Two of Us

The New York Times has an adorable article about that darling duo German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Ok, so maybe they don't really like each other at all. And maybe the article is more about the role of France & Germany relations, and within the larger framework of the EU (particularly regarding the economic future of the EU). But I still enjoyed these tasty tidbits of their beloved relationship:

She makes fun, in private, of the way he walks and talks, of his rapid, jerky gestures and facial grimaces. He mocks her deliberation, her reluctance, her matronly caution. She has compared him to Mr. Bean and to the French comic Louis de Funes, with his curly hair and large nose. He sometimes call her La Boche, the offensive French version of "Kraut," and goes out of his way to give her an embrace and a double-cheeked kiss in the French fashion, the kind of contact that he knows very well, aides say, she cannot stand.

"Get your fucking hands off me. You will regret this when the cameras are gone," she says in German under her breath. 

Born only six months apart [! - I never would have guessed that...], the two could not be more different in terms of personality and worldview. Merkel, 56, grew up in a left-wing household in the farthest northeastern corner of Communist East Germany...She is a physicist; her second husband is a chemist, a quiet professor who keeps to himself; she has no children. "She's a scientist, almost like a German cliché, planning everything, going step by step, unemotional, not a show horse," Stefan Kornelius, a senior editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, told me. "But Sarkozy's the kind of macho man that she doesn't like at all. And she and the chancellery are irritated by his jumping from issue to issue, his lack of attention, his inability to do German systematic work. She's a technocrat with a hidden husband, and he's flamboyant, with a beautiful woman" -- the singer and former model Carla Bruni -- "at his side."

Sarkozy has been much criticized for his love of money and gaudiness. A wealthy lawyer with wealthy friends, he lives a gilded French presidential life, surrounded by staff members always ready with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Merkel still lives in the central Berlin apartment she occupied before her election and can sometimes be seen out shopping, or stopping into a favorite French-style restaurant, Borchardt, for a quick meal with her husband. 

Unlike Sarkozy, famous for absorbing a complicated brief as he walks to a meeting, Merkel is an assiduous worker and normally the best-prepared person in the room. Sarkozy rules France like a king; Merkel is a coalition politician who wants to bring others along. The Germans like to tell a joke about Sarkozy piloting a plane and informing the passengers he has good news and bad news: "The Good news is that we're ahead of schedule. The bad news is that we're lost."

In the shadows of the sunset, when they think no one is looking, the two silhouettes sneak secret embraces. Hand-in-hand, into the night they traverse.