Free A Neverending Affair by Kopen Hagen

reason she sometimes played out her sexuality, her appeal, in a way she hardly ever did with him. It did make him jealous, but it also turned him on. More than once, after a party, he would ask her why she had spoken so much with Mr. Y, or why she had let her shoulder band slip when she was sitting next to Mr. M.
    She would look at him and say , “Because I know it turns you on. Come on, tiger, make my day, or rather, make my night.”
    And they would make love. Never had his jealousy led to any real conflict , as Liv cleverly knew how to turn it into something positive.  
    They walked a few blocks and found a nice looking Lebane se restaurant. She knew quite a lot about Lebanese food. Her father, the Armenian, had had a lot of business in Lebanon and had several Lebanese friends. She suggested that they would share meze , rather than buying main dishes. He looked questioning at her and said, “You know, I come from the country of meatballs, vodka and crisp bread. I know nothing about Lebanese food, nothing about meze, tabouleh, hummus and alike. For us, sophisticated foreign food is either French haute cuisine, Italian Pizza, four small dishes at the Chinese restaurant or a Big Mac.”
    “Olaf ,” she said, “you shouldn’t be ashamed of your country. It has a lot to offer, as far as I can see. Wonderful nature, a good social security system, decent people that hardly ever fight, some wonderful pieces of culture and some really great personalities. Perhaps food is not your strength,” she said with a smile, “but I wouldn’t know as I never tried it.” 
    “You know , partly it is the kind of modesty we have, or promote. On the individual level, we should not try to be better than our peers, and we extrapolate that also to our whole nation. There is even a law for it, the Jante Law, which was formulated by a Norwegian author living in Denmark, but perhaps most vigorously applied in Sweden. We play down what we have accomplished; we speak about our ‘little duck pond’ all the time. We call our home and country the duck pond to show that we are insignificant and that even if the debate might be heated—you know what a load of noise ducks can make—it is trivial and nobody outside Sweden would give a damn, things like that. Of course, sometimes this is all false modesty, a bit like the Japanese. They also bow and are courteous and show extreme modesty, while in reality they despise us primitive Westerners. Swedes can also be like that, but we keep that for ourselves. Anyway, you choose the food. I am sure you’ll make a good choice. Just not too many things with yogurt, I don’t fancy that a lot.”
    Ronia ordered tabouleh, kafta, kibbeh, labneh bil zayit, falafel, and also a bottle of Cave Kouroum Syrah.
    “This wine is excellent ,” said Olaf. “I don’t think I ever had Lebanese wine before.”
    “Another time I will try to get you Armenian wine ,” said Ronia. “Although I must admit that the cognac is much better than the wine, even if my present motherland, in its nationalistic arrogance and protectionism, has managed to sway the world into depriving the Armenians to even call their brandy cognac.” 
    They chatted a bit about the day, concluded that it could be fun to go to Ge nt for the art fair. Olaf had been to Gent before and entertained Ronia with stories of the torture museum at the castle of Gent, Gravensteen . After a while, she told him that perhaps he could consider another topic for conversation and also he could think of something else she could see in Gent.
    “Oh, sorry, I got carried away. It ’s been a long time since I was there and I don’t remember much. Apart from the ghastly castle, I remember a quite run-down neighborhood with charm. And I remember the tram.”
    “Why”
    “I was riding the tram and then there was a car blocking the tracks. The driver yelled and tried to get someone’s attention, but in the end the driver didn’t show up. After five minutes, he asked