by Gore Vidal
The question was direct, and Jim blushed. “I…I don’t know. I think so.” But Jim was not at all certain that he knew what love was. He assumed that it must be something like what he felt for Bob, an emotion which, as he grew older, became even stronger, as though absence in some way preserved it pure. Also what he felt had the virtue of being unstated, a secret all his own. He smiled, thinking of this, and Maria said, “What amuses you?”
“I was just thinking how far I am from Virginia, from the town I was raised in. I was thinking how different my life is from all the rest of them back there.”
She misunderstood. “Do you mind it very much, being different?”
It was the first time she had made direct reference to the affair with Sullivan, and he hated her for mentioning it, furious at being marked. “I’m not as different as all that.”
“I’m sorry.” Aware of her mistake, she touched his arm. “I was clumsy.”
Jim forgave her, but not completely. Obscurely, he wanted to hurt her, to throw her on a bed and take her violently against her will, to convince himself and her and everyone that he was not like the others. A pulse beat in his throat. He was afraid, even as they talked lightly of other matters.
* * *
—
Sullivan was reading when Jim came upstairs. He looked a ghostly figure beneath the mosquito netting. “Have a nice time?”
“What do you mean by that?” Jim was ready for battle.
“With Maria, you know what I mean. She’s attractive, isn’t she?”
“Sure. Sure.” Jim let his clothes drop to the floor; the night was hot; he was suddenly weary.
“Wait till you know her better. She’s a marvelous lover.”
“Shut up.”
“Just wait. That’s all. Just wait.” He grinned drunkenly. Jim cursed him. Then he turned out the lights and got into his own bed. It was several hours before he could sleep.
II
MARIA VERLAINE WAS A curious woman, subtle, not easily apprehended. At forty she seemed a girl, slender, expectant, dreamy, her whole life devoted to that desire and pursuit of the whole which obsesses the romantic and confounds the rest. She moved from affair to affair, drawn to the sensitive, the delicate, the impossible. Her imagination could transform the most ordinary of men into dream-lovers, if the occasion were right and his response sufficient. But in time imagination flagged. Reality intruded, and the affair would end, usually in flight. Yet she continued like some gallant warrior committed to a losing cause; after all, her favorite legend was that of Don Quixote and the impossible quest. Believing this, she had made it her life. But as time passed, she found herself drifting more and more toward men younger than herself, to youths whose delicacy was almost feminine. Adolescents could often give gentleness for gentleness, heightened awareness for heightened awareness, and of course they too believed in love. But she usually stopped short of homosexuals. She had lived too long in Europe. Too many of her contemporaries had been captured by the league of dressmakers and decorators, and she had vowed that she would not be trapped by them, though they amused her, made her laugh, treated her as a confidante. Yet out of kindness, not malice, they tried to unsex her and make her one of them. Fortunately, she had a genius for flight. She knew when to leave without inflicting pain. So they allowed her a temporary visa in their world, and she enjoyed being a tourist.
Now she was attracted to Jim. He was exotic to her. Never before had she been attracted to an ordinary man, much less a boy. Aesthetically he pleased her. She had always been drawn to the Nordic gods. Blue eyes, blond hair, pale skin intrigued her. Did they feel anything at all, these silvery northerners? Were they quite human? But more to the point, he touched her. He was so completely locked in himself, inarticulate, without means of communication, with nothing to offer but his body, which he used almost as a sacrifice to propitiate some dangerous god. She wanted him. If there was some silver Nordic mystery, she wanted to partake of it. She hesitated only because of Paul. At a signal from him she would withdraw. But the signal never came, and she took this to mean complaisance.
One afternoon she drove with Jim in a horse-drawn carriage to a pool where they often swam. Sullivan had stayed at the hotel.
“How long do you think it’ll be before your business is done?” asked Jim.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. They’re so slow here. In a few weeks, perhaps. You must be terribly bored.”
“No, I’m not bored. Not yet, anyway. I even like hot weather. But I want to go to New York before the fall.”
“And start playing tennis again?”
“Yes, I like to work.”
“Will you live in New York with Paul?” The question was asked.
Jim paused. “Maybe. But I’m on my own.” The question was answered.
“What did you do in Hollywood?”
“Taught tennis. Not much.”
“Hollywood must be interesting. I’ve never been there for very long. Did you know…” She mentioned names and he answered “yes” or “no.” Then, subtly, she asked names of homosexual figures; he answered “yes” to many of them. They talked, finally, of Shaw.
“I met him once in New York. I thought he was a vain little man.”
“He’s not so bad when you know him.” Jim was loyal. “He isn’t very happy, God knows why. He has everything.”
“Except what he wants.”
“I don’t think he knows what he wants, like the rest of us.”
Maria was amused: she had underrated Jim. “I expect you’re right. Not many people know. And even when they do, it’s not easy finding it.”
“I think I’d like money,” said Jim. “Enough to live anyway.”
“Is that all?”
“Well, there’s one other thing.”
“And that?”
“Is my secret.” He laughed.
* * *
—
The summer passed. Maria’s business was done but they did not leave. Sullivan drank. Jim swam with Maria and looked at ruins. The heat was almost palpable. To cross a street left one wet with perspiration. But they remained, and no one spoke of leaving, not even Jim.
All three were waiting.
One day they visited the ruins of Chichén Itzá and stayed overnight in the adjacent inn, where they were picked up by a couple from Seattle named Johnson. The Johnsons were young, lively, and innocent. Mrs. Johnson (“I read everything”) was thrilled to meet Sullivan. Actually, she had read only one of his books and had forgotten what it was about. Even so, she was excited at meeting a genuine author.
That night, after dinner, they sat outside among the palm trees and Mrs. Johnson did most of the talking. They were all pleasantly drowsy. Maria sat with her hands folded in her lap, looking at the ruins in the distance: pyramids and square ornate buildings monstrous by starlight. Jim tried to hide his yawns. He wanted to go to bed. Sullivan drank tequila and Mrs. Johnson’s praise.
“I really do envy you writers. You have such a good time going around from place to place. You know, I used to think I’d be a writer. You know, somebody like Fannie Hurst. But I guess I had more important things to do.” She looked fondly at her husband.
“Yes,” said Sullivan. “I’m sure you did.”
“Are you married, Mr. Sullivan? If you’ll excuse me being personal.”
“I’m divorced.”
“Oh, now that’s a pity. This may surprise you, but I didn’t really live until George and I were married. But I expect you’ll be getting married again, Mr. Sullivan. I mean a distinguished man like yourself and still young…”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s what they all say!” Mrs. Johnson chattered gaily about marriage and its heady pleasures.
Jim always felt oddly superior when he was with normal people who assumed that everybody shared their tast
es. If they only knew, he thought, smiling to himself in the dark. He glanced at Maria and saw that she was sitting still as the statue they had seen that day among the ruins, a goddess with a skull mask. Paul had laughed when he saw the stone figure; he found it significant that the only goddess in the Mayan hierarchy was Death.
“Are you a writer, too, Mrs. Verlaine?” The Johnsons had decided that these three people were a bit unusual, traveling together, but that they were probably all right. If they weren’t all right, then it was even more interesting.
“No,” said Maria, “I am nothing.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Johnson turned to Jim, but then decided not to question him; he looked too young to have done anything worth talking about.
“Don’t you find the Indians here absolutely charming, Mr. Sullivan?”
“In what way?”
“Well, they’re so basic and yet…inscrutable. I think they’re probably quite happy even if they are poor. Certainly it’d be a mistake to educate them. They’d just be miserable, that’s all.” She talked awhile about Indians. Then, inevitably, they spoke of the movies.
Mrs. Johnson saw almost as many movies as she read books. She was happiest when she was seeing a movie made from a book that she had read. She always remembered every character and she disliked unfaithful representations. “Of course my favorite actor is Ronald Shaw. He’s so forceful. I happened to be reading in a movie magazine—I see them at the hairdresser, they always seem to have them—and I read where he was going to marry that Spanish actress Carlotta Repollo, who is years older than he is. Such a pity, don’t you think?”
Sullivan glanced at Jim, who blushed. Maria was also amused. Three people in disguise were performing a play for an audience that could never know or appreciate the quality of the performance.
“I should like to see the ruins,” said Maria suddenly.
“By starlight?” Sullivan was mocking. “Well, why not? You take her, Jim.”
“Well…” He looked at Maria.
“I think we should all go,” she said.
“No. You two go. You’re the romantic ones.”
The Johnsons looked at the trio, aware of undertones. Then Maria left the table and Jim followed her. They walked out of the small square of electric light and into the darkness. The starlight made no shadows in the cool night. Like disembodied spirits, they walked down an avenue of cropped grass and then, at the same instant, without words, they sat down side by side on the shattered stone remains of a forgotten god.
Jim looked up at the stars, brilliant and white in the black sky. He breathed deeply. There was the scent of sage in the air as well as the dry odor of sunburned stone.
He turned to Maria and saw that she was waiting. He was surprised that he was not afraid.
“One feels dead here.” Her voice was distant and remote among the ruins.
“Dead?”
“In a peaceful way. All things finished, inevitable, like one of these stones: there is to be nothing else.”
“If death is like that.”
“It must be.”
They did not speak for a long while. At last Maria spoke. “We’ve been playacting.”
“Yes.”
“And dishonest.”
“With Paul?”
“With Paul. Ourselves.” She sighed. “I wish I knew more about people. I wish I could understand why things are as they are.”
“Nobody knows.” Jim was amazed to find himself playing at wisdom. “I don’t know why I do what I do or even who I am.”
“I don’t know who you are either.” They looked at one another, faces white and indistinct.
“Myself. That’s all. Limited.”
“Limited? Not really. Actually you’re everything, man, woman, and child. You can be whatever you choose.”
“What am I now?”
“Until a few moments ago a child.”
“What am I now?”
“I don’t know.”
He began to tremble; he began to hope. Perhaps it could happen.
“Are you afraid?”
“No. Not afraid.” Nor was he at that moment.
“Could you kiss me?”
“I could kiss you,” he said, and he did. He kissed the Death Goddess.
* * *
—
Everything was different afterward; different and yet the same, for nothing finally happened. Jim failed. He could not perform the act. He was inadequate. Yet in its way, his relationship with Maria was a love affair. They were with each other as much as possible. They were confidants. Yet when it came to physical contact, except for that first kiss, Jim could not bear the softness and smoothness of a woman. Maria was baffled. Because he was both masculine and drawn to her, she found his failure all the more mysterious. There seemed nothing to be done except to continue as lovers who never touched. Sullivan, however, accepted the surface affair for an actual one, and the agony it gave him was exquisite.
November came and still they did not move from Merida.
Jim and Maria were together most of the time. Sullivan refused to join them during the day. He had begun to drink after breakfast; by early evening he was often vivacious and amusing but by the end of dinner he was inevitably heavy and bitter. Their lives stopped until December, when the United States went to war with Japan, and they were once more part of the world. Sullivan stopped drinking. Plans were made as they sat in the patio after dinner. Both Sullivan and Jim were excited, brought to life. Maria was sad. “I don’t like to think about it,” she said. “All my life there has been a war, just begun, just finished. There seems to be no escape.”
Sullivan paused in a nervous turn about the patio. “We’ll have to go back,” he said to Jim.
Jim nodded, caught up in the drama of new things. “I want to enlist before I’m drafted,” he said, pleased at the words if not the thought.
“It’s so senseless.” Maria was vehement. “If I were a man I’d run away, hide, desert, turn traitor.”
Sullivan smiled. “Five years ago I would have done just that.”
“Why not now?”
“Because this is…something to do.”
She turned to Jim. “Do you feel the same?”
“It solves a lot of things.”
“Perhaps.” She seemed unconvinced.
“We should go back as soon as possible,” said Sullivan.
“What will you do?” asked Maria.
“Be a soldier. Or a correspondent. Whatever I can get.”
“It looks,” said Maria, “as if our Mexican vacation is at an end. I’ve enjoyed it.”
“So have I.” Jim looked at her and felt a sudden warmth; threat of war and parting drew him closer to her.
“And so have I.” Sullivan’s voice mocked them. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. We’ve made an interesting trio, haven’t we?”
“Have we?” Maria was bleak.
It was decided that they return to the States by way of Guatemala City.
* * *
—
They rode comfortably above clouds, mountains, dark green jungle. It was pleasant to sail over the hot steaming land as though they were no longer earth creatures but something more than human, elemental, with no difficulties that could not be overcome by rigid silver wings.
Jim had bright visions of himself in the Air Corps, flying across continents and oceans, able to move rapidly over the earth and leave no scar. He longed for flight.
Guatemala City was a relief after Yucatán. The city was cool with streets which looked as if they had been recently scrubbed. The people were cheerful, the air good. And wherever one looked, volcanoes loomed, sharp, veined blue with shadow, topped by rain clouds.
At the hotel, Sullivan sent cables to various newspaper friends who might help him to get an assignment as war correspond
ent. Then, communication with the real world established, Jim and Sullivan went to their room.
“It’s almost over.” Sullivan stood at the window, looking at mountains. Jim unpacked.
“The trip?”
“The trip, of course.”
“Yes,” said Jim, who knew what he meant. “I guess we’ll split up when we get to New York.”
Sullivan smiled. “I doubt if the Army would send us to war together.”
“Everything ends. I wonder why.”
“Don’t you know?” Sullivan was scornful. “Don’t you know?”
“Do you?”
“Certainly. When you fall in love with someone else, that automatically ends the original affair, doesn’t it?”
“You mean Maria?”
“Yes, I mean Maria.”
“It’s…a very complicated business, Paul. It’s not what it seems to be.” But Jim failed to tell the whole truth; it was too humiliating.
Fortunately Sullivan was not interested in facts; his intuition was quite enough; whatever the details were, the result was bound to be the same. “Anyway, I knew all along that this would happen. I let it happen.”
“Why?”
But Sullivan could never admit to anyone why he was driven to behave as he did. “Because,” he said, and he knew he was not convincing, “I thought it would be the best thing that could happen to you. She’s a wonderful woman. She can get you out of this world.”
“Why should I get out?” For the first time Jim admitted what he was.
“Because you’re never going to fit into this sort of relationship, and so the sooner you find your way to something else the better it’ll be for you.”
“Maybe.” Jim looked at Paul. The dark circles had gone from beneath his eyes. He was still attractive to Jim, even now, when everything was over. They spoke kindly to one another. Yet finally, each was so perfectly dishonest that neither was able to feel the slightest regret at what was ending.
* * *
—