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happy.”
    She nestled up to him, kissing him again and again. At first he wanted to withdraw, push her away, and talk things through. But when he held her away from him at arm’s length and looked into her blank, distant face, he gave up. He let her kiss and bite his nipples, and do all the things she knew aroused him. His orgasm came, she held him tight, and then, in the numbness of approaching sleep, he felt that his proposal had become unreal.

10
    HER REACTION WHEN HE PROPOSED TO HER was not the only warning. Later he saw all the signals for what they had been, and realized that he hadn’t wanted to see them.
    Her sudden departures. He would come home Friday evening from Marseille, and Françoise would be waiting for him in a wonderful weekend mood. They’d go to dine at Les Vieux Temps, and would talk all evening with Gérard and Catrine, and then Saturday fritter away the morning. In the afternoon he had to translate. He would finish his quota by Saturday evening or Sunday morning, and they would have breakfast, stroll through the vineyards, or by the tomato and melon fields, or through the woods on the slopes of the Luberon. When they returned they would lie down, and have a cup of tea or glass of champagne in bed. That was how their typical weekend passed. And Françoise’s leaving suddenly at four or five in the afternoon on Sundays had almost become a part of the weekend routine.
    “I have to go now.”
    “You do?” Georg asked the first time, taken aback. He tried to hold on to her, to pull her back. She wriggled free, and he got up todress. She sat down on the edge of the bed, already wearing her skirt and blouse.
    “You don’t have to get up, darling,” she said. “Stay in bed and get some rest.” She tucked him in and kissed him. “I just need some time to myself. I’m going to head home and take care of a few things, and call Mom and Dad. Tomorrow evening, when you get back from Marseille, I’ll be waiting for you.”
    Georg would perhaps have come to terms with this had Françoise kept only Sunday evenings for herself. But she said she needed some time to herself, then that she had to take care of important business for Bulnakov, or that she was expecting an important phone call she simply had to take at home. This didn’t happen often during the week. But there were times when she suddenly got up and left after dinner, or after he’d fallen asleep. He kept trying to stop her from leaving—with questions, or a sharp or ironic word or two—but always came up against her unyielding resistance. She warded him off tenderly, angrily, or desperately, but in the end she always left. The first few times, he did remain in bed. But it was usually dusk when she left, and he found the aching beauty of the twilight hour alone painful, with her scent in his bed. So he too would dress, go with her downstairs, and stand at the garden gate until he could no longer see her car.
    One weekend he had picked her up at Bulnakov’s office on Friday afternoon, and so she had to ask him to drive her home on Sunday when she needed to go. He took advantage of the situation, kept stalling and saying “Just a second,” and they made love one more time. She wanted to get it over with quickly, but he kept her at it, and it was so wonderful for her that she could not leave. Finally she begged him to make her come. Not because she was anxious to leave, but because she couldn’t stand it anymore. And when he did, she was ecstatic. As he drove her home she nestled upagainst him and whispered tenderly, all the while urging him to drive faster. “Oh God, I’m going to be late! What did I want that orgasm for?”
    She rarely invited him into her apartment, two adjoining rooms on the ground floor, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a terrace outside the larger room. The place felt unlived-in. He took a few snapshots of her, though she didn’t like being photographed: Françoise on the terrace, Françoise hanging out the washing,