. Hadn’t Alice just done so herself? He had never stood up anyone before, but why let that stop him? Alice wouldn’t be shocked or disappointed. She would be relieved, her view
of him as a cad royally confirmed. A childish wish formed in his head: he wanted to call Carrie and ask her what to do. But even he, stupid though he was in his panicked state, knew that would be a dumb move.

In fact, the idea of running away was absurd. He did have to think, but he could think right here in Paris, and think fast, before it was too late. The first order of business was to brush his hair and then wash his face and hands in real hot water. It would help to have a drink too, something warm, a toddy, or even a cup of hot chocolate. Logically, he should jump into a taxi—if he retraced his steps he could find one at the stand on rue de Castiglione—and go home. But what had logic to do with how he felt? Here he was in Alice’s neighborhood, a circumstance that he found comforting and fitting, consistent with his status as a supplicant pilgrim. Besides, he wasn’t sure he could face the unpacked suitcase and the edgy elegance of his apartment, the good pieces of furniture, the stately velvet curtains framing the windows, the sheen of the parquet floor. His present needs could be satisfied just as easily at the Meurice, three blocks away on rue de Rivoli, going in the wrong direction. He had never stayed there, but since it had been good enough to serve as command headquarters for the Wehrmacht all through the war, it would probably suffice as a place for him to pee. The old Continental was nearer but in his opinion was déclassé, having been renamed after it was bought by some midwestern chain; he’d have to make do there with paper towels in the washroom. He had reached the Meurice when a thought struck him. Eye drops! Is it Murine or Visine that gets the red out? Backtracking, he found both at the English pharmacy in the middle of the first block of rue de Castiglione and bought one of each. His spirits lifted.

Nor did the
toilettes
at the Meurice disappoint him: huge mirrors and overhead lights muted to be flattering. His most urgent business done, he examined his face more closely. The furrows left by his habitual scowl were what they were, and he would not pay to have them erased. Besides, would anyone recognize him without them? The same went for the bags under his eyes, although he knew that shrinking them was a simple enough matter. Gil Blackman had had a polo-playing doctor on the Upper East Side, renowned for eye work, fix him up, but Schmidt did not direct big-budget films and unlike Gil at the time had no DT to look younger for. He would do without Hollywood-style improvements. His teeth were another matter. Gil had also had his front teeth capped, a procedure that was possible if, despite wretched appearance, they were still soundly rooted. Gil’s natural teeth were filed down and then covered with individual caps so cunningly fashioned from tinted porcelain that no one could guess they were an orthodontist’s handiwork. A major financial transaction would doubtless be required, especially in view of the dentist’s confession to Gil that he had been ripped off by Madoff. It stood to reason that the dentist would try to recoup from his patients by slapping a surcharge on his bills. So be it! Why skimp on the upkeep of his mouth while not questioning the need to stain the house or paint the trim whenever Bryan, his self-appointed cat sitter, handyman, and majordomo, told him that time had come again? He would let Gil’s dentist fix his teeth and still manage to cross the ocean anytime Alice beckoned and to be in Paris as long and as often as she liked, if only he could persuade her to take him back. Not that Schmidt expected to be making those trips and burning through his money for very long. The ten
years’ estimate he had given Gil was 100 percent sincere. Albert and his little sister and any brothers and sisters to come would still receive the legacy he had promised Carrie and Jason, and there would be plenty left over for Alice if only …

The toilet attendant, a smiling brown-skinned gentleman—nothing wrong with that man’s teeth!—filled the basin with warm water. Schmidt asked to have it hotter, slowly washed his hands and face, dried them with a good linen towel tendered him on a salver, and put a drop of Visine in each eye. It stung, but the effect was satisfying. A two-euro coin deposited on the same salver discreetly tendered again elicited a broader smile with lots of teeth. Two more attempts to smile at himself in the mirror, and Schmidt was ready to sally forth. Call Alice? No way. He would wait for her to make a move. Tea and drinks were served in the hotel lobby. He found an armchair in the corner, hesitated between a bourbon and hot chocolate, and chose the latter. The tea sandwiches looked good. It turned out they were. Ravenously hungry—he had eaten a yogurt on the airplane, refusing the rest of the breakfast—he kept reordering until a benign warmth spread through his body. At last he began to feel calm.

More than an hour later, when he was back at the apartment, she did call. He had unpacked and reestablished order among the photographs on the desk in the living room and on the chest of drawers in the bedroom: Mary, Charlotte during her last year at Brearley, Carrie during their first year together, Carrie and little Albert, and Alice, this last presumably forgotten by her, else she would have asked him to return it. Ten years old, she stood on the beach in Deauville, shirtless in a little boy’s short pants, behind her the flat sea.

Well, vulture man, she said, are you too tired to have dinner tonight?

No, yes, I mean yes, I would like to have dinner tonight. Where? When?

Eight o’clock? You said your apartment is on the place du Palais Bourbon. There is a good restaurant on the right-hand side of rue de Bourgogne, in the last block, the block between rue de Grenelle and rue de Varenne. It’s number fifty-something. I’ll make the reservation and meet you there.

It was one of those restaurants without a vestibule: one walked in directly from the street past a heavy red velvet curtain concealing the first of two rooms where diners were seated. Pulling the curtain aside and greeting Schmidt was a young man in a suit, the manager or the owner, who also took his raincoat and handed it to a young woman summoned from somewhere in the back. When Schmidt said that he was meeting Madame Verplanck, the young man was all smiles and led Schmidt to a table in the first room from which he could see people enter. The restaurant was pleasantly full; the low pitch of the French chatter was pleasant as well. It was ten to eight. That too was well. He had wanted to be the first to arrive. Since the young man assured him that he could make a dry gin martini, Schmidt ordered one and was not disappointed. Then he saw her walk through the door. She wore a light brown overcoat that hugged her figure. Time and recent grief—Popov!—had traced new fine lines in the corners of her mouth and caused her eyes to retreat deeper into their sockets. There was more gray in her hair, more than he would have thought likely for dark blond hair. He thought she resembled Michèle Morgan and was more beautiful than she had been
thirteen years earlier, quite simply the loveliest woman he had ever seen. He rose and reached her before the young man had helped her out of her coat. A scent enveloped her that was a mixture of a perfume he didn’t know, her body warmed by a long walk—he was sure she had walked, he would have seen her taxi if one had pulled up—and of the fresh evening air. It overwhelmed him. He had not made a mistake: he loved her. She pulled off her long dark red suede gloves and held out her hand, palm down and bent slightly at the wrist. He knew it was a sign that she expected to have her hand kissed, but he feared doing it awkwardly, like an American. Instead he took her hand—a marvelously warm large hand with long fingers that had traveled over every inch of his body—and shook it.

He waited until her glass of champagne was served and she had drunk from it to tell her about Charlotte. At some point, perhaps when he spoke about his visits to Sunset Hill, she put her hand over his and left it there until he had finished.

So now you know, he said. You had to know. The wound isn’t one that can heal, but I’ve learned to live with it. That is a given. It’s very strange, I wouldn’t have believed it myself, but now that I’m with you, I am more certain than ever before, more certain than when we were in each other’s arms, that I love you. That is assuming
“love”
is the correct term for the experience of great happiness due to the other person’s presence and the astonishing need, like the need to get enough air into your lungs, to make the other person happy, to protect her, to surround her by a mountain range of goodness. That is also a given. There is yet another given, which is my age. I will be seventy-eight next month. I am in excellent health, that’s nothing new, I’ve never missed a day of work. Still, something tells me I have only ten years to live. Actually, that’s the most
favorable hypothesis, assuming that during those ten years my physical condition, my vigor, and my energy can remain undiminished. I sense that they will. Beyond? It’s anyone’s guess. I tend to think that the worst outcomes are most likely. Considering these facts, if I were your father or your brother …

My father died, she broke in, his girlfriend too. I have no brother.

I am so very sorry, Schmidt persisted, but if your father were alive and you sought his advice he would surely tell you I’m not a horse you should bet on. So let me fill in a few details of what I am proposing, and my reasons, and why I believe I am at least entitled to plead my case.

Oh, Schmidtie. She sighed. What a lot of words.

Yes, I’m ashamed to run on like this, but do hear me out. It’s been such a long time since we were last together, there is so much to say, and this concerns the most important business of my life.

Schmidtie, she said, if I must go on listening I shall, but do order another glass of champagne.

Done, he said.

They were silent while they waited for their drinks, and Schmidt, without thinking, permitted himself an extraordinary liberty. He took her hand and caressed it and then brought it to his lips.

As soon as she had taken a sip, he continued. He was in a hurry to say it all; he couldn’t help himself.

You remember that I proposed marriage. That offer stands. You would make me happiest by accepting it. Our life together would have a simple, clear structure. But it doesn’t have to be marriage. Live with me, on such terms and on such conditions
as you like. In sin! Wherever you wish. Bridgehampton and New York City, they are my home; I know how to live there. The house in Bridgehampton is one that I know you’d like. But I can live most of the year here in Paris. Or anyplace else.

I’ve inherited my father’s beautiful house in Antibes, she whispered.

All right, I’ve never been to Antibes, but I’ve always wanted to know the Côte d’Azur. Just a few more words, beautiful Alice, a few more words about you and me. I loved our sex. I can still do it. I can’t imagine I’ll be getting better, but who knows? Little father’s helper pills have been invented that didn’t exist back then. I haven’t tried them, but I’m told they’re good, and I’m ready to use them. Now, why do I dare to speak to you like this? First, because I love you. Second, because you seemed to like me. Third, because I am so very lonely, and I know my life would be transformed, made joyous, if I lived with you. Fourth, because I reason that, unless you have someone else—and if you do, please tell me, and I’ll stop at once—you might also be lonely. Life with me might be an improvement for you too.