That time in Berlin, taking care of Bastian—the sick man he recalled was himself.
It is all, of course, hazy. Long Proustian days staring at the golden bar of sunlight on the floor, the sole escapee from the closed curtains. Long Hugonian nights listening to echoing laughter that rang inside the bell tower of his cranium. All of this mixed with Freddy’s worried face, his worried hand on his brow, on his cheek; some doctor or other trying to communicate in French, and Freddy failing, since the only available translator was on his deathbed, moaning; Freddy bringing toast and tea; Freddy in a scarf and blazer, suddenly Parisian, waving a sad good-bye as he went out; Freddy passed out, smelling of wine beside him. Less himself staring at the ceiling fan and wondering if the room was in motion below a stationary fan, or the opposite, much like a medieval man wondering if the sky moved or the earth. And the wallpaper, with its sneaky parrots hiding in a tree. The tree—Less happily identified it as the enormous Persian silk tree of his boyhood. Sitting in that tree in Delaware and looking out on the backyard and on his mother’s orange scarf. Less let himself be embraced by its branches, the scent of its pink Seussian flowers. He was very far up in the tree for a boy of three or four, and his mother was calling his name. It never occurred to her that he would be up here, so he was alone, and very proud of himself, and a little scared. The sickle-shaped leaves fell from above. They rested on his pale little arms as his mother called his name, his name, his name. Arthur Less was inching along the branch, feeling the slick bark in his fingers…
“Arthur! You’re awake! You look so much better!” It was Freddy above him, in a bathrobe. “How do you feel?”
Contrite, mostly. For being first a general, then a wounded soldier. To his delight, only three days had passed. There was still time…
“I’ve seen most of the sights.”
“You have?”
“I’m happy to go back to the Louvre, if you want.”
“No, no, that’s perfect. I want to see a shop Lewis told me about. I think you deserve a present…”
This party, on the rue du Bac, is going as badly as possible. Having been approached by Finley Dwyer and informed of his literary crimes, he still cannot manage to locate Alexander; and either the mousse is off or his stomach is. It is clearly time to leave; his stomach is far too weak to hear about the wedding. His plane is in five hours, in any case. Less begins to eye the room for the hostess—hard to pick her out in this sea of black dresses—and finds someone beside him. A Spanish face, smiling through a deep tan. The blackmailer.
“You are a friend of Alexander? I am Javier,” the man says. He holds in his hand a plate of salmon and couscous. Green-golden eyes. Straight black hair, center parted, long enough to push behind his ears.
Less says nothing; he suddenly feels hot and knows he has flushed bright pink. Perhaps it is the drink.
“And you are American!” the man adds.
Nonplussed, Less turns an even brighter hue. “How…how did you know?”
The man’s eyes dart up and down his body. “You are dressed like an American.”
Less looks down at his linen pants, his furred leather jacket. He understands that he has fallen under the spell of a shopkeeper, as has many an American before him; he has spent a small fortune to dress as Parisians might rather than as they do. He should have worn the blue suit. He says, “I’m Arthur. Arthur Less. A friend of Alexander; he invited me. But he doesn’t seem to be coming.”
The man leans in but has to look up; he is quite a bit shorter than Less. “He always invites, Arthur. He never comes.”
“Actually, I was about to leave. I don’t know anybody here.”
“No, don’t leave!” Javier seems to realize he has said this too loudly.
“I have a plane to catch tonight.”
“Arthur, stay one moment. I also know nobody here. You see those two over there?” He nods toward a woman in a backless black dress, her blond chignon lit by a nearby lamp, and a man all in grays with an oversized Humphrey Bogart head. They are standing side by side, examining a drawing. Javier gives a conspiratorial grin; a strand of hair has come loose and hangs over his forehead. “I was talking with them. We all just met, but I could…sense…very quickly that I was not needed. That is why I came over here.” Javier pats the stray hair back in place. “They are going to sleep together.”
Less laughs and says surely they didn’t say that.
“No, but. Look at their bodies. Their arms are touching. And he leans in to talk to her. It is not loud here. He is leaning in just to be close to her. They did not want me there.” At that moment, Humphrey Bogart puts his hand on the woman’s shoulder and points to the drawing, talking. His lips are so close to her ear that his breath blows her loose wisps of hair. Now it is obvious; they are going to sleep together.
He turns back to Javier, who shrugs: What can you do? Less asks, “And that is why you came over here.”
Javier’s eyes remain on Less. “It is part of why I came over here.”
Less allows the warmth of this flattery to wash over him. Javier’s expression does not change. For a moment, they are silent; time expands slightly, taking its deep breath. Less understands it is up to him to make a move. He recalls when, as a boy, a friend would dare him to touch something hot. The silence is broken only by the sound of a glass, also broken, dropped by Finley Dwyer onto the slate floor.
“And so you are flying back to America?” Javier asks.
“No. To Morocco.”
“Ah! My mother was Moroccan. You are going to Marrakech, to the Sahara, then to Fez, no? It is the normal visit.” Did Javier just wink?
“I guess I’m the normal visitor. Yes. It seems unfair you have me pegged, while you’re a mystery.”
Another wink. “I’m not. I’m not.”
“I only know your mother was Moroccan.”
Sexy continuous winking. “I am sorry,” Javier says, frowning.
“It’s good to be a mystery.” Less tries to say this as sensually as possible.
“I am sorry, I have something in my eye.” Javier’s right eye is now blinking rapidly: a panicked bird. From its outer edge, a rivulet of tears begins to flow.
“Are you okay?”
Javier clenches his teeth and blinks and rubs. “This is so embarrassing. The lenses are new for me, and irritating. They are French.”
Less does not fill in the punch line. He watches Javier and worries. He once read in a novel about a technique for removing a speck from another’s eye: you use the tip of your tongue. But it seems so intimate, more intimate than a kiss, that he cannot even bear to mention it. And, being from a novel, it is possibly an invention.
“It is out!” Javier exclaims after a final flurry of lashes. “I am free.”
“Or you’ve gotten used to the French.”
Javier’s face is blotched with red, tears shine on his right cheek, and his lashes are matted and thick. He smiles bravely. He is a little breathless. He looks, to Less, like someone who has run a long distance to be here.
“And there vanishes the mystery!” Javier says, resting his hand on a table and faking a laugh.
Less wants to kiss him; he wants to hold him and protect him. Instead, without thinking at all, he rests his hand on Javier’s. It is still wet with tears.
Javier looks up at him with those green-golden eyes. He is so close that Less can smell the orange scent of his pomade. They stand there for a moment perfectly still, a groupe en biscuit. His hand on Javier’s, his eyes on his. It feels possible that memory will never be finished with this moment. Then they step apart. Arthur Less has flushed as pink as a prom carnation. Javier takes a deep breath, then breaks their gaze.
“I wonder,” Less begins, in a struggle to say almost anything at all, “if you have any tips about the VAT…”
The room, which they are blind to, is papered in green-striped fabric and hung with preliminary drawings, or “cartoons,” for a greater work of art: here a hand, here a hand with a pen,
here a woman’s upturned face. Above the fireplace mantel, the painting itself: a woman paused in thought while writing a letter. Bookshelves go to the ceiling, and if he looked, Less would find, besides one of H. H. H. Mandern’s Peabody novels, a collection of American stories in which—surprise of surprises!—one of his is featured. The hostess has not read it; she kept it because of an affair she had long ago, with another featured writer. She has read the two books of poetry two shelves above, by Robert, but she does not know that there is any connection to one of her guests. Yet here, again, the lovers meet. By now, the sun has set, and Less has found a way past the European tax system.
Less’s endearing backward laugh: AH ah ah ah!
“Before I came here,” Less is now saying, feeling the champagne taking possession of his tongue, “I went to the Musée d’Orsay.”
“It’s wonderful.”
“I was very moved by the Gauguin carvings. But then out of nowhere there was Van Gogh. Three self-portraits. I walked up to one; it was protected with glass. I could see my reflection. And I thought: Oh my God.” Less shakes his head, and his eyes widen as he relives the moment. “I look just like Van Gogh.”
Javier laughs, his hand to his smile. “Before the ear, I think.”
“I thought, I’ve gone crazy,” Less goes on. “But…I’ve already outlived him by over a decade!”
Javier tilts his head, a cocker Spaniard. “Arthur, how old are you?”
Deep breath. “I’m forty-nine.”
Javier moves closer to peer at him; he smells of cigarettes and vanilla, like Less’s grandmother. “How funny. I am also forty-nine.”
“No,” Less says, truly bewildered. There is not a line on Javier’s face. “I thought you were midthirties.”
“That is a lie. But it is a nice lie. And you do not look close to fifty.”
Less smiles. “My birthday is in one week.”
“Strange to be almost fifty, no? I feel like I just understood how to be young.”
“Yes! It’s like the last day in a foreign country. You finally figure out where to get coffee, and drinks, and a good steak. And then you have to leave. And you won’t ever be back.”
“You put it very well.”
“I’m a writer. I put things very well. But I’m told I’m ‘spoony.’”
“I am sorry?”
“Foolish. Tenderhearted.”
Javier seems delighted. “That is a nice phrase, tenderhearted. Tenderhearted.” He takes a deep breath as if building courage. “I am, I think, the same.”
Javier has a look of sadness about him as he says this. Then he stares directly into his drink. The sky out the window is lowering the last of its gauzy veils, revealing bright naked Venus. Less looks at the gray strands in Javier’s black hair, the prominent rose-tinted bridge of his nose, the bent head over the white shirt, two buttons open to reveal his date-colored skin, flecked with hairs, leading into shadow. More than a few of the hairs are white. He imagines Javier naked. The gold-green eyes as the man peers up at him from a white bed. He imagines touching that warm skin. This evening is unexpected. This man is unexpected. Less thinks of when he bought a wallet in a thrift shop and in it found a hundred dollars.
“I want a cigarette,” Javier says, with a child’s abashed face.
“I’ll join you,” Less says, and together they step out of the open window, onto a narrow stone balcony where other smoking Europeans glance back at the American as on a member of the secret police. At the corner of the house, the balcony turns, offering a view of slanted metal rooftops and chimneys. They are alone here, and Javier takes out a pack and pulls on its contents so that two white tusks emerge. Less shakes his head: “Actually, I don’t smoke.”
They laugh.
Javier says, “I think I am a little drunk, Arthur.”
“I think I am too.”
Less’s smile has expanded to its full size, here alone with Javier. Is it the champagne that makes him emit an audible sigh? They are side by side at the railing. The chimneys all look like flowerpots.
Looking out at the view, Javier says, “Here is something strange about growing old.”
“What’s that?”
“I meet new friends, and they are bald or they are gray. And I don’t know what color their hair used to be.”
“I never thought about it.”
Now Javier turns to look at Less; he is probably the type to turn and look at you while he is driving. “A friend, I have known him for five years, maybe he is in his late fifties. And I asked him once. I was so surprised to find he was a redhead!”
Less nods in agreement. “I was on the street the other day. In New York City. And an old man came up to me and hugged me. I had no idea who he was. He was my old lover.”
“Dios mío,” Javier says, swallowing a gulp of champagne. Less feels his arm against Javier’s, and even through the layers of fabric his skin comes alive. He so desperately wants to touch this man. Javier says, “Me, I was at dinner, and an old man was beside me. So boring! Talking about real estate. I thought, Please, God, do not let me be this man when I am old. Later I find out he was a year younger than I.”
Less puts down his glass and, bravely, puts his hand again on Javier’s. Javier turns to face him.
“And also,” Less says meaningfully, “being the only single man your age.”
Javier says nothing but just gives a sad smile.
Less blinks, removes his hand, and takes one half step away from the railing. Now, in the new space between him and the Spaniard, one can make out the Erector-set miracle of the Eiffel Tower.
Less asks, “You’re not single, are you?”
Smoke leaks from Javier’s mouth as he shakes his head gently side to side. “We have been together eighteen years. He is in Madrid, I am here.”
“Married.”
Javier waits a long time before he answers. “Yes, married.”
“So you see, I was right.”
“That you are the only single man?”
Less closes his eyes. “That I am foolish.”
There is piano music inside; the son has been put to work, and whatever hangover he has does not show in the bright garlands of notes that come out the window, onto the balcony. The other smokers all turn and walk over to see and listen. The sky is now nothing but night.
“No, no, you’re not foolish.” Javier puts his hand on the sleeve of Less’s ridiculous jacket. “I wish I were single.”
Less smiles bitterly at the subjunctive but does not move his arm. “I’m sure you don’t. Otherwise you would be.”
“It is not so simple, Arthur.”
Less pauses. “But it is too bad.”
Javier moves his hand up to Less’s elbow. “It is very too bad. When do you leave?”
He checks his watch. “I leave for the airport in an hour.”
“Oh.” A sudden look of pain in those gold-green eyes. “I am not to meet you again, am I?”
He must have been slim in his youth, with long black hair, colored blue in certain light, as in old comic books. He must have swum in the sea in an orange Speedo and fallen in love with the man smiling onshore. He must have gone from bad affair to bad affair until he met a dependable man at an art museum, just five years older, already going bald, with a bit of a belly but an easy demeanor that promised escape from heartbreak, off in Madrid, that palace of a city shimmering in the heat. Surely it was a decade or more before they married. How many late dinners of ham and pickled anchovies? How many arguments over the sock drawer—blacks mixing with navy blues—until they decided at last to have separate drawers? Separate duvets, as in Germany? Separate brands of coffee and tea? Separate vacations—his husband to Greece (completely bald but the belly in check), and he to Mexico? Alone on a beach again in an orange Speedo, no longer slim. Trash gathering along the shoreline from cruise ships, and a view of Cuba’s dancing lights. He must have been lonely a long time to stand before Arthur Less and ask such a thing. On a rooftop in Paris, in his
black suit and white shirt. Any narrator would be jealous of this possible love, on this possible night.
Less stands there in the furred leather jacket against the nighttime city. With his sad expression, three-quarters turned to Javier, his gray shirt, his striped scarf, his blue eyes and copper-colored beard, he looks unlike himself. He looks like Van Gogh.
A flight of starlings goes off behind him, headed to church.
“We’re too old to think we’ll meet again,” Less says.
Javier rests his hand on Less’s waist and steps toward him. Cigarettes and vanilla.
“Passengers to Marrakech…”
Arthur Less sits in the Lessian manner—legs crossed at the knee, free foot fidgeting—and, as usual, his long legs find themselves in the way of one passenger after another, with their rolling suitcases so enormous, Less cannot imagine what they are bringing to Morocco. The traffic is so constant that he has to uncross his legs and sit back. He still wears his new Parisian clothes, the linen of his trousers slackened from a day of use, the coat suffocatingly hot. He is weary and drunk from the party, and his face is aglow with alcohol and doubt and arousal. He has, however, succeeded in mailing his tax-free form, and for this he wears (having passed by his nemesis, the Tax Lady) the smug smile of a criminal who has pulled off one last heist. Javier promised to mail it in the morning; it is tucked inside that slim black jacket, against that firm Iberian chest. So it was not all for nothing. Was it?
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