Pittsburgh. Winter. Snow and ice in the streets, bitter wind. There was a storm the night Danilo and I got home, a severe one. We had flown home; Danilo had to teach in the new semester and time was short. But there were airport delays in both New York and Pittsburgh. The cab took nearly four hours to get us home from the airport.
When we finally reached our house, it was late night and lights were burning. Our neighbor was there, playing with Bubastis and keeping the place warm. He had lit a fire for us. We gave him the souvenir we’d brought for him, an Old Kingdom vase, very rare, very valuable. He looked at it and registered disappointment. Real Egyptian artifacts tend to be unimpressive; tourists like the flashier imitations that are made by the hundreds and sold as “authentic Egyptian,” which in a way they are. When Danilo told him what it was worth, his frown turned to a smile very quickly.
Bubastis was all over us. She had grown still more. Having her greet us so enthusiastically made the house feel more like a real home. I played with her and cuddled her for a long time.
I had decided to skip the spring semester to focus on my pianism and my swimming.
* * *
A week or so later Danilo dropped a bombshell on me. I was at the piano, trying my hand at the Schubert D Major sonata, when he came in and put his hands on my shoulders. He couldn’t have been more obviously agitated. “Jamie, I want you to get your own place.”
I had been so happy living with him. And I had done my best not to be a nuisance in any way. I went numb. “But Danilo, I… I…”
“It is only for show. A precaution. You need to have your own residence. You were only supposed to be living with me as a temporary measure, remember?”
“No one will ask about us. You always say so.”
“Someone is asking. My colleague Feld is prying. I think he may even have been sniffing around the fourth sub-basement.”
Oh. “But… can’t you simply… can’t you compel him to stop? I’ve seen you do it with other people.”
“I can make him stop, yes. But I think he may already have told other people, and I have no way of knowing who. The administration, and maybe even the police, if he really was down there.”
“Ask him. Make him tell you.”
“The damage has already been done.” He sounded as sad as I felt. “This is only for show. Understand that. You can still sleep here, eat here, live here, really. But I want you to have your own place, on the record, in case untoward questions are being asked.”
It all came out of nowhere. I hardly had time to think how I felt. “Danilo, you’ve always warned me against denying my nature.”
“I am not asking you to deny who and what you are, Jamie. There is nothing I would want less than that. But your connection to me… that, you need to be more circumspect about.”
“Other faculty members have affairs with students. I’ve seen them. Everyone has.”
“It is not a matter of our affair. The legal authorities may become involved. I don’t know what Feld may have seen in the sub-level. Or what he may have guessed.”
This was as troubling as the rest of our talk. I had to ask it. “What could he have seen?”
“In time, Jamie.”
“I can’t deny my nature. You’ve taught me that. My nature is to love you.” I added, weakly, “And yours is to love me.”
“And I do. That is why I don’t want you vulnerable to the authorities. Love me any way you want to. I am yours. Part of my love must be protection. You must understand that.”
I was not at all sure I did. Not that kind of protection.
Fortunately, there was an empty apartment in a house just across the street from Danilo’s. The police let me into my old place, and we moved my furniture there.
The landlord was a retired steelworker named Dougherty. He was unfriendly; he kept making comments about what a mistake it was to rent to a student. I kept telling him what a quiet life I lead, no parties, no carousing, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. Even Danilo’s vouching for me didn’t help.
The house was old and drafty. There were stained glass windows, a lot like the ones at Danilo’s house, but they were faded and cracked. Bubastis didn’t seem to like the place. Neither did I. Danilo found a spinet for me. Some workmen moved it in the day after I moved the rest of my things.
After a few days the landlord confronted me and asked why I never seemed to be at home, even at night. I looked him firmly in the eye and instructed him not to ask again and not to mention it to anyone else. He didn’t.
Except in the narrowest, most technical sense, I was still living with Danilo. I regretted the necessity. I knew, or suspected, that it meant something awful was going to happen to us.
* * *
My hands felt fine. The blood of the pharaohs had healed them. I spent hours at the grand, playing Chopin, Schubert, Poulenc… Roland was amazed at what I could do. When I asked him to let me play in the spring recital, he was obviously a bit reluctant. But I played the Chopin second for him and got it note-perfect.
He took my hands in his and felt my fingers. “Michael Columbus said it would be a year or more before they healed properly. If they did at all.”
“He was wrong.”
“So, I see.” He couldn’t keep his puzzlement from showing. I wished he’d express a bit of pleasure or at least satisfaction. “I guess you’ll be playing this spring, then. Some Schubert, maybe?”
“No, the Chopin second. I have to show everyone I can do it.”
He looked me up and down. “Is everything all right, Jamie?”
I played dumb; told him I didn’t know what he meant.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right? after all the… unpleasantness?”
“Is that what you call it when somebody dies, Roland? Unpleasantness?”
“Don’t be disagreeable, Jamie. I know you understand why I’m concerned.”
I did. And I knew it was foolish to spar with him. “I’m fine, Roland. Thanks.”
Danilo had a heavy teaching load in the new semester. The university had asked him to take a freshman Western Civilization class, to cover for a teacher on sabbatical. He did it without much enthusiasm but told me, “At least I’ll be able to teach them a thing or two about history they never heard in high school.”
He spent a lot of time at the department. One afternoon I stopped in to see him and ran into Peter Borzage. He was carrying a Roman bust in marble, some emperor or other. He smiled, put it down and hugged me like a long-lost brother. “It’s so good to see you, Jamie.”
“You too.” I hoped I sounded sincere.
“You have a bit of a tan.”
“Egypt changes a person, I guess.” I made myself smile. I wanted to say, “You’re still pink,” but I held my tongue.
“Can we have lunch? I want to hear all about it.”
“Another time, okay? I’m meeting Danilo.”
“Oh.” His disappointment was plain to see. “How about tomorrow, then?”
I had tried to discourage him every way I could think of short of actual rudeness. Fortunately, Professor Feld came around the corner just then. “Peter, don’t leave things lying around like that.”
Peter looked down at the bust. “It’s not ‘lying around.’ It’s—”
“Don’t argue with me. Get that upstairs now. And be careful with it.”
Peter blushed, picked it up and rushed off. I never thought the day would come when I’d be happy to see Feld.
He turned on me. “Aren’t you on a leave of absence, Dunn?”
I smiled and nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“A leave of absence isn’t a quarantine, Professor.”
“I’d watch that attitude.”
I decided to toy with him. “This is just a guess, but your wife nags you a lot, doesn’t she?”
He glared at me and stomped off.
Danilo wasn’t in his office. I thought he might be downstairs. But as I desce
nded the steps to the sub-basements, I heard something odd. Piano music. A Chopin waltz. I recognized it—it was me playing. He must have recorded some of my practices without my realizing it. Not that I cared, but I found it strange. It was coming, I realized, from the deepest basement. Something made me stop and wait on the stairs. What could Danilo be doing there, with me to serenade him?
I heard someone behind me. It was Feld. He was looking past me, down to the sub-basement, looking unhappy as usual. “What is going on down there?”
I made my face blank. “It sounds like music, doesn’t it?”
He took a step downward, then seemed to think better of it. “Professor Semenkaru has the oddest habits.”
“You can’t imagine.”
“That music is echoing up the staircase. You can hear it all over the building. I have some restoration work to begin on that bust of Nerva, and all I can hear is that.”
“It’s not that loud.”
“I say it is. I’m going to go down there and—”
“I wouldn’t.” I said it as firmly as I could.
“Are you attempting to give me an order?”
“No, I’m attempting to keep you from doing something you’ll regret.” I had been flippant with him before, but I had never talked to him with such authority. Egypt had changed me, all right.
He looked at me, obviously not knowing how to react. Slowly he turned and went back up, looking over his shoulder at me from time to time.
The D minor waltz came from below. I didn’t remember playing it at home, but I must have since Danilo had managed to record it. For a moment I listened. It was full of young enthusiasm, but I was playing too fast and my technique was suffering for it.
Not at all sure what to make of it, and not at all sure I wanted to know, just then, I turned and went back upstairs. Me, in that dark, awful place.
Peter was in one of the Greco-Roman galleries, standing before a sculpture of a discus thrower. It was quite beautiful; I’d noticed it myself often enough. He obviously thought he was alone. He reached up and touched it, caressed its foot. Then he leaned forward and kissed it. His fingers traced the line of the stone sandal.
I cleared my throat as tactfully as I could.
He turned, saw me, and blushed the most brilliant red. “Jamie! I—I—”
“It’s all right, Peter.” I smiled at him.
“I know what this must look like.”
“Yep.”
“It’s not that.”
“Oh.” I pretended to be disappointed. “Well, I’ll just leave you to whatever it is, then.”
“No, wait!”
I paused.
“Jamie, I’d really like to get together with you sometime.”
He was single-minded if nothing else. I forced myself not to sigh. “Danilo has a professional conference this weekend. Would you like to go out dancing?”
“Dancing?”
I nodded. “I’m not much on a dance floor, but—”
“You mean to a—a—”
“Yes, I guess I do. To a—a—” Why couldn’t I resist goading him?
“Someplace public?” He said the word as if it was the most distasteful one in the language.
“Well, yeah. It’s kind of hard to dance in a phone booth.”
“I was hoping we could just spend some time together. You know what I mean… get to know each other.”
I knew exactly what he meant, and I wanted no part of it. “I’ll have to let you know.”
“Oh.” His disappointment showed. “Well, then, could we maybe—”
“Look, Peter, I really have to get moving. Errands to run. You know.”
I left as quickly as I could. Absurd young man. There was really nothing I could say to him, besides that he was attractive. Talking to him was making me hungry.
* * *
It wasn’t just my musicianship that was repaired, it was my swimming. I spent time in the pool every day, and my body responded to the workouts better than it ever had, it seemed. The other jocks seemed not to know what to make of me. Though the specific words had never actually been mentioned in the news or anywhere else, it must have been fairly obvious to them all that Justin and I were… or had been… well, not the right kind for a sports program. Greg too, of course.
They weren’t exactly unfriendly, but no one seemed very glad to see me. And I usually found myself alone in the locker room. There were queers in sports. People knew. Good lord, how will the department ever recover its reputation? Sports builds character.
But after a week of twice-daily workouts, I unofficially broke the school record for the backstroke. Again, they seemed not to know what to make of it. They couldn’t have looked more puzzled if I’d sprouted fins and scales. But Coach Zielinski caught up with me in the locker room and told me it was time for me to start swimming meets again.
I toweled my hair. “I don’t know if I want to.”
H smiled a smile that looked rather forced, I thought. “Look, we all know what you’ve been through. That awful stuff with Wilton, the murders and all. But the team needs you. You’re almost good enough for the Olympics.”
I pulled on my Calvins. “Almost? Then why bother?”
His frustration showed. “You could win the state title.”
“I’m not sure I want it.”
It was a kind of blasphemy. I could see it in his face. “The team needs you, Dunn.”
I pointed out that I hadn’t heard a damn thing from any of them since the “unpleasantness” started. When he protested how busy everyone was, I told him I’d think about it. He shrugged, turned his back on me and walked away. I could just hear him telling this staff and the other swimmers about it. The fagboy thinks he’s special or something. Maybe everything he’s been through has made his mind crack. How could anyone not want a state title?
Swimming had become a way of self-expression for me, like music. Maybe it always had been, but I don’t think I quite realized it till then. I had swum in the Nile; I had swum where Antinous drowned. What was a state title?
The atmosphere turned even less cordial at the sports building after that. I was not one of them. Worse, I didn’t want to be one on them. Ultimate betrayal. Once, late at night, I found myself remembering my encounter with Greg there. And wondering how many more of them were like him or could be.
* * *
Greg. About a month later his lawyers exhausted all their appeals and he was extradited to Pittsburgh. It made me a bit nervous. He had escaped from the Pittsburgh holding facility once before.
One of his lawyers left a voicemail message for me. Greg wanted me to visit him. I went a bit numb.
I was to meet Danilo for lunch that day. He was in his office, reading and smiling. The journal with his piece on our archaic relief of the Kissing Kings had just been published. He handed it to me. My name was on it, under his, in slightly smaller type. He stood up and stretched. “Now we belong to the ages.”
I thumbed through the pages. “I’ll read it later.”
“There should be a copy in today’s’ mail for you, at home.”
“What did you say about us?”
“Jamie, it’s a scholarly article, not a love letter.”
“Really? I thought it was both.” He smacked me on the butt with the magazine. “Why don’t you ever listen to my music up here?”
This seemed to catch him off guard. “You mean… ?”
“I’ve heard it coming up from the basement, Danilo. Everyone has. Feld bitches about it nonstop. But I think he’s afraid of you.”
“Good.”
I hesitated. “Take me down there.”
He looked away from me. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Greg Wilton wants me to visit him in the county jail. If I can face him, I can face anything.”
Danilo turned thoughtfully. Quietly he said, “You know you’re a great deal stronger now. You break records. Greg can’t hurt you.”
“He’s behind bars. It’ll be li
ke a scene in a Big House movie.”
“I’d prefer you not to go.”
“I think I have to.” I smiled, then stopped. “I’m aching to see what he thinks might happen between us.”
“Let’s get some lunch. I’ll take you downstairs later in the week.” He smiled. “All right?”
I could have gone down on my own of course. My curiosity was strong. But that was not the way Danilo wanted it, so I waited.
* * *
The county lockup. Cops, most of them overweight; civil servants in bad clothes and worse haircuts. There was an unpleasant smell in the air, I couldn’t quite decide what. Some combination of disinfectant, urine and… and what? Fear? Despair? Lust?
The building was old, Victorian. Massive stone walls, heavy steel everywhere. The electric lights were harsh. Sounds echoed. The kind of penal facility they don’t build anymore.
The visitors’ room was exactly what I expected. A row of little cubicles; chain-link fence separating prisoners from their company. I had told the D.A.’s office I was going. They tried to talk me out of it, but I had made up my mind. They told me to be careful what I said. If Greg’s lawyer was there, leave at once. I agreed to that. A guard pointed to a cubicle and told me to sit and wait. I sat and waited.
Greg was in slate grey overalls. I was expecting handcuffs but there were none. He walked breezily up to his side of the barrier and sat down, one leg propped over the back of his chair. “Little Jamie.” He said it with a sneer.
I smiled. “Little free Jamie.”
“You look good. Travel agrees with you.”
“How do you know about that?”
“You know. lawyers. They like to gossip. Are you still fucking that old man?”
“Let me understand this. You asked me here so you could bore me to death?”
“I have a job to finish.” He grinned.
I got up to leave. “I’ll just be going then.”
“Stop.”
I looked at him through the wire. “A jailbird trying to give a free man orders. That’s good.”
“Don’t you want to know why I asked you to come down here?”
The Blood of Kings Page 24