Now that I’ve been around (hey, hey) I am no longer astonished at the lubricity of these old biddies, but at the time I just couldn’t get over it.
When we all sat around moaning and groaning about how expensive Paris was—and we did, it was one of our favorite conversations—he simply switched off. You could actually see it boring him. And the few times that we dined alone together, at the end of our meal there was none of the usual leaping up …
“It’s just that the mystique of brutality runs right through —well, it doesn’t run, but it’s there. It’s like that G.I. we knew who went AWOL in the war—” he turned slowly to the Englishman. “AWOL, A, W, O, L,” he repeated clearly for his benefit. “Do you have it? I mean of course you have it, but …
Anyway, we danced a whole set, and at the end of it, to my great relief, he let me go. He gave me those crazy eyes again, but I decided they came with the face.
I had been lumped together all this time with my fool cousin, placed “on his side,” so to speak, by accident of blood, nationality and the seating arrangements. It was an error I intended to rectify. It was dessert now, and I was deserting. He was just heading into a fresh topic—admittedly not one …
