21

“Shall we go to dinner?” he asked Lida.

“I’m not sure I can walk,” she said.

“I’ll help you.” He led her toward the dining room.

The waiter presented him with a thick black binder. The wine list. “You choose,” he said, handing it across to her.

“I don’t know anything about wine,” she told him, flipping through the plastic-covered pages and pondering the selection. When she saw the waiter approaching again, she pointed to a very plain label and said, “This one.” She had studiously avoided reading the prices that were typed at the bottom of each page. She hoped it was neither terribly cheap nor terribly expensive.

The bottle arrived and was uncorked. The waiter aimed at Duvivier’s glass, but he covered it with his hand. “It was the lady,” he said, “who ordered the wine.”

The waiter scowled, then poured a bit into Lida’s glass.

“Oh, God,” she said, “does this mean I have to sniff it and gargle it and slosh it around in my mouth?”

“No”—he laughed—“only American businessmen do that. All you have to do is look at it and nod.”

Lida nodded.

She managed dinner.

“What can I do, where can I take you, what can I buy you,” he asked, pushing the asparagus he had ordered from one side of his plate to another, “in order to make this evening one that you’ll remember?”

“How about dessert?” Lida said.