The Dinner

Paul criticizes the pretentious décor of the restaurant while Claire listens, her smile indicating that “she found all the fuss entertaining at best” (19). Paul peruses the menu; he looks for the prices but insists that he is not reticent about spending money. He notices that the pink champagne has cost them €10. Paul and Claire discuss whether the restaurant tricked them into buying the aperitif. Paul tries to call across the floor manager but one of the lower-ranked staff members arrives. As he is about to complain to her about the aperitif, Claire announces that Serge and Babette have arrived.

Typically, Paul sits where he can see the entire restaurant but tonight he has allowed Claire that privilege. Tonight, he wanted to tell her, “all I want to see is you” (21). But the presence of the floor manager had made Paul swallow his words. Additionally, facing the wall means that Paul does not have to watch his brother’s grand entrance. But when Serge arrives, Paul turns and looks anyway. Everyone in the restaurant notices the arrival of Serge and Babette Lohman. The staff fuss over them. The owner greets them. Serge and Babette appear at Paul and Claire’s table. They greet one another and Paul notices something different about Babette, whose size and shape gives her a kind of presence. Her body’s proportions are in perfect harmony, Paul notes, but she occasionally intimidates men. She also looks good in anything. Whenever she is around, Paul finds himself attempting to seem bigger. He looks into her eyes, through her dark glasses, and sees that Babette has been crying, possibly in the car on the way to the restaurant. Paul knows that Babette is not trying to hide this from him but before Paul can say anything, Serge pushes through and greets him. The empty smile and forceful handshake Serge employs, Paul thinks, will lead to a certain electoral victory in a few months’ time. They sit down; Serge and Claire on one side of the table, Paul and Babette on the other, each facing their own partner. The floor manager offers pink champagne. Though he notices Claire’s warning signs, Paul interrupts.

The floor manager points to each of the items on Serge’s plate, explaining each one in-depth. As the man had uncorked a bottle of Chablis (ordered by Serge), Paul had inspected his well-groomed nails. He resolves to restrain himself when the man begins to point to Paul’s own plate with his finely-manicured little finger. Paul is already annoyed: Serge’s supposed knowledge of wine annoys him. The floor manager’s inability to open a bottle of wine annoys him. When the manager leaves to fetch another bottle, Serge seems annoyed that he has missed an opportunity to show off. Paul remembers when his brother drank only cola and produced “gigantic belches” (28). Now, Serge has turned a closet in his house into a wine cellar, much to Babette’s bemusement. Babette, Paul believes, is much smarter than Serge, just as Claire is smarter than him.

The floor manager begins to narrate Claire’s plate. Paul notices that the plate is mostly empty; even in the better restaurants, where a void on a plate denotes quality, Paul sees Claire’s minimal appetizer as being particularly egregious. The floor manager moves on to Paul’s dinner as Paul thinks about his brother’s graduation from a night school course in wine-tasting. Paul looks at Babette, wondering how Serge brought her to tears. He hopes she will sting Serge with a barbed comment. But she says nothing. Paul hopes that the couple might explode into argument later in the evening. The lamb’s lettuce on his plate reminds him of a hamster kept in his boyhood classroom. They fed it lettuce through the cage and one morning it was dead. Paul does not want the appetizer he has ordered; it was a panicked choice, caused by a desperation not to select the same as Serge or Babette. The floor manager finally leaves. They make small talk, unable to remember what they had been discussing prior to the interruption. To Paul, it is “a fairly typical prelude to a standard restaurant evening” (32).

When the conversation moves on to films, Paul becomes disinterested. He believes that talking about films is for “when you really don’t have much else to talk about” (33). Serge is discussing the new Woody Allen film; he believes that it is a masterpiece and that Claire and Paul simply must go and see it. They already have, Claire says. Two months ago, Paul adds. Though Paul liked the film, he is hesitant to hail it as a masterpiece. Not wanting to agree with his brother, he prepares to savage the film in an effort to prove that Serge really did not understand it. Paul cannot help but remember Serge’s insatiable appetite and his ill-manners; he wonders whether this applies to his brother’s sex life, too. When Paul makes a comment about Serge’s appreciation of the film, a dramatic pause hangs over the restaurant that’s broken only by Babette’s laughter. They continue to talk about the film. 

Paul admits that his brother is an attractive man. Babette is the only woman who has stuck with Serge for an extended period of time, however. They have been together 18 years and have squabbled for all of that time. Paul wonders whether the constant friction fuels their marriage or whether Babette readily signed up for a lifetime of playing a politician’s wife. They have two children: Rick, who is Michel’s age, and Valerie, a “slightly autistic thirteen-year-old girl with an almost translucent, mermaid-like beauty” (36). There is also Beau, aged between 14-17, who the couple adopted from Burkina Faso. When Beau first came from Burkina Faso—after a lengthy long-distance written relationship—Babette and Serge waved away all questions about what they were doing. They have always been adamant that they love Beau just as much as their naturally-born children. Paul has a slightly view of Serge’s motivations for the adoption, noting that Serge stood more frequently for family photographs after Beau’s arrival. A young waitress becomes flustered as she refills the wine glasses. Paul imagines her telling the story later that evening. He notices Serge’s expression change from annoyance to empathy on realizing that the waitress is a pretty young woman. Serge makes a joke about the waitress voting for him in the forthcoming election and the waitress blushes. Paul studies Babette for a reaction but sees only amusement.

Each year, Serge and Babette vacation in their house in Dordogne, France, with their children. A year before, Paul and his family stayed with Serge and his family for three days. It was the first and the last time they would stay with Serge’s family in France. Though the location was lovely, the weather was muggy and there were many insects. Serge failed to notice the extent to which the locals disliked him and overcharged him. Both Claire and Paul had wanted to leave. On the final night, Serge and Babette invited other Dutch people for dinner in the garden. Serge worked the barbeque, drinking while he grilled. Every Dutch person told Paul the same story, of being delighted to be in France. The entire situation seemed to resemble a decades-old television commercial. The Dutch people tell one another that they are a boon to the local community and dismiss any anti-Dutch sentiment. None will acknowledge the skyrocketing house prices the locals must now endure due to the Dutch vacation homes. Paul thinks about how easy it would be to do violence to any of these Dutch people. Paul catches Claire’s eye and they exchange a desperate look, both longing to leave. But they cannot. Paul thinks of violent films as he talks to the guests. The party gets interrupted by a group of French men, who have escorted Michel and Rick back from the village. Beau is with them too, held tightest of all by the locals. They have twisted Beau’s arm behind his back and pressed his face into the grass of Serge’s garden. Drunkenly, Serge staggers forward to try and resolve the situation.

At dinner, Paul returns from the bathroom to find a new bottle of wine but no main course. He had only needed to escape for a moment but, arriving in front of the urinal, had found the sudden urge to relieve himself. This stopped when a man stood next to Paul, his presence an annoying distraction. Paul made eye contact with the man, whom he recognized from the restaurant. The man had a large beard and an “objectionably young girlfriend” (46). Paul’s thoughts had turned to the man’s penis and the conversation about racism that he had left the dinner table to avoid: Claire and Serge had been edging around an argument; Paul agreed wholeheartedly with his wife, disgusted with the way Serge “tried to inject his own party platform into a normal discussion” (48). Paul then interrupted and began to compare the situation to a TV program about homosexuals. He agreed with Claire.

In the bathroom, the bearded man asked Paul about Serge. Paul replied bluntly and the man apologized, mentioning that he and his daughter had only wanted a photograph with Serge. Though his daughter had warned him against asking, the bearded man admitted that he would not have forgiven himself if he had not asked. Paul then told the bearded man that Serge would appreciate a photograph and that he should wait for Paul’s signal.

Returning from the bathroom, Paul notices a tense silence, “the kind of tense silence that tells you right away that you’ve missed something important” (51). Paul realizes that Babette is crying and Claire is holding her hand. Serge makes a dry comment, Babette throws her napkin on to her plate, and storms away from the table. Claire stops Serge from following Babette; Claire goes herself. Left alone with his brother, Serge insists that “this isn’t what you think” (51). He switches into Claire’s seat; Paul appreciates that his brother is floundering. Serge mentions that Babette has been struggling with menopause. Paul does not return Serge’s grin. Then, Serge mentions that there is another matter they need to discuss: their children. Paul gives the signal to the bearded man, who stands up from his table with his daughter and his camera.