At home, she threw herself down in the armchair in the living room and looked out at the sky as it grew darker. Was there milk in the grocery bag, or yogurt or chicken or fish? Something she ought to put away? She didn't care. She thought about Dr. Lipi, the way he stared with his sharp eyes. The man on the plane had such soft gray eyes. She'd seen a teenage boy in the lobby with fresh pink cheeks and the slack, greedy face of youth. Margaret leaned her head back. She liked this time of day, when everything faded so softly.
When the doorbell rang, she jumped and shuddered and realized she must have fallen asleep. The apartment was quite dark now. She stumbled to the door. Edward must have forgotten his keys. Good. Everyone should forget something sometimes. And she would somehow not have wanted him to find her asleep, for when she slept she dreamed. She no longer wanted Edward to know what it was she dreamed about.
"Hello," she said, blinking at the glare from the hall lights as she opened the door.
"'Allo," replied the figure in the door. "But look who it is! It is you, the pretty girl from the airplane. Bonjour! 'Allo, 'allo!"
No, not Edward.
Margaret looked closer. Those thin lips, moist and pouting. The gray eyes. And the shirt. The green-and-white-striped shirt. It was the man from the plane, the man she dreamed about, the man who fell asleep on her face. But what was he doing here when he was awake, when she was awake? How had he found her? She hadn't told him her address, not even her name. And didn't he have any other shirts? She said nothing in her excitement. Nothing at all.
"You are astonished to see me."
Margaret nodded.
"And I am astonished to see you!"
But I live here, Margaret thought.
"I look for Marguerite Nathan."
"You find her," said Marguerite.
"Yes? So pleasant that she is you!"
"Yes. So pleasant." Margaret stared down at the bag of groceries she'd left on the floor by the door. The smell of scallions and overripe strawberries drifted up.
"You are acquainted with my father. I am Martin Court, son of Jules Court, of Brussels. You have met him in Prague, yes? He gives me your name and location and says I am to meet you. But we meet already!"
"Yes, we do."
"That is really something!"
Margaret looked at the shirt and the blue cashmere blazer and the unself-consciously protruding belly. I'm looking at him too long, she thought.
"Follow me!" she said.
In some confusion, she switched on lights, a lot of lights, every light she passed. The apartment glared. Margaret led Martin Court to the living room. She was not looking at him at all now, careful not to look at him. She turned to motion him to take a seat. Martin grasped her hand.
I will swoon, she thought. She felt ill, and the bright lights burned her sleepy eyes. He had come for her. She was meant to take a lover, and now her lover was here, here for her to take. His hand closed around hers, large and warm around her suddenly icy fingers, tighter and tighter, drawing her toward him. His long fingers, curled around hers, pressed harder and harder, drawing her hand up slightly, but urgently, then down again. Martin Court was shaking her hand.
"That is really something!" he said again. "Really, really something!"
Margaret coughed, nodded, and sat down.
Martin Court was an engineer of absurdly expensive hi-fi equipment whose company was hoping to break into the American market. He had been to New York twice since his father had rescued Margaret from the dangers of Prague's suggestively beautiful architecture, but only now had he found the time to look up the beneficiary of his father's excellent sense of direction.
Margaret did not want to offer him coffee because he was French and would judge her coffee harshly, until she remembered he was Belgian. "Would you like a cup of coffee?" she said. Her voice sounded sharp to her, the squawk of an unpleasant night bird as it pounced on its prey.
"Tea."
In the kitchen, Margaret stood over the kettle and watched it not boil. He was here, in her house. His name was Martin, a name impossible to pronounce properly in French without sounding as if one's sinuses were blocked. His hair fell over his eyes, onto his big, oddly shaped glasses. What did she say to him now? She had already given him her life's history on the plane, told him her secret philistine theories of epistemology. Perhaps she should tell him Edward's Theory of Monogamy and the End of Evolution, a.k.a. Adultery, the Ultimate Self-Sacrifice.
Margaret heard the front door open.
"Oh, hello," she heard Edward say.
"'Allo. I am Martin Court, a friend of Marguerite. You are a friend of Marguerite, too?"
The kettle whistled shrilly.
Margaret made a cup of tea for Martin Court and sat down and drank it. She hated tea.
I will never go out there, she thought. I will stay here, by the stove. I will sleep on the stove like a Russian house serf. It's nice and warm in here by the stove. Out there, it's too hot.
She heard them laughing, talking about Wagner and George Bernard Shaw, the advantages of tube amplifiers and the necessity for something called Monster Cable.
"Margaret," Edward said, coming into the kitchen. "How funny that you met your new chum on the plane. Have you asked him to dinner? He'll keep you company. I can't stay, I'm afraid."