“Dinner party? I don’t know if I…” And here comes the kind of word problem Less has always failed at: If a minor novelist has a plane at midnight but wants to go to a dinner in Paris at eight…
“It’s bobo Paris—they love a little surprise. And we can chat about the wedding. Very pretty. And that little scandal!”
Less, at a loss, merely sputters: “Oh, that, ha ha—”
“Then you’ve heard. So much to talk about. See you soon!” He gives Less a nonsensical address on the rue du Bac, with two kinds of door code, then bids him a hasty au revoir. Less is left breathless below an old house all covered in vines. A group of schoolgirls passes in two straight lines.
He is certainly going to the party now, if only because he cannot help himself. A very pretty wedding. Bright promise of something—like the card a magician shows you before he makes it vanish; sooner or later, it will turn up behind your ear. So Less will mail his VAT, go to the party, hear the worst of it, make his midnight flight to Morocco. And in between—he will wander Paris.
Around him, the city spreads its pigeon wings. He has made his way through the Place des Vosges, the rows of clipped trees providing cover both from the light patter of rain and from the Utah Youth Choir, all in yellow T-shirts, performing soft-rock hits of the eighties. On a bench, perhaps inspired by the music of their youth, a middle-aged couple kisses passionately, obliviously, their trench coats spattered with droplets; Less watches as, to the tune of “All Out of Love,” the man reaches into his lover’s blouse. In the colonnades surrounding, teenagers in cheap plastic ponchos clump together by Victor Hugo’s house, looking out at the rain; bags of gewgaws reveal they have visited Quasimodo. At a patisserie, even Less’s incomprehensible French cannot prevent success: an almond croissant is soon in his hands, covering him in buttered confetti. He goes to the Musée Carnavalet and admires the decor of crumbled palaces restored, room by room, and studies a strange groupe en biscuit of Benjamin Franklin signing an accord with France, marvels over the shoulder-high beds from the past, and stands in wonder before Proust’s black and gold bedroom: the walls of cork seem more boudoir than madhouse, and Less is touched to see Proust Senior’s portrait hanging on the wall. He stands in the archway of the Boutique Fouquet when, at one o’clock, he hears a chiming throughout the building: unlike in a certain hotel lobby in New York, the ancient clocks have all been wound by some diligent worker. But as Less stands and quietly counts the chimes, he realizes they are off by an hour. Napoleonic time.
He still has hours and hours before meeting Alexander at the address he has given. Down the rue des Archives and through the small entrance to the old Jewish sector. The young tourists are lined up for falafel, the older ones seated at outdoor cafés with enormous menus and expressions of distress. Elegant Parisian women in black and gray sip garishly colored American cocktails that even a sorority girl would not order. He remembers another trip, when Freddy met him in his Paris hotel room and they spent a long indulgent week here: museums and glittering restaurants and tipsy wandering through the Marais at night, arm in arm, and days spent in the hotel bedroom, both in recreation and in recuperation, when one of them caught a local bug. His friend Lewis had told him of an exclusive men’s boutique just down the road. Freddy in a black jacket, seeing himself in the mirror, transformed from studious to glorious: “Do I really look like this?” The hopeful look on Freddy’s face; Less had to buy it for him, though it cost as much as the trip. Confessing to Lewis later of his recklessness, and getting the reply: “Is that what you want on your grave? He went to Paris and didn’t do one extravagant thing?” Later, he wondered if the extravagant thing was the jacket or Freddy.
He finds the black signless storefront, the single golden doorbell, and he touches its nipple before ringing it. And is admitted.
Two hours later: Arthur Less stands before the mirror. To the left of him, on the white leather couch: a finished espresso and a glass of champagne. To the right: Enrico, the small bearded sorcerer who welcomed him and offered a place to sit while he brought “special things.” How different from the Piemontese tailor (sea otter mustache) who wordlessly took his measurements for the second part of his Italian prize—a tailored suit—and then, when Arthur discovered, to his delight, a fabric in his exact shade of blue, said, “Too young. Too bright. You wear gray.” When Less insisted, the man shrugged: We shall see. Less gave the address of a Kyoto hotel where he would be staying four months hence and headed to Berlin feeling cheated of his prize.
But here is Paris: a dressing room filled with treasures. And in the mirror: a new Less.
From Enrico: “I have…no words…”
It is a traveler’s fallacy that one should shop for clothing while abroad. Those white linen tunics, so elegant in Greece, emerge from the suitcase as mere hippie rags; the beautiful striped shirts of Rome are confined to the closet; and the delicate hand batiks of Bali are first cruise wear, then curtains, then signs of impending madness. And then there is Paris.
Less wears a pair of natural leather wingtips, a paint stroke of green on each toe, black fitted linen trousers with a spiraling seam, a gray inside-out T-shirt, and a hoodie jacket whose leather has been tenderly furred to the soft nubbin of an old eraser. He looks like a Fire Island supervillain rapper. Nearly fifty, nearly fifty. But in this country, in this city, in this quarter, in this room—filled with exquisite outrages of fur and leather, subtleties of hidden buttons and seams, colors shaded only from film noir classics, with the rain-speckled skylight above and the natural fir flooring below, the few warm bulbs like angels hanged from the rafters, and Enrico clearly a bit in love with this charming American—Less looks transformed. More handsome, more confident. The beauty of his youth somehow taken from its winter storage and given back to him in middle age. Do I really look like this?
The dinner party is on the rue du Bac, in former maids’ chambers whose low ceilings and darting hallways seem made more for a murder mystery than a banquet, and so, as he is introduced to one smiling aristocratic face after another, Less finds himself thinking of them in terms of pulp fiction: “Ah, the bohemian artist daughter,” he whispers to himself as a sloppy young blonde in a green jumpsuit and cocaine-brightened eyes takes his hand, or, as an elderly woman in a silk tunic nods his way, “Here is the mother who lost all her jewels at the casino.” The ne’er-do-well cousin from Amsterdam in a pinstriped cotton suit. The gay son dressed, à l’Américain, in a navy blazer and khakis, still reeling from the weekend’s Ecstasy binge. The dull ancient Italian man in a raspberry jacket, holding a whiskey: secret former collaborateur. The handsome Spaniard in the corner in a crisp white shirt: blackmailing them all. The hostess with her rococo hairdo and cubist chin: spent her last penny on the mousse. And who will be murdered? Why, he will be murdered! Arthur Less, a last-minute invitee, a nobody, and the perfect target! Less peers into his poisoned champagne (his second glass, at least) and smiles. He looks around, again, for Alexander Leighton, but he is either hidden somewhere or late. Then Less notices, by the bookcase, a slim short man in tinted glasses. An eel of panic wriggles through him as he searches the room for exits, but life has no exits. So he takes another sip and approaches, saying his name.
“Arthur,” Finley Dwyer says with a smile. “Paris again!”
Why is old acquaintance ne’er forgot?
Arthur Less and Finley Dwyer have, in fact, met since the Wilde and Stein Literary Laurels. This was in France before Freddy joined him, when Less was on a junket arranged by the French government. The idea was for American authors to visit small-town libraries for a month and spread culture throughout the country; the invitation came from the Ministry of Culture. To the invited Americans, however, it seemed impossible that a country would import foreign authors; even more impossible was the idea of a Ministry of Culture. When Less arrived in Paris, thoroughly jet lagged (he had not yet been introduced to Freddy’s sleeping-pill trick), he took one woozy look at the list of fellow ambassadors and sighed. The
re on the list, a familiar name.
“Hello, I’m Finley Dwyer,” said Finley Dwyer. “We’ve never met, but I’ve read your work. Welcome to my city; I live here, you know.” Less said he was looking forward to all traveling together, and Finley informed him that he had misunderstood. They would not be traveling together; they would be sent off in twos. “Like Mormons,” the man said with a smile. Less held his relief in check until he learned that, no, he would not be paired with Finley Dwyer. In fact, he would be paired with no one; an elderly writer had been too ill to make her flight. This did not lessen Less’s joy; on the contrary, it seemed a small miracle that now he would be in France, alone, for a month. Time to write, and take notes, and enjoy the country. The woman in gold stood at the head of the table and announced where they would all be headed: to Marseille, Corsica, Paris, Nice. Arthur Less…she looked at her notes…to Mulhouse. “I’m sorry?” Mulhouse.
It turned out to be on the border of Germany, not far from Strasbourg. Mulhouse had a wonderful harvest festival, which was already over, and a spectacular Christmas market, which Less would miss. November was the season in between: the homely middle daughter. He arrived at night, by train, and the town seemed dark and crouched, and he was taken to his hotel, conveniently located within the station itself. His room and its furniture dated from the 1970s, and Less battled with a yellow plastic dresser before conceding defeat. Some blind plumber had reversed the hot and cold shower faucets. The view out his window was of a circular brick plaza, rather like a pepperoni pizza, which the whistling wind endlessly seasoned with dry leaves. At least, he consoled himself, Freddy would join him at the end of his journey for an extra week in Paris.
His escort, Amélie, a slim, pretty girl of Algerian parentage, spoke very little English; he wondered how on earth she had qualified for this position. Yet she met him every morning at his hotel, smiling, dressed in wonderful woolens, delivered him to the provincial librarian, sat in the backseat of the car throughout their tour, and delivered him home at night. Where she herself lived was a mystery. What purpose she served was an equal one. Was he meant to sleep with her? If so, they had mistranslated his books. The provincial librarian spoke better English but seemed burdened with unknown sadnesses; in the late autumn drizzle, his pale bald head seemed to be eroding into blandness. He was responsible for Less’s daily schedule, which usually consisted of visiting a school during the day and a library at night, with sometimes a monastery in between. Less had never wondered what was served in a French high school cafeteria; should he have been surprised it was aspic and pickles? Attractive students asked wonderful questions in horrible English, dropping their “aitches” like Cockneys; Less gracefully answered, and the girls giggled. They asked for his autograph as if he were a celebrity. Dinner was usually at the library, often in the only place with tables and chairs: the children’s section. Picture tall Arthur Less crammed into a tiny chair, at a tiny table, watching a librarian remove the cellophane from his slice of pâté. At one venue, they had made “American desserts” that turned out to be bran muffins. Later: he read aloud to coal miners, who listened thoughtfully. What on earth was everyone thinking? Bringing a midlist homosexual to read to French miners? He imagined Finley Dwyer entertaining in a velvet-draped Riviera theater. Here: gloomy skies and gloomy fortunes. It is no wonder that Arthur Less grew depressed. The days grew more gray, the miners more grim, his spirit more glum. Even the discovery of a gay bar in Mulhouse—Jet Sept—only deepened his sorrow; it was a sad black room, with a few characters from The Absinthe Drinkers, and a bad pun besides. When Less’s tour of duty was done and he had enriched the life of every coal miner in France, he returned by train to Paris to find Freddy asleep, fully clothed, atop the hotel bed; he had just arrived from New York. Less embraced him and began to shed ridiculous tears. “Oh, hi,” the sleepy young man said. “What’s happened to you?”
Finley wears a plum-colored suit and a black tie. “How long ago was it? We were traveling together?”
“Well, you remember, we didn’t get to travel together.”
“Two years at least! And you had…a very handsome young man, I think.”
“Oh, well, I—” A waiter comes by with a tray of champagne, and both Less and Finley grab one. Finley handles his unsteadily, then grins at the waiter; it occurs to Less that the man is drunk.
“We hardly got a look at him. I recall…” And here Finley’s voice takes on an old-movie flourish: “Red glasses! Curly hair! Is he with you?”
“No. He wasn’t really with me then. He’d just always wanted to go to Paris.”
Finley says nothing but keeps a crooked little smile. Then he looks at Less’s clothes, and he begins to frown. “Where did you—”
“Where did they send you? I don’t remember,” Less says. “Was it Marseille?”
“No, Corsica! It was so warm and sunny. The people were welcoming, and of course it helped I speak French. I ate nothing but seafood. Where did they put you?”
“I held the Maginot Line.”
Finley sips from his glass and says, “And what brings you to Paris now?”
Why is everyone so curious about little Arthur Less? When had he ever occurred to any of them before? He has always felt insignificant to these men, as superfluous as the extra a in quaalude. “Just traveling. I’m going around the world.”
“Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours,” Finley murmurs, peering up at the ceiling. “Do you have a Passepartout?”
Less answers: “No. I’m alone. I’m traveling alone.” He looks down at his glass and sees it is empty. It occurs to Less that he himself might be drunk.
But there is no question Finley Dwyer is. Steadying himself against the bookcase, he looks straight at Less and says, “I read your last book.”
“Oh good.”
His head lowers, and Less can now see his eyes above the glasses. “What luck to run into you here! Arthur, I want to say something. May I say something?”
Less braces himself as one does against a rogue wave.
“Did you ever wonder why you haven’t won awards?” Finley asks.
“Time and chance?”
“Why the gay press doesn’t review your books?”
“They don’t?”
“They don’t, Arthur. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed. You’re not in the cannon.”
Less is about to say he feels very much in the cannon, picturing the human cannonball’s wave to the audience before he drops out of view, the minor novelist about to turn fifty—then realizes the man has said “canon.” He is not in the canon.
“What canon?” is all he manages to sputter.
“The gay canon. The canon taught at universities. Arthur”—Finley is clearly exasperated—“Wilde and Stein and, well, frankly, me.”
“What’s it like in the canon?” Less is still thinking cannon. He decides to head Finley off at the pass: “Maybe I’m a bad writer.”
Finley waves this idea away, or perhaps it is the salmon croquettes a waiter is offering. “No. You’re a very good writer. Kalipso was a chef d’oeuvre. So beautiful, Arthur. I admired it a lot.”
Now Less is stumped. He probes his weaknesses. Too magniloquent? Too spoony? “Too old?” he ventures.
“We’re all over fifty, Arthur. It’s not that you’re—”
“Wait, I’m still—”
“—a bad writer.” Finley pauses for effect. “It’s that you’re a bad gay.”
Less can think of nothing to say; this attack comes on an undefended flank.
“It is our duty to show something beautiful from our world. The gay world. But in your books, you make the characters suffer without reward. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were Republican. Kalipso was beautiful. So full of sorrow. But so incredibly self-hating. A man washes ashore on an island and has a gay affair for years. But then he leaves to go find his wife! You have to do better. For us. Inspire us, Arthur. Aim higher. I’m so sorry to talk this way, but it had to be said.”
At last Less manages to speak: “A bad gay?”
Finley fingers a book on the bookcase. “I’m not the only one who feels this way. It’s been a topic of discussion.”
“But…but…but it’s Odysseus,” Less says. “Returning to Penelope. That’s just how the story goes.”
“Don’t forget where you come from, Arthur.”
“Camden, Delaware.”
Finley touches Less’s arm, and it feels like an electric shock. “You write what you are compelled to. As we all do.”
“Am I being gay boycotted?”
“I saw you stand there, and I had to take this opportunity to let you know, because no one else has been kind enough.” He smiles and repeats: “Kind enough to say something to you, as I have now.”
And Less feels it swelling up within him, the phrase he does not want to say and yet, somehow, by the cruel checkmate logic of conversation, is compelled to say:
“Thank you.”
Finley removes the book from the bookshelf and exits into the crowd as he opens it to the dedication page. Perhaps it is dedicated to him. A ceramic chandelier of blue cherubs hangs above them all and casts more shadows than light. Less stands below it, experiencing that Wonderland sensation of having been shrunk, by Finley Dwyer, into a tiny version of himself; he could pass through the smallest door now, but into what garden? The Garden of Bad Gays. Who knew there was such a thing? Here, all this time, Less thought he was merely a bad writer. A bad lover, a bad friend, a bad son. Apparently the condition is worse; he is bad at being himself. At least, he thinks, looking across the room to where Finley is amusing the hostess, I’m not short.
There were difficulties, looking back, in the time after Mulhouse. It is hard to know how someone else will travel, and Freddy and Less, at first, were at odds. Though a virtual water bug in our adventures, in ordinary travel Less was always a hermit crab in a borrowed shell: he liked to get to know a street, and a café, and a restaurant, and be called by name by the waiters, and owners, and coat-check girl, so that when he left, he could think of it fondly as another home. Freddy was the opposite. He wanted to see everything. The morning after their nighttime reunion—when Mulhouse malaise and Freddy’s jet lag made for drowsy but satisfying sex—Freddy suggested they take a bus to see all the highlights of Paris! Less shivered in horror. Freddy sat on the bed, dressed in a sweatshirt; he looked hopelessly American. “No, it’s great, we get to see Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Pompidou, that arch on the Champs-Ély…Ély…” Less forbade it; some irrational fear told him he would be spotted by friends as he stood in this crowd of tourists following a giant gold flag. “Who cares?” Freddy asked. But Less would not consider it. He made them see everything by Métro or on foot; they had to eat from stands, not from restaurants; his mother would have told him he inherited this from his father. At the end of each day, they were irritable and exhausted, their pockets filled with used subway billets; they had to will themselves out of their roles as general and foot soldier to even consider sharing a bed. But Freddy got lucky: Less got the flu.
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