He hung up, downed his beer, and turned to Jonathan.
“Think of a sensible job. Oh, and the vice-head of the task force is holding a party on Friday. Megi’s probably got an invitation. Make sure you come!”
5
JONATHAN’S THOUGHTS rarely turned to the first time he had met Andrea. The moments in which they later immersed themselves occupied more space in his memory; and they had leapt into something more intense – they insisted – than ever before.
Jonathan’s memory turned out to be a clever device that didn’t prompt comparisons, at least not when he was with Andrea. She was his goal, his oxygen, and his delicacy; he mounted her, lived by her breath, eagerly licked the nipples adorning the olive-skinned spheres of her breasts. Images of the bodies of women with whom he had been in the past, including the pale recollection of his wife’s body, lay forgotten at the bottom of his memory.
Jonathan set out to climax with Andrea carrying no burdens, only his ego, which never physically let him down – something that filled him with pride. When later they lay side by side – and these were limited minutes of pure happiness, which disappeared as soon as they parted – Andrea, as women are wont to do, would say something like, “I remember the first time I saw you.” In her postcoital stupefaction, she could think of nothing else. She, so intelligent, witty, wise, wanted to whisper only about them. And so Jonathan, who had a similar vacuum in his head, hid behind the smoke of his cigarette and murmured, “Yes, yes, I remember.”
The truth came out when it turned out that “when I first saw you” meant something different than him and to her. Andrea counted their days together from their first meeting, he from their first lovemaking.
“Two different calendars!” shouted Andrea, knitting her dark brows. Did they have anything in common whatsoever? She was angry but a moment later forgave him, and Jonathan suspected that the abyss which proved his masculine lack of sensitivity in some way excited her.
Jonathan did, in fact, remember the first time he saw Andrea but he didn’t tell her because he didn’t want her to have any power over him. He had already realized that she could be cruel when she caught a whiff of blind attachment. He didn’t want her to wave a sheet stained with blood, his blood, in front of his nose, so he let her refresh this “forgotten” memory for him.
Each time she spoke about the first time, Andrea added something new, some element she had previously overlooked. In this way she constructed their mythical beginning. Jonathan, meanwhile, silently struggled to hold on to his own. Frankly, he was afraid of her myth. He sensed that in repeating her story, his lover was spreading her web around him. And he was scared of it, just as every man is scared when he suspects he’s being trapped, even though all she tied him with was the thread of a story.
When he thought about his first meeting with Andrea, Jonathan tried to recall facts: the well-kept apartment with its stained-glass window over the stairwell and enormous hall ending in a garden. As always, the size of living areas in Brussels staggered him. Unfortunately, the large room reminded him of a toilet bowl festooned with dried turds, and Jonathan would readily have scoured the knick-knacks and growths of souvenirs with steel wool.
He took a glass of champagne from the tray offered by a waiter and merged in with the crowd. People stood in groups in the middle of the room, some dressed in suits, others in jeans, yet Jonathan sensed that they were not quite as at ease as they pretended to be. He was just about to share his thoughts with Megi, who had come up to him with a glass, when she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward the nearest gathering.
“This is my husband, Jonathan,” she introduced him.
“Delighted…” Jonathan shook hands with the slim man.
“This is Ian, who looks after European parliamentary relations in the organization of employers.”
“My pleasure…”
“This is my husband, Jonathan. Jonathan, meet Peter. Peter is the spokesman for…”
“Aha…”
“I’m Megi, and this is my husband, Jonathan. We’ve been in Brussels for over a month. No, we haven’t seen the Atomium yet. Jonathan? Have you met Margit? She is deputy spokesman for…”
“For?”
“At the European Commission.”
“In the European Commission…”
“From the Commission…”
“Excuse me a moment, I’ve an urgent call.” Retreating, Jonathan reached into the pocket of his jacket.
He leaned against a table laden with snacks, mown down by social apathy. A private apartment and waiters, people in jeans but on stiff legs, a host with the handshake of a wet fish and a hostess with the face of Cinderella’s sister. Were they having a good time here, or working?
He grabbed a carrot and nibbled it quickly.
“You’re not from the Commission?” The question sounded like an affirmation.
Next to him stood a woman he didn’t know.
“It’s that obvious, is it?” he sighed.
She laughed and held out her hand.
“Andrea.”
Much later, he noticed that her hands were different from the rest of her body; they were wide, as if older, which she tried to disguise with a neat manicure. He hadn’t noticed at the time because Andrea was only just emerging from a haze of unfamiliarity. Tall and slim, she turned to take a canapé. Her buttocks were small and so round that he wanted to knead them.
“And don’t worry about those people.” She smiled, pointing at the undulating human circle. “Look, those on the outer circle are trainees…”
Jonathan looked at the twentysomethings whose faces were turned toward the center of the circle.
“…those closer to the center are higher-ranking officials. See the bald one on the right?”
“The bullet head?”
“He’s sharpening his teeth for the position of minister’s adviser. While the fat one with a muff of hair is angling for the still warm place of a colleague who was promoted to another department.”
“And the man everyone’s looking at?” asked Jonathan, indicating the center where a tall, slim, gray-haired man was standing. The charisma emanating from him could be felt even at a distance.
“He’s the head of cabinet for the Justice Commissioner.” Andrea smiled.
“He’s boss of them all?” Jonathan was lost.
“He’s their god.”
The circle shuffled as the head of cabinet for the Commissioner retreated, shaking the outstretched hands as he went.
Andrea glanced at her watch.
“It was nice to meet you,” she said.
Jonathan felt an unexpected wrench within, a child’s voice screaming, “I want!” Perhaps it was the trace of a Swedish accent in her practically perfect English?
“What do you do?” he asked in desperation.
“I work for Swedish television. And you?”
“I write.”
“Articles?”
“Books.”
“Ohhh!”
Jonathan slipped his hands into his pockets. He loved this sort of reaction. He knew from experience that he ought to enjoy it to the full because it generally preceded another, less desirable one that began with the question: “And what do you write?”
“Fairy tales.”
He usually bore the phase of “losing face” manfully but this time he added equivocally, “I was recently offered a job to run a course in creative writing in Brussels.”
“Ohhh!”
“But for financial reasons I suppose I ought to try for a place in the Commission…”
“Your course sounds more interesting.”
“You don’t want to know how much they pay.”
“You wouldn’t want to do what you don’t like.”