Kept: A Comedy of Sex and Manners

by Y. Euny Hong

  I wondered where this was leading.

  “You are wondering where this is leading,” he said. “We’ve been looking for someone like you for a long time,” he said.

  “Who’s ‘we’? I hope you’re not running some pimp service for gay men, because I don’t think I’d be very convincing as a male prostitute.”

  “No, nothing like that. Do you know what this building is that we’re sitting in? In the 1930s it was a Mafia social club, and now it is New York’s premier exclusive club for homosexual men. A-listers only. It’s scarcely different from the Metropolitan Club or Harmony Club, except we’re gay. We conduct business here, we socialize, we play cards and billiards, we drink fabulous port. Some very powerful men belong to this club. Some very important decisions have been made behind its doors. And we need a salonnière.”

  “A what?”

  “A salonnière. It must be a woman. By tradition it is always a woman. Someone to arrange things. Someone to set up introductions where necessary, to keep the member list exclusive, to make sure things are running smoothly. You wouldn’t be serving drinks or cleaning in any capacity. No filing, no typing, no answering phones. You’d be adulated. Like Madame Charpentier. You know who that is, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” I lied.

  “She ran the most illustrious of literary salons in Paris, attended by the likes of Émile Zola and Guy de Maupassant. So? Would you be interested?”

  I said, “Having recently heard definitively that I have been denied membership to the Young Crotonia Club, I find your offer irresistible. But, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, why me?”

  “Do you know how a racial minority is like a homosexual? We are otherworldly creatures who wear the raiment of ordinary mortals. Disguise becomes our second nature. As a result, we develop richer interior lives.”

  “I don’t want a richer interior life.”

  “Bit late for that, darling.”

  “What now? You need my CV? I’ll have to revise it. Again.”

  “No need. You’ll have to meet Chester, the manager,” Boswell said, “but it’s really just a formality. He will do as he’s told. So, my dear, welcome to Maurice Hall.”

  I REPORTED to work the following Monday. I was greeted by Chester, a trim man wearing white gloves and a morning coat. It was he who explained to me that the name of the club was a pun, Maurice Hall being the protagonist of Maurice, E. M. Forster’s novel about a well-born closeted Edwardian homosexual.

  Chester squinted at me. “You’re wearing too much eyeliner,” he said.

  “And you’re not wearing nearly enough,” I said.

  “I can see why Boswell likes you. Okay, I’m supposed to show you the ropes. I’m the weekday manager; you report to me. You greet the guests as they come in.”

  “Do I stand by the door?”

  “No, what do you think this is, a Japanese department store? I just mean, when you spot them, wherever you happen to be, you greet them with a ‘Hello, Mr. So-and-so.’ You’ll have to learn everyone’s names. Before we get to that part, though, please sign this nondisclosure agreement, though really it’s just a formality. Boswell tells me that your day job, or night job, as it were, requires a good deal of discretion as well.”

  I read it over. “This says I can’t even disclose that I signed a nondisclosure agreement.”

  Chester nodded. “A self-referential NDA. It’s the latest thing. Postmodernism.” He handed me a folder. “Here is a printout of our membership face book. Commit it to memory. If you take this out of the building or make any copies, you will be summarily dismissed. It is printed in unphotocopiable blue ink, in any case.”

  I looked over the list. “Oh, my God, you have Famous Beat Poet as a member? I thought he was dead. Or living in Boston.”

  “Same thing,” said Chester.

  “Former Mayor of New York City is gay? I just thought that was a rumor.”

  “It remains a rumor. He doesn’t seem to have any sexual preference either way. A monk, practically. We have actual monks, too.”

  “And cardinals. And right-wing politicians. And editors of the National Review. Why don’t you allow women, though? Lesbians, at least?”

  “Lesbians don’t have any money,” he said.

  “Is that legal? To have a club that excludes women?”

  “By New York State law, any club with under four hundred members can make such exclusions. One of the authors of that decision was in fact also a member of this club, I think.”

  “How does a club like this stay solvent with under four hundred members? The operating costs must be enormous.”

  “Endowment.”

  “Well, even with your impressive client list, I don’t see why this manner of expense is necessary to hide one’s sexual preference. In New York, no less.”

  “It isn’t just that. Over half of our members are openly gay, in fact. This club has purposes that far outweigh the evasion of homophobia.”

  “Like what?”

  “You shall soon see. Not all at once.”

  I MET JOSHUA at his apartment later that evening, in high spirits. I eagerly told him what I was allowed to tell of the day’s events. He was not as supportive as I had hoped, saying, “Are you that addicted to elitism? Why is it that when you finally decide to work with an oppressed minority, it can’t be in the context of helping them in a humanitarian way. No-o-o, it has to be at a private club where they exercise exclusion for the sake of exclusion.”

  I hated it when he condescended so. I said, “What do you think academia is, Professor Spinoza?”

  “MR. ROCHESTER? Mr. Rochester?” I said, hoping I was guessing correctly. It was teatime, my first official hour as salonnière. “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t allow the use of mobile phones in this room. Perhaps you’d care to step into one of the private booths?”

  “Oh, sorry, I forgot,” said Mr. Rochester, a worn-looking man. He was chatting with a hotshot type with very shiny hair and shiny shoes; Mr. Robberbaron, I believe. Robberbaron handed Rochester a computer memory stick, saying, “Here’s an op-ed I was hoping you could run sometime this week. Before the IPO, which is on Friday.”

  Mr. Rochester put the stick in his breast pocket. “Done,” he said.

  “I want them to go down in flames,” said Robberbaron.

  “This will help, certainly,” said Rochester, patting his chest where the memory stick nested. “As for that other thing, Poitou can help you with that.”

  “Is he here now?” asked Robberbaron. Rochester shrugged.

  Robberbaron snapped his fingers at me.

  “Yes, Mr. Robberbaron?” I said.

  “Miss Judith? Do I have that right? Do you happen to know whether Mr. Poitou is present?”

  “I believe he is not, Mr. Robberbaron. The markets only just closed five minutes ago.”

  “Can you have him sent here, please?”

  “Most certainly.”

  I picked up the house phone, and looked up Poitou’s number in the face book. New York Stock Exchange, board member.

  “Mr. Poitou?”

  “Speaking.”

  “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.”

  Silence.

  “Mr. Poitou? The curfew tolls the knell —”

  “I can be there in twenty minutes. That’s the best I can do.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  I walked over to Rochester and Robberbaron. “I’ve taken care of it, Messieurs.”

  I helped myself to a plate of nibbles, though I wasn’t sure that was appropriate. There were three choices for everything. Sandwiches: walnut and crème fraîche, watercress, fig and bacon. Molds: salmon terrine, asparagus in tomato aspic, pâté de foie gras. Vegetables: ratatouille, courgettes farcies, haricots verts in an emulsion of black-eyed peas. Desserts: poached pears, strawberries and cream, rhubarb tortes. Wines: Emilio Lustau Manzanilla Papirusa, nonvintage; 1985 N. Joly Savennières Clos de la Coulée de Serrant; 1979 Bollinger. Water: Perrier, Badoit, San Pellegrino
.

  Chester beckoned me over to the reception desk. “I’m bored, come talk to me,” he said. “How’s it going?”

  “You are fortunate in your kitchen staff,” I said. “Oh, are we allowed to partake? Good. Do they do high tea every day?”

  “This isn’t high tea. High tea means strictly that it’s served to seated persons at a table, not buffet-style.”

  “Even with a spread like that? I didn’t know that.”

  “We’re rather by-the-book here in some ways. Makes up for the complete lack of regulation in others. Although, in the old days, they wouldn’t have served alcohol at tea, high tea or otherwise. It is a deplorable lapse in tradition.”

  “But at least they actually make proper tea.”

  “You know what the secret is? Well, it’s not a real secret, obviously, or I wouldn’t tell you. Each type of tea blend is assigned a different verse from Psalms. The person who makes the tea recites the appropriate verse, and when he’s done, he knows the tea’s finished steeping. Not before and not after.”

  “Which tea gets ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’?”

  At that point, two men, both alike in dignity, walked in wearing identical camel-hair coats. I stood up. “Good evening, Dr. Pazzi and Mr. Nierenschlimm.” They nodded in silent greeting and sauntered to the tea room.

  Chester said, “Do you know about those two? Nierenschlimm needed a kidney. Since he’s so old, he was pretty low on the priority list to receive donor kidneys. He met in here with Pazzi, and had a transplant within forty-eight hours.”

  “How did Pazzi arrange that?”

  “Illegal kidney broker, most likely. Some poor schmuck went under the knife under God knows what ghastly conditions so that ancient man could live to see Wagner’s Ring Cycle in Bayreuth, Germany. They only put on the production every seven years, and he has tickets for the staging five years from now.”

  “You’re being facetious.”

  “A little. But highly privileged people feel they have the inalienable right to have their dying wish granted.”

  At that moment, Boswell walked in. We air-kissed. “Just checking up on my girl,” he said, twirling his ivory-handled umbrella. “A little bird tells me you’ve done well so far. I think you’ve found your true calling. Congratulations to you, my dear.”

  “Oh, I heard congratulations are in order for you as well,” I said ironically. He and Heike were getting married so Heike could get a green card.

  Boswell said, “Thanks, dearest. How do you think we’ll fare in the INS interview? Can I pass as a breeder?”

  “Only if you stop using words like breeder,” I said, winking.

  “Rah-ther,” Boswell said. “Good gravy, are they still serving wine at tea? How atrocious.”

  THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY, when I entered Maurice Hall, Chester was frantic. Without saying hello, he held my hand as a doctor would when informing someone that a loved one was dead. “Judith,” he said earnestly. “Do you play the piano?”

  “Ay, sir, but very ill.”

  “Well, it’ll have to do. Tonight is Symposium night and the flute girl isn’t coming in. She has a sudden audition or something.” Chester rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to be flute girl tonight.”

  “Piano. You said piano.”

  “We call it flute girl here. Can you be ready in an hour?”

  “You meant today? Now? But I can only play one piece without sheet music or preparation. The Pathétique Sonata, by Beethoven.”

  Chester scrunched up his nose. “A bit robust, but it’ll have to do. Put this on.” He handed me a Balducci’s bag.

  I went into the men’s loo — Maurice Hall had no ladies’ equivalent, in fact — and pulled out the contents of the bag: a toga.

  I emerged from the loo clad in the toga, though I wasn’t sure I was wearing it correctly. “Where’s my laurel?” I asked.

  “Women don’t wear laurels,” he said. “Only Symposium members.”

  “Really? I was just being facetious.”

  “Well, I’m being serious. Hurry up. Practice a few minutes if you can, then don’t stop playing. You have to be playing already when the members walk in.”

  Twenty minutes later, I was no better a musician than when I had started. I clanged out my foul tune while a dozen or so members walked in, clad in togas and laurels. I registered little else, as I was concentrating on my stiff fingers and the tapping noise my highly uncomfortable shoes were making against the brass piano pedals.

  Finally Mr. Robberbaron announced, “The Symposium shall commence. As is traditional, the flute girl will now be dismissed. Ahem. The flute girl will now be dismissed.”

  “Oh!” I leaped from the piano bench. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” I said, retiring from the room and closing the double doors behind me.

  I scurried over to Chester. “Is that an orgy in there?”

  Chester shook his head. “I wish. Tearfully boring, mostly. You can eavesdrop if you like, but don’t reenter the room or they’ll kill you. You were quite wrong about your playing, by the way. It was really lovely.”

  The double doors did not contain sound very well, so I was able to hear rather clearly without having to put my ear to the door.

  Mr. Robberbaron spoke. “As is traditional, our orator will recite from the funeral speech delivered by Pericles of Athens, as recorded by Thucydides.”

  Dr. Pazzi cleared his throat. “ ‘Our natural bravery springs from our way of life, not from laws. We are lovers of the beautiful and we cultivate the arts without loss of manliness. We all join in debate about the affairs of the city. For heroes have their whole earth as their tomb.’”

  The group rapped their knuckles against their chairs in applause.

  Mr. Robberbaron said, “It is Mr. Meno’s turn to open our discussion. Please take the floor.”

  Mr. Meno said, “According to Aristotle, how many species of angels are there? The first to answer correctly will receive fifty thousand dollars from me. All wrong answers, on the other hand, will be penalized, first at one thousand dollars, then a sum to grow progressively larger.”

  Mr. Robberbaron said, “The chair recognizes Dr. Pazzi.”

  Dr. Pazzi said, “In that case, the correct answer is thus: there are no species of angels, because only entities that have an essence can be divided into species.”

  Applause filled the room.

  I whispered to Chester, “What is with all this wanking? Is that a real bet?”

  Chester shrugged. “Probably. This kind of high-stakes pissing contest is quite common in Symposium. It was frowned upon in the old days, but, you know.”

  “Decline of civilization?” I asked mockingly.

  “Yes. Since the Enlightenment.”

  “Oww!” I collapsed to the floor.

  “I was just kidding. I have nothing against the Enlightenment,” said Chester defensively.

  “It’s my stomach,” I said. “Take me home.”

  Boswell, who had heard my wailing, pulled the door slightly ajar and stuck his head out. “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “Flute girl down!” yelled Chester, wrapping me up in a blanket.

  18

  Yevgeny in the Bath

  IT WAS CLEAR that I would have to deal immediately with my intestinal condition.

  About a week after I passed out at Maurice Hall, I met with Yevgeny at a room in the St. Estèphe. We had commerce, and I put a lot more effort into it than usual, in anticipation of the favor I was about to ask of him.

  Afterward, Yevgeny drew up a bath for himself. I put on a hotel robe and sat on the closed toilet. I took a deep breath, then began my pitch.

  “Yevgeny, you know how my stomach has been hurting recently?”

  He poured some bath beads into the water. “What? No. Your stomach?”

  “Yes,” I said incredulously. “How could you not know what I’m referring to? Don’t you remember that time at the Plaza when I had to go home early because I was doubled over in pain?”

  Hi
s eyes darted up as he struggled to recall. “Well, what about it?”

  “Well, it turns out that it’s because of the clips that were used to tie my tubes. They say the problem will probably go away if I untie them, which is great, because I never really wanted to tie them in the first place.” I was worried now. If he were angered by my request, he might get me into trouble with Madame Tartakov.

  “Tie what? Untie what?” he said, testing the water temperature with his fingers.

  “You’re kidding, right? My fallopian tubes.”

  He covered his mouth sheepishly. “I’m sorry, what are those again? They’re part of the female plumbing, right?”

  I was a bit confused. “You really don’t know, do you? Madame Tartakov made all the girls get their tubes tied — it’s a procedure of stopping the ovum…“He looked baffled. “It’s a means of permanent birth control,” I said.

  “Ewwww,” he said, genuinely disgusted. “Like a hysterectomy?” He leaned toward the bath and began mixing the water with his forearm.

  “Sort of, only reversible. You really didn’t know?”

  “Absolutely not. That’s utterly barbaric. Is that even legal? I would never have been a party to something like that.”

  I almost wept with relief. “I knew you couldn’t have had anything to do with that,” I said. “So you’ll lend me the money?”

  “What money?”

  “I have fifteen hundred dollars in savings, and three thousand dollars more from my father, and I only need seven or eight thousand more for the surgery.”

  He squinted at the bottle of bath salts, then held it under my nose, asking, “Is this patchouli oil?”

  “Are you listening to me?” I asked, breaking into a panic sweat.

  “Yes. You want eight thousand dollars. You’ve overshot. How could you have only fifteen hundred dollars saved?” He stepped into the bathwater and opened a different bottle of bath salts. “I’ve been paying fuckloads to Madame Tartakov, and even if she’s giving you shit wages, which I’m sure she is, you should still have more than fifteen hundred dollars.”