Free The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian Page B

servants.
    “We're not French. Prenubile wines hold no fascination for us. Bring a '53 if you have it, or a '55 if not.”
    As the steward departed, Jemima asked, “Is this Lafite something special?”
    “You don't know?”
    “No.”
    Jonathan signaled the steward to return. “Forget the Lafite. Bring us an Haut-Brion instead.”
    Assuming the change was a fiscal reconsideration, the steward made an elaborate production of scratching the Lafite off his pad and scribbling down the Haut-Brion.
    “Why did you do that?” Jemima asked.
    “Thrift, Miss Brown. Lafite is too expensive to waste.”
    “How do you know, I might have enjoyed it.”
    “Oh, you'd have enjoyed it all right. But you wouldn't have appreciated it.”
    Jemima looked at him narrowly. “You know? I have this feeling you're not a nice person.”
    “Niceness is an overrated quality. Being nice is how a man pays his way into the party if he hasn't the guts to be tough or the class to be brilliant.”
    “May I quote you?”
    “Oh, you probably will.”
    “Ah-h—Johnson to Boswell?”
    “James Abbott McNeill Whistler to Wilde. But not a bad guess.”
    “A gentleman would have pretended I was right. I was right about your not being a nice person.”
    “I'll try to make up for it by being other things. Witty, or poetic perhaps. Or even terribly interested in you, which, by the way, I am.” His eyes twinkled.
    “You're putting me on.”
    “I admit it. It's all a facade. I just pretend to be urbane as an armor for my vulnerable hypersensitivity.”
    “Now I'm getting a put-on within the put-on.”
    “How do you like being on Flugle Street?”
    “Help.”
    Jonathan laughed and let the con lie where it was.
    Jemima sighed and shook her head. “Man, you're really a social buzz saw, aren't you. I like to put people on myself by skipping logical steps in the conversation until they're dizzy. But that sort of thing isn't even in your league, is it?”
    “I don't know that you could call it a league. After all, there's only one team and one player.”
    “Here we go again.”
    “Let's take time out for dinner.”
    The salad was crisp, the steaks huge and perfect, and they washed them down with the Haut-Brion. Throughout the meal they chatted lightly, allowing the topic to pivot on a word or a sudden thought, ranging from art to politics to childhood embarrassments to social issues, clinging to a subject only so long as there was amusement in it. They shared a sense of the ridiculous and took neither themselves nor the great names in art and politics too seriously. Often it was unnecessary to finish a sentence—the other predicting the thrust and nodding agreement or laughing. And sometimes they shared brief, relaxed silences, neither feeling a need to keep up conversation as a defense against communication. They sat next to a window. The rain alternately rattled and relented. They made ludicrous guesses about the professions and destinations of the passersby. Without recognizing it, Jonathan was dealing with Gem as though she were a man—an old friend. He drifted with the stream of conversation honestly, forgetting the pre-bed banter that usually constituted the basis of his small talk with women.
    “A college teacher?” Gem asked incredulously. “Don't tell me that, Jonathan. You're undermining my stereotypes.”
    “How about you as a stewardess? How did that ever happen?”
    “Oh, I don't know. Came out of college after changing majors every year and tried to find a job as a Renaissance Woman, but there wasn't a heading like that in the want ads. And traveling around seemed like a possible thing to do. It also struck me as kind of fun to be the first black stewardess on the line—I was their public relationsNegress .” She pronounced the word prissily, ridiculing those who would use it. “How about you? How did you happen to become a college teacher?”
    “Oh, I came out of college and tried to find a job as a Renaissance Man,