by John Boyne
I remembered now how careless he had been from the start with his sexual health. It was true that things had been very different in the 1960s and ’70s than they were by 1987, but it seemed to me that Julian had been particularly cavalier throughout his youth, as if he believed himself to be invincible. How he had never gotten a girl pregnant was a mystery to me but then, I realized, perhaps he had and I had simply never found out. He could have a gang of children for all I knew. Still, I had never even imagined that he would one day contract a disease that would not only threaten his life but bring it to a premature end. Not that I could condemn him, of course, without facing up to my own hypocrisy. After all, I had been so promiscuous as a younger man that I was lucky never to have come down with something myself. Had I been twenty years younger and in my sexual prime when the AIDS crisis was beginning, I had little doubt that I would have been putting myself in harm’s way with the number of hazardous situations in which I found myself with strangers. How had we reached this point, I wondered? We were middle-aged, both of us, but we had been cheerful teenagers once, who had gone on to waste so much of our lives. I had squandered my twenties in a cowardly attempt to present a deceitful facade to the world and now Julian had thrown away what might have been another forty years of life through his own carelessness.
Staring into the water now, I could feel tears forming behind my eyes and remembered how Bastiaan had told us over dinner how Patient 741 didn’t want his family to know what he was going through because of the extra stigma that would come with the disease in Ireland. So Alice, I realized, who had adored her older brother, knew nothing of his illness.
A woman came over to ask whether I was all right, an unusual occurrence in New York, where weeping strangers are usually left to fend for themselves, but I had no ability to converse and simply stood up and walked away. I wasn’t sure where I was going but my feet somehow led me back toward 96th Street, back to Mount Sinai Hospital, and when I exited the elevator on the seventh floor, I felt grateful for small mercies when I saw that Shaniqua was not at her desk, giving me the freedom to return to Room 703 without having to answer any questions.
This time, I didn’t hesitate or knock but walked straight in, closing the door behind me. The curtains were still open, just as I had left them, and Julian’s head was turned away from me to catch whatever view he could see from where he was lying. He moved a little in the bed to see who had entered the room and when he saw me an expression crossed his face that combined anxiety, shame and relief. I took a chair and sat next to him, my back to the window, saying nothing for a long time as I looked down at the floor, hoping that he would speak first.
“I wondered whether you’d come back,” he whispered eventually, his voice croaky from lack of use. “I figured you would. You never could stay away from me for long.”
“That was a long time ago now,” I replied.
“I hope I haven’t lost any of my appeal,” he said, and the half-smile on his face forced a small laugh from my mouth.
“I’m sorry I ran off like that,” I told him. “It was a shock, that’s all. To see you again after so many years. And here, of all places. I should have stayed.”
“Well, you have a history of disappearing without a word, don’t you?”
I nodded. Of course, this was a subject that would inevitably come up but I wasn’t ready for it, not yet.
“I needed some fresh air,” I told him. “I went for a walk.”
“On 96th Street?” he asked. “To where?”
“I went over to Central Park. You don’t mind that I’ve come back?”
“Why would I?” he asked, shrugging as best as he could, and as his lips parted I could see how his teeth, which had once been spectacularly white, had grown yellow and uneven. There was at least one missing from the lower set and his gums were a whitish shade of pink. “The truth is, I was as shocked to see you as you were to see me. I was glad of a little time to process it. Only I can’t make a break for it as easily as you can.”
“Oh, Julian,” I said, giving in to my emotions now as I buried my face in my hands to stop him from seeing the grief on my face. “What happened to you? How did you end up here?”
“What can I tell you?” he said calmly. “You always knew what I was like. I fucked around. I made a career of it. Stuck it in one too many places, I suppose, and my degenerate ways eventually caught up with me.”
“I thought I was the degenerate.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
I had thought of him many times over the last decade and a half, sometimes with love and sometimes with anger, but the truth was that since I had met Bastiaan he had started to fade from my memory, a thing that I had never previously imagined could happen. I had grown to realize that although I had once loved him—and I had loved him—it was nothing like the love I had experienced with Bastiaan. I had allowed a crush to become an obsession. I’d been infatuated with the idea of his friendship, with the awareness of his beauty, and by his unique ability to transfix all those around him. But Julian had never loved me in return. He may have liked me, he may have cared about me like a brother, but he had never loved me romantically.
“So you live in New York?” he said finally, breaking the silence.
“Yes,” I said. “For about seven years now.”
“I never would have imagined you here. For some reason, I always thought of you living in some sleepy English village. A schoolteacher or something.”
“You thought of me then? Over the years?”
“Of course I did. I could hardly have forgotten you. Are you a doctor, is that it? That’s quite a life change.”
“No, nothing like that,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m just a volunteer. Although my boyfriend is. He works here at Mount Sinai. When we first met, his specialty was communicable diseases and I suppose he was the right man in the right place at the right time because once this thing broke, his services were in demand. But of course we know a lot of gay people here in the city and it started to affect me when we lost friends. I developed an interest in what was going on, in what I could do to help. And I found out that a lot of victims have been abandoned by their families because they’re so ashamed of what’s happened to them. That’s where I come in.”
“You’ve become a do-gooder,” he said. “Strange, considering how selfish you always were.”
“It’s nothing to do with that,” I said sharply. “You’d never hear of a cancer sufferer being cast aside by their family, but it happens all the time with AIDS victims. And so I come here a couple of times a week to visit patients and talk to them, and sometimes I go to the library and bring them books if that’s what they want. It gives me a sense of purpose.”
“And your boyfriend,” he said, the word catching a little in his throat as he said it, and I knew that if he had more energy he would have lifted his hands and made quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “You found a boyfriend in the end then?”
“Of course I did. It turns out I wasn’t so unlovable after all.”
“No one ever said that you were. If I remember correctly, you were very much loved when you left Dublin. By a lot of people, myself included.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“I am. So how long have you been together anyway? You and your boyfriend.”
“Twelve years,” I told him.
“That’s impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed with the same girl for even twelve weeks. How can you stand it?”
“It’s not difficult,” I said, “since I love him. And he loves me.”
“But don’t you get bored with him?”
“No. Is that such a strange concept for you?”
“It is, to be honest.” He stared at me for a moment as if he was trying to understand how that would feel and finally he just sighed, as if he was giving in. “What’s his name anyway?” he asked.
“Bastiaan,” I said. “He’s Dutch. I lived in Amsterdam for a whil
e and that’s where we met.”
“And are you happy?”
“Yes,” I said. “Very happy.”
“Well, good for you,” he said bitterly, and I could see how his expression darkened as he said the words. He glanced over toward the top of the locker where a plastic bottle of water stood, sealed with a straw through the top. “I’m thirsty,” he said. “Pass me that, will you?”
I reached over and held the bottle to his lips, and he used all his strength to draw the water through the straw into his mouth. Watching the amount of effort it took saddened me. Two or three mouthfuls and he collapsed back on his pillow in exhaustion, breathing heavily.
“Julian,” I said, putting the bottle back and reaching for his hand, but he pulled it away quickly.
“I’m not gay, you know,” he said before I could say anything else. “I didn’t get this from a man.”
“I know you’re not,” I said, amazed that even at this moment it was so important for him to assert his heterosexuality. “I probably know that better than anyone. But what does it matter anymore?”
“I mean it,” he insisted. “If this ever gets out, I don’t want anyone thinking that I went around fucking men on the side. It’s bad enough that I’ve got your disease—”
“My disease?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually.”
“If people back home knew what I caught, they’d never think about me the same way again.”
“What do you care what people think about you? You never used to.”
“This is different,” he said. “I never cared what people did before. They could go out and fuck a hedgehog for all the difference it made to me. Because it didn’t affect me. Until now.”
“Look, it’s an epidemic,” I said. “It’s going to affect people around the world. If they don’t find a cure soon, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Well, I won’t be around to find out,” he said.
“Don’t say that.”
“Look at me, for Christ’s sake, Cyril. I don’t have much time left. I can feel the life leaving my body hour after hour. The doctors have told me as much anyway. I’ve got a week at most. Probably less.”
I felt myself starting to cry again but took a few deep breaths. I didn’t want to appear pathetic before him and somehow felt that he would grow angry with me if I showed too much emotion.
“They don’t know everything,” I said. “Sometimes people last a lot longer—”
“I guess you’ve known quite a few then,” he said.
“Quite a few what?”
“People with this…thing.”
“Quite a few, yes,” I admitted. “This entire floor of the hospital is devoted to AIDS patients.”
He flinched a little when I said the word.
“I’m surprised you don’t have the Village People playing over the speakers all day long. Make everyone feel at home.”
“Oh fuck off, Julian,” I said, surprising myself with a burst of laughter, and he glanced at me anxiously, as if he was worried that I might walk out again, but said nothing. “Sorry,” I said eventually. “But you really can’t talk like that. Not in here.”
“I can talk any way I like,” he said. “I’m in a hospital full of queers dying of a queer disease and someone forgot to tell God that I’m straight.”
“I don’t remember you having much time for God when we were younger. And stop saying queers. I know you don’t mean it, really.”
“That’s the problem having a best friend who knows me so well. I can’t even be bitter without you calling me on it. Still, New York isn’t the worst place to call it a day. Rather here than Dublin.”
“I miss Dublin,” I said, the words out of my mouth before I had the chance even to consider whether I meant them or not.
“So what are you doing here then? What brought you to the States anyway?”
“Bastiaan’s job,” I said.
“I would have thought you’d prefer Miami. Or San Francisco. That’s where all the fags hang out, isn’t it? Or so I hear.”
“You can keep on insulting me if you think it will make you feel better,” I said quietly. “But I don’t think it will do you much good in the end.”
“Fuck off,” he said, without a lot of passion behind the words. “And can you please stop patronizing me, you little shit?”
“I’m not.”
“Look, there’s nothing you can do to help me anyway. What have you done with the other people you visit? Helped them to find inner peace before they met their maker? Put your arm around them, taken their hand in yours and sung a little lullaby to them as they drifted off into unconsciousness? Well, take my hand then if you want to. Help me feel better. What’s stopping you?”
I looked down at his left hand, which was lying on the bed next to me. An intravenous drip was going into the central vein, covered by a large white dressing. The skin around the bandage was gray and, at the place where his thumb met his index finger, a bright-red scar stood out as if he had been scalded. His nails were bitten down to the quick and what was left of them was blackened. I reached down nevertheless but as my skin touched his own, he pulled his hand away.
“Don’t,” he said. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemies. Which includes you.”
“For God’s sake, Julian, I can’t catch it by holding your hand.”
“Just don’t.”
“And we’re enemies now, are we?” I asked.
“We’re not friends, that’s for sure.”
“We used to be.”
He looked at me and narrowed his eyes, and I could see that it was getting more difficult for him to talk. His anger was exhausting him.
“We weren’t, though, were we?” he said. “Not really. Everything about our friendship was a lie.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I protested.
“It was. You were my best friend, Cyril. I thought we were going to be friends for life. I looked up to you so much.”
“That’s not true,” I said, surprised by his words. “It was me who looked up to you. You were everything I wanted to be.”
“So were you,” he said. “You were kind and thoughtful and decent. You were my friend. At least that’s what I thought. I didn’t hang out with you for fourteen years because I wanted someone following me around like a puppy. It was because I liked being around you.”
“My friendship was genuine,” I said. “I couldn’t help how I felt. If I had told you—”
“That day in the church, when you tried to jump me—”
“I didn’t try to jump you,” I said.
“Sure you did. And you said that you’d been in love with me ever since we were children.”
“I didn’t know what I was talking about,” I said. “Look, I was young, I was inexperienced. And I was frightened at what I was getting myself into.”
“So you’re saying that you made it all up?” he asked. “That you didn’t have those feelings for me at all?”
“No, of course not. I did have those feelings for you. I still do. But that wasn’t why I was friends with you. I was friends with you because you made me feel happy.”
“And because you wanted to fuck me. Well, I bet you don’t want to fuck me anymore, do you?”
I winced at the bitter way he said it and, more so, because of course it was true. How many times during my teenage years and beyond had I fantasized about him, imagined what it would be like if somehow the two of us could be together, if I could lure him back to my flat, get him drunk and hope that he might reach for me in a moment of weakness when there was no girl around to satisfy his needs. Hundreds, probably. Thousands. I could hardly deny that a large part of our friendship was, for me at least, based on a lie.
“I couldn’t help how I felt,” I repeated.
“You could have talked to me about it,” he said. “Much earlier. I would have understood.”
“But you wouldn’t have,” I said. “I know you
wouldn’t have. Nobody did back then. Not in Ireland. Even today it’s still illegal, for Christ’s sake, to be gay in Ireland, do you realize that? And it’s 1987 now, not 1940. You wouldn’t have. You say that now but that’s because it’s now. You wouldn’t have,” I insisted.
“I went to one of your groups, you know,” he said, raising a hand to silence me. “When I was first diagnosed with HIV. I went to a group in Brooklyn run by some priest and there were eight or nine guys in the room, all of them at different stages of the disease, and each one looked closer to death than the one next to him, and they were holding hands and sharing stories about fucking strangers in bathhouses and saunas and cruising and all that shit, and I looked around and do you know something, it made me absolutely sick to realize that I was even there, to think that I had anything in common with any of those degenerates.”
“What makes you so different?” I asked. “You fucked any girl that moved.”
“It’s completely different.”
“How? Explain it to me.”
“Because that’s normal.”
“Oh fuck normal,” I said. “I thought you had a bit more originality than that. Weren’t you supposed to be the rebellious one?”
“I never claimed to be,” he said, trying to sit up. “I just liked girls, that’s all. You wouldn’t understand.”
“You fucked a lot of girls. I fucked a lot of guys. So what?”
“It’s different,” he insisted, practically spitting out the words.
“Calm down,” I said, glancing up at one of the monitors attached to his body. “Your blood pressure is getting too high.”
“Fuck my blood pressure,” he said. “Maybe it can kill me before this disease does. The point is, I sat there in Brooklyn while this priest poured out his platitudes and told us all that we had to make peace with the world and with God while we were still alive, and I looked around at the other people in the group and do you know something, it was as if they were happy to be dying. There they were, grinning away at each other and showing their scars and bruises and discolorations and talking about boys they’d screwed in the toilets at some queer club, and all I wanted to do was push them up against the wall, one by one, and smash their fucking faces in. Put them out of their misery forever. I never went back. I felt like planting a fucking bomb at the place. You see the irony of this, don’t you?” he said finally after a lengthy pause when he seemed to struggle to get some control over his emotions again.