JEAN-PIERRE’S DISCOVERY
Jean-Pierre’s mouth had a bitter, metallic taste that was unpleasant to swallow. The pillow beneath his face was soggy with sweat, tears, saliva. A part of his brain that hadn’t realized his life was over sent a memory: of a pillow cover slick and disgusting with the fluids of despair; of his fists clenched, his tooth marks on a knuckle; of this horrible taste in his mouth. He had been— ten years old? Eleven? And his dog, Hercule, had been killed by a car. Jean-Pierre saw the brown eyes, the panting, furry face of Hercule, and his tears poured again.
He was still wearing his white satin Pierrot costume. The elaborate ruff, layers and layers of floating black net, was crumpled around his head. His black skullcap and mask with its melancholy face and glittering tear had been flung into a corner.
Jean-Pierre had chosen to represent himself as Pierrot because the figure of Pierrot was so banal. Pierrot, the sad clown, the deceived, the unrequited lover, was everywhere— on sentimental cards silly people sent each other, in advertisements, on scented letter paper intended for schoolgirls. Jean-Pierre’s love for Brian had reduced Jean-Pierre to that banality. His love had scalded out whatever individuality and volition he had and left the dross. It had destroyed Jean-Pierre and left the debased Pierrot.
Over the past days, as Jean-Pierre watched Brian drift away from him, he had seen himself consumed. He had said nothing. What could he say? He was at the mercy of the slight indentation at the corner of Brian’s mouth, the line of Brian’s backbone, Brian’s hair when the light caught it. Aching, he had watched Brian drift and change. Yet there had been a pretense of normalcy, moments when Brian’s finger would trace the line of Jean-Pierre’s cheek, when Brian’s body would respond to Jean-Pierre’s touch. At those times Jean-Pierre was gloriously happy, almost able to convince himself that the shadows under Brian’s eyes weren’t deepening, that Brian day by day wasn’t more distracted.
The tears continued to roll from Jean-Pierre’s eyes. He lay still, inert, letting them flow.
Brian’s decision to dress as Medusa had been a slap at Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre was convinced it was a deliberate attempt to wound, to hit at Jean-Pierre’s obsession with Brian’s beauty. He had known Brian’s disguise beforehand because, finally, they had told each other what their costumes would be. Brian hadn’t wanted to cheat, but Jean-Pierre begged until he gave in. As the time drew near, the thought that they might not recognize one another had become agony for Jean-Pierre. Actually, Jean-Pierre hadn’t been afraid that he himself wouldn’t recognize Brian, but that Brian wouldn’t recognize him.
“If I don’t recognize you, that would be the point of the game, wouldn’t it?” Brian asked. His eyes were wide, guileless.
“Not really.” Jean-Pierre searched for a way to explain, to justify. “We know we’re secure in our love. Unshakable.” He watched Brian narrowly, no longer sure his words were true.
“Unshakable.” Jean-Pierre heard irony in Brian’s tone as he repeated the word.
Jean-Pierre went on, “It isn’t our love that’s in question. This game is just an outward sign, something silly and basically unimportant—”
“If it’s unimportant, then why—”
“The opinions of others don’t count, of course they don’t. If the opinions of others counted, we would never have been together at all.” Jean-Pierre felt dizzy at the thought of the others sneering and exchanging significant looks when he and Brian failed to pierce each other’s disguise. “I would simply like to show, to prove publicly—” He stopped, and looked helplessly at Brian.
After a silence Brian said, “All right.”
Jean-Pierre was flooded with shame. “Not if it makes you uncomfortable,” he hastened to say.
Brian’s expression didn’t change. “I said all right.”
It had been dreadful. Brian went on, without a flicker of preparation or ceremony. “You want me to say first? I’m going to dress as Medusa the Gorgon.”
Jean-Pierre was stunned. He made Brian repeat himself, to make sure he’d understood. He stared at Brian in horror and cried, “But why?”
Brian shook his head. “We said we’d tell each other what. We didn’t say we’d tell why.”
Stung, Jean-Pierre fell silent. Brian said nothing else, but rubbed his eyes wearily with his long fingers. Jean-Pierre stole glances at him. Medusa! He had assumed Brian would dress as a medieval knight errant or a supple young Greek athlete— something admirable and heroic. Instead, Brian would be costumed as a monster. Jean-Pierre knew, with desolate certainty, that no matter how much he loved Brian, he would never have been able to recognize him disguised as Medusa.
After some moments of hesitation Jean-Pierre said, “I shall be Pierrot.”
“Okay.” Brian didn’t ask why, gave Jean-Pierre no opportunity to explain that Pierrot represented the debasement of his own true self.
After that, Jean-Pierre had feared desperately that everything was lost. He castigated himself constantly for forcing Brian to cheat at the game. He tried to apologize, but Brian said it didn’t matter, and something in his tone made Jean-Pierre feel completely cut off.
This morning, Jean-Pierre had received the poem. The concierge who gave it to him at breakfast had no idea when it had been delivered, or by whom. It didn’t matter. Only Brian could have sent it, for only Brian knew where Jean-Pierre was staying. The clumsy, silly poem told Jean-Pierre what he had dreaded and known— that it was over. Yes, trusting friends had become people alone, and faithful lovers were transformed into men in despair. The last line had been the most cruel: Who can predict what she’ll change about you? The gratuitous malice of it made Jean-Pierre cringe as if he were hearing a constant, whining, high-pitched noise.
Heavy footfalls and laughter came from the hallway outside Jean-Pierre’s room. Jean-Pierre pushed himself up from the pillow, turned over, and sat hugging his knees. His tears had not abated. His eyes were so swollen he could hardly see.
How could Brian have been so cruel? Abruptly, Jean-Pierre thought of Sally. Perhaps the poem hadn’t been Brian’s idea. Sally had always been in the background, spoiling things, coming between Brian and Jean-Pierre. She might have said something to Brian about a poem. She might have convinced Brian, against his better judgment, to go along with the idea.
Jean-Pierre had believed that love was the most destructive emotion. He discovered, as he sat weeping, that other passions can be even more dangerous than love.
THE AMAZON
The first grappa made Francine’s eyes water, but the second went down more easily. She rested the glass on the long table, noticing how much steadier her hand had become. She loosened her tie.
The head of Sartre she had constructed so laboriously was disintegrating in the dank canal where she had thrown it during her flight. She couldn’t keep it and risk having been seen following Brian. She made a fervent mental apology to Sartre, knowing he understood, as he understood everything. Violence and death were not unknown concepts to him. The thought, and the grappa, made her feel more calm. She had to make a plan. In a few minutes, it would be easier.
The little taverna was hung with bright garlands of twisted paper. Gaudy, cheap masks adorned the walls. A few patrons were singing, swaying back and forth, their arms around each other. Francine had left the padding from her suit in the bathroom trash receptacle. With her belt cinched all the way in she could still wear her trousers.
She wanted another grappa. As she looked around for the waiter, the couple sitting next to her, a man and woman in space suits, got up and left. Their place was taken immediately by someone else, whom Francine didn’t notice until the person spoke to her in Italian.
It appeared to be a woman, her face half-hidden by a fierce-looking helmet mask that swept up in wings at the sides of her head. Bleached blond hair fell to her shoulders. She was wearing a bronze-colored breastplate with conical protuberances at bosom level. The breastplate ended in a short skirt that suggested the dress of a Roman centurion. B
etween the bottom of the skirt and the tops of her thigh-high black leather boots was an expanse of six inches or so of deeply tanned flesh. She wore studded leather gauntlets around her wrists and carried a coiled whip in one hand.
The eyes that stared at Francine through the eyeholes of the ferocious mask betrayed frank interest. The woman spoke again.
“Non parlo l’italìano,” said Francine.
The woman hesitated, then said, “You speak English?”
“Yes.”
“I am asking if I may buy you a drink.”
Francine looked at the woman again. She thought in a situation like this Sartre would probably have said yes. “Grappa,” she said.
The woman waved her coiled whip at the waiter and ordered two grappas. She turned back to Francine. “You are from?”
“Paris.”
“Ah, Paris.” The woman shrugged away Paris with a slight movement of one broad shoulder.
Francine had never doubted that Paris was the most desirable place on earth to live. “And you?” she asked, nettled.
“Here and there,” the woman said. “Often here. In winter I sometimes stay in Switzerland for the skiing. In summer my friends and I go to Crete. But I always return to Venice.”
The drinks arrived, and Francine quickly swallowed half of hers. Just in time, because her stomach had begun to quake again. As the liquor slid down and she could forget, she began to disapprove of this wealthy, suntanned Amazon.
The Amazon was leaning close to Francine. The metallic point of one of her breasts dug into Francine’s arm. “Your disguise is amusing,” she said.
Francine looked down at her worn brown suit with its too-long legs and sleeves, the beige tie with green dots. “Thank you.”
“May I ask what it is supposed to represent?” The woman’s breath disturbed the hair next to Francine’s ear.
Francine would not discuss Jean-Paul Sartre with this person. A thought came to her. “I’m disguised as my father,” she said.
Francine’s father, who ran a thriving butcher shop in Poitiers, would never have dreamed of wearing a suit and tie as threadbare and unfashionable as the ones she had on. Still, what she had said was true in the spiritual sense. Intellectually, spiritually, Sartre was her father.
The Amazon regarded Francine with even more interest than before. Her tongue flickered out and wet her lips. “Intriguing,” she said. After a moment she asked, “Are you in love with him? Your father, I mean?”
Francine finished her drink. She was feeling too warm and more than a little dizzy. She unbuttoned her collar. “Yes,” she said. She nodded vigorously several times. “I am. I am, really.”
The woman reached under Francine’s hair and put her hand on the back of Francine’s neck. She pulled Francine’s head down to rest against the hard, uncomfortable breastplate. “Yes,” the woman said. Her voice hissed off into a sigh.
Francine’s eyes closed. Sartre jumped on the insides of her eyelids. He gabbled,
The creature whose visage turns others to stone
Changes trusting friends into people alone.
Francine shivered and sat up.
The Amazon looked at her curiously. “Are you all right?”
The creature who has snakes for hair— Francine wished she hadn’t had so much to drink so fast. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” the Amazon said. She held up the whip. “This is only for show. A little joke.”
“I see.” Francine felt slightly ill.
“You’re so charming, dressed as your father. I don’t suppose he’s here, is he? Dressed as you, perhaps? What fun the three of us could have together!” The Amazon had a greedy look in her eyes.
“He isn’t here.” Francine thought of the head of Sartre, drowned by now.
The Amazon’s hand was on Francine’s back. She said, “There is a masked ball tonight— an important party. Would you like to go?”
Questions were going to be asked, and Francine wanted to avoid them. “All right,” she said. The Amazon smiled and put money down to pay for the drinks.
TOM AND THE TIGER
In the lobby of the Hotel Danieli a satyr bowed balletically, his bare torso gleaming under a garland of leaves. After a ripple of applause he strutted among the onlookers, the shaggy brown hair that covered the lower half of his body flouncing at each step. In the background, almost drowned by murmured conversations, a piano tinkled through “The Girl That I Marry.”
As the satyr was lost amid champagne-sipping bystanders, a woman in a white robe and an elaborate headdress of crystal beads took his place at the foot of the staircase. Beads swung next to her cheeks, cascaded to her shoulders, caught the light as she curtseyed to enthusiastic applause. Someone cried “Stupenda!” as she began her circuit of the room.
Rain Goddess, Tom thought. Sitting in a leather chair on the edge of the crowd, he watched her pass. Even now, he couldn’t prevent himself from guessing what costumes represented.
In his fevered wanderings Tom had finally stumbled into the Danieli to get out of the cold and happened upon this costume fashion show. He himself was still wearing his robe covered with alchemical symbols. He had drawn the figures on the silver cloth himself, using up an entire afternoon. Vibrating, he stared at the sickle moon for silver, the slashed pyramid for air, the trapezoid for salt. Everything was wide open now. He was back on the edge, where he’d been in ’68.
He had dressed as the alchemist: the seeker, experimenter, transformer. The members of the group, he reasoned, were his materia prima, the raw material for experimentation. Venice was to be his crucible and Carnival his sacred flame. He wanted to watch his materials meld and glow and change. He wanted to see them become, at last, the lapis philosophorum, the philosopher’s stone, capable of transforming dross into gold.
Capable of transforming the dross of his life into gold.
He was back on the edge, and it was up to him to do something with it. Images crowded his mind: Brian with the Harlequin; the scene at Brian’s hotel last night; the floating Medusa, the creature whose visage—
The creature whose visage turns others to stone
Changes trusting friends into people alone.
Tom’s mind was skyrocketing out of control. He had to calm down, figure out what to do.
He thought of Olga. She’d been with him in ’68, right beside him, caught up in it, too. Funny how she had changed— gotten a job, settled down to an ordinary, uninteresting life. If you wanted to be harsh about it, you could say she’d betrayed her ideals, which was something Tom was determined never to do. He had a chance, now, to prove that his way had been best, after all.
A flurry of exclamations brought Tom’s attention back to the staircase. Spotlighted at the top were two figures in gold eye masks, dressed identically in turbans and robes of patterned gold and wine-red. As they descended, their flowing sleeves swept the staircase, their trains slithered behind them. Only because of the courtly way the hand of one lightly supported the hand of the other did Tom think they were male and female.
Tom knew, watching them, that they didn’t have to worry about dross or betrayed ideals. Their impurities were gone, burned away in some refining fire.
The couple reached the bottom of the stairs and sank simultaneously into deep obeisances to the crowd. They rose and circled the room. As they passed him, Tom heard the whisper of their robes against the carpet.
He got up abruptly and pushed his way to the bank of telephones he had seen in a hallway. He had a pocketful of gettoni because of all the calls he’d made tracking the group. He pushed one in the slot, got the operator, and gave the number, reversing the charges.
Olga sounded surprised and happy to hear from him, but once he had her on the phone, he couldn’t think of anything to say.
“How’s Stefan?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and high in his ears.
“Fine. He’s studying. Stefan!” she called. “It’s your father.”
“He does
n’t have to—” Tom began, but there was a shuffling sound as she passed the phone to Stefan.
“Hello,” Stefan said.
“Hi,” said Tom. “Just wanted to say hi from Carnival.” He waited for a response, and when none came, he went on, “It’s really fantastic here. You wouldn’t believe some of the costumes.” He racked his brain to think of a costume that would interest Stefan, but couldn’t. “What are you doing?” he finished lamely.
“Studying.”
“Yeah? Studying what?”
“History.”
“Great. Well, listen. I wish you were here to see what Carnival is like. Fantastic!”
“Here’s Mom.”
The shuffling sound came again, and then Olga said, “So you’re having a good time?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s— intriguing.” Tom thought of something. “Let me ask you a question, Olga.”
“What?”
“Suppose you were going to dress up in a costume that would represent your idea of your true self. What would you dress as?”
Olga laughed. “My true self? I guess it would have to be a middle-aged researcher at the Pasteur Institute who lives in Montparnasse with her husband and son.”
“No, that’s no fair. You know what I mean.”
He could almost see her pursing her lips, thinking, could almost feel her sorting through responses in search of one that would please him. Finally, she said, “I think I would dress as a tiger.”
He was so surprised he could hardly speak. “A tiger?”
“It’s what came into my head. It’s the idea of being a hunter. I pursue things, you know, in my work. I mean, I track down answers. It sounds silly—” she gave a little laugh, but he could tell she was serious— “I think of the tiger as silent, and tenacious, and independent—”
And merciless, ferocious.
“It’s silly, I know,” she went on. “If I had more time to think about it, I’d come up with something better.”
The Grand Tour: Four International Mysteries Page 46