The Millionaire of Love

by David Leddick

  ~19~

  Radomir’s Second Return

  He saw Radomir off at Orly airport when he went back to Crete. He took the Orly bus from the Gare Montparnasse. The airport was mobbed. The flight to Athens was hard to find. It departed at some weird gate like 27Q. On and on through packs of Pakistanis, tides of Italians, mobs of Moroccans he went. The third world was on the move. At the far end of the airport he found Radomir.

  As usual he looked shorter and plainer than Nevis remembered him. Why am I in love with this guy? he thought as he saw the shortish figure smothered in a long, black raincoat waiting in line.

  “Will you hold my place? I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”

  “It’s over there. Down the escalator.”

  As he walked away he handed Nevis his black raincoat. His shoulders were broad in his check sports coat.

  Nevis often bought clothes for Radomir, sometimes as a form of bonus for work done on the house and sometimes as gifts. Radomir didn’t seem to have any clear picture as to what kind of clothes he liked, but coming from California he wore the kinds of clothes that come off easily and could be frequently washed and left unironed.

  Nevis bought him turtleneck cashmere sweaters at Lanvin. And in one splurge got him to agree to the purchase of a black-and-tan plaid sports coat and gray flannel slacks. With a black raincoat and turtleneck Radomir cut quite a dashing figure and seemed very at ease. He also liked a dark blue sweater with cable knit in dark green on its shoulders and sleeves. He wore that frequently.

  Because of his broad shoulders he could wear some of Nevis’s clothes. A tan linen jacket had its sleeves shortened for him, and he also frequently wore a Saint Laurent sweater in an oatmeal knit with vivid red trim. And he wore an Armani windbreaker with broad shoulders and a belt very often.

  Other clothes were sometimes abruptly rejected. A knit shirt in dark green and navy blue panels that looked very handsome on him was disdained, even though it came from one of the best men’s stores in Milan.

  He was very undiscriminating about shoes, preferring sneakers. Nevis did get him into loafers, which he seemed to think were faintly effete. He liked a pair of brown leather shoes that looked like molasses cookies.

  When he returned to Paris from the country Radomir said that Savannah had gone back to the United States. He said she cried when she left the Loire Valley.

  Nevis thought that was probably because it was the last time someone under fifty was going to boff her. He said, “That’s ridiculous. You never came out of the house before five in the afternoon. She never even saw the Loire Valley.”

  Radomir’s silence either indicated that he accepted Nevis’s statement as being essentially correct or was confirming that he, too, thought that it wasn’t the Loire Valley that Savannah would be missing.

  After his departure no more was heard from Radomir from Crete. Nevis wrote him once: a rich description of the Loire Valley in full flood of sunflowers and purple roadside flowers. Nothing about love. It had been a cold and inclement July when Radomir had come to the country with Savannah. Now its lush, ripe, rich nature was hurrying to catch up after a slow start to the summer. The grapevines flourished, the grain blew golden in the wind, the sunflowers blackened as they turned slowly to face the sun in unison. Shadows from the corners of buildings were hard and square and black on the ground as winds blew steadily through the narrow village streets from the surrounding fields.

  Nevis stayed in Paris most of the time. The country was hard to handle. He was traveling a lot for his job, and that helped. On a Saturday in late August he had to go down to the country to pay bills and consult with workmen, but decided to make it a day trip and not stay overnight. He arrived about noon, did what had to be done, and departed again on the 9:40. When he arrived back in Paris he had a message on his answering machine from Fritz: “Radomir is here. He arrived this evening.”

  Nevis remembered his train rocking with the force of the passing of a down-country train heading in the opposite direction. Radomir had been on that train. Their bodies had passed within a few feet of each other for a moment only, separated by the racing metal.

  He then called Fritz and spoke a few moments to Radomir, who said he’d left Crete unexpectedly and would see him later.

  Nevis was almost too busy to care. He was in Milan all week, returning on Saturday. He had to work in London on Monday but decided to go to the country on Sunday for the day. He called Radomir at Fritz’s and they arranged that Radomir would meet him in Blois at the railroad station with the old Peugeot on Sunday. They would go directly to the best chateau restaurant near Montfaucon, have lunch, and Nevis would depart again in the afternoon from Amboise.

  At the restaurant Radomir had no trouble talking. Problems had started as soon as he was back in Crete, he explained over the frisée aux lardons. The Australian girl, Na- tasha, and he had gotten drunk together one night and she had spent the night with him. By now he had moved into an isolated farmhouse in the middle of an olive grove, up the hill from the hotel where he worked.

  Natasha had been a lesbian in Sydney but now paraded him in front of some visiting Australian lesbians as her boyfriend, saying things like “Isn’t he cute?” and “Aren’t I lucky?” Radomir’s story was that he then explained to her that he thought it was all a mistake, and that he wanted to return to their just being good friends. This evidently was not what the girl from Sydney had in mind, and a great cabal by all the foreigners who worked in the resort ensued. Waitresses from nearby hotels refused to speak to him in the street. Clerks in gift shops wouldn’t speak. When he walked up to the bar at the disco everyone turned their backs on him. Only his new roommate, the Canadian boy Tony, remained loyal.

  It was hard for Nevis to imagine that in the extremely laissez-faire atmosphere of the Cretan resort sleeping with someone once and not wishing to again could have caused such universal revulsion.

  Perhaps Nastasha, too, had fallen under Radomir’s spell and, like Nevis, was stumbling about crying and acting shattered. The Millionaire of Love had struck again. Could she have been so disturbed that even her summertime acquaintances decided the situation had gone too far? Nevis could only guess.

  Evidently the catalytic event that prompted Radomir’s departure occurred on a hot afternoon when he was sunning on the roof of his little farmhouse. Tony was asleep in a bedroom below. Radomir heard a small noise in the courtyard below and saw two French girls who worked in a gift shop stealthily approaching the house. One would advance, beckoning the other to come out from her hiding place in the olive grove. Radomir, hidden on the roof, saw them tiptoe toward the house, peer into the rooms, look about, and then just as stealthily slip off into the olive grove again. Their visit shook Radomir up. They had been good friends before the ostracization campaign. Had they come to warn him about something? Nevis thought they had most likely come to see if they could catch Radomir and his roommate making bamboola in the heat of the afternoon. His suspected proclivity for other men might have triggered the hostilities, Nevis thought. Radomir had certainly confided in his Australian girlfriend that he, too, had known the embrace of his own sex as she had.

  Whatever the cause of his being made the community pariah, Radomir had had enough. Rousing Tony, he suggested that they pack, call a cab, and split after work that night without a word to anyone. On the next day they would be gone. They could catch a boat at the north shore port for Athens and go back to Europe. Radomir to Paris and Tony to Holland.

  And that was what had happened, with Radomir arriving in Paris on a Saturday. Instead of calling Nevis he went straight to the country and was now living with Fritz, helping him paint shutters and scrape woodwork.

  By now the meal was approaching the sorbets. Radomir told Nevis that on the boat fleeing Crete he had some second thoughts and felt more positively about him now.

  On their way to the train Nevis insisted they pass by Fanette, the house he had worked on so wildly earlier in the summer. It was completely finished now
. Nevis had taken out the paintings and ornaments that Radomir had strenuously objected to before. Now Radomir said he wished to have them put back again. He said that he would like them in the house, and eventually his plan was to pay Nevis for the house and all its furnishings. They then had to race along the river road so Nevis could catch his train, as his London flight left Paris that evening.

  ~20~

  Radomir Gets a New Life

  Radomir came back to Paris, moved back into the little yellow bedroom, and came back to work as a freelance assistant to Nevis at his office.

  It was messy. Radomir thought the only reason he was there at the office was because Nevis had insisted. In fact, the agency didn’t want to spend the money for an assistant, although Nevis needed one badly. And the account supervisor insisted to higher-ups that Nevis was only making work for a boyfriend. Nevis always treated Radomir in a businesslike way in the office, but Radomir exploded one day and said that everyone in the office commented upon how rude Nevis was to him. And he wanted an apartment of his own.

  So Nevis bought him the newspapers and showed him where the apartments for rent were listed. He had to go with Radomir to look at apartments, as an apartment would have to be rented in Nevis’s name. Radomir did not have working papers. It was also Nevis who would have to put down the sizable fee for first month, last month, and damages.

  Radomir found a little two-room apartment to his liking near the Canal St. Martin. Nevis helped him scrape floors and paint, and furniture was brought up from the country house. Soon after, Nevis heard of the nice little house-warming Radomir had had in his new apartment from a young American couple who were there. Nevis hadn’t been invited.

  The young American couple had a baby now. They had visited the country house occasionally with the baby when Radomir was there. When he saw the baby spread-eagled face down across Radomir’s chest, in the chair by the fireplace, clasping him automatically around the neck he felt uncomfortable and left the room.

  On another day Nevis was carrying the baby in the garden and the little boy looked at him squarely with recognition and hugged him with speechless affection. He thought of the baby as a love conduit. Held and loved by Radomir and now held and loved by him. The baby feeling affection in both directions. The same soft, sweet little being, sharing his affectionate hugs between them. For the first time he understood why people have children.

  As the months passed Radomir became more sullen and bought cowboy boots. Now when he passed Nevis in the hall at the office they were nearly the same height. With his big weight-lifter arms protruding from his T-shirt Nevis had to admit he was quite a sight. The younger secretaries and he seemed to be Radomir’s most appreciative audience.

  Once in this period, after Radomir returned from Crete and to work with Nevis, they went to the country house together. In the evening, before they went to bed, Nevis asked Radomir to massage his back, which had been bothering him. He didn’t suggest that he massage Radomir first, as he wanted to avoid any prelude to seduction overtones. Radomir straddled his buttocks as he often did when giving a massage and proceeded with a really thorough rubdown, with no indication that he found it distasteful to do so. When he climbed off he quickly turned away from the bed and walked across the room. Nevis immediately thought, He’s concealing a hard-on. And was at a loss to interpret it.

  So the winter passed. They spoke impersonally at the agency. He had lunch with Radomir occasionally. He had tried having dinner once after Radomir moved into his own apartment, but Radomir was so impersonal and made it so obvious that the dinner was an obligation there was no pleasure to be had in it. So Nevis didn’t repeat it again. They passed each other at the gymnasium. Radomir hulking toward the weight-lifting room. Nevis gyrating and bouncing in the aerobics classes. Then in the spring Radomir announced he was leaving the advertising agency and his freelance job with Nevis. He had a new job at the Paris branch of a film company. So he was gone. Then Radomir called to arrange sending the furniture that he had in his apartment back to the country. He had taken another apartment and didn’t want it any longer.

  Shortly thereafter Nevis had a notice from a lawyer that Radomir wanted to sell his interest in the renovated house they owned together in the country. All the ties were breaking. His first reaction was to tell him to fuck off, but then realized that was exactly what Radomir wanted to hear and instead was pleasant over the phone to Radomir about it. The several thousand dollars that the legal transaction would cost, in addition to the purchasing of Radomir’s part, rankled him more. When he discussed this with Radomir, the suggestion that they split the legal costs was met with great coldness. Radomir wanted out and he didn’t want it to cost him any money.

  Nevis told him that he would pay the costs but was writing Radomir into his will so that the house would go to him eventually. “That you can’t keep me from doing,” he told him.

  One evening, as Nevis turned from closing his locker at the gym, Radomir was standing in front of the next bank of lockers. As usual, he looked shorter and not as attractive as Nevis remembered him. He called his name. Radomir came over and was friendly in a “We really don’t know each other very well” manner. They left together and took the metro together, talking about Radomir’s new job and his family in the United States.

  Why is it we think it’s so important to tell people we love them? thought Nevis. Maybe it’s because we were brought up by slightly chilly parents. And we’ve been congratulated by friends and lovers on our ability to speak out, to express our affection. Thought well of because we can handle being in a relationship. So we unburden ourselves knowing it’s only driving the loved one further away. We just can’t help ourselves, poor things.

  They began to run into each other more frequently at the gymnasium. Usually Radomir was arriving as Nevis was leaving. There was Radomir, his brawny back and narrow waist slipped into running pants, on his way up to the swimming pool, or twisting a towel angrily around the flat stomach that nose-dived from his chest.

  Can this be love where the more I see of him without his clothes on the more I care? Nevis asked himself. He decided it was.

  Leaving the gym together one day, he accused Radomir of deliberately acting unpleasant so as to kill any interest Nevis might have in him. Radomir slipped out one of those little Middle-European squirrel glances of his and said, “You’re quite intelligent, aren’t you?” From then on every shrugging nod toward Nevis, every sulky “Hello” as he turned his back didn’t discourage Nevis.

  Their gym closed and chance encounters ended. So Nevis called Radomir occasionally. Hearing his Franglais-mixed message on his answering machine would cheer him up. That voice, placing itself so carefully so it could never be considered anything but masculine, touched him.

  In the autumn Nevis’s contract ended with the French advertising agency. He began traveling back and forth to New York looking for work. He was tempted to let Radomir drift off into history, but knowing that was exactly what Radomir was counting on, he didn’t.

  Mutual friends would report they’d seen him. He seemed to be in high spirits. He’d gained weight. He seemed to like his job. He was seen with friends. He was not seen with a girlfriend.

  One evening in the neighborhood of Radomir’s new apartment Nevis was on his way to eat with the young American couple. Tex-Mex, a novelty in Paris. He thought he saw Radomir coming up out of the Metro. Without his glasses the figure was blurry. He wasn’t sure, but it had the kind of slightly lumbering walk of Radomir in his cowboy boots. He was going to shout his name. He didn’t. He grabbed the young husband by the arm and demanded, “Is that Radomir?”

  The young blond husband turned to look. “I don’t see him,” he said. As they were waiting in line to get into the restaurant he said, “Gee, you almost tore my arm off.”

  At the same couple’s house a few months later Nevis stopped to chat on his way to Radomir’s. He had spoken to him the previous night and Radomir had been open and friendly. They had agreed that
Nevis would come by to see his new apartment and then go out to eat.

  He called Radomir from the young couple’s home and left a message to call him there when Radomir came in. Radomir didn’t call back. The couple asked Nevis to stay for dinner. Halfway though the meal the phone rang. It was Radomir.

  The phone was handed to Nevis and he heard, “Why do you keep calling me and writing me? Don’t you know that I don’t even open most of your letters? I just throw them away.” Nevis replied, “Why don’t I call you back when I get home?” and hung up. Finishing dinner, he went home and called Radomir back.

  “You want to know why I keep writing and calling? I can’t do otherwise. It’s programming. It’s nature. I am strongly attached to you. It’s not something I can turn on and off. And all your efforts to make me dislike you have no effect on it. But I do love you enough to not bother you if that’s what you want. I’ll stay out of your way; you have to admit you wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t be speaking French, wouldn’t have the job you have if I hadn’t existed. You realize that, don’t you?”

  In a very matter of fact voice Radomir said, “Of course.” And the conversation dwindled away.

  ~21~

  Radomir Speaks His Piece

  Why doesn’t anyone ever want to hear my side of things? That’s what I want to know. It’s all poor Nevis, poor Nevis, poor Nevis. What about me?

  When I came to France I thought he was some kind of wonderful person. Like an uncle. Very thoughtful. Very concerned about me.

  Yes, of course there was always that smily, smily stuff. Everything the other person did was always wonderful. I was always so smart. So talented. Had a great future. All those kinds of things. He was building the other person’s morale. And it was always so easy to see through. But he meant well.