The Lost Language of Cranes: A Novel

by David Leavitt

  "My God," she said. "I look like a pinhead."

  "Earrings," Philip said. "You need earrings."

  "Yes. I guess." She turned and rummaged through her drawer, where she found a pair of spikes she wore when she wanted to intimidate one of her professors into giving her an extension on a paper. But these were not right for tonight. She dug some more and found an old pair from high school—two long strings of fired blue beads—and attached them.

  "Yes," Eliot said. "Exactly."

  They were ready. Philip stood in front of the mirror, playing with the knot of his bow tie. "I can't believe I'm finally going to get to meet Derek," he said as he put on his coat. "After reading all those books—to finally meet him—it means a lot to me."

  "I'm glad you're so excited."

  Outside, a light wind blew along the street. The ice from the previous weekend had started to melt, creating an illusion of spring, and Philip felt proud and happy as he walked—proud of Eliot, who looked so handsome, so self-assured in his pink shirt and sweater; also proud of Jerene, proud that he knew this strange, beautiful woman, so surprising-looking that people would turn and stare at her as they passed. From Sixth Avenue, Eliot had turned them onto Thirteenth Street, where dark trees shone in the blue haze of the streetlamps, and the subtle neon of a basement restaurant occasionally shone below the brick town-houses. They walked up steps to a dark walnut door with a brass knocker. The house was indistinguishable from the row of elegant brownstones in which it stood—boxy, many-windowed, hairy with vines. "Well," Jerene said, "this is where I say goodbye."

  "Where's your date?" Philip asked.

  "Café Luxembourg, if you can believe it." She shrugged her shoulders, cast her eyes to heaven, and Eliot bent to kiss her goodbye. "Good luck, honey," he said. She waved and disappeared down the street. *

  Eliot lifted the knocker and let it drop, then pulling keys from his pocket, clicked one easily into the door. They walked into a foyer, and beyond it into a living room illuminated by firelight.

  "Hello, Geoffrey," Eliot said.

  "Eliot!" A red-cheeked man emerged from the dark, holding out his arms in greeting. He was roughly pear-shaped, and wore the loose clothes of a father—a yellow cardigan sweater over an Oxford shirt, simple brown slacks, a macraméd belt that appeared to be left over from a child's arts-and-crafts class. "And you must be—" he said, clasping one of Philip's hands in both of his.

  "Philip," Philip said.

  "Philip, of course!" said Geoffrey. "We've certainly heard about you."

  "You have?" Philip grinned.

  "Oh yes," Geoffrey said. He leaned closer, as if to deliver a confidence, and Philip saw that the palest of blond beards covered his cheeks, so pale it was practically invisible. Geoffrey's eyes were small but bright, like a hunting dog's, and they held Philip in a reassuring stare. But there was no confidence to be given. "Let me introduce you to our other guest," Geoffrey said, and led them into the living room, where a sinewy man in blue jeans leaned against the wall, nervously shuffling through a book of Etruscan vase-paintings. "This is John Malcolmson, a noted gay journalist," Geoffrey said, and the man put down the book and looked at Philip briefly. "I'm sure you've read John's columns in the Voice."

  "Certainly," Philip said. "They're terrific."

  "John, Philip is an editor—right?"

  Philip nodded.

  "Good. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to see to the muffins."

  He had only soft backless slippers on over his socks, and the soles flopped noisily as he padded across the wooden floor and out of the room.

  The three of them stood there.

  "Where's Derek?" Eliot asked.

  "In the kitchen," said John. "He's preparing one of his color meals. Blue tonight. Can I get you a drink?"

  He was looking at Philip. He had an inscrutable, acne-scarred face and wore around his neck a single strand of black leather, like a noose. "Just a glass of white wine," Philip said. He was only now beginning to make out the shapes and the colors of the room. To his pleasure, what appeared to be an original colorplate illustration of Tintin, the French boy reporter, and his dog, Milou, hung over the fireplace. There were other pictures as well—Babar and Celeste, Curious George, Maurice Sendak's wild things—all signed originals inscribed with loving dedications to Derek. Then there were the clocks—at least twenty of them, including a gold-painted cuckoo from which a smiling mermaid occasionally emerged. A zooful of noises announced the half-hour—chirps, roars, barks, meows, and whinnies, along with an assortment of cuckoos, clucks, and clacks. Astonished by this concert, Philip looked at Eliot, who smiled, lit a cigarette, and blew a stream of smoke into Tintin's face. Beyond the dark living room and the lighted foyer, an ivory-colored staircase glowed.

  "This is a great house," Philip said to Eliot. "It's hard for me to imagine growing up here."

  "Oh, in a few days you'd get used to it. It's no different from any other house."

  "How can you say that?" Philip asked, his voice rising slightly. "To have grown up here—it must have been wonderful." But before Eliot could answer him, John was back from the bar and handing Philip a small glass of wine. "So what kind of editor are you?"

  "Romance novels. Or, as they're called in the trade, bodice-rippers."

  "Aha," John said. "Those certainly are popular. I have a friend who's writing gay ones. What do you think those will be called? Codpiece rippers?"

  Philip let out a spurt of laughter. "Maybe," he said. The stem of the glass he held was elaborately fluted; unconsciously he stroked its indentations. Then a flapping sound announced Geoffrey's return. "The muffins are perfect," he said, "just perfect." He grinned at Philip. His face, though now somewhat bloated, had clearly once been handsome; beneath the puffiness Philip could see the outlines of high-arched cheekbones, a square jaw.

  The clocks ticked. A stray cuckoo let out an attenuated cluck, and Geoffrey said, "I knew I forgot to wind that one." Then he turned to Philip. "Why don't you come and meet Derek now? He's refusing to leave the stove tonight."

  Gulping, Philip looked at Eliot, who motioned him to go on. "Yes, I'd like to. Excuse me," he said to John.

  "Sure, sure," John said. He walked across the room and poured himself another glass of wine. Geoffrey took Philip's arm in his firm grip and led him into the kitchen—a vast room, gleaming and metallic, where a huge man presided over pots of varicolored blue paste.

  "Derek," Geoffrey said, "this is Eliot's friend Philip."

  Derek turned from the stove. He was at least six foot five; wild ringlets of gray hair fell over his forehead, which was damp with steam. He wiped his hands on his apron, said in a clipped British accent, "Philip, it's a pleasure," and offered a hand that was huge and hairy, but shook Philip's with extraordinary care—the handshake of a strongman who, if he wasn't careful, might crush the fingers of a child to dust. Philip smiled. "Boy," he said, "you're really cooking up a storm."

  "Oh, don't think we do blue every day. Only for the most special company. Now this," he said, pointing to one of the pots, "is mashed potatoes."

  "Is it dyed?"

  "Oh, heavens, no. I just added some ripe plum skins. You'll be surprised by the flavor. Very—" He smiled, looking for the proper descriptive flourish. "Nouvelle Californienne."

  "Sounds great," Philip said. "What's in the other pots?"

  "Oh, let's see. That's blueberry sauce for the duck, and that's a Roquefort sauce for the pasta, and there, on the counter, that's blueberry butter for the muffins, which are Geoffrey's specialty."

  "I am the family baker," Geoffrey said. He was leaning against the counter, kicking it occasionally.

  "It's really a pleasure to meet you," Philip said to Derek, remembering the introduction he had rehearsed last night in bed. "I don't know if Eliot told you, but your books—well, I was practically raised reading them. In fact, my mother was your copy editor. At Motherwell."

  "Well, isn't that a coincidence," Derek said.

  "Oh yes," s
aid Philip. "She started me reading them. They really meant a lot to me." He laughed, looked away. "But I suppose you hear that from everyone, don't you?"

  Derek turned from the stove and smiled warmly at Philip. "Well, nonetheless, that's very sweet of you," he said. "Geoffrey, why don't you go get Philip a copy of the new book?”

  Geoffrey nodded yes, and whistling, walked out of the room, "A new book?" Philip asked.

  "Yes. Not one of my best, I fear. But that's really up to you to judge. At this point I just crank them out when the bank account becomes depleted, and my public demands,"

  Philip was surprised by this revelation. "What's it called?" he asked.

  "Archie and Gumba," Derek said. "Archie is a child whose parents are anthropologists of the twenty-second century, sent out to check up on a planetary colony which has been left completely isolated for two hundred years, as an experiment. The people on the planet have developed a quasi-technological, quasi-Stone Age culture; that's what the book's really about—the culture. Gumba's a little girl Archie befriends."

  Geoffrey returned, waving a small green book in his hand. "Are you going to sign it?" he asked.

  "Of course, of course." Taking the book from Geoffrey, Derek leaned over the kitchen counter. "Let's see." He chewed on his pen, then scribbled something fast, closed the book, and handed it to Philip. On the cover was an illustration of two children with pots on their heads maneuvering their way through a space-age, alien-ridden bazaar.

  "Thank you," Philip said. "I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to reading it."

  "Oh, don't bother to read it," Derek said. "So where's Eliot, anyway? Eliot!"

  "Coming," Eliot called from the living room.

  "Would you like to see some old pictures of Eliot?" Geoffrey asked. He led Philip across the kitchen to a large corkboard covered with snapshots. Philip immediately recognized Eliot, with hair down to his shoulders and black plastic-rimmed glasses, in what must have been a high-school graduation picture. His eyes scanned the board, settling on a snapshot of Derek and Geoffrey, much younger. Geoffrey had indeed been handsome in his youth; shirtless in the picture, his short wheaten hair windblown, he stood smiling next to Derek, who was dressed in a heavy sweater, stooped, gangly. Between them, Eliot, a little boy in a sailor shirt and no pants, leaped and grinned on a sandy terrain. "That was taken on the Lido in Venice," Geoffrey said. "Eliot was five."

  "He was very cute," Philip said. Above the photo was another of Geoffrey, in a black suit and tie, his hair crewcut. It looked like a professional head shot for an actor. And above that, Derek, wild- (and at that point, black-) haired Derek, lifting a tiny, joyful Eliot into the air. He reminded Philip of the selfish giant (or was it the sleeping giant?)—that gargantuan who lived in a walled garden and was terrifying to all but one wise and innocent child. And who, after all, had invented that giant but stoop-shouldered, seven-foot-tall Oscar Wilde, himself so ungainly in his massive velvet suits?

  There was one more photograph—an old discolored Kodachrome of Derek and Geoffrey seated around a table lit with red-net candles. Between them sat a thin, balding man with a broad smile and a girl with red hair, high cheekbones darkened by shadow, dark red lips. Her eyes had caught the light of the flashbulb and seemed to glow gold-green. "Are those Eliot's parents?" Philip asked, and Geoffrey nodded. "That was taken a year before they died."

  Now Eliot and John stepped into the kitchen, and the room was suddenly filled with the commerce of greeting. Derek hugged Eliot. "You're just in time for one of my horrendous blue meals," he said. "I hope you don't mind."

  "He's been making these for years," Eliot called to Philip from inside the warm circle of Derek's arms. "And I've always hated them."

  "You never have understood the appeal of the cunning, Eliot." Derek grinned.

  "Dinner will be ready any second," Geoffrey said, checking the pots. And Philip, unnoticed for the moment, stole a glance into his copy of Archie and Gumba: "To Philip," the dedication read, "if he wants it! With fondest regards, Derek Moulthorp."

  At dinner, Philip sat next to Geoffrey and across from Eliot, and stared at the blue food on his plate—duck piled with thick berries, blue muffins, and the plum-flavored mashed potatoes. He avoided the pasta which, cooked, had turned an unappealing gray color. ("Every great experiment has its little failures," Derek apologized.) Every few minutes Geoffrey disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a basket of muffins or another bottle of wine. He was wearing a heavy gold ring which made scraping noises against the silverware as he spooned more potatoes onto Derek's plate, or tipped wine into his glass. Derek was telling a long, rambling story about an Italian poet who liked to make love to his dog. On his deathbed, he had finally "come out," as it were, and declared to a visiting interviewer, "There is nothing closer to divinity than the taste of a dog's tongue." Everyone laughed, and Philip, who as a child had secretly French-kissed his poodle puppy more than once, tried to remember the flavor: alkaline, he thought he recalled, with an aftertaste of metal.

  Absorbed in the story he was telling, Derek hardly seemed to notice the muffins being constantly slipped onto his plate, or the fact that his wine and water glasses were never empty. Geoffrey attended to him watchfully, but with a certain stealth, as if his wifely purpose were to efface himself as much as possible, to create the illusion that food sprang from Derek's plate like fruit from a tree.

  Derek had lived in Europe for a time, he was saying: in Berlin; in Barcelona; in Paris. He smiled as he told stories of dissolute European homosexuals, dalliances in the Faubourg St.-Germain, transvestite prostitutes who lounged in deck chairs along the big, tree-lined avenues of the Bois-de-Boulogne. "The clubs those days were piss-elegant," he said. "Not like now. But in the fifties, in Europe, elegance was so important to everyone, and to the homosexuals perhaps most of all. It was a way of propping up a shattered ego. They were always impeccable, those Parisian men I knew—even the cab drivers, even Falasha, sitting on her deck chair in the Bois, drenched in Chanel and drinking champagne from a crystal glass."

  He leaned back in his chair, smiling. There was the famous French photographer, his dear friend, whom he had once accompanied to Tangiers in search of beautiful brown-skinned little boys. "It's easiest there, you know," he explained, "because the kids are on their own so early, and the parents, if there are any, aren't likely to make much of a ruckus. Also, the children are streetwise; they're sexual from a much earlier age than American or European children because there's nothing to hold them back. They really like it. So I would wait in a café and eventually Roland would come back with some little Mustapha or Hamid and buy him a Coca-Cola for his trouble—among other things." Seeing Philip's stricken face, he added as if in apology: "Of course, Roland never really did anything with the boys. He liked to caress them and sometimes give them baths."

  "Oh, I wasn't thinking—"

  "Of course. You young men today are so puritanical."

  He laughed. Once again the wine bottle circled the table. Geoffrey spooned potatoes onto Derek's plate. There was a napkin around his neck, stained various shades of lavender and blue. Everything about Derek was hunched and constricted, even his gesticulations mere jabs at the air, diminished by years of conditioning to a world built simply on the wrong scale. Probably he had once punctuated a remark too emphatically and accidentally hit someone in the face.

  Philip was still drinking wine. He was on his fourth glass, and Derek's lilting voice had long since ceased to have meaning for him, blending as musically as it did with the rhythms of the clocks. The wine had made him feel brave, so he turned intimately to Geoffrey, who was watching Derek, as though somehow still riveted by these stories he had probably heard a hundred times before.

  "How did you and Derek meet?" Philip asked him, and felt Eliot's head turn.

  "Meet!" Geoffrey's mouth opened in surprise, his head lifting from its resting place. "Well, it's quite a story. You see," he said, "I was married at the time."

  "
They called it Paris bleu," Derek was saying.

  "Married!"

  "Strange but true.To my high-school sweetheart, Adele Marie Probst. Morristown High School. Class of 1950. President and vice-president of the Drama Club, respectively. We moved to New "York, imagining we'd be Bohemians and get onto the stage, but I ended up working as an accountant and Adele was a waitress at the Proud Peacock. I didn't know Derek then. He'd just come back from Europe, you see, and was getting work as a commercial artist, and he was in love with a young Spaniard and was trying to earn enough money to bring him over, sending a little every week and all. And Julia—that's Eliot's mother, though of course she wasn't Eliot's mother then—she was going to marry this Pedro to get him citizenship, then divorce him, and then she and Alan were going to get married—"

  "Alan?"

  "Eliot's father. They were going to get married because there was no way this Pedro fellow could have stayed otherwise. It was the sort of thing Julia did. Anyway, that's how I met Derek. You see, I wanted to be an actor, but all I could get was night work doing the lights for these odd little East Village things, and Julia was a big actress at one of them. We got to beintime. I learned all about Derek and his Spaniard from her, and it was like a radio serial—each night I'd get a chapter. And of course Julia had her own motives for telling me the story. She had—how should I say it?—insight into me. Anyway, eventually she introduced me to this wonderful Derek whom I'd been hearing so much about, and my heart went pitter-patter. I suddenly knew what I wanted. But of course I was married."

  "—and he positively insisted, insisted, that he was Linda Darnell—What are you two girls whispering about over there, Geoffrey?" Derek called across the table.

  "Oh, never mind," Geoffrey scolded, "we're having a nice little private chat." Turning back to Philip, he lifted his wine glass and winked. "Well anyway," he said, "Derek's little Spaniard got into a brawl at the local cantina, and then he went off to jail and that was the last anyone heard of him. Julia and Alan went ahead and got married, and we were both at their wedding. Derek was the best man, but he might as well have been the maid of honor, the way he was dressed. We saw each other all the time after that, because we liked each other—just as friends. He was living on the top floor of a walk-up, and Anaïs Nin of all people lived across the fire escape from him—I could tell you stories about that! But I'm off the point. One thing led to another, and I started—experimenting. Not with Derek, of course; that was too close to home. Just with men I met. And finally there was a Cuban boy named Hector who phoned up Adele in a jealous rage and told her everything." He sighed. "The next thing I knew she was back in Morristown."