The God in Flight

by Laura Argiri

  “Of course, I’ll do anything I can,” said Doriskos, looking dazed.

  “Of course…” Simion echoed.

  “Don’t just say yes lightly,” said Helmut. “This isn’t going to be easy. Quite the opposite.”

  “Yes anyhow,” said Simion, seconded by Doriskos: “Yes, regardless.”

  “Well, sit down on the bed with Simion, Doriskos, and we’ll be up in a moment.” Helmut took Doriskos by the shoulders and sat him down. The soft mattress jounced with the shock. Helmut surveyed them. “The pair of you belong together, anyone can see it; you are both perfect mules in your separate ways. If you can learn to compromise, you may find the results very worthwhile.” He left them briefly alone.

  “I bet we’ve taken years off his life,” Simion whispered dourly. “God knows, between the two of us, we’re enough to.”

  Doriskos ducked his head a little; he wouldn’t turn so Simion could see into his eyes. But Simion could smell his almondish skin scent and feel the solid warmth of his flesh through the clothing that separated them. He could also feel the thrumming tension in him, and even that had a charm of familiarity.

  “Dori, do you know—”

  “Not the faintest notion,” said Doriskos. It seemed an age since he had been able to hold Simion like this. Nor was he alone in his pleasure, for he felt Simion breathe more deeply and relax—this was not the terrible tension of last night. Both of them felt as if some interminable ugly sound had ceased, leaving only the voices of birds and wind. And they sensed a truth beyond grief and fear, rising from someplace deeper than the fright and confusion of this last month: that their division was a grief beyond themselves and their handclasp was a part of the harmony of the world, like flowers, and it must be restored.

  Simion put one hand on Dori’s forearm, then both, then felt him shift his weight on the bed, his body still tense but kind and welcoming, inviting him to lean into its heat and rest. And he did.

  Helmut returned with Moses in tow. They seemed oddly deliberate, as if they had rehearsed this. Moses seated himself gravely in the armchair by the bed, and Helmut propped himself familiarly on its worn arm.

  “You two settle in to listen,” said Karseth, trying for humor in an unhumorous situation. “School is in. Simion, you understand the concept of concentrating one’s mind when school is in. Helmut is going to do most of the talking because he’s better at talking about such matters than I am, but we’re both behind one another on it—we’ve ganged up on you and are going to have our say. Anyhow!”

  “I think you’ve learnt your lessons, haven’t you?—I don’t mean that in the punitive way it sounds,” said Helmut. “I just don’t know any other way to say it in English. Have you, though? What do you deduce from this fantastic mess?”

  There was a ponderous pause. “I know I should be able to answer that,” said Doriskos. “I shouldn’t have hit Simion, and I won’t ever again… I deduce that…and I’ve been in the worst pain of my whole life. He told me last night how this feels for him, that it’s like being full of broken glass. For me, it’s like having a pencil lead rammed up under a fingernail. I feel like that in my head. We’ve done each other more harm than I ever dreamt could be done. I deduce that. And I’m sorry. I don’t need logic to know that. Perhaps we didn’t know enough about each other when we began. Do you want me to say that we shouldn’t have begun at all?” he asked Moses, perceiving that genially challenging gaze.

  “Actually I’m not going to say that after all,” said Karseth. “But I heartily concur with you in that you didn’t know enough about one another when you embarked upon this romance. That may be the root of this débâcle. You haven’t reckoned with the fact that you’ve in effect married an adolescent who’s almost a child, barely past being a child. And not past it in some ways. And you’ve expected this creature to act like a well-bred, responsible adult! Not a reasonable expectation, Doriskos.”

  “I beg your pardon, I try to act well-bred and responsible,” interrupted Simion.

  “And you succeed part of the time. But we have to admit that you lack an adult’s intuition, which would have told you how much your little infidelities would upset Doriskos. And while you know more mathematics and more Greek and Latin than most of your teachers, you apparently don’t comprehend certain elementary facts well understood by the rank and file of humanity. That is, that if you don’t eat and drink, you’ll die. And that if you drink half a bottle of bad cognac, you might not die, but you’ll wish you could. And Klionarios doesn’t understand that he has to forgive your trivial sensual sins until you’re old enough to commit yourself to being faithful, while declaring a nice unequivocal intolerance for your real, your dangerous iniquities. Not by hitting you when you’re bloody to him—”

  “I won’t do it again,” said Simion earnestly.

  “Won’t be bloody? Of course you will,” said Moses. “And I rely upon Doriskos not to knock you down the next time you’re bloody to him, but I worry that he won’t be willing to make himself unpopular with you by telling you what to do when he ought. You two are the most curious creatures! One thinks that you’re not alike at all and then hits upon these strange ways in which you’re exactly alike. I just thought: It’s as if neither of them has ever known another human being intimately in his life!”

  “I’ve had the same thought,” said Helmut. “It’s as if you’re more than orphans, you two changelings! It’s as if you found each other in some Elective Affinities fashion, and you aren’t at all astonished at each other’s stranger and more arcane qualities. It’s the ordinary things that are alien to you. It’s as if you’re each other’s first friend.”

  Doriskos thought that over. “That’s more or less true about me.”

  “My first friend died,” said Simion. “He tried to get me to behave reasonably. Sometimes I don’t want to behave reasonably, though.”

  “Of course you don’t. When I was as young and as furious at the world as you are now, I didn’t want to behave reasonably either,” Karseth allowed. “However, fortunately, I lacked your mania for self-destruction and your terrible perseverance in pain. You need someone to protect you from yourself. And this great innocent has elected himself your Lohengrin, or whatever name you prefer for the knight in shining armor, so he’ll have to take aggressive responsibility for your welfare. Doriskos, you really must. We’ll help you all we can, but the day-to-day things fall to you. I…understand that you love and honor him. It’s an admirable impulse. It’s just that you need to do it in the ways he needs. You can treat him as a partner in the ways that he can be one…certainly he’s better than you are at handling your finances—let him keep your books. But you must see that he eats and keep a hawklike watch on his health and consult me if any difficulties arise. Can we agree on that?”

  “Yes,” said Doriskos huskily. “But sometimes, you see, I don’t know what I ought to do.”

  “We’ll be happy to offer an opinion when that situation arises,” Helmut said gently. “It’s one of the duties and privileges of friendship, offering such opinions.”

  “I must say, I’m feeling ever so faintly condescended to,” said Simion, peering from face to face. “I actually do know that people die if they don’t eat. And I was scared when no one came forward to stop me. But I…I have my reasons for what I do. Does anyone ever think of that?”

  “We’ve thought of little else this past month, my dear,” Helmut said. “And we’ll help you with your reasons. I would do anything within my power to ease your sadness and make life on earth less frightening and hurtful for you. But in the meantime, we had to help you stay alive. And you must take up your responsibility for keeping yourself alive, too. You’ve been very ill; you’ve failed badly in the past week. I don’t know where you’re getting the strength to talk as you’re doing now. But you can’t afford any more damage. You can refuse the duties of your common humanity only so far. Do you understand?”

  “I think I may. I don’t feel quite so bad as I did. Why do
you say you had to help me stay alive? I mean, you’re both splendid fellows, but no law compelled you. What made you do it?”

  Moses, his long fingers laced under his chin, looked with amusement from Simion’s face to Helmut’s. Helmut had received that remark with a little start, then a look of impersonal pain.

  “I might have said that at your age,” said Moses. “I wouldn’t say it now, because I know, and Helmut taught me. I’m very much Helmut’s creature. When I opened my door to you two and kept your secret, I was acting in ways that he taught me. Certainly the world taught me to act in the exact opposite manner. Anyhow, I’ll let him answer your question.”

  “Well, why?” Simion asked Helmut.

  “Ordinary decency…pain for your pain…affinity and shared danger.”

  “You took us in even though we’ve been an awful bother. You fed us and let me sleep in your bed. I mean, you acted as if you felt responsible for us.”

  “Of course I did. Try not to look so uncomprehending, it pains me. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not part of Nature’s Red In Tooth And Claw department. Both of you break my heart at times.”

  “I don’t mean to,” said Simion, with a smile of forlorn ingratiation.

  “I know you don’t.”

  “And you don’t act shocked about us. Dori and me and our attachment.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Dr. Karseth acted shocked about it.”

  “I was never shocked by the liaison itself, although initially the age aspect of it made me queasy,” Moses allowed. “Boys in their teens are vulnerable, ignorant little horrors, ripe for exploitation as well as the physical liberties of the kind I’m sure you both know all about by now. And you, Simion, are a most vulnerable and precious human being. You’re someone who deserves all possible help to realize his full potential. I felt very harshly toward Doriskos until I understood that the man does indeed love you, in fact is capable of letting himself be martyred for you, and that you endanger him at least as much as he does you. I suppose the romantic gambler in me can’t help sympathizing with your situation.”

  “And you kept our secret.”

  “Better than you kept it yourselves.” Another of those portentous pauses. “Helmut, do you want to—”

  “I do, but if I’m to tell you two any more, I need a promise from both of you. It’s the sort of thing that calls for a solemn vow, in fact. We two will keep the personal things that we know about you to ourselves, we promise that, and you must keep what I’m about to tell you secret. Can you promise to keep what I’m about to tell you in absolute confidence?”

  “I swear,” said Simion. “I’ll never say anything to anyone.”

  “And I do too,” said Doriskos. “I’m rather safe to tell things to. I don’t talk to anybody else except Kiril, anyway, and he might not come back,” he added artlessly.

  “Well, we’re the same as you are.”

  “Are what?”

  “How shall I put it? Lovers? Yes,” said Helmut, with that tranquil and defiant smile. “A couple, as you are. That’s the enormous secret you’ve sworn to shield. For sixteen years this July.” Seeing them too awed to comment, he went on. “A couple to whom the Connubial Gods of Lavender Coupledom have been extravagantly kind. They’ve been as openhanded with us, in fact, as they’ve been harsh with you. When we talked last night, that was one of the things we talked about. The least we can do is to tell you what we know. Doriskos, when you two first came to this house, I told you with all the emphasis I dared that we were safe for you. That was what I meant.”

  “Mind you, as late as two in the morning, I was all for putting a continent between you and urging you to forget one another,” said Moses. “But I’ve seen happier people dying of cancer in charity wards than you two estranged, and I don’t think any human power could divide you, even at the height of your hate and loathing. It occurred to me that with some help, you might make a go of it, and we know about this sort of thing, so I withdrew my opposition. I agreed with Helmut to tell you the truth.”

  “You’ve started on this path, apparently you mean to follow it, so let us help you in the ways that we can. History…advice.”

  “Lovers?” asked Simion faintly. “Like Damon and Pythias? Alexander and Hephaistion?”

  “Definitely not like Alexander and Hephaistion. I wouldn’t care for anything so warlike in my household,” Helmut said, breaking the solemnity. “Rather, like…and it gives me much pleasure to consider this…like many other couples whose names aren’t in history, who kept their faith and preserved their privacy and led good lives despite the obstacles. The happiest histories of this kind are the hidden ones. When I was younger, I used to daydream about some kind of Alexander and Hephaistion stature, or at the very least about marriage. I suppose I wanted some ceremonial reward for our very hard work with each other in our early days. Something public, admitted, and honored. Then it occurred to me that marriage was marriage, with or without a priest, just as love is love. And that privacy itself was precious. That we own something secret and sacred, like a grail that profane eyes have never seen.”

  “I mean,” said Simion, “you sleep in the same bed and do things together? It’s like being married?”

  “Yes, you inquisitive little beast. Mind,” said Karseth, “it’s infinitely more difficult than being married. A challenge for a cooler pair of heads than yours, truth be told. The whole world sanctions marriage between a woman and a man. Whereas you…this sort of thing…it’s a frail shelter one builds against the opposition of the whole world. It’s a high-stakes wager, a lifelong commitment to subterfuge. The least I can do is to put myself behind people brave enough to take on this kind of challenge. And to help you resolve the difficulties between yourselves.”

  “How did you know about us? When I moved in with Dori and you called at night? We’d never actually done anything!”

  “When you too are forty-five, Simion, and have maintained an armed truce with the world about your carnal inclinations for all those years, you’ll be able to recognize your own kind. You two have been looking at each other like someone staring into a fire since you met. One can’t say that you’ve been particularly subtle or devious. I had to take the matter up with you because it’s dangerous and because you didn’t seem to know, but I can’t help liking you for your forthrightness too. You throw your cards down on the table. Even when you decided not to eat your food, you didn’t stick it between the mattresses, you flung it at my head. I didn’t care to have food flung at my head, but on the other hand, I really hate and detest sneaks, and you aren’t one.”

  “That’s a generous way to think of it. Do you and Helmut ever quarrel?”

  “Yes, Simion…yes. We had a shattering row over you two, in fact. But we’ve settled the real issues between us. Ordinarily we only quarrel about stupid things. Windows…opera tickets.”

  “Raw food,” contributed Helmut. “Whether lots of bitter salad greens will make you live forever. My failures to act like a valet.”

  “I knew it,” said Doriskos, almost with a smile. “I always knew it!”

  “Knew about our connection? Tsk. We must have been more unsubtle than we knew. And we work so hard at it!”

  “No, I knew you weren’t a valet. Do you take turns being the valet? Is it your turn next?” Dori asked Moses earnestly.

  “Not on your life,” Helmut answered. “The man can’t boil water without burning it.” There was a little pause. Then all four of then, for the first time in so long that it felt half-alien, laughed.

  “So, what should we do?” Strangely, it was Doriskos who asked this practical question. “How does one manage? How do you live, as you are, and do the things that people do? And keep safe along with it?”

  “Would you like a bromide, or the truth?” Helmut answered his question with a question, then he sighed.

  “I’ve had just about all the bromides I can stand,” Simion interposed.

  “Well, the truth is that you can manage. B
ut this is the saddest thing about it. Anyone who tells you that your desires are some sort of deformity and your destiny is tragic is talking rot. Of course, there are things that are sad in ordinary lives, too, but this is what’s sad in ours and perhaps the answer to your question. You avoid attachments,” he said. He sighed again, the sigh, the gentian-eyed sadness of someone inclined to form attachments. “It’s to places I mean, to positions. Your attachment to each other will be the only attachment you can afford, as in Thou Shalt Have No Other God. After we’ve been in a place too long, the looks get too knowing, and things suddenly feel ingrown and airless. You live reconciled to the idea of selling your house and getting another position. You save your money in case you need it instantly. If you have to leave in the middle of the summer, you abandon your garden, and someone else eats your fruit. But at the same time, if you take care of it, what you have between yourselves will take on the value of everything you sacrifice. If you take care of it and of each other. If you learn to talk to each other, and listen to each other, and you keep on making that effort. That’s very important. There are all sorts of threats to the clarity you need between you—you must be clear for one another. And kind to each other. You’ll be one another’s home. We are. And that’s the absolute gospel according to the doctor and the tenor,” he said. He got up, a surprisingly lithe and youthful motion for his thirty-nine years and sedentary life. Seeing that the younger pair looked daunted—both of them looked childlike when confounded—he smiled upon them, then held them briefly in the same embrace. Even kissed them each on the crown of the head. “It can be all right,” he told them.