Page 22, “The Persuasion”
Chapter 5
Within seconds, I became one of those women I disdained, the kind who became blithering idiots around men they found attractive. I found it hard to look directly at him, difficult to think of anything to say, and embarrassing to continue to sit there as it became evident, at least to me, that the French student leaders were not going to show.
Tonin, on the other hand, seemed quite at ease. He talked about the people we were waiting for—how impressed he was with Daniel’s knowledge of the law, how sophisticated the European students were in comparison with the American antiwar protesters, how they weren’t usually late for meetings. I don’t recall my actually saying anything but I do remember telling myself to pull my fingers out of my mouth and stop chewing my cuticles.
After about an hour, the last five minutes of which Tonin had spent walking in and out of the room, he, still standing, pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote on the margin of the Herald Tribune: “du vin rosé avec moi?” He tapped the paper with his pen, lightly, repeatedly, making small artful dots resembling seeds until he’d circled the words avec moi. I got up as he pulled out my chair.
