Last Lovers

by William Wharton

  ‘“You see, I thought all this time I was doing what you wanted. I know now I was wrong. I got caught in some kind of mad race that had no ending except something like this. I’m not the only one, but that’s no excuse.

  ‘“Would you believe it, but during these years, doing all the dumb kinds of things I’ve done, I’ve still thought of myself, in my heart of hearts, as an artist. Isn’t that insane? But it’s true. I’ve felt that all the rest has been a combination of accidents. Each step to where my life is now hasn’t been so much a series of decisions but only taking the way which seemed sensible, practical, the easy way, the smart way. Well, it’s finished.”

  ‘Lorrie’s still quiet. She opens her mouth twice, then starts quietly crying. I’m crying myself.

  ‘“Lorrie, I thought I could do it, I really did. You know what finally got to me?”

  ‘I pause. I take a deep breath, trying to keep the aching sobs back down there where they belong. I don’t want this to be a crybaby session.

  ‘“It was you, checking your watch all the time you were with me. It was like someone in a waiting room for a train, or a doctor’s office, waiting for the waiting to be over. I knew you were waiting until I wouldn’t be there, so you could call or be together with Didier, get on with your real life instead of carrying off the private farce we’d created. I began to know how superfluous I was to your life, your happiness, that I was in the way, blocking what you really wanted.

  ‘“I want you to be happy, Lorrie, that’s the main thing. By being around, I don’t feel I’m helping at all.

  ‘“I need to get away, Lorrie. I’ve been thinking about this meeting with you all morning, wanting to do it right, not hurting you any more than I need to, trying not to hurt anybody more than is necessary.

  ‘“I have my bag packed. I’ll be leaving soon as we’re finished here. More than anything else, I don’t want the kids to know what’s really happened, if it can possibly be avoided; but it’s up to you.

  ‘“I’d prefer you didn’t tell them about you and Didier until you feel you have to. That’s not only male vanity but what I think is best for them. I hope you’ll agree, but it’s up to you. Tell them anything that would be comfortable for you and you think won’t be too traumatic for them. You can just say I’m going through some kind of male menopause, that I’ve run away with another woman, whatever you can come up with. I know now I’m not that important in their lives, anyway. It’s a terrible thing to realize but it’s true. How could I have been so unknowing, so stupid?

  ‘“But please tell them I love them and always will. I’m sorry if I haven’t been much of a father. It was all a terrible mistake on my part.

  ‘“I have my carte de travail and carte de séjour. If I want, I can stay in Paris for as long as ten years. After that, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m hoping to find myself as an artist again, go back to where it all started, the way it was the last time I felt alive and inside myself.

  ‘“If you want a divorce now, or at any time in the future, the papers have been drawn up by Milt. I’ve sent my signature, which will serve, along with his power of attorney, to make it legal. If it isn’t enough, just mail me whatever needs to be signed and I’ll do it.

  ‘“I’d like very much to know if you are all well, happy, how you are doing. If you want to contact me, write to American Express here. I’ll check every two weeks. I’d appreciate very much hearing from you, but don’t, please, any of you, feel you have to write to me. I’ll write you here or at our address back home every two weeks to let you know I’m well.”

  ‘I stand up. I have my bag beside me. Lorrie stays seated. I don’t want to hang around. I want it clean as possible.

  ‘“I’ve taken five thousand francs from the cash we keep in the house. The checkbooks, insurance policies, and the rest are on the dining room table. It’ll all be easy to figure out. If you get stuck, call Milt.

  ‘“Have a good life, Lorrie. Try to think of me sometimes. Remember I love you, always will. If you want me or need me, just write and I’ll come, somehow.”

  ‘I turned and walked out that big curved French door, walked to the RER station with the idea of riding the train into Paris. I was glad it all hadn’t turned into some kind of impossible crying, screaming scene. I don’t think I could have managed it. I felt numb, in shock, and at the same time as if I’d scraped a growth from my body which had grown all over and was suffocating me. I was experiencing a sense of being in charge of my life, whether I wanted it or not, a feeling I hadn’t known since that phone call from the Nard Corporation.’

  My story is finished almost at the same time as I complete the portrait. I sit there. I know there’s really nothing more to say and probably nothing more to paint. During the last parts of my story, I’ve practically forgotten about Mirabelle, except as the model filling the front of my mind. The rest of my mind, my soul, had been set free.

  Now it’s over, I feel strange, drained, embarrassed. Mirabelle stands and comes over to me. For the first time, I really wish she could see. Up till now, it has only been a vague desire. Now I wish she could see herself as I see her, know that, in another way, I know so much of her story, as it has been told in her face and then in the portrait. I know also that my own pitiful tale is somehow painted into the portrait, too.

  Before I know it, Mirabelle has put her arms around my head and holds me against her. I don’t even try to stop myself. I start crying. I cry, soaking the dark sweater she has pressed against my face. When I finally stop, it’s practically dark again. The portrait looms in front of my face. Mirabelle steps away and across the room. She switches on the overhead light.

  ‘Now it is time we have some light. Tonight you must stay and share my souper with me.’

  I’m not fighting her. I realize how tired I am of fighting, fighting my past, my present, myself. I feel a tremendous desire to just let go, be part of things, enjoy the little pleasures life has to give, pleasures Mirabelle has in some way made visible to me.

  Blind Reverie

  As I listen, I’m even more glad that I am blind. I have never, except for the death of my parents so long ago, been part of the hard, real world. How can Jacques stay so loving, so kind, after all that has happened? Yes, the sadness is in his voice, in his movements, but I had no idea. I do not think I could ever stand up under such troubles.

  I am so glad he has been willing to tell me, but now I know there is nothing I can do and he is not available to me. He lives in his past, his loves, as I live in the world of my parents. Only his painting is what he lives for now. I am so happy to be a part of that world, if there can be nothing else. I wish I were young and beautiful so I could take his mind away from all his dark thoughts, if only briefly, give him some idea of how much he should be loved.

  How could his wife turn to another? Perhaps it is as Jacques says, he was then a man who could not know love. I was impulsive to hold him in my arms while he cried, but it gave me such pleasure. I do think that now he is a man who could know how to love. Sometimes a loss such as he suffered can open doors of tenderness and passion.

  7

  Mirabelle moves into the kitchen, takes her apron from a small hook just inside the door, and lights the stove. The kitchen is an alcove to the room where I’m sitting. This room is a cross between a dining room and a living room.

  I guess, to the French, the place where you eat is the place where you live. I like the idea. I’ve always felt the American so-called living room was a remnant from the old-fashioned parlor and not a comfortable place to be.

  I watch her. It’s beautiful to see how easily, gracefully she moves. I’m feeling very passive, completely empty, not in a sense of being fatigued but as if sludgy motor oil in a car has been changed, or a boil has been lanced. I feel good. When Mirabelle turns her head toward me, I can’t help but smile, meaningless as it may be. I don’t know why she turns toward me.

  ‘Jacques, I hope you are not sorry you told me about what happened with
your wife. It is such a poignant story, so difficult, that I am still thinking about it, trying to put it together in my mind, somehow wanting to understand the things that happened.’

  She starts setting the table, putting salt, pepper, butter, half a baguette, a plate with a bowl on it, for each of us. She sets these things on the bare wooden table, then brings out the napkins we’d used for lunch; each is in a napkin holder. I like the feeling of belonging, of having a napkin which is mine with its own holder. I, for the first time, really, since I left home, am ready to come in from the cold, be part of life.

  She brings out a hot pad and places it in the center of the table, then carries a large metal pot from the kitchen and lines it up on the hot pad. With oven gloves she lifts the lid off the pot. Steam and a delicious smell pour from it. She goes back into the kitchen, then comes out with a large ladle. She takes my bowl and ladles soup into it without spilling a drop. It’s as if she can see perfectly. She does the same thing for herself, sits down, springs up again.

  ‘Oh, I forgot the wine. Usually I don’t drink wine in the evening, but you’ve worked so hard you should have some.’

  She comes back and pours wine into our glasses, again without a single hesitation; only if you watch carefully can you see that her hands are doing what most people’s eyes would do, locating things, determining amounts, distances. Her hands are like butterflies, yet they’re calm, not nervous.

  The soup is delicious. We eat without saying much, breaking off pieces of baguette and soaking them in the soup. I didn’t realize how hungry I was. My Sunday Mulligan is definitely rotting on me. I look over at the painting leaning against the wall under the courtyard windows.

  ‘Are you happy with your painting, Jacques?’

  I don’t even try guessing how she knows I’m looking at it. It’s almost like living with a telepath.

  ‘Yes, Mirabelle, I’m very happy. I didn’t know I could paint such a good portrait. I’ve said everything I know about you in it, at the same time, it is a good resemblance and a good painting, a painting that would have value, even if you didn’t exist, never existed.’

  ‘That makes me feel so happy. I only wish I could see it myself.’

  ‘I don’t know if you would like it. This way, you can feel it is a good portrait just because I tell you so. I know it isn’t very fair.’

  ‘No, it is the nature of my malady. Most of the time I am happier not seeing things. Usually vision is only a matter of convenience for most people. I have found ways to live without that convenience.’

  We finish the soup. Mirabelle begins to clear the table, carry the dishes and pot into the kitchen. I rise to help, she hears my chair scrape and motions me to stay in place.

  ‘No, Jacques, I like very much cooking and caring for you. It is such a pleasure not to be alone. Eating alone is one of the hardest parts in my life. While I clean these dishes, would you be so kind as to tell me what happened in the year after you went out that “curved French door,” leaving your wife, children, your entire life, and dropped into the streets of Paris? I should like to know very much, but you need not tell me if it is too difficult.’

  ‘Mirabelle, sometimes I’m even more ashamed of much of what happened in that time than of what I did before. It is difficult now for me to believe it.’

  She turns her head toward me, over her shoulder, and somehow seems to look right through me.

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Well, first of all, I didn’t take the RER; I walked all the way from Le Vésinet, where we lived, into Paris. It was weather like this and I enjoyed walking but I was terribly out of shape. I was carrying a bag, not a big one, but it seemed to get heavier as I went on. I was surprised to find how far from Paris we really lived. When one only takes the RER, or drives, it is easy to forget how far apart things are, how big the world is. I’d been locked into a tunnel kind of life in more ways than I knew.

  ‘So, when I finally arrived in Paris, late in the afternoon, absolutely bushed, with my feet blistered, I checked in at the cheapest hotel I could find. It was thirty-five francs a night, no bath, no shower. I washed myself off in the sink, took off the sweaty clothes I’d been wearing, slipped on my sweat suit, and dropped off to sleep.

  ‘Mirabelle, how much detail do you want of all this? You see, I’ve run it through my mind so many times I almost know it by heart, day by day, minute by minute.’

  ‘Tell me what you will. We have time. There is no hurry, and I am happy listening to you, even when what you have to tell is so sad.’

  ‘Well, the next day I went out looking for a cheaper hotel. It was a good way to get around to parts of Paris where I’d never been, but my legs were so stiff I could scarcely walk.

  ‘I knew I wanted to be within walking distance of the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume, but those areas are expensive. I finally found a fourteen-franc-a-night hotel on the rue Trousseau in the eleventh arrondissement, not too far from where I live now. I moved in there.

  ‘For the first month, I only walked around Paris. I broke out one of the two pair of running shoes I’d taken with me when I left. The shoes I’d been wearing were the kind I’ve always worn to the office, expensive, handmade, hard leather shoes with rubber heels. They were definitely not for long walking.

  ‘I only went to a museum once a week, but I arrived before it opened and stayed till it closed. I was astounded at what men had created, brought into life with their hands, their minds, their skills. I became aware that if I weren’t careful I’d be spending almost as much money on museums as I was on my hotel. That didn’t make much sense.

  ‘For food, I’d buy myself Strasbourg frites at one of the places on the streets, or one of the Tunisian sandwiches, or, sometimes when I wanted to splurge, I’d order a jambon beurre at a café along with coffee.

  ‘I was doing much thinking, a painful process. Sometimes I’d walk from the Bois de Vincennes to the Bois de Boulogne and back without even knowing where I was going.

  ‘But I was looking, too, letting Paris sink into me. It was even more beautiful than I’d imagined. It was especially beautiful in the mornings. Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d walk in the early dark hours, after midnight, until the sun would come up. I was still numb, still not knowing what I was doing, what I was going to do.

  ‘But I did know my five thousand francs was disappearing fast. Sundays in the Louvre were free, so I made that my museum day. Then, as the days got warmer, I moved out of the hotel and began sleeping down on the quai. I found two old blankets at the Marché d’Aligre, near where I lived, and learned to roll my few things into a bedroll which served as a pillow.

  ‘At first, it was like camping. I learned to fight off the people trying to rob me. I kept my little wad of francs inside my Jockey shorts. I put a strong string through my wallet with my important papers and hung it around my neck.

  ‘But I was getting dirty. I didn’t bring that much in the way of clothes with me, and generally they weren’t very practical. I was learning how I wasn’t prepared to survive in this outside world. It was hard where I was living. There were perverts, sad alcoholics, drug addicts, thieves. These people were dangerous and totally unpredictable. But I began to look like them, live like them, and they started leaving me alone. During the days, I was still drifting in my mind as I wandered around Paris.

  ‘Then, in October, it began to grow cold. I was down to my last thousand francs. I wasn’t worried as much as interested. I wanted to know what I’d do when all the supports on which I’d built my phony life were gone. I protected my carte de travail and my carte de séjour around my neck, as carefully as my money. I wasn’t asked by the police in all that time to show them, but several times I saw les flics just in time and escaped.

  ‘I began trying to sleep on the benches in the métro, I could sleep there till the métro police would throw us out. I tried sleeping on the métro vents for the warmth, but the smell of sweaty old air was too much for me. I moved back to the quais, or sometimes I’
d find a corner in a courtyard until a concierge would chase me.

  ‘The worst of it was, I’d started drinking wine.

  ‘It began as a way to make the ache inside lessen, then I used it to help me sleep when the ground was hard and the wind was cold. By January, I was drinking between two and three liters of cheap wine every day. I began to lose count of those days. I’d sleep more in the daytime than in the nights because it was warmer. I was in an alcoholic haze most of the time.

  ‘Now, a good part of what I spent was going for wine, even at five francs a bottle. I wasn’t eating properly. I began having sores on my legs and feet. My hands were swelling and cracking with the cold, from the general exposure, and the decrease of circulation due to alcohol. Strangely, it took a while before I accepted the fact I had become an alcoholic. It was the kind of thing I thought could never happen to me.

  ‘I woke from my stupor one morning to find I only had two hundred and ten francs left. It was early February. I was down on the quai under the arch of the Pont Neuf. It was freezing cold, ice everywhere. I didn’t want to beg. I resisted going to buy a bottle of wine. I actually sucked the last dregs out of the bottle I’d gone to sleep with. I had enough of my wits left to know I needed to stop now, pull myself together, or it would be the end. I would then have found myself, the self for which I was searching, and what I was finding was not very impressive. I guess it was plain old-fashioned pride which saved me.

  ‘I rolled myself in my filthy blankets and didn’t move for three days. It snowed. I tried to search for my mind, to think, to plan. I craved wine. The only way I could stop myself was to just hold tight on to my own body and not let go. I had deep black-and-blue marks on my arms from pressing my fingers into them.

  ‘But on the third day I could think. I could think and I was hungry. I knew first, after eating something, I needed to clean myself, go to a public washhouse and take a hot shower, wash my hair, wash my clothes, try to organize my life again.