Arthur’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Half a step to the left. Smile, nod. That’s a good girl. Maybe you’ve finally learned something in ten years.”
At the entrance to the Marriott, a woman of about twenty-seven in a burgundy dress with a deep neckline, showing off tanned skin and a gold chain, was waiting for them. Karina rushed to Arthur before the car had completely stopped, and a smile bloomed on her face, intended for him alone. A smile that women give not to bosses, but to lovers. Intimate, promising, leaving no doubt.
“Arthur, finally! Herr Schmidt is already in the VIP area, getting nervous, checking his watch.” She lowered her voice to a half-whisper, leaning so close that her perfume, sweet, heavy, completely unsuitable for a business event, enveloped him. “I ordered him schnapps, as you said, but he’s still frowning. Germans are such pedants.”
“It’s fine, we’ll sort it out.” Arthur covered her hand with his, holding the touch a second longer than necessary.
Only after that did Karina deign to turn to Veronica, giving her a look one gives to a servant who has forgotten her place, or to old furniture that should have been thrown out long ago but there was never time.
“Oh, Veronica! What a modest outfit,” her voice rang with mockery, poorly disguised as social courtesy. “At first, I thought it was our driver Michael who brought his wife to the banquet for a dance.”
She laughed brightly, confidently, with the laughter of a woman who knows her place in this hierarchy. And on her wrist gleamed that very bracelet: ten thousand dollars, Cartier, white gold with a diamond clasp.
Arthur chuckled along with her, not even glancing at his wife, and took Karina’s arm with the same gesture men use for women they are proud of.
“Let’s go, darling. It will do Veronica good to walk a bit, stretch her legs after the car. Her doctors recommended more movement.”
They moved towards the elevators ahead, shoulder to shoulder, like the hosts of the evening, like a couple that belongs together. And Veronica trailed behind, a few steps away, feeling the indifferent gaze of the doorman in a livery with golden buttons.
Ten years. Ten years of her youth, a buried career that her colleagues had envied, a child she had lost and mourned alone. And this was the result. Walking behind her husband’s mistress like a freeloader, like a poor relative from the provinces invited out of pity.
But something inside her didn’t break in that moment. On the contrary, it fell into place, like a vertebra that had been displaced for years and suddenly snapped back into its correct position. The Veronica who had argued with university professors and won, who had received grants in Heidelberg, beating a hundred applicants, who had translated speeches for ministers and was not afraid to correct a diplomat if he misquoted Goethe. That Veronica hadn’t gone anywhere. She had just been sleeping. For ten years.
The banquet hall on the top floor shone with lights, and beyond the panoramic windows, the night city stretched out. A scattering of lights to the horizon, traced by the dark ribbon of the river and the twinkling dots of car headlights on the bridges.
Arthur pointed to a round table behind a decorative column wrapped in artificial ivy and a garland, in the farthest corner of the hall, away from the main guests.
“Sit here. Eat. Drink. Don’t stick your neck out,” he said in the tone one uses to command a misbehaving dog, without looking it in the eye. “If I need you, I’ll send Karina, she’ll find you.”
“Of course,” Veronica replied and sat down on a chair with velvet upholstery, ordering still water with a slice of lemon from a passing waiter.
The spot behind the column turned out to be a perfect observation point. From here, the entire hall was in plain view, and no one paid her the slightest attention. Because who is interested in a gray mouse in a beige dress when there are so many bright outfits, so many loud voices, so many important people wanting to be noticed? “The cheap seats in the theater,” she thought, bringing the glass to her lips, “the cheapest seats, but the best view.”
The German delegation was seated at the main table in the center of the hall. Six men in identical dark suits sat with the straight posture of people accustomed to expensive chairs and the attention of others. At the head sat Herr Schmidt—gray-haired, tall, lean, with the face of a man accustomed to the world adapting to him, not the other way around, and who tolerated no objections.
Veronica recognized him immediately, although eight years had passed. The Hanoverian accent with its characteristic pronunciation of consonants, the habit of tapping his index finger on the table when his interlocutor was saying something foolish, and an intolerance for unprofessionalism that made working with him both challenging and exciting.
Next to Schmidt sat a young man with a leather folder and a notepad—obviously a translator sent by some capital firm or hired through an agency. The guy had clearly been hired from an ad for “cheap, urgent, on-site,” and he was already losing this race by a landslide. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his tie was askew, and his eyes held the expression of someone who realized he had boarded the wrong train but it was too late to jump off…
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