The City and the Pillar

by Gore Vidal

  As Paul got older, he deliberately opened himself wide to suffering, and he was not disappointed. He even gained strength. But the bitterness never left him, and at heart he remained the same furious boy who had performed the Black Mass. He was secretly convinced that sooner or later the devil would grant him complete and reciprocated love, whether man or woman made no difference. He would exchange his soul for that.

  After a time, Paul became so used to his loveless estate that he had to discover new and more subtle tortures for himself. So he decided to follow in the wake of all those legendary damned souls who had deserted their art for a rich suffering among the orange groves of California. After a long negotiation (it is never easy to sell out) a movie studio agreed to give him the price his agent had demanded and he moved to Hollywood, where he was depressed to find that he really rather enjoyed himself. But fortunately he met Jim and found that he was still vulnerable. Their affair looked to be most promising, with endless possibilities of disaster.

  * * *

  —

  After the break with Shaw, Jim and Sullivan went to New Orleans. Here they stayed in a large hotel in the modern part of the city, while they explored the French Quarter with its narrow dirty streets, low buildings, iron galleries, long shuttered windows, and of course a thousand bars and restaurants, particularly along Bourbon Street, which echoed day and night with jazz and blues music, as everyone prowled: men from ships and men from the country, looking for dark, wiry-haired girls who giggled and looked at them impudently and hinted at “the good time” to come.

  In spite of the heat, night in New Orleans was stimulating. So much promise in the air, so much pleasure to be had. One by one like the stations of the Cross, Jim and Sullivan visited the bars, listening to Negro singers, observing the men and the whores. It was a pleasant way to pass time, without guilt or any sense of future.

  In the mornings Sullivan would work on a novel (a story of unreciprocated love told with light bitterness) and Jim would go sightseeing. In the afternoons they would go to the YMCA to swim.

  In the evenings they would visit queer bars, pretending to be innocent tourists and fooling no one.

  A bar called Chenonceaux particularly intrigued them. On the edge of the Quarter, in a quiet street, it occupied all of an old stone building from whose walls most of the plaster had fallen. At one end of the room a small fire burned on a stone hearth, while candles burned and the jukebox played soft popular songs. The result was so soothing that even the wildest patrons tended to behave themselves at the bar, their cries muted, their sibilants hushed, their cruising become demure.

  Jim and Sullivan always sat near the fire, where they could watch the men and women come and go, acting out their various rituals of courtship for the benefit of strangers.

  As Sullivan watched the menagerie, he would talk in a low voice, saying many things that he would not say in other places, and Jim listened to him, waiting as always to learn something new about himself. But Sullivan spoke only of others.

  * * *

  —

  In March Jim was twenty, and he found himself brooding on the many things he had done and seen since he left Virginia; it was almost as if he had been deliberately courting odd experiences in order to be able to tell of them when he was an old man, sitting in a Virginia store with other old men, none of whom had had so many adventures. Not of course that he would be able to tell everything. At times he wondered if Bob was leading the same sort of life. Was Bob like himself? He hoped not. Yet if they were proper twins, he would have to be the same. It was not easy to sort out. But one day he would know the answer. Now he gave himself up to experience.

  Jim’s birthday was celebrated at Chenonceaux’s by the owner, a fat motherly man who had once been a decorator in New York but was now “reformed.” Though he knew only their first names, he suspected that they were wealthy or important or both, but he was far too discreet to ask for information which was not volunteered. Besides, these two young men were much admired by the other patrons, and that was good for business.

  “Paul, Jimmy, how’re you tonight?” He smiled at Jim, his favorite, and Jim smiled back. He liked the owner despite the motherly ways.

  “What’ll it be?” They ordered beer and he brought it to them himself. Then he sat down at their table.

  “What’s the gossip?” asked Paul.

  “Well, you’d never guess it, but that tall pale boy, you know the one who used to make such eyes at Jim…well, he’s gone off with a Negro truck driver! It’s the funniest thing to see those two together. They’re quite wrapped up in each other and I understand the Negro beats him regularly. Really, it’s the funniest thing!” They agreed that it was indeed funny, and Jim wanted to know if many Negroes were that way; he had always supposed that they were not.

  The fat man rolled his eyes. “Loads of them, literally loads of them! Of course, I expect being a Negro in America is enough to make anyone neurotic. So this added bit, this extra kick, is nothing to be surprised at. Then of course many of them are truly primitive, and primitives don’t seem to mind what they do if it’s fun.”

  “We should all be like that,” said Sullivan.

  The fat man frowned; thought of any sort was an effort. “But we have to have some conventions, some order, or everyone would be running around wild, committing murder and everything.”

  “I meant only the sexual taboos, which shouldn’t be the business of the law.”

  “Maybe they shouldn’t be but they certainly are! The times I’ve been picked up by plainclothesmen who made all the advances, just awful. Sometimes it costs you a hundred dollars or more to pay off. They’re such crooks, especially here.”

  “Which is all wrong!” Jim could see that Paul was angry. “Why should any of us hide? What we do is natural, if not ‘normal,’ whatever that is. In any case, what people do together of their own free will is their business and no one else’s.”

  The fat man smiled. “But do you have the nerve to tell the world about yourself?”

  Paul sighed and looked at his hands. “No,” he said, “I don’t.”

  “So what can we do, if we’re all too frightened?”

  “Live with dignity, I suppose. And try to learn to love one another, as they say.”

  “Fair enough,” said the fat man. “I have to get back to the bar.” He left them.

  “Do you really care?” asked Jim. “Do you really care that much about the rest of the world?”

  Paul shrugged. “Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I care very much.”

  They drank their beer and watched the people.

  In many ways, the women were the most pathetic. Particularly one old woman who was known as the Major. Gray hair cut like a man’s and dressed in a skirted suit with a somber tie, she made a great fuss over the pretty girls, particularly the ones who were shy and clinging.

  “There,” said Jim, motioning to the Major, “there’s somebody honest. You want to be like that?”

  “That isn’t what I meant. I just want a little simple honesty, and acceptance. Why anyone is anything is a mystery, and not the business of the law.”

  Jim changed the subject. “How long do you want to stay in New Orleans?”

  “Why? Are you bored?”

  “No, but I’ve got to go to work one of these days…that tennis deal, I told you about it before.”

  “Relax. You’ve got a lot of years to do all that in. Save your money. Have a good time. Wait.”

  Jim was relieved that neither he nor Sullivan pretended they were going to live together forever. But it did not occur to him how much it hurt Sullivan, who was almost in love, to be so casual. Since they did not understand one another, each was able to sustain an illusion about the other, which was the usual beginning of love, if not truth.

  They were joined by a handsome blonde lesbian girl who looked not unlike the Apollo Belvedere,
reproduced in plaster. She was much in demand.

  “Hiya, boys! Got a drink for your best girl?” They had the drink.

  III

  THE DAYS PASSED QUICKLY and Jim enjoyed living without purpose. He was happy to get up in the morning; he was happy to go to bed at night with the thought of a new day to look forward to. He knew his life was aimless, and he could not have been more content.

  Suddenly the war in Europe occupied even the attention of the people in Chenonceaux’s bar. They discussed whether or not Britain would be invaded, and it seemed that everyone had some sentimental reminiscence about Stratford or Marble Arch or Guardsmen in Knightsbridge. Rather self-consciously, people became absorbed by the bit of history through which their century was passing.

  By the end of May, New Orleans had begun to bore them. Jim spoke of going to New York to work, while Paul thought they should go to South America; but he was not insistent; he merely indicated that he would like to continue with Jim for a while longer. Then, unexpectedly, their course was set for them.

  One night at the Chenonceaux, while talking to the owner, Jim saw a woman enter the bar, quite alone. She was dark, exotic, well-dressed, impossible to classify. Diffidently she ordered a drink. She attracted the owner’s attention. “Oh, dear!” He looked distraught. “This one’s come to the wrong bar. I can tell a mile off!” He got to his feet. “We’ll lose our reputation, if civilians start coming here.” He crossed to the bar, scowling. Then Sullivan recognized the woman at the same time she recognized him.

  “Paul!” she exclaimed and she took her drink from the bar and joined them. Whoever she was, Paul was delighted to see her. When he introduced her to Jim, she gave him a genuine smile, showing interest but not curiosity, for which he was grateful.

  Jim watched her face as she talked, thin eyebrows arched naturally, hazel eyes, dark hair. Slim with an unobtrusive figure, she moved like a dancer.

  She spoke of Amelia, Sullivan’s ex-wife. “Where is she now?” asked Paul.

  “Still in New York, I think.” Maria’s accent was all her own, delicate and evocative.

  “Do you think she’ll get married again?”

  “I doubt it. But who knows? She works for a magazine. I saw her just a week ago. She’s now developed a large…world-consciousness. She’s interested in nothing so small as the marriage of two human beings. She thinks only of the masses and the spirit of history. At the moment she is violently against the Russians because they are pro-Hitler. Ten months ago she was a Stalinist. I’m afraid she’s abandoned all thought of a private life. She is entirely public, and most formidable.”

  Jim listened with interest. Sullivan seldom mentioned his brief career as a married man. “Poor Amelia,” said Sullivan finally. “She hasn’t had a very happy time of it. Is she making money?”

  Maria nodded. “I should think so. In that world she’s quite well thought of.”

  “What have you been doing, Maria?”

  She laughed. “Nothing, as always. But it keeps me busy. I was in France until the autumn. Then the war started and I came back to New York, where I was very proper.”

  “Do you ever hear from Verlaine?”

  She frowned slightly and made sketches on the table with her long fingers. “He’s in the Army, I understand. No, I haven’t heard anything from him. I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “Are you painting still?”

  “No,” she said. “How was Hollywood?”

  Paul grinned. “It was perfect, until they asked me to write something for them and then of course I had to go.”

  Maria laughed. “Still Don Quixote?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Sullivan was obviously delighted at being thought impractical yet pure of heart.

  They were silent. Jim studied the smooth, well-cared-for face of Maria Verlaine, aware that the more he looked at her the more beautiful she became. Finally Sullivan asked her what she was doing in New Orleans.

  “I’m en route.”

  “To any place, or just in general?”

  “In general. But most immediately to Yucatán.”

  “What a curious place.”

  “I have a reason. My father died last winter and left me a plantation where they grow whatever it is you make rope out of. Now I have an offer to sell the place. They need me there.”

  “Is it civilized?”

  “No, but it’s near Mérida, which is a proper city.”

  Sullivan turned to Jim and saw that he was looking at Maria Verlaine. He frowned, but neither noticed. “And you,” Maria asked, “are you en route?”

  Sullivan shrugged. “No destination that I know of. Jim and I just drift.”

  “I see.” And it seemed that she did. Then: “Why don’t you drift with me? They say Merida’s fascinating, full of ruins, and if sightseeing gets dull, you can always fly up to Mexico City. Oh, do say you’ll come! It will save my life.” And so it was decided that they would travel together.

  In their hotel room Jim asked Sullivan about Maria. Sullivan was unusually communicative. “She was married to a Frenchman, a bit of a gigolo. They were divorced. She’s had a number of affairs, usually with artists, always doomed. Of course she’s the Isolde sort. Also, she’s attracted to difficult men, particularly homosexuals, and they usually find her attractive, too. Don’t you? I do. I even went to bed with her years ago.”

  Jim wondered if this was true. “She seems very nice,” he said cautiously.

  “You’ll like her. That’s a promise.” They got into bed. Sullivan was enormously pleased with himself. He had now endangered his affair with Jim. He had deliberately brought him into contact with the one woman who might appeal to him. There was now an excellent chance that he would lose Jim, and the thought gave him a profound and bitter pleasure. He would suffer. He would know pain. With infinite care and patience, he set about destroying his own happiness.

  CHAPTER

  6

  I

  YUCATÁN IS A FLAT land of low scrub jungle and sisal fields. The capital city of Mérida is close to the Gulf of Mexico. Sisal plantations surround the city and, from the air, travelers can see the white pyramids of Chichén Itzá and Uxmal, the ancient Mayan cities. So much for the guidebook.

  As they drove from the airport to a hotel in the center of town, the driver pointed out the cathedral, a baroque church with many cracks in its stucco walls, overlooking a great plaza filled with shade trees. Here the natives sat on stone benches, small and brown with faces more Indian than Spanish. Small ragged boys scurried about the plaza, shining shoes and playing games with tops.

  Once a private house, the hotel was a large square pink building whose interior smelled like the inside of an ancient cigar box, musty and stale. A tall bandit with a thick mustache welcomed them. He was the manager and had known Maria Verlaine’s father. He treated them like royalty as he showed them their rooms.

  Jim and Sullivan were given a three-room suite decorated in French Provincial bordello, with a smoky glass chandelier, a tile floor, and two great beds shrouded in mosquito netting. “You will like, yes?” Yes, they would like. And they did. Jim even got used to sleeping in the middle of the day. As for Maria, she was at last removed from a world that had come to bore her; also, she enjoyed being with Jim, aware that a flirtation was now inevitable. He in turn was attracted to her but he was not sure in what way. The game was new to him. He had to learn the rules as he went along. Meanwhile, the opening moves had been made.

  Sullivan knew with a curious prescience exactly what would happen. He was like God. He had arranged a set of circumstances, and now all that he needed to do was to wait for the expected climax.

  After the first week of sightseeing, they did not go about much in the town. Men would come in the morning to talk business with Maria. Sullivan would read and Jim would go swimming at the mineral baths. Nothing more strenuous was possible, th
e heat was too enervating.

  Then Sullivan began to drink heavily. Jim was shocked. Sullivan had seldom drunk before. Now he drank steadily through the day so that by dinnertime he was ready for bed. Politely, if shakily, he would excuse himself, insisting that Jim stay with Maria and keep her company.

  One evening after Sullivan had gone to bed, Jim and Maria sat down together in the patio. A crescent moon shone white and clear in the black night, and a breeze rustled the fronds of the palm trees.

  “I know how difficult it is.” Maria guessed his mood. “Paul’s a strange man, so bitter about everything. Everyone. When you praise another writer, it hurts him, even if you’re praising Shakespeare. If you say you like people with dark hair, he’ll be hurt because his hair isn’t dark. And now he has turned completely away from people. I don’t know why. In the old days he was different. He was more…alive. He felt that he had been given great insight, greater than anyone else’s, and he regarded it as a sacred gift, which it is, though perhaps the gift was never so great as he thought.”

  “But he’s very good, isn’t he?” Jim wanted to know. “Yes,” said Maria quickly, “he’s very good. But not good enough. Not as good as he wanted to be. I think that hurts him.”

  “Is it so important, being a great writer?”

  She smiled. “It’s important to those who think it’s important, who’ve given up everything to be great.”

  “Has Paul given up so much?”

  “Who can tell? Is he capable of love?”