The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy

AT CAFÉ ZURICH they sweep through the revolving door and into the foyer, and the bowing and scraping begin almost at once.  Showtime , says the voice of BW. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack.com/subscribe

ON FRIDAY, Matthew buys the white mink coat. In the evening, before leaving home, he opens the box, removes the coat, spreads it on the living room rug, fur side up, and considers the effect.  Too — I don’t know — cold, somehow, he thinks. It seems to say the wrong thing. “Hooker,” for instance, says the voice of BW. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observatio...

Chapter 5 Café Zurich MATTHEW IS PROUD that he didn’t throw himself at Liz’s feet and beg her to come back. He feels that he can be patient now, wait for her to come to him, and now he believes that, eventually, she will come.  I wouldn’t have been so — cool before, he tells himself. I’ve really changed. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter L...

     The food? Possibly. Most of what we eat here is stew of one sort or another, and that’s fine with us. Stew is the international dish of comfort and consolation. Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack.com/subscribe

Superior Indian Cookery      Let us explore together this question: why are people at a certain stage of life — when they begin to feel like weary rowers who have gone too far, forgotten where they were going and why it was supposed to be worth the trip, when they begin to drift and mope and regret having departed the shore — drawn to ethnic restaurants? ... Get full access to The Personal History...

MATTHEW TIPTOES into the living room with a pillow for Liz. He slips it under her head. For a moment he stands beside the couch, looking at her. He thinks of caressing her while she sleeps, then feels ashamed of the thought and goes to bed. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack.com/subscribe

     It happens this way. Belinda snaps the light off, turns toward Matthew. There’s fatigue in her eyes and a wobble in her walk. She puts her finger to her lips. On her way to Matthew’s side, she seems to lose her balance a couple of times. She squats beside his chair and has to grab it to steady herself. “I’d better go,” she says. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experie...

HERE IS WHAT Matthew would like to have happen now. Belinda snaps the light off, turns toward Matthew. There’s mischief in her eyes and a wobble in her walk. She puts her finger to her lips. On her way to Matthew’s side, she seems about to lose her balance a couple of times. She giggles soundlessly, holding her finger to her lips. Matthew smiles. He’s intrigued. ... Get full access to The Personal...

“THIS ISN’T at all what I would have expected, Matthew!” Liz exclaims, exactly as Matthew had hoped she would. He brought her into the living room in the dark. Under these conditions, the place never fails to impress a visitor. There’s so much glass that one seems to be floating, and the manifold illumination of the city, uneven and intriguing, picks out details at random and stipples the chrome a...

ACROSS FROM the Public Garden, outside the Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School, they pass a young man leaning against an iron fence, sobbing like a child. He stands with his arm against the fence, resting his head on his arm, and sobs. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack.com/subscribe

“GOOD-BYE,” says Liz as they pass the hockey players. “It’s great to see you having such a good time.”     One of them rises immediately. “Please to sit down,” he says, stepping aside from his chair unsteadily and gesticulating elaborately.     “Oh, no, no. We have to go,” says Liz. “Good-bye. Good-bye. Do svedanya .”     “Oh, no. Please don’t say ‘do svedanya,’ krasivaya zhenshchina .”     “ Da —...

ONE OF THE WOMEN from the academic group comes to their table, holding two dishes of food. She’s a large woman, wearing layers of clothes, dressed sensibly for a hike in the White Mountains. “Would you like some of this food?” she asks. Matthew has been expecting her. He has seen her moving around the room, trying to give the group’s surplus food away. ... Get full access to The Personal History,...

“DO YOU KNOW where the ladies’ room is?” asks Belinda. Liz looks at Matthew immediately, and they smile but somehow keep from laughing. A warmth spreads across Matthew’s back, through his stomach, and into his scrotum; it’s the physical manifestation of happy memories. He and Liz have laughed about the bathroom here many times, on many happy visits. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adv...

THEIR FOOD ARRIVES, and they fall to with gusto. They’ve reached that point of intoxication when the best object of drinking has been achieved: their inhibitions have been lowered, their tongues have been loosened, a warm well-being has suffused them, a puckishness inhabits them. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substa...

THE GRANDFATHER arrives to pour water for them. He has the same bemused look that Matthew remembers. On nights when the restaurant was quiet, nearly empty, he seemed puzzled, as if pondering the mysterious behavior of his absent customers. Where might they be on this night if they are not in my restaurant? What can they be up to? What are they doing that is keeping them away from us? ... Get full...

     “Could I please have some water,” calls the man in the nylon shorts without looking up from his work on the papers. Liz and Belinda respond by giggling like children at a family gathering, convulsed by the bizarre behavior of their intoxicated elders. Matthew sits upright and says, “Shhhh.” A gust of fear has disturbed his fun. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experien...

     Matthew has a twinkle in his eye. He sips his tequila. “I think he’s not just a nut,” he says. “I think he is a very singular nut.” He pauses and turns the twinkle toward Belinda, enjoying the idea that he and Belinda know something that Liz doesn’t. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack.com/subscribe

THE RESTAURANT is tiny and entirely below ground level. At the foot of the stairs is a cubicle for the cashier, a waist-high enclosure, and opposite it is an opening through which a narrow snapshot of the kitchen is visible. Matthew can’t help smiling when he passes this opening and hears the voices coming from it, striking exactly the note of frantic urgency that he remembers, a tone that used to...

JUST BEHIND the fancy couple is a big man in an enormous parka, unzipped, his barrel chest bulging from it. On the wall behind him is a board on which the day’s specials are listed and described in several colors of chalk. The big man is speaking animatedly, gesticulating broadly, putting his whole body into an address to the others in his party. When he makes a point, he rises on his toes and bou...

PADDED with winter coats, most of the people lined up along the staircase that twists down into the restaurant occupy about twice their summer volume, but first in line is a lightly dressed couple of a type that Matthew and Liz used to snicker at. “Colonials to your left,” Matthew mutters. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterle...

     The Black Hole has no liquor license. He and Liz always used to stop at the liquor store across the street and get some beer before they went in. Now Matthew stops there, intending to get some beer, just as he would have in the good old days, but when he steps across the threshold the rush of old familiar feelings is strong, and it makes him realize that by bringing beer he’s likely to seem t...

SO he’s going to have dinner with Liz at the Black Hole. Showering, dressing, getting ready — it all feels comfortingly familiar. For a while, before they moved out of the city to Lincoln, he and Liz must have eaten at the Black Hole once a week. It was a time when they were eating out nearly every evening because they were both so busy. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Exp...

     “Mrs. Barber?” says his secretary. There is a question in her voice, and Matthew focuses on that detail. She’s new, and she has never had any contact with Liz. Matthew can imagine her disbelief when the woman on the phone claimed to be his wife, a wife she never knew existed. “The former Mrs. Barber,” he says, in just the way he would have corrected any other small error, ... Get full access...

Chapter 4 Superior Indian Cookery MATTHEW IS AT WORK, in his office, two floors from the top of a two-year-old building in the section of Boston that was once the garment district and is now the financial district, where construction has been booming for the last several years. ... Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack...

     There are no chianti bottles here, but if there were, they would be broken, deliberately, just so. There are definitely no checkered tablecloths, but if there were, they would be artificially stained. We are dealing with a new order here, for new citizens of a new world, with inverted notions of trash and taste. . . . Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observat...