Discretion Read Free Page B

not speak French, nor did millions of his countrymen. When he rose to power after two world wars had reduced Europe to its knees and its control over its colonies had collapsed like a stack of dominoes, my president found himself in the painfully embarrassing position of having to rely on French interpreters to do business with the French.
    I was a savior to him when he blasted the French government for its negligence, which he characterized as criminal, in leaving behind a populace of which close to 80 percent could barely read or write though their people had decimated acres of our farmland in their savage pursuit of uranium and gold. I pleased him with the accuracy with which I conveyed his anger (shortly afterwards, the French ministry sent a letter promising financial support and personnel), and he arranged with the missionaries for me to leave off teaching and work with him. Soon I became his personal interpreter and his most trusted companion. I knew his secrets and I kept them. Because I also spoke and wrote English, I was not only his interpreter with the French but also with the English. In time there was no one he relied on or trusted more than me.
    He made me an assistant to his ambassador to the United States the year my country was suffering from a terrible drought and our children were dying like flies, their stomachs bloated from dysentery and starvation. He hoped that with my help as interpreter, his ambassador could stir the consciences of the world. I was twenty-eight then. Four years later, I would be ambassador myself.
    For the honor of being named assistant to the ambassador, my president asked me one favor: to marry his daughter and take her with me to America. It was not a favor that was difficult for me to grant him. Nerida was a beautiful woman. She had a soft smile and shy, gentle eyes. Her skin was dark brown, at least three shades lighter than mine. It reminded me of the color of cocoa. She was wearing our traditional dress when her father introduced me to her, and though it covered her from her neck to her ankles, I could see that she was lovely.
    I was not disappointed on our wedding night. She had the figure a man dreams his wife would have: small breasts, narrow waist, wide hips. It was the figure of my mother. What I remembered of my mother before I was weaned from her breasts when I was four years old. I remembered sitting on my mother’s lap cushioned between her hips. When I made love to Nerida the first time, the memory was so strong, I wept. Nerida asked me why I cried. I said, “Because I am happy.”
    It was not a lie. I was happy, or rather I became quite happy with Nerida within a very short space of time.
    Not long after our marriage, her father, my president, sent me to Geneva for six months’ training in the diplomatic service before I would assume my post as assistant to his ambassador to the United States. Nerida accompanied me and, in those six months away from her family, she blossomed.
    I discovered I had a wife who was not only beautiful but intelligent, not only intelligent but of such character that I grew to admire her. Never once did she complain that she was lonely or that she missed her home, though I would often leave her alone in our apartment all day and night as I honed my diplomatic skills: developing
sprezzatura
, learning to keep my thoughts to myself until they mattered, and then, presenting them, always to appear harmless, affable. I acquired this talent not only from watching others negotiate around the conference table, but from observing them trade favors at the dinner parties and lavish cocktail parties that were frequent in diplomatic circles.
    Nerida came with me sometimes to these parties, but moreoften than not she stayed at home. She found these occasions boring and surprised me by saying she felt useless.
    “Like a piece of decoration with no function,” she said.
    I had thought that this was what most women lived for: to be seen, to be admired,