by Abha Dawesar
“But it’s art. You can’t own it. Or my reaction to it.”
“Je ne le crois pas.” He got up and left her apartment, letting the door slam. She heard him noisily go down the stairs and then saw him emerge in the courtyard below her and exit the building without throwing his head up for a last glance at her window as he usually did.
Maya went down to Nadine’s apartment.
“I broke up. I was mean, but I don’t know how I could have done it better. There is no right way, I guess.”
“No, there’s never a right way when desires diverge.”
“You didn’t tell me if you ever met your old choreographer.”
“I met him once. It was after he had been admitted to the hospital.”
“What did you say to him?”
Nadine had said nothing to the old man. She had danced for him instead. From the time she had watched his choreography performed onstage, she had known she had to choreograph and to dance what he had choreographed. But she was unable to. His work was perfect, and all the dancers in the world who could ever execute his choreography were his for the picking. Nadine too had been paralyzed and then had given in to the influence of his work.
“It’s gray outside, it’s perfect. I’ll show you something,” Nadine said as she pulled down a screen by the wall on one side of her bare living room and turned on a projector. Images of dancers came on the screen.
Maya looked at the dancers and wondered how she would watch Nadine at the same time. It was clear Nadine was getting ready to perform.
“Don’t worry, your eye will look at what is important, but I have to move you.”
Nadine moved the solitary chair in the room to a specific spot and asked Maya to sit. She danced. At moments Maya noticed the couple on the screen behind and Nadine’s own body juxtaposed against the screen. But mostly she noticed Nadine. It was a short piece set to Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte. When Nadine was finished, she drew a collapsible chair from the stack against the wall and sat down.
“I danced that for him in his hospital room.”
“What did he say?”
“You see, I wanted to choreograph something that was not simply a copy of his work, or full of impressive moves. I needed something that would convey the nature of my feelings for him, his importance in my life. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking when I was trying to work on it, and my problem was that I could never get past the piece you saw on the screen. So I decided to incorporate the whole piece in my piece by having it run in the background. That’s why I suggested the same formula to you yesterday.”
“I may go and remove my references later, but it did help me start writing.”
“He was entirely bedridden in the hospital when I asked him if I could dance for him. I danced and he watched, and I knew that he understood what I had done. For me it was like showing the baby to the father.”
“Did he understand that?”
“No, he understood more than I had understood. I sat beside him after I danced, and we looked at each other. He was quite weak, and I didn’t want to tire him with words. After I had been looking at him for some time, he said that I had given him the only experience he had never had before in his life. He told me that as a lover he had been both the man and the woman, but he had never in his life been a muse. Someone else was always the muse. I had made him a muse.”
Maya smiled.
“He used to be handsome when he was young. In his time he had slept with every beautiful dancer in the world. But AIDS had entirely ravaged his body. He was very thin, and some of his teeth had fallen out. The wrinkles around his face made him look ninety.”
Maya nodded. She had a vision of Prem in a hospital bed. And then she had a real flashback of her grandfather when he had been dying. She could just imagine Nadine’s man with feeding tubes and catheters weaving between his limbs.
“I didn’t want him to tire, so after I held his hand for some time, I went near him to give him a goodbye kiss. He whispered in my ear.”
“What did he say?”
Nadine was fighting back tears.
“I’m sorry,” Maya said.
Nadine wiped her eyes.
“He said, ‘I was never so beautiful in my life. Thank you.’”
p a r t v i
What I am after, above all, is expression.
—HENRI MATISSE, NOTES D’UN PEINTRE
Pascal arranged lunch with Valérie at the Place du Marché Ste. Catherine and called Prem. Prem said he would make it as soon as his doctor’s appointment was over. The clinic was in the Marais as well.
“Is everything okay with you?” Pascal asked.
“I’m not so sure. That’s why I want to just run it by him.”
The appointment was shorter than Prem had anticipated. His blood pressure and pulse were normal. His last EKG and blood test from just two months ago had been perfectly normal.
“You’re very lucky. It seems that everything from bronze statues to flowers release nitric oxide in the corpus cavernosum of your penis. I don’t have any theories for this sudden development except that these events might be precipitated by your new style of writing, based on what you’ve said.”
“Even I wouldn’t have thought the pen had the power of the penis,” Prem said.
“You are the only one in a position to treat yourself, Monsieur Rustum. That is, if you want to. I can only give you my heartiest congratulations.”
“But statues? Even male ones? I’m afraid of what’s happening.”
“A writer should be used to this. All you creative types have a sense of sexuality that is a bit décalé. How do you say it in English?”
“You don’t, Monsieur le Médecin. The concept does not exist in the Anglo-Saxon world. That’s why I’ve always been attracted to your country.” Prem got up and shook his hand.
In the half-hour Prem had to spare before lunch, he went to the bookstore on rue Pavée. Several hardcover books of interviews with Rodin were arranged prominently on the sculpture shelf, which Prem was afraid to touch lest the word Rodin induce an immediate hard-on due to associative connections that had formed in his brain the previous day. A rare book on Maillol’s work printed for an exposition in the thirties sat beside the Rodin. Maillol’s sketches anticipating his sculptures were printed in the book. The reproductions were not of great quality, but some of the naked nymphs displayed the energy and the characteristic style of the sculptures in the Tuileries. He bought it and made his way to lunch. The others were already seated at a terrasse in the square. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Valérie. She stood up on seeing him.
“Such a pleasure,” he said, kissing her on both cheeks. She was a woman now.
Then he greeted Irène, who looked gaunt and ill. He wouldn’t give her more than a few months.
“Is everything all right?” Pascal asked.
Prem nodded. He didn’t want to talk about his perfect health. It seemed obscene in Irène’s presence.
“Tiens.” Prem handed the book to Valérie. She put it in her bag without looking at it but kissed him again to acknowledge the gift.
They ordered lunch and chatted easily. Paris was empty this August. The weather was miserable. Jeu de Paume had finally reopened. Not a lot of good movies were out. Six hundred books were being published for this year’s rentrée.
“How many children do you have? What are you doing?” Prem asked Valérie over the café at the end of the meal, his face turned away from Pascal, who was sitting beside him.
“I’ve got two kids. My husband is doing a building project with an American company, so he is away frequently. I don’t work, I’m just raising the kids.”
“Are you writing?”
“I’m writing a children’s book.”
“Your English is very good now.”
“I read a lot in English now. Look!” Valérie pulled out By the Thread from her bag.
“That’s the American edition. Where did you buy it?”
“My husband picked it up for me. Will you sign it?”
“Sure.” Prem pulled out his pen from his shirt pocket and wrote in it.
Pascal grabbed the book from him before he could pass it to Valérie and read aloud, “Un, deux, trois…”
Valérie blushed.
Prem grabbed the book back and passed it to Valérie saying, “Sorry.”
“Where are you staying?” Valérie asked.
“The same place.”
“I’m going to bring my children to Musée Zadkine in the next few weeks. It’s close to your place. Maybe we can meet. You can see them that way.”
“Let’s be in touch,” Prem said as he kissed her warmly.
Prem strolled with Pascal and Irène around the Marais and then went back home. His phone was ringing. Homi was calling from Delhi.
“I managed to get leave and was thinking we could come and visit you in Paris.”
“Great! When do you plan to come?”
“Tentatively mid–next week. We can probably spend around ten days.”
“I’ll send a car to the airport.”
“Ratan is really excited. Here, talk to him.”
“Grandpa, we’re coming to Paris.”
“I can’t wait to see you, darling. What do you want to do?”
“I want to see the Eiffel Tower. Will you take me?”
“You can see it from my window. It lights up every hour with a squiggly light.”
“I already started reading The Little Prince.”
“That’s very good.”
“Do you need anything? Mommy says you can’t get good mangoes there.”
“I don’t need anything except you.”
“Talk to Daddy,” Ratan said, passing the phone back to Homi.
Prem hung up on his family feeling a momentary release from the emptiness he almost always carried unless he was writing. The news of their arrival shortened the distance he maintained from the world. He went to his stereo and turned on the radio. “La Bamba” was playing. He shook his ass for a minute and heard the phone ring again.
“I’ve been trying to reach you,” Maya said.
“Are you all right?”
“I just need to see you.”
“Come over—let’s have a cup of tea.”
“Tout de suite.”
Maya got into the metro reciting: Mr. Rustum, I love you. Prem, I’m crazy about you. Prem Rustum, I’ve fallen for you. She rode all the way to Sèvres-Babylone with her fists clenched tight and her left foot tapping impatiently. She had to tell him regardless of the outcome.
The door to Prem’s flat was open. She let herself in and found him in the kitchen.
“Hi. How was your day?”
“It was good. I met someone from the past. And yours?”
“I broke up with Jean-Pierre.”
“Do you feel free?”
“One is only free when one expresses oneself.”
“And you haven’t?”
“Not yet.”
“And why not?”
“Because I’m shaking.”
“You really are shaking. What’s the matter?”
Prem held her tightly and led her to the couch in the living room and made her sit. Once they had sat, he didn’t let go of his grip. She put her head on his chest.
“Now are you going to tell me what happened or not?”
She felt her shakes diminish as Prem ran his fingers through her hair.
“Your hands feel so good,” she sighed.
Prem kissed her forehead. Maya felt the internal involuntary muscles of her throat in spasm. When the muscles decontracted, she swallowed and spoke.
“Will you do that again?”
When he turned his face down to kiss her forehead, she lifted her face up and received his lips on hers. The first lips in ten years, the first lips since Valérie’s ten years ago. The exploration of her tongue, her lips, her gums came naturally to Prem. He ran his index finger on the smooth skin on the back of her neck as he kissed her.
When they finally drew apart, Maya felt as if she and Prem had always been kissing.
“It’s finally upon us,” Prem said.
“I was not sure you had that kind of interest in me.”
“How could I not? But I’m old, idiosyncratic, and crabby. I’m a difficult person.” Prem smiled as he played with her hands. He spoke with the slow rhythm of a lover who has all the time in the world to get to know his beloved. He touched her with the same rhythm.
“I’ve seen your petulant side. I know,” Maya said.
“Actually I wasn’t certain either until I saw your sketch of the statues on the island.”
“We can go there now. We could eat dinner there.”
They took a taxi to Bois de Boulogne. Maya had the driver drop them off as close to the boat as possible. The ride across the lake lasted less than a minute. Maya held Prem’s hand as he got off the boat and kept holding it.
“I can hear a peacock,” Prem said.
They climbed up the path. Some fifty yards into the path they saw a peacock, his plume fanned out. They both stopped. Peahens were walking around the grass, entirely indifferent to the strutting of the male member of their clan.
“They’re not too impressed,” Prem whispered.
“Shh,” Maya whispered, and took a quiet step toward the peacock. Prem followed.
The bird did not register their presence. They stepped even closer. The bird turned around. His saturated inky-blue neck reminded Prem of the way Krishna was always rendered in Indian temples. In the slight breeze that was blowing, the large fan of feathers with hundreds of blue-green eyes billowed. Maya had inched nearer. She extended her hand now and touched the bird’s plume.
Prem noticed the beautiful bird’s ugly claws. The claws and the cawing of the bird, both hideous, didn’t detract from its beauty. They made the beauty vital in the way that living things were vital, heartrending in their imperfections. The bird moved away. Prem suddenly imagined Maya entirely naked, dressed in peacock feathers.
“Are we going to the statue?” he asked her.
She nodded. They held hands again and walked to the northern tip of the island. Even though Maya knew where the statues were, they seemed to appear all of a sudden. Once more the legs first caught her attention. Prem watched her as they closed in on the ensemble. He squinted at the statues. The posture of the male statue was erect, energetic, taut. But the woman, looking up to the man, reaching for him, was somehow slack.
Maya circled the statues. She peered up and down at their faces and stepped up onto the pedestal where they were placed to look at the spaces between their bodies.
“I hadn’t realized from the other side of the lake that their faces were left blank.”
“They must have been commissioned for this spot. This faraway spot.”
She moved away from them and came to Prem.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“They are two, not one. I was wrong. I thought that even if they were not touching, they could be one. Imbued with the same energy.”
“Are you disappointed?”
“No. You’re seeing them with me. That’s what counts.”
“Should we get dinner?” he asked.
They walked to the restaurant on the island by the boat landing. The air was fresh, and some peahens were roaming in between the patrons. The waiter seated them at a corner table and took their orders.
“How is your family?” Prem asked.
“My father is coping. He is duty bound to her, and I should admire him for it. But I want him to have joy. If he goes away even for a weekend, she stops eating. I can’t help thinking that she’s punishing him. But he accepts all the punishment. He smiles through it.”
“How long has it been this way?”
“Too long. Four years. I used to go often to see them in the beginning, but I can’t bear it. And I realized that the only thing that can get my father out of there for a few days every year is a trip t
o see me. So I insist he come for three days to New York around my birthday and spend time with me. Just with me.”
“That’s nice.”
“He was very reluctant at first, but I told him it was the birthday present I wanted. And now he does it without guilt. It’s the only time he lives. We go to the museum. We take a walk by the Hudson. We see a show, go to brunch, browse in bookstores.”
“How old is he?”
“Fifty. He’s youthful, he’s gentle. He deserves to live.” She had tears in her eyes.
“And you do too. Maya, I’m seventy-five. We can’t be with each other.”
She was momentarily stunned. Why had she told him? Oh, why?
The waiter took away their plates and placed dessert menus on the table. They were both silent. She got up from the table and went to the ladies’ room and washed her face. For the first time since she had met Prem, she felt really confident. Up until this moment she was afraid he would leave, their contact would not last. But now there was a feeling in her belly, the kind an animal feels for its young. She could fight vehemently to the finish for him. Logic was the antithesis of everything they had in common, everything that they had shared. It was art that gave them joy, and she would be damned if he got reasonable now.
She came back to the table smiling.
“The night after our fight, I walked along the quais for a long time. I eventually found myself outside your building. I even came into the main courtyard and sat by the door to your apartment entryway. I didn’t think it would have been right to ring the bell. Now it’s different. I would ring the bell.”
Prem imagined Maya sitting in the cold outside on the steps. The waiter interrupted them, and she ordered dessert. Then she folded the menu and looked at him again.
“You aren’t going to lose me as a friend. You know that.”
“Stop being ridiculous, Prem. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll stop.”
Prem’s heart fluttered at her words. It was said gently but was so entirely out of character, he knew it could only stem from desire. The reverence in her eyes had been replaced by the incandescence of a woman in love. For a moment he felt their roles reversed—he was the young object of desire, and she the older person commanding him. He blushed.