by Edmund White
• • •
When Julien arrived two days later it was in the evening. He’d boarded a vaporetto at the streamlined Mussolini-era train station and now, as he descended the boat at the Stae stop, he was exuberant, as though the brightness dancing in his eyes and his quick, excited movements were assembled out of the lights fractured by the myriad currents and cross-currents of the flowing, sloshing Grand Canal.
He looks so young, Austin thought. Then he glanced over at Peter in a cruelly unconscious instant of comparison. Peter looked so—well, it wasn’t old, exactly, but dry, as though Peter were the white-haired, stiff-jointed, desiccated version of this brunet young Frenchman with his full lips, rounded rump, his clear dark-blue gaze focused on some distant point of pleasure whereas Peter’s washed-out blue eyes were blurred by the indistinctness of all his present woes.
Austin was so happy to be with Julien. For the first time since coming to Venice he was light-hearted.
Although Peter spoke some sort of pidgin French, he was too tired to summon it up, or maybe he’d forgotten or found it embarrassing to test out. Julien scarcely registered this linguistic problem. He was so exuberant about being in Venice that he stormed the city, rushing across bridges and plunging into the Piazza San Marco, which, if it was the drawing room of Europe, was at once more tattered and more solemnly majestic than any other salon one could imagine. Old-fashioned floor lamps with fringed silk shades had been dragged outdoors and lit above each of the competing string orchestras and the lights lent a slight credibility to the drawing-room idea although the guests nibbling ices and the streams of shadowy passersby sauntering along under the dim arches were dwarfed and even mocked by the enameled church domes, the great brick upthrust of the campanile, the solemn entrances and exits of the huge Moorish figures of the corner clock, the soaring columns supporting saints and a crocodile, the illuminated stonework of the Doge’s Palace like patterned fabric stretched above the tent pegs of the short, squat columns and the distant moonlike glow of the neoclassical church of San Giorgio on its own island, looking on but muted, really exactly like a moon on a foggy, unhappy night.
Austin and Peter were silent, somnambulistic tourists but Julien was the excitable kind who had to share his impressions, half of which Austin translated into English more or less at random and half of which he let skip like stones across the lagoon. Peter nodded encouragingly, smiling, his head lowered and his eyes rounded—maybe he was a bit attracted to Julien, since he was being ever so slightly seductive, or maybe coquetry, after all, was his only way of showing friendliness to a man.
They ate at the little restaurant Harry’s Bar had opened over on the Giudecca, spaghetti alle vongole and grilled bronzino and silver cups of raspberries in sugared lemon juice. Peter drank too much and tried to interest Julien in his unhappy childhood and lonely if glamorous school years in Florence but Julien, though kindly and well-intentioned, didn’t know what he was supposed to do with all the information, which wasn’t exactly urgent or even recent. Austin kept hoping that Julien would understand that Peter didn’t have much to live for and that, after all, Austin would be sleeping with Julien later tonight and poor Peter would be alone.
Although they never really found a topic that first night together, Julien was a good sport and was even happy to go along for yet another drink to Haig’s Bar, for if Venice was a crowded museum by day, at night it was nearly as deserted as a museum. English aristocrats and successful French decorators and rich Milanese businessmen—all the people who owned apartments here and were willing to endure the city’s dullness for the sake of its chic—were laughing and talking loudly as they raced along, hoping to get to the Accademia for the midnight vaporetto. Most bars, the stand-up zinc-counter kind, had closed long ago, but Haig’s carried heroically on into the cool hours after midnight, perhaps exempt from the usual laws by virtue of its English name. Here Julien was happy to see the last remnants of an earlier Italian era consecrated to mindless pleasure. He watched with sympathy the bored, stylish young people in rumpled evening clothes, a black tie undone and dangling like an unfinished joke, a fragile chain-mail evening bag slung carelessly from the back of a chair, thick black hair curling over a sickly forehead, the drinks—brought up on a salver in eccentric stemware—chosen for their colors: garnet, chartreuse, cloud.
Back in their rented apartment Peter was almost falling asleep standing up and crouched a bit so Austin and Julien would kiss him on the forehead, as though he were their son; then he toddled off and Julien rushed to the window for one last glimpse of a passing vaporetto, projecting its yellow lights in every direction as it zigzagged up the Canal.
In the evenings Julien would put lavender-scented brilliantine in his hair and tie a complicated ascot for himself out of a blue silk scarf printed with gold hunting horns. Peter lifted an eyebrow fractionally at each of Julien’s efforts to emulate the Haig’s heroin-and-Campari crowd, but he also seemed amused by so much boyish posing.
As the days passed, Austin and Julien became intensely romantic in their lovemaking (back in Paris sex had been rougher, even brutal). Austin’s only worry when they embraced in the dim salotto was that Peter might surprise them en route to the bathroom or kitchen—he was sure he was feeling what parents with young children must feel, but like a young parent his desire overcame his misgivings.
Because he was a Southerner, and a Southerner whose mother had been a Virginia lady, Austin always needed to know what his friends thought of each other; any reservation someone might express he considered an insult, any criticism a betrayal. Julien had figured out how much Peter meant to Austin and made vague but approving sounds. One night, when for professional reasons Austin had to dine with the Cinis and the Montebellos, Julien and Peter ate alone at the Grappa di Uva and came back laughing and stumbling drunkenly, arm in arm.
Austin was thrilled. For weeks he’d been brooding about his new job in Providence, Rhode Island. Now he thought that he could invite Julien to live with him. Of course Peter wouldn’t want to leave New York for Providence, but he might have to spend longer and longer periods of convalescence with Austin—and with Julien, if they should stay together. Maybe because Austin was a product of the unpossessive 1970s, he’d always thought gay men shouldn’t pair off in little monogamous units. They should stay loyal to their old friends and lovers and take them in when necessary, not reject their former mates like heartless heterosexuals.
Anyway, Peter and Austin had promised that they’d take care of each other and now the time for honoring that pledge was speedily coming due. Austin had felt guilty about lingering on so long in Paris after Peter had gone back to live in New York, but he was comfortable with his cozy life on the Île Saint-Louis. As long as Peter was still able to go out and meet the preppie black men he liked as they stood around the piano singing show tunes at the Town House, right after work, still dressed in coat and tie, then he wouldn’t really want to share the East Village studio apartment again with Austin—he wouldn’t like to have his style cramped. Peter was looking for a last lover as frantically as if he was searching for a cure.
And Austin couldn’t really afford to rent a second studio for himself. Besides, as long as he was based in Paris he could work regularly for several American magazines as a journalist fluent in French, but if he lived in New York would the same editors think of flying him down to do a story about a Key West Eaton Street renovation or sending him up to Litchfield to write about a neoclassic atelier?
Now this teaching gig had come along and Austin would be a useful but discreet distance from New York; he’d be teaching just three days a week and could devote the rest of his time to Peter, if Peter needed him.
In bed that night Julien whispered, “What do you and Peter have in common?”
“Nothing, really,” Austin said, “but I’ve always loved him and wanted to take care of him. We lived together for so long—that’s what we had in common, our life together.”
“So being in love means you want to take care of someone? For you that’s what it means?”
“Peter just wasn’t made to work. He never had any ambition. When he first returned to New York with that degree from the Louvre, I got him interviews with half a dozen decorators in New York, but nothing came of it. He doesn’t make a good impression. He can’t really follow a conversation. He dresses far too young—he thinks he’s still a kid, but he’s white-haired and in his mid-thirties. Certain gay men fall for his little-boy act, but it makes straight women want to throw up, and they’re the customers. They don’t mind if a guy is gay so long as he’s virile and smooth and intensely interested in them and even a little autocratic, but an aging sweet little boy who’s self-centered and speaks in a high voice like a girl—well, that doesn’t play.”
Julien laughed and said, “You certainly have no illusions about him.”
“But I love him. I feel bound to him. He’s the witness to my life. I call him every few days from Paris. If he’s sad I think of treats to cheer him up. The last time he came to Paris, it was last summer, we had lunch at the Bagatelle. We looked at all the roses and we took photos of each other beside the ponds and the weeping willows and that greenhouse where they have Chopin concerts, then we sat in the shade and ate a long, complicated lunch that was so light it left us hungry. We drank a bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet, the best white wine in the world, and we were so happy that we held hands under the table, because even if AIDS wasn’t going to kill us this year or next, we knew it couldn’t be far off and we were entirely happy.”
Austin went on thinking about that day in the Bagatelle even as he stood naked on the cold marble floor (for they had gotten out of bed one more time to look at the Canal) and held Julien in his arms. Their room was lit only from the illuminated boats below and the unique street lamp with its three clear panes and its single pink one—the basic street furniture in Venice, like everything else, was irregular and strange. The water traffic had at last abated and most of the palaces were darkened—though soon enough low-riding barges powered with outboard motors would be bringing small dark-green melons to market, the melons the size of children’s heads.
After a week, Julien took a morning train back to Paris and his job. He thanked Austin rather formally, at least with an unusual degree of politeness for someone of his generation, and Austin realized they still hadn’t spoken of living together. They weren’t yet a couple, nothing could be taken for granted.
Peter and Austin lingered on another five days. “You really love him, don’t you, Austin?” Peter said when he saw how Austin lit up whenever Julien phoned.
“Well, I don’t really know him that well, but—”
“Come on, Austin, admit it.”
“Peter, I’ve never played my part so carefully. I just think about winning, I scarcely stop to wonder how I feel, really feel, inside.”
“Well, it’s obvious he adores you. He told me, that night we had dinner alone, he said he thought you were … what does pour or maybe tour ghetto mean?”
“Hors ghetto. That means I’m not a typical fag—I’m out of the ghetto, I’m non-scene, as the English say.”
“Mary, you could have fooled me. Miss Girl …”
There was a seafood restaurant way out toward the Arsenale, a place that had been trendy a decade ago partly because it was so hard to find. As they strolled home after a charred, greasy meal of squid, they skirted the Lagoon, up bridges and down, past the church where Vivaldi, the red-haired priest, had been the composer, past the Danieli, where Byron had stayed, past the Piazzetta; when they reached Harry’s Bar they went in for a last Bellini. Peter was a little drunk and said, “Austin, I don’t completely trust Julien. I hope he doesn’t hurt you. You say you’re playing cool and fast just to win, but I think you’re out of your league, just as you were outclassed by Little Julien.”
“There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think about Little Julien. And you know he’s becoming a wonderful artist—everyone in Paris is talking about his furniture. His own apartment had six pages in Elle Déco—I’ll show you, I kept it. I wish he’d loved me more or, failing that, I wish I could have done more to help him along in the world. I wish I’d been famous or rich—God, he was the best sex I ever had.”
“Don’t worry, Austin, Little Julien will come back to you. You used to be his lover and he cheated on you. Now he’s Marius’s lover and he’ll cheat on him with you. Don’t forget I slept with Marius that one time six years ago when I was dazzled by his mansion and servants and paintings, but he’s not a nice guy and he’s got a minuscule dick, really tiny.”
“Well, mine’s no great shakes….”
“Compared to Marius you’re a sex machine.”
Peter’s comments had soon raised a rather different doubt in Austin. He thought that as long as he’d been courting Julien, his gaze had been turned inward toward the thrilling, unfamiliar machinery of all these new sexual experiments. But now that they’d become more romantic, which Austin considered far more intimate and exciting, Julien might just be stifling a yawn. Or he might suddenly have become unpleasantly aware of the furry, sagging, graying body beside him.
That night in bed Austin couldn’t sleep. He got up and sat naked in the window and looked down at the commotion on the Grand Canal, boats traversing streaks of light like water insects trampolining the surface tension. He wondered if he was so superficial, even now, as he was approaching fifty (as he was approaching death!), that he didn’t know what he really wanted. Little Julien had been confused when they were together; he was still dating girls or at least flirting with them and saying he wanted to get married. Now he was living happily—or at least openly—with Marius; of course when Marius traveled to India or Egypt he always invited along two or three women, possibly as a cover.
Big Julien was different—less self-sufficient, more vulnerable. He was suffering over his divorce and a decade ago he’d been cruelly disoriented by his mother’s suicide. The divorce was bringing back all that old pain. Maybe Julien associated women with pain now. He was grateful to Austin for cooking him dinner, listening to the long, maniacally detailed stories of his past, laughing at his jokes, even if his humor was more malice and Rabelaisian excess than wit. Considering he was more a practicing bisexual than Little Julien, whose attraction to women seemed mainly theoretical, Big Julien was much less confused. He knew what he wanted: Austin. He loved Austin and called him mon chou and petit and said he was the leading expert on French furniture. If Austin mentioned that he didn’t have a doctorate and that his reputation in America was shaky, Big Julien would set his jaw and become angry on his behalf. “What do these Americans want? They know nothing. We French are in awe of your expertise—you must be given the Légion d’Honneur! Get Henry to recommend you; he knows Élie de Rothschild, who’s an officer. It’s only a matter of time. Those Americans should get down on their knees before you, kiss your feet with gratitude….”
Most important, Big Julien had said he’d take care of Austin if ever he became ill. When he became ill, rather, since no one escaped AIDS, it seemed. Austin mustn’t entertain false hopes. He must train himself to accept the inevitable. Big Julien would be a devoted nurse, he was sure, as long as it took, although he’d certainly be tyrannical as well, fussy about schedules and expenses and critical of every doctor. Austin hoped his position in Rhode Island would become permanent, even tenured; he needed the health insurance. He had to be cool-headed and prudent, although his first instinct was to kill himself, quickly, cleanly. Austin had always taken care of other people, his alcoholic father and Peter, all his young friends in Paris; he couldn’t bear the prospect of depending on someone else. And for what? To grow old overnight, turn into a precocious skeleton, lose his strength, sight, mind?
After their five extra days alone, Austin put Peter on his plane to Milan and New York, then boarded the Cisalpine Express that ran through Switzerland on the wa
y to France. He felt more and more invigorated after Chur as they ascended the snow-covered mountains and the air became thin and cold. He dismissed Peter’s warnings about Big Julien; they were too transparently self-serving. Julien wouldn’t reject him; Austin had become his sidekick, his only friend. Maybe he’d also become something like Julien’s mother, but that wasn’t something you could say. Not to anyone.
Chapter Ten
By the middle of December everything had been decided. The six-month wait for Julien’s and Christine’s divorce to be finalized had flowed smoothly by and she even invited Austin and Julien over to a nearly inedible dinner on December fifteenth, not exactly to celebrate but at least to solemnize the occasion. A month earlier Austin had put her in touch with a Paris-based Brazilian-born cinematographer who had obtained for her a small bourse from the National Center for Scientific Research, which would enable her to go with him, Carlito, to Ethiopia to make a half-hour film about the Italian soldiers who’d stayed behind in Abyssinia. Austin enjoyed helping her, as if his assistance would stave off the day when she’d denounce him for destroying her marriage.
Christine had met in Paris an Italian restaurateur from Calabria. Her second-best language, as she’d said, was Italian, since she’d lived in Rome from the age of ten to sixteen; even more important, she added, she preferred being an Italian and couldn’t help remembering that Stendhal had said a Frenchman was an Italian in a bad mood. Well, she wanted to be constantly in a good mood. She liked drinking and laughing loud and dancing all night. She liked running her hands through her thick hennaed hair and wearing a top cut so high it revealed her slightly pudgy stomach and the gold chain she wore around it like a tummy anklet. She said she knew it was “naff” and she didn’t care. He was short, her Italian, Angelo, just her height, but he had deep-set dark eyes that were ever so slightly crossed, which made him look mysterious, and his face was so unusual that he resembled three entirely different men depending on which angle you looked at him from. He used orange-water to wash his face every night, and the smell made her feel calm, since when she was a child her mother had always given her fleur d’oranger tea at bedtime.