ON THE WAY to the table, Matthew takes a professional gander at the room, without being obvious about it, and notes that many tables are empty.
Well, they’re probably reserved, he tells himself.
Whether they have been reserved or not, there is no reason why you and Leila could not have been given one, BW insists. You were parked in the lounge, and you fell for it, permitted it.
Oh, what does it matter? I’m not going to let something like that bother me.
Well, you are in a forgiving mood. Exactly the mood they’re relying on. Like the other rubes, you have arrived here wanting to be pleased. You don’t want to notice the shortcomings, you want to be happy, and if you must be deceived to be happy, you are willing to participate in your own deception. Hope does not come easily or naturally to you, Matthew, but tonight you’re hoping for a wonderful evening, for yourself and for Leila. You would love to be enchanted, and you’re willing to go halfway.
At least. And you leave me alone, BW.
I shall try.
BOOTHS, tricked out in wedding-cake baroque, plastered and gilded, are arranged along two walls, one near the lounge and the other at the far end of the room; tables fill the vast center area; and a long banquette runs along the far wall, curving at the near corner and sweeping back toward the door. All the upholstery is purple velvet. At the time of decoration, gold braid must have been too good a buy to pass up. The table to which Matthew and Leila are led is one of those along the banquette. It’s a table for four. The maître d’, with a great snapping of fingers, summons a gray-haired busman, who, with bustle and clatter, begins removing the two superfluous settings. Matthew is pleased to find that he’s removing the places set on the outside, assuming that Matthew and Leila will sit side by side on the banquette.
Well, he doesn’t think she’s my daughter. A man of the world, this one.
It may merely be a subtle form of flattery, suggests BW, a technique acquired from years of serving aging men who buy dinner for girls who are not their daughters, men who, this hoary-headed busman has learned, tip well when they are given any little nod to their virility.
Fuck you.
The captain yanks the table out from the banquette; Leila slides in, and Matthew slides in beside her. A waiter sets their champagne bucket down and goes through more of the pouring business, with flourishes and arabesques, ornaments aplenty. Matthew resolves to pour subsequent glasses on his own. The waiter backs away, bowing, and at last Matthew and Leila are alone again. Matthew looks up and seems to see heads turning aside.
They are. It’s not my imagination. People have been looking at us.
Well, of course. She is striking, Matthew, and this dress really does not cover her adequately. On Belinda it was one thing, but on Leila quite another. Frankly, when she walks across the room one finds it quite difficult not to stare.
They’re all whispering.
Well, it’s possible that they are just praising the food, making excuses for the excesses in the decor, pretending to be pleased with the service, trying to reassure one another about the stability of their relationships, that sort of thing.
I think they’re speculating about us. Me and Leila.
Yes, that is more likely. I was just trying to calm you.
Matthew turns toward Leila, clinks his glass against hers, and says, “I think we’ve become a conversation piece.”
Leila looks around. Then she turns back toward him, inclines her head close to his, and says, “You may be right.”
The waiter arrives. “How are we this evening?” he asks.
Matthew’s tempted to make a mockery of this question, but Leila responds immediately, “Fine, thank you.” She answers so plainly, and her voice speaks so eloquently of her pleasure at being here, her disposition to be pleased, that Matthew finds himself unwilling to sneer. The waiter hands, first to Leila and then to Matthew, menus even larger, heavier, and more elaborately bound than the wine list, another copy of which he sets on the opposite side of the table. He asks Matthew, “Shall I pour more champagne for you?” Their glasses are still nearly full.
“No, thank you,” says Matthew. There isn’t a hint of sarcasm in his voice; he has been charmed, not so much by Café Zurich as by Leila, by her ingenuousness. He discovers that he’s able to see the room as he supposes Leila must see it, to find there what she finds: well-dressed people, drinking from cut-crystal glasses, eating from gilt-edged plates, the quiet clatter of their tableware, the murmur of conversation, the pageant of service, the grandiloquent gestures of the waiters, the maître d’s show of obsequiousness when he ushers a couple to a table, the business of opening and pouring wine, all the little performances that are supposed to add up to a classy place. The lighting is very good, soft and warm, incandescent, not fluorescent, and the people are flattered by it. The men look rather handsome, on the whole, and the women, dressed for this night in elaborate dresses, their shoulders bare, look — at a distance, at least, under these soft lights — alluring and intriguing. If these people look this good under these conditions, then maybe, Matthew allows himself to think, I look as good to them. And the glances I’m getting may be admiring ones.
[to be continued]
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🎧 508: On the way . . .