People would think I beat you!
Look at me!
Are you very cross with me, poor little thing?”
“No, Margot . . .”
“You know very well,” she continued in her soft, even voice, “that you can always find every sort of help at my place, even the most painful of all: the truth . . . What did I say to you?
I said, ‘You’ve gotten old . . .’ ”
“Yes . . . Oh, Margot . . .”
“Come now, don’t start again!
I meant that you’ve gotten old this week!
You’ve gotten old today!
Tomorrow, or in an hour, you’ll be five years or ten years younger . . . If you had come yesterday, or tomorrow, I no doubt would have said to you,
‘My, you’ve gotten younger!’ ”
“Just imagine, Margot, I’ll be thirty-four soon!”
“Go ahead and complain; I’m fifty-two.”
“It’s not the same thing, Margot; I need so much to be pretty, to be young, to be happy . . . I have . . . I . . .”
“You have a lover?”
Her voice is still soft, but the expression on her face has changed slightly.
“I don’t have a lover, Margot!
Only, there’s no doubt that . . . I’m going to have one. But . . . I love him, you know!”
This type of silly excuse tickles Margot.
“Ah, you love him . . .
Does he love you, too?”
“Oh!”
With a prideful gesture I clear my boyfriend of all suspicion.
“Good.
And . . . how old is he?”
“Just my age, Margot: almost thirty-four.”
“That’s . . . good.”
I find nothing to add.
I’m terribly bothered.
I was hoping that, once my first embarrassment was over, I could babble about my joy and tell her all about my friend, the color of his eyes, the shape of his hands, his kindness, his uprightness . . .
“He’s . . . he’s very nice, you know, Margot . . .,” I risk timidly.
“That’s good, child.
Do the two of you have any plans?”
“Plans?
No . . . We haven’t been thinking of things yet . . . We’ve got time . . .”
“That’s true: you do have time . . . And what becomes of the tour in all this?”
“My tour? Well! My romance doesn’t change anything.”
“Are you taking along your . . . your fellow?”
Though all wet with tears, I can’t help laughing: Margot is referring to my friend with a discretion born of distaste, as if she were mentioning something nasty!
“I am taking him along, I am . . . That is . . . To tell the truth, Margot, I have no idea.
I’ll see . . .”
My sister-in-law raises her eyebrows:
“You have no idea!
You have no plans!
You’ll see! . . .
My word, you two are amazing!
What, then, are you thinking about?
After all, you’ve got nothing else to do but make plans and prepare your future!”
“Our future . . . Oh, Margot, I don’t like the future!