“Splendid. Maybe I’ll see you again, yes.”
“That’d be lovely. The girls would never forgive us if we don’t.”
Van shared out the remaining fresh loaves between them all. “To sustain you in your travels, children,” he said with a grin.
Then he and Armin helped ferrying bags and backpacks up the path to the clearing where the cars were parked. The Danes, Monica, and Edith and Mark had come in three separate rented cars.
The walking and carrying and chatting calmed Armin’s agitation somewhat.
Everyday life had come back, and everything seemed familiar and unchanged. The valley of Le Sureau Noir was an ordinary, extraordinarily beautiful piece of rural France. Was it really a dream? How much did I drink last night, really?
At the parking area, they found also Jean-Pierre’s silver-gray van, with Allie and Michel just unbuckling their seat belts.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” said Armin, smiling.
“We came to drive Rebekka home. And Meintje. So, we thought we’d make it a family outing while we are there, maybe see Rocamadour. Michel has never been. He wants to see the eagles and hawks at the Rocher des Aigles.”
“Sounds like fun,” said Armin.
“You could come too,” said Michel, looking up hopefully to both Van and Armin, pulling at the edges of their t-shirts.
“Maybe next time,” said Van, mussing his hair.
Allie hugged Armin tight and kissed him on both cheeks. She looked beautiful, happy, and a little bashful.
“I, er,” she said. “I am sorry. I think I was a bit of a bitch to you when you arrived.”
No, you think? he wanted to say, but he made himself be as mild and conciliating as Van and smiled. “I didn’t even notice, really. All’s good,” he said, returning the hug.
“So you’ll stay here? Really?” she asked. “I still can’t believe it. Won’t you miss the big city?”
“Pfft. I was always shut in my room, writing. I can do that anywhere. I suppose I’ll have to go back, eventually, to sort out my flat and papers and things. And publish my article of course, unless I can find an internet connection a bit closer.”
Allie laughed. “There is a perfectly good landline at my place that you can use whenever you like. It’s a five-minute drive. Half an hour on foot, across the woods.”
“Wow, you mean you guys have internet, I mean, real internet?”
“Of course we do. What do you think we are, savages?” She laughed and kissed him again, and then Michel, who was jumping up and down like a basketball, wanted to be picked up and kissed too, and even Jean Pierre hugged him like a long-lost brother.
Armin had never seen a man so transfigured. The guy positively beamed with happiness and universal good will.
“I won’t even bother saying goodbye, yet,” said Meintje, smiling at him fondly. “I’ll be staying at Rebekka’s for some weeks, while I visit this whole fairy tale of a place, so I’ll be just over-an-hour’s drive away, they tell me. I’ll see you again before I go back to Amsterdam.”
“That’d be lovely,” said Armin, embracing her.
“Same for us,” said Edith. “Long holiday. We’ll be spending some time with our friend, Katherine, in Domme. We’ll be even closer than Meintje and Rebekka. We’ll come visiting. Or you could come visiting us.”
“I certainly will. Turns out that nobody is really leaving,” he said, laughing.
“You bet. You can’t get rid of us so easily, young man. We are family now.”
“And a good thing too,” he said and was squeezed almost breathless, first by Edith and then by the Danish girls, all of them, including Ella.
Mark and Frederic shook his hand and then embraced him too.
“Well,” said Monica, “I am going back to London. One week in this wilderness is plenty for me, thank you very much.”
“Too patriarchal for your taste?”
“Positively antediluvian.”
“Travel safe,” said Armin.
“Always do,” said Monica. Then she gave him a tight little smile and winked. “You lucky bastard,” she said in an undertone, and then she dumped her bag into the back of her car and slammed the door shut with a bang.
****
Van
Van watched the cars go up the path one by one and gave a long shuddering sigh. He was truly sorry to see them all go, but he was also more than a little relieved to have his place back to himself.
Apart from anything else, between the various chores and the workshop by day and sex by night, his currently very middle-aged human body was ready to drop with exhaustion.
But before Allie and Jean-Pierre left, he took Allie aside, a little way away from the cars.
“Listen,” he said softly, “there is something I want to talk about.”
“Right now? What is it?” she asked, frowning, concerned or alarmed, he couldn’t tell.
“I want Armin to know, about Michel and I.”
“But,” she said, “but…”
“I know, I know, we said, back then, that nobody would know. But that was then. And things have changed, haven’t they? They did. They had to. I am his father. I had to be his father. And I love him. I don’t want it to be a secret. Not to those who matter. It can stay between us. But I want Armin to know, and maybe Jean-Pierre should know too.”
“Oh dear. That might be … problematic.”
“It might. But it might also help him. To understand.”
She fidgeted on her feet for a moment or two, thinking furiously. Then she looked up, and her eyes met his.
She heaved a deep sigh and then gave a tremulous smile, as fragile and beautiful as a hatching butterfly.
“Yes, perhaps it might. It might help all of us. He’s your son. Jean Pierre needs to know.”
“And Michel, too, when he’s ready.”
Allie smiled at that.
“Oh, Michel has always been ready for that. I think perhaps he always knew. But I will tell him. No. We will tell him together.”
Van smiled back to her.
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you. For Michel, for … for everything.”
He hugged her then, with the absolute certainty that it would be okay, that it would not make trouble. He hugged her tight and rocked her gently in his arms a moment and then pushed her away to kiss her forehead, and they parted with a bashful grin and then an awkward laugh, like young new friends at their first embrace. There were tears in her eyes, but he thought, Finally, finally, these are good tears.
When the last car went—the Danes—all of them waving frantically from the windows, Van put an arm around Armin’s shoulders and groaned.
“Be a good lad and help an old man back to his bed, will you?”
Armin laughed. “I’d love to, but I am not in much better shape myself, to be honest. I could sleep until next week.”
“Well, maybe if we lean on each other and take it one step at a time, we can totter down the path together. With some luck, we can make it in one go.”
****
Armin
They did make it in one go and fell in bed together, and Van went straight to sleep.
Armin watched him for a long time, gently stroking his beard from time to time, so lightly that Van didn’t wake up, and his hair, searching perhaps for the knobby stubs of hidden antlers. There were none.
Did I dream it all, then?
Could it ever be possible, he thought, that the gateway I was so convinced existed, does exist, here, under a bloody tree in South West France? Or is it something my mind made up out of desire, a need for validation, and too much homemade nut-liquor?
As he watched his tired lover sleep, he resigned himself to the notion that he had imagined it all, although it felt as real as his bones and the ground under his feet.
He gently let go of that vision, of Van as an ancient forgotten god, and of himself also, the vision he had had of himself through Van’s eyes.
I was so sure o
f it, so sure that it was real. But I will never know, really. I will never know how he sees me. I will never know if I am that beautiful in his eyes. Such communion is not given to mortal men.
Part of him was bereaved, flayed by the loss.
Part of him, the cynical part of him that belonged among Frankfurt’s skyscrapers, gave a little sneering grin and said, “I told you so.”
He hated that sneer.
Shut up. Who cares if he’s not a god? He may not be immortal, but he’s man and god enough for me. I cannot imagine spending my life away from him.
Eventually he snuggled close to Van’s sleeping form, fell asleep, and then woke up again and found Van looking at him with those large liquid brown eyes and smiling. They spent the rest of the day dozing in bed, waking up from time to time to kiss and cuddle. There was no urgent rush to do anything, not even have sex. They had all the time in the world to themselves now, and they made love in gentle kisses and slow caresses and long tender hugs until the late afternoon, when Armin lay flat on his back staring at the strange ceiling of Van’s bedroom. Van kissed every square inch of his neck and shoulders and chest and belly until, almost inevitably, his lips strayed down there. Armin had never been loved, or blown, so slowly, so tenderly, and he thought, Perhaps I am that beautiful to him after all, and he smiled lazily and wove his fingers in Van’s hair, kneading his neck as Van sucked him to a state of slow, delirious, deliquescent ecstasy.
All the while he was looking up at the wall and ceiling, at that hypnotic sculpture of the tree and stags, and it became branded in his imagination.
“Can you draw it for me?” he asked when Van fell flat beside him, breathing deep, humming with quiet contentment.
“Draw? What?”
“The tree and stags. Can you make a drawing of it?”
“I am better with clay than pencils, but I’ll try. What do you want it drawn for?”
“A tattoo. It would make a splendid tattoo.”
Van laughed softly, drawing an arm over his eyes, as if ready to fall asleep again. “I didn’t figure you as a tattoo type.”
“Well, I didn’t figure me as a natural living type either, yet here I am. What do you know, I might even become a proper cob builder, given time.”
Van smiled and put an arm around him, pulling him into a steady, solid half hug that was still as tender as anything Armin had ever experienced. “I am sure you will,” Van said softly, and kissed his forehead.
Later, Van made dinner, a creamy pasta with eggs and cheese and some rather unpromising, shaggy wild greens, which, once steamed in the pan, collapsed into a foamy, frothy sauce that tasted both of honey and green, living sap. They ate in peaceful, companionable silence with their feet locked under the table.
“Wanna come?” said Van after they had done the dishes. “Come down to the garden, I mean,” he added, because he had caught Armin’s small grin. “I must put the ducks to bed and check that all the cottages are closed. Looks like it might get stormy again sometime in the night.”
They walked down through the quiet garden.
“How comes they must be locked at night? You don’t even lock the car, or your own house.”
“Mmm, because they are tasty? You know, predators?”
“Predators? Really? Here?”
“Well, it would be a bloody bold fox that dared to steal my ducks, but believe it or not, there is even such a thing as a stupid fox. Didn’t you hear a vixen screaming at night?”
“That was a vixen? I thought it might be a banshee!”
Van laughed. “Yes, somewhat bloodcurdling, isn’t it? She’s just an old fox, though, with a bad limp. She’s getting desperate. I don’t know whether to feed her or put her out of her misery, honestly. I can be sentimental, too, at times.”
Later, they paused on the edge of one of the many retaining walls that cut the hillside into long uneven terraces, watching the sunset. Van stood behind Armin, embracing him lightly. They looked down over the valley and the darkening woods.
“It was really the strangest vision that I had last night. I could swear that it was all real. Are there magic mushroom in these woods? Perhaps I snorted one by mistake.”
He felt Van shifting lightly behind him, like a man that breathes in deep and rolls his shoulders after being long hunched at a tedious task. Armin settled deeper into his embrace and felt Van’s chin rubbing the top of his head gently. Armin smiled happily. And then frowned. It was true they were standing on a slope, but was Van that tall, really?
He slowly turned and there, in the gathering dusk, stood the majestic antlered man of last night. Armin almost toppled backward off the wall and was only saved by Van grabbing him around the waist.
Van put him back steadily on his feet and then took Armin’s hands in his and drew them up to his lips to kiss the inside of his wrists, first one then the other. Then he raised Armin’s hands higher and laid them on his own head.
Armin tentatively ran his fingers through Van’s familiar dark brown hair and came to the knobby base of undeniable, solid stag antler, rooted to Van’s scalp as surely as a tree on a hilltop.
“It’s true,” he whispered, awed. “It is true.”
“Yes,” said Van. “It is all true. But we won’t talk about it in broad daylight at the breakfast table with a crowd of people. There are very, very few that are ready to know the truth. You of all people should know that. We must teach them in a more … cunning way.”
Armin nodded, looking up at this incredible creature that was both last night’s numinous forest god and his own familiar lover, in a faded t-shirt and old shabby jeans.
“You daft prick,” he said, shaking his head and laughing a little. “You let me think, all day, that I had dreamed it all. I thought I had gone crazy. You fucking asshole. What was it, a test?”
Van smiled and kissed his forehead. “No, my love. More of a … way out.”
“Way out? Out of what for crying out loud?”
“You seemed, I don’t know, upset, this morning. So I thought perhaps you would prefer not to know, not to believe. Just love me as a man. Which would be fine by me.”
“You daft prick,” repeated Armin. “The truth is the truth. You can’t go around believing and disbelieving as you see fit.”
Van laughed out loud at that. “Oh, darling, you’d be surprised how good humans are at that.”
“Yeah, well, I am not one of those humans.”
“I know. I know now,” said Van tenderly and kissed him on the lips, again and again and again.
“But how? How?” asked Armin, when he was finally allowed to talk. “How is it possible?”
“What?” asked Van, smiling gently.
“The antlers, they were gone! And now… How can you change shape? And why?”
Van laughed softly. “Well, as for how, I am a god, you know? My shape is optional, up to a point. I can’t really get rid of the antlers … not in my divine form. But in my, shall we say, human avatar, I have some margin for creativity.”
And Armin saw a ripple running over Van’s face, like wind in a field of barley. Once again, he was younger and then older, his beard going from the darkest chestnut to white and back again, crow’s feet appearing and disappearing.
“Shit,” said Armin, thrown. “You mean you really could look younger if you wished?”
“Would you like me to?” Van’s beard darkened again. His laugh-lines faded. He looked so different. Both gorgeous, and harder, and other, almost a stranger.
Armin was dizzy. “Okay, okay, I get it. Stop it, please. It’s worse than driving a car. It makes me sick. No, I don’t want you to look younger. You look hot as hell, granted. But I like you just the way you were, thank you.”
Van smiled, going gray again. “Thank you. I like myself, too, as I am now. Although it would not hurt wearing a body twenty years younger next time you want to fuck my ass.”
Armin grimaced. “Sorry,” he said.
Van laughed gently. “It was not a complaint.
As for the antlers and all that, there are gods who like to prance about as dragons and Medusas and chimeras and whatnot, and style themselves the prince of this and the lord of that, and they usually end up being skewered by some busybody hero in shining armor. Spectacularly nasty way to pass, even for an immortal. No, incognito is more my style. Especially in this gruesomely cynical age of the world. Unless I meet someone special. Someone who can take the truth on board and is not afraid of it. Someone who can bear my mark.”
He stroked softly that hickey on Armin’s neck, which still had not faded and tingled and picked under his skin. “This was a special magical mark?” asked Armin, awed.
“It was a … seed. My hope. It was up to you whether it would take root or not.”
Armin kissed him.
“All that,” said Van brightly, breaking the kiss with a grin, “and also, honestly, honey, going through a door with these things on my head is an exercise in frustration. And they are a hazard, a real fiend for poking eyes off people. And as for wearing a t-shirt or pullover... No, it would be just button-down shirts and cardigans. It’s a bit of a staid look, don’t you think? It would age me something awful.”
Armin laughed almost to tears, out of nerves, emotion, elation. When the fit was over, he looked up at Van, very seriously again.
“Does anybody else know the truth? Is it only me?” he asked.
“A few know. Very few. I don’t amount to a religion, trust me,” said Van, grinning. “Although the Wiccans were nice enough to reinvent me from scratch, which I take quite kindly, really. They are a bit muddled about the details. But then most religions are, once people start believing from word of mouth rather than experience.”
“You are not, like … er … tempted? To make an appearance? I don’t know. There must be some festival or something with the right, er … public.”
“Oh wow,” said Van, rubbing his beard ferociously. “That sounds intense, doesn’t it? Making my big return at some festival? Set up a tent between the silver amulets and the fortune-teller, maybe? Five euros for a peek of the antlered god? Converted or refunded? Antlered hats for the children, maybe?”
The Elder Man Page 23