The Romanian

by Bruce Benderson

  “Seven-twenty. I mean, twenty-one.”

  “I do hope she’s there,” I said in my best white-gloved Joan Crawford tone.

  Romulus made that French-Romanian blasé gesture again, expelling air through pursed lips. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “But it does, Romulus, it does. She was cute. How old is she, by the way?”

  “Seventeen, she say.”

  “Tsk, tsk, robbing the cradle.”

  He chortled at the quip, but too much, with the vain hope of reestablishing familiarity. I cut it off by asking, “Isn’t it time to go?”

  He checked his watch again, “Seven twenty-three.” Then he stared at me in annoyance. “Why you so concerned?”

  “You know I want you to have a good time,” I said with Crawford’s purring insincerity. “Come on, Romulus, go over there. It must be time.”

  He stood abruptly and tossed his napkin on the table. “Good luck!” I called out ostentatiously as he walked away, which stiffened his walk.

  While he was gone, I ordered another double. Nothing, but nothing, would stop me from finally having a good time. Under a passing cloud, the sea had turned leaden.

  Romulus came back a few moments later. He gave a macho shrug.

  “Not there?”

  “I not wanna go to Mangalia anyway,” he mumbled with forced unconcern. “Save that for tomorrow.”

  “Ah, yes, tomorrow. For your birthday. A real bash.”

  This time he missed the sarcasm. “Always my birthday is best day of year! We get—”

  “I know, you get drunk, you fuck. You told me already.”

  “On your birthday will be different, Bruce. We have fine dinner or maybe even theater. . . .”

  “And who’s going to pay for all that?”

  As planned, the comment stung him. Seeing an inroad, I went on. “I think I’ll go out with Răzvan and his buddies for my birthday, Romulus. Hope you don’t mind. Drink some beers, maybe get laid. You think Răzvan would put his legs over his head for fifty?”

  Romulus scratched his chin, seeming to consider the proposition seriously. “Maybe . . . he do. I’m sure he do many things to survive.”

  The answer infuriated me further. I’d wanted him to say, But Bruce, I want to be with you on your birthday, so I called for the check, and when the waiter brought it, said, “Hey, let’s have one more. Sort of a pre-birthday celebration for you.”

  “Bruce, my head spinning already. I am not used to the strong drink.”

  “Come on, Romulus, don’t be a wimp.”

  “What is this word? Don’t tell me—ah, I know. It is sudden desire?”

  “That’s ‘whim,’ Romulus,” I said with pretended exasperation. Curiously, this wounded him more than anything else. He took pride in having learned several languages without a book or teacher. “And you’re not,” I said slurringly, now feeling the liquor, “a sudden desire. Or do I mean you’re not a desire suddenly?”

  Romulus missed my point but glared at the intention anyway, then rapidly slipped into a conciliatory tone. “So, what we do tonight? You want to go to disco, the one on the beach?”

  “Sorry, I have plans of my own,” I said as I stood up.

  “And what is they?”

  “I thought I’d go to Mangalia,” I said, thinking quickly. “But I know this isn’t your night to go.”

  Romulus stuck to his guns and nodded.

  “Okay, then,” I agreed, while a crushed voice pleaded inside me to stop the game.

  Romulus nodded curtly and we separated. He went toward the disco, and I headed toward our room; then, after turning around to see if he was looking, I walked to the restaurant bar and ordered another drink.

  THE ANESTHESIA OF THE ALCOHOL was supporting my self-deception. I told myself that tonight I was really free and had damn well better be glad about it. This was the moment of power, I lied, when I was going to seize my own pleasure. I wanted to be just like him.

  I was trudging along the highway in the direction of Mangalia, which is about a mile and a half south. The road led me past Neptun with its carefully guarded mansions. My eyes met those of a guard standing in front of one of them, in the harsh rays of a spotlight. Drunkenly, I cackled toward him, as if to say, You and me know the world’s a fucked-up place. His body stiffened, and he moved his hand toward his gun.

  There were plenty of tourists around me heading in the same direction, some in cars and some on foot. There was, I dimly remembered reading or hearing, a music festival going on down there. A garish sense of false optimism curled my lips into an inane smile fed by the alcohol; somehow I’d gotten it into my head that I was going to get laid.

  The main street had been made to look festive, decorated with strings of red lights. In my blurry sight they looked like new bloodstains in the humid summer air. Mangalia was packed, just as I’d suspected. The majority of the people were young, and they lacked that sense of melancholy I’d often noticed in the faces of older Romanians. Along the street, a meaty teenager in a tank top was cooking corn on the cob on a charcoal brazier. The alcohol pushed me toward him, and boldly I struck up an inconsequential conversation. It was probably only my American English that succeeded in charming him; otherwise he would have been annoyed by a middle-aged drunk trying to get his attention while he was working.

  “Hey, where’s the fun around here?”

  He grinned at my casual tone and gestured with his chin toward the beach. “The concert just finished. But there are still the people over there.”

  “Who was playing?”

  “You know Andrei?” he asked, expecting me to shake my head. I knew the group of two sexy girls called Andrei very well. They were the Jennifer Lopezes of Romania, with beaded hair, who sung with loose pelvises and swinging, pert breasts. I’d watched Romulus watching their rock videos countless times.

  “Sure!” I answered a little too enthusiastically, and hummed the chorus of their hit song. He broke into an embarrassed, astonished smile and nodded along with me. “Take it easy,” I called as I moved off, and seizing delightedly on the American expression, he called back, “You take it easy!”

  The encounter had aggravated my horniness and filled me with a false sense of confidence, but when I got to the beach, which had carnival booths, rides and a stage, my spirits began to lag. I wandered among the laughing couples like a bachelor ghost, adrift and out of any context they could possibly imagine. I started back toward Olimp on the main road. Fatigue suddenly drained me, and my footsteps became leaden. Seeing a taxi pushing its way through the hordes, I signaled it and jumped into the front seat.

  The driver was relatively young, about thirty, and he caught me examining his strong-looking hands on the steering wheel. They were stained with black grease from some kind of manual labor, which had also probably given him his lean, strong physique. Right away I noticed that he had a curiously elegant posture, a graceful crouch that would have looked good in expensive clothes. What caught my attention most was the position of his legs. They were spread a little too wide for driving, and the thighs were nonchalantly upturned.

  My eyes locked to the sprawl; I was too drunk to move them away. He followed my line of sight, then looked back at the road.

  “I’m going to Olimp,” I said. “The Panoramic.”

  He nodded knowingly and then said, “You from America.”

  “Hmm, hmm, but I’m living in Bucharest. Came down here for a little vacation.” His face darkened with misunderstanding.

  “Oh, I don’t speak Romanian,” I said. “I’m really sorry.” Then just for the fun of it, I added, “Vous parlez français?”

  “Oui. J’étais à Paris. Deux ans.” Then, still in French, he added that his name was Tristan and that he worked days as a mechanic at the train station in Constanţa.

  He had mild blue eyes and something lax and cruel about his mouth, but I ignored the lower part of his face and concentrated on his eyes. Still, there was a facet of his body’s tension that suggested ambigu
ity. The lean, casual elegance was a cover for something perverse. I was intrigued, and he seemed to like that, so I chattered on in French. As we went down the long driveway to the Panoramic, I suggested, “Why don’t you come have something to eat with me?” He nodded and his slouch grew more pronounced. His legs lolled even more, as if he should have been wearing silk pajamas.

  He knew his way around and led me to the closest restaurant, glancing at my gait, then taking in my face. I wasn’t sure why I suddenly felt so cheerful, glad to be walking with someone fairly young, not bad-looking, masculine, impressing him with inconsequential information about New York.

  The gleaming dark red lips of the leggy waitress greeted him with familiarity. A few casual comments passed between them with snickers and knowing looks. The waitress took off to get us some wine. He leaned closer toward me until I could see each individual eyelash. They were sandy-colored, a mixture of blond and dark brown. His full lips were slightly cracked, and there was a day’s unshaven growth on his face.

  “They’re whores, you know,” he confided in French, with a sly glance toward the waitress. As he said it, I let one knee graze his as if by accident.

  He opened a pewter cigarette case and extended it toward me. For the sake of the gesture, I took a smoke between thumb and forefinger. As he lit my cigarette his mild blue eyes engaged mine insouciantly, but the mouth looked slack and absent. It seemed the very opposite of those people who engage you with a smile while their eyes remain vacant. He leaned back on two legs of the chair and let his legs loll open again. As he did, I thought I felt a bitter sadness waft from him, something metallic.

  “You’re here with somebody,” he assumed, always in French.

  “Just a friend,” I assured him, “a Romanian.”

  Now his eyes looked bemused, the lips betrayed a hint of detached irony. “You need chauffeur?”

  “As a matter of fact,” I decided to claim, “I might need one for half a day. Especially tomorrow. I want to see more of Constanţa and some of the towns along the coast.”

  “Hmm, hmm,” he nodded suggestively, as if I’d made a veiled reference.

  “How much would you charge, say, for five hours.”

  He laughed as if I’d made a joke. “It depends.”

  After the wine, the waitress brought the food. I’d ordered a salad for myself, to conceal the fact that I’d already eaten. I picked at it halfheartedly and ordered another drink. As I ate and drank, he studied my manners as if they contained an answer to a question he’d posed himself. In the tension of the situation, I’d regressed to that old excitement. The black water beyond the terrace now looked soft, velvety and welcoming, with a note of risk that was enthralling. There was a small breeze. By the time we finished eating, I’d mutated completely. In my mind I felt I was projecting energy and warmth. It gave me the confidence to make my final gamble.

  “Want to come back to my room?” I said, looking him in the eye.

  Tristan nodded. I quickly paid the check.

  As we walked through the hotel lobby past the desk clerk, I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead. “What about your friend?” he asked.

  “Out for the night,” I answered.

  The beds were unmade, and the room was in disarray. Romulus’s wet bathing suit lay on the floor next to a pair of my shoes. On the desk were his boom box and several of his tapes. I’d packed the computer and put it under the bed; I’d been worried about thieves.

  Tristan perched on the edge of a bed and surveyed the room. His pale blue eyes seemed to click as he took in its contents. Suddenly I was struck with a feeling of awkwardness. Nothing about his posture indicated that he would decide to lie back and relax. The legs no longer lolled, and his hunch looked protective. Resolved to carry out my intentions, I pushed aside a crumpled sheet and sat down close to him. As I did, he reached for one of the tapes, read the name of the rock group on it and fingered it desirously. It was then that I reached toward one of the locked thighs. His elbow rose gently to push my arm away. His grasp on the tape tightened. I stood and moved away, feeling very drunk all of a sudden. “You’d better go,” I managed to mumble, but his movement of rising was impudently slow.

  “I’m sorry,” he said with mock humility. “I do not do this kind of thing.” Then he stood by the door like a stop-action frame, still clutching the tape.

  “Put that down,” I said, pronouncing the words evenly, in a tone you might use to control fear when dealing with a dog. He opened the door a crack and I took a step forward, extending a hand to receive the tape. He held it close, one finger rubbing back and forth over the edge, his eyes staring proprietarily at the boom box.

  “It’s not mine,” I said, chancing another step forward. Then I reached out my hand again and pulled the tape from his. With the other I pushed softly against his shoulder, moving him aside so that I could swing open the door. He left a moment later, but not before fixing me with a steady gaze that seemed to say I was his debtor.

  After locking the door, I fell back on the bed, but burying my face in my hands for only a moment. The ludicrous sense of a raw deal had returned, and like an old soldier, I rose for another quest. Disappointment and outrage, mixed with that desperate hope that comes from a survival instinct in the midst of defeat, impelled me out the door. The evening wasn’t over.

  Double vengeance addled my brain as I thought of both Romulus and Tristan. As if the weather were influenced by my roiling thoughts, it had changed. The breeze was gone, replaced by an eerie, starlit calm, like the hush before a disaster. I stumbled on the sand toward a spot of color that marked the entrance to the outdoor disco. It must have been past two in the morning, and only a few customers were clustered at the bar, while a single figure barely moved on the dance floor. It was Romulus, dancing alone, his violet shirt spotted by drink. He was making tiny shuffling steps to the rhythm of the music. His face was pale from booze and fatigue and probably disappointment. Nonetheless his hips swayed while his arms swung adeptly. It was a narcissistic dance, turned inward in a fantasy of popularity and fun, and his half-closed eyes seemed forlornly absorbed as he mouthed the words to the music. At the sight of me, his expression changed and relief flooded his face.

  “Bruce,” he said, extending an unsteady arm, “so glad I am to see you.”

  If truth be told, a surge of feeling had arisen in me at the sight of him, but I held it back with superhuman strength and merely replied, “How come?” Without giving him time to recover from the curt reply, I walked past him. I sat down at the end of the bar near a group of good-looking Romanian boys. I put my back to Romulus and ordered a drink, then tugged the sleeve of the boy next to me. “Would you like a drink?” I slurred, and surprised by his good luck, the boy replied, “Sure!”

  It wasn’t long before the other three had gathered around me. They must have ranged in age from seventeen to twenty-one, and all of them were fascinated by the friendly American. The one nearest me, particularly, had pleasant eyes and a graceful face and neck, attached to a flat, petite trunk. In the darkness illuminated only by red and blue lights, the skin of his neck looked satin. After buying each of the others a drink, I focused my attention on him. I was in that place I’d visited hundreds of times when drink, depression and a lack of context synthesized a certain suavity. It was a familiar role-play that came out with ease, half friendly but detached, loquacious with a tinge of exoticism. This all-purpose technique flattered him, leaving open the potential for seduction, but it also offered some foolproof retreats that could leave me looking like nothing more than a nice guy. Under my grooming, the boy performed, opening up to me about his life and disappointments. Unaccustomed to my wheedling words, he thought some miracle had brought him a confidant. He told me he was a university student who worked as a busboy at the resort for the summer. His salary was so miserably low that he could barely eat on it. As we sat softly talking, I sensed a shadow behind me. Then Romulus touched my arm and smiled in a way that asked to join the conversation.
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  “What do you want?” I said condescendingly, in a tone that must have embarrassed the boy.

  “To talk to you is all,” Romulus blurted out with a face that betrayed humiliation.

  “So talk.”

  “Listen, Bruce,” he said in a stage whisper he hoped could not be overheard, “seven hundred thousand lei [about twenty dollars] you gave me today is gone, and I borrowed from people at that table.” He pointed to a table near the dance floor with two thuggish bodybuilders, one of whom wore dark glasses.

  “Is it my business,” I answered coolly, “if you borrow money from strangers?”

  “Listen, listen, Bruce, you don’t understand. They are getting, you know, aggressive.”

  With a hokey snarl, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a million lei. Turning my back to him so that I could face my new friend again, I passed Romulus the money. He took it and muttered a thank-you, but I didn’t bother to answer. Behind my back, I could hear his steps shuffling toward the dance floor.

  The boy was too cultivated to ask me about the transaction. However, from then on, conversation was halting. He’d obviously seen me in a new light. Moments later, he signaled to his friends and they all got up to leave. Incredible as it was to do so, I ordered another drink. As the aftermath of a fruitless evening passed through me in waves, I began to regret my behavior with Romulus. When I glanced toward the dance floor, an altercation was taking place. One of the thuggish men, the one wearing dark glasses, who was not only much more muscled but also much taller than Romulus, was standing, holding a raised index finger that nearly touched Romulus’s nose. He was shouting at Romulus, who stood stock still, not budging an inch. The confrontation continued for several moments, until the thug gave ground. He walked out of the disco with his friend, shouting at Romulus, making threatening gestures with his fist.

  I slid from the bar stool and walked over to Romulus, forcing a smile on my face. “What happened?” I asked as he stared at me with seething outrage.

  “Nothing,” he answered in an icy, mocking tone. “I wouldn’t give him money.”