Fall Love

  She pressed her cold fingers into the wingtips of his shoulders, squeezing his skin until her grip was like a band around his bones. Her face resolved back in his focus to reprimand him. The tendons stood out on her neck.

  "No right," she was saying, "you had no right to come in here and go through my things."

  It was a blessing Bryce wasn't more clear-minded. He didn't know himself why he'd opened that door or what he had hoped to find inside the attic. In the absence of his uncle's ghost, a photograph of his face, an envelope addressed in his scrawling hand? He wanted to be reassured that the past had happened, but he wasn't planning to take it away with him.

  That he'd seen it at all aroused his aunt. In the horrible minute she held him hard in her clenched grip, he felt an oppressive, paralyzing guilt that made him into an intruder where he had once felt almost at home. That was the real shock, that she faced him now as an adversary. He was guilty, but he'd meant no harm. In chiding him, in clutching him so cruelly, she cast him out, but when Bill was alive, he remembered, she had clung to him with clearly another intent.

  Bryce did not like surprises in the dark, midnight melodramas with irate relatives where he felt trapped and which still revealed the blank space where someone was missing. His aunt's animosity anguished him in the airless attic. She evidently meant him to think she would hurt him, and she made a thief in name of him. Held too close to Margaret's distorted face in an insistent embrace, Bryce's strongest sensation was of a future when his parents, also, would have died.

  Clasping her wrists, he removed her hands and stepped away from her. Without relinquishing his grasp that inhibited hers, he repeated apologies to placate her, and at last was able to close the attic door with them both outside it.

  In the hallway he saw her open her mouth and inhale as if to continue her tirade, but walking her out had given him back his will, and his voice vanquished hers. Still, it surprised him to see her gulping on empty air. He escaped from her into the spare room and shut the door. He lay down on the bed without waiting to see if she'd stand guard outside the attic, but in a little while he got up again. She'd left the hall light burning. Once more, his eyes fell across the two closed doors on the landing; then he closed his own. Even as he slipped his body between the softnesses of the worn sheets, Bryce doubted that he would ever again sleep in his uncle's house which now belonged to his aunt.

  His head reeled, but he must have drifted off, for he woke with a parched throat. Not only the slaking of thirst, but a total immersion took place at four in the morning. No one else was there to see Bryce's tears scar the lucent surface of the water in the bathtub or care that he went under without soaping himself.

  The next morning he was half-inclined to disbelieve the incident. Before he saw his aunt again, he had determined not to speak of their midnight meeting. He took polite, distant leave of her without waiting for breakfast. By the time he arrived at his parents' house, the Memphis relatives had gone.

  He went straight to his room. The bed was made and the curtains tied back and blowing as if no one at all had spent the night there. He thought of how, after over two months, he had gotten used to sleeping alone, but not to waking up that way. All this time while he had been suffering the loss of Bill, he had missed Paul. But there was no communication between them.

  He went outside and lay down on the lawn, looking up at the sky. In the clear air, small leaves twirled and fell. He felt the chill of the grass through the clothes on his back and heard the squeak of a dead tree in the wind. Passing shadows left their stain on him: wheeling, soundless shadows cast from a flock of birds so far away in flight their very existence seemed a divine one.

  As the season passed, Bryce stayed on in his native state. Long before the somber silvers and browns covered the earth of a Southern November, an elegiac tone came to temper his autumn. He tried to salvage his love—for Paul, for Bill—and kept himself company all the while.

  Chapter 9

  Paul had first come into Bryce's life nearly two years earlier, in October, 1978. One afternoon late in that month, Bryce had had an unexpected call from his jet-set friend Simón, Latin American by birth and now a European resident. Three years before he had been Bryce's lover, and, after he had moved to Paris, he had continued to keep in touch when he regularly passed through New York on his inter-continental jaunts. Now he was back again, with an evening free. Bryce proposed dinner followed by the theater and left the choice to his friend. Simón was intrigued by a drama based on a traditional fairy tale retold as a modern dilemma with a politically relevant moral.

  At the first intermission Bryce and Simón remained in their seats in the first row center of the mezzanine. So far Bryce had found the play a bit thin. While Simón studied the program, he diverted himself by observing the people below him in the orchestra. Now the rows were half-empty, and there were people shuffling in and out, while others stood to let them pass. The tall, straight figure and bright blond locks of a man sitting with an auburn-haired woman and a dark-haired man caught Bryce's attention like a beacon of light. The woman sat between the men, and the blond man leaned across her, evidently speaking to the other man. His face was sharply angled, with smooth planes. Almost like a cubist face, Bryce thought, not handsome, but unforgettable.

  Just then Bryce's vision tricked him, though he had been seeing the stage perfectly, for the blond man blurred, appeared double, in indistinct outline. Bryce worried that he might be having an exacerbation of his illness. He turned to Simón beside him and was relieved to see his friend's bent head resolve into focus, grey at the temples and creased around the eyes. Simón was absorbed in his program, and Bryce found his calmness reassuring. When the second act began, Bryce's vision had become entirely normal again, and he hoped that his eyesight had only blurred because he was tired.

  The play was more interesting in the second act, the dialogue witty and satirical, and Bryce forgot to worry about himself. At the second intermission, he and Simón went into the lobby and bought drinks. As soon as they returned to their seats, the theater went dark. Bryce didn't see the blond man again until after the show was over. His tall, light head stood above the crowd in the lobby. With Simón beside him, Bryce hung back, waiting for the crowd to disperse. He felt exhausted and leaned on his cane. The blond man disappeared out the door.

  Call it chance, coincidence, or fate: Bryce's initial gaze at Paul was followed several weeks later by an actual meeting in a café downtown on a gray, gloomy afternoon. It was November, not yet winter, though the day held the promise of winter—or the threat of it. Bryce, brought downtown by an errand, had sought a refuge and a hot cup of coffee when the cold drizzle finally fell from the sodden sky that had been urging it all along. Miserable in the rain, he had felt instantly better inside the humid warmth of the café. Its crowded interior was dim with age. Oil paintings in heavy, ornate frames hung on the dark walls, their surfaces obscured by dirt and layers of yellow varnish. Bryce heard the hiss of steam being released through the valves of a cappuccino machine. Automatically a feeling of security came over him, without explanation. His mind searched for other sounds that had comforted him in the past. He remembered Mississippi nights in the 1960s, when, lying in bed, waiting for sleep, he'd listened for the distant whistle of a train, and the bullfrogs bellowing after it. But, in the meantime, he reflected, Meridian had changed, and so had the trains. He had left the South for New York where there were many more exotic stories than his, and all that mattered about the trains was that they came. In New York there would always be passengers to fill them.

  Bryce looked up from his reverie to see an influx of people at the door of the café. They were dripping wet. Evidently it was pouring. In front was a group of four college-aged youths. Two women had shorter haircuts than the man between them, and the third woman had a purple streak dyed in her hair. Under outsized, secondhand overcoats, they wore mandatory black accessorized by an assortment of earrings, studs, and chains. They were being stared at by a m
iddle-aged man in a mackintosh, who stood in the doorway shaking out his umbrella, until another man behind him tapped him once on the shoulder in a gesture of impatience. This man was taller; his blond head was uncovered and yet didn't appear wet. At once Bryce recognized the man who had attracted his attention at the theater a few weeks before.

  Suddenly it seemed that all the tables were taken, but the tall man hadn't gotten one. He had remained too long in the doorway. Bryce observed him as he navigated the narrow spaces between tables, unable to avoid brushing up against damp coats hung over the backs of chairs. For several minutes the man studied the display of pastries in the glass case, while two waiters hurried to and fro, taking orders, carrying trays. No one seemed to take any notice of him except Bryce, who sat as motionless as the ruined painting behind him, unwilling to do anything but watch.

  The blond man turned from the display, scanning the room. His glance fell on Bryce and the empty seat across from him. Their eyes met. The man gestured, pointing to the chair, and Bryce nodded. The man smiled. He exchanged words with a waiter crossing directly in front of him and then came striding toward Bryce.

  "Is it all right if I join you? You're quite sure I won't disarrange you?" he asked. His voice was flat, somewhat high in timbre, not the voice Bryce had been expecting.

  "Of course not," said Bryce politely, rising to his feet to welcome the man and deliberately omitting the fact that he'd seen him once before. But his balance was unsteady, and he gripped the table's edge. He saw a quick, observant look cross the man's face, but its expression was unreadable when he addressed Bryce next.

  "Thanks, I'm looking forward to this," he said smiling, and introduced himself, but before Bryce could do likewise, a waiter had arrived and was setting down dishes.

  "I took the liberty of ordering you a pastry," said the man whom Bryce now knew as Paul. "The lemon tart is delicious, but I'm having chocolate cravings today," he continued, directing to himself the plate with the eclair.

  Not critical but curious, Bryce asked, "What made you decide on the lemon tart for me?"

  "Because it's subtle and elegant," Paul replied, not skipping a beat.

  Not knowing what to make of him, Bryce laughed. In fact, he preferred the lemon tart. Though he didn't foresee their eventual relationship, living together, sharing their nights and days, Bryce realized when he took the tart that he was accepting more than a sweet. But he liked Paul's energy and didn't mind his pretensions. Paul's banter banished the remains of Bryce's bleakness, and it didn't seem to matter to Paul that Bryce wasn't as healthy as he was.

  That Bryce had actually seen Paul first, literally picking him out in a theater audience, he would never divulge to Paul. He wanted Paul to believe that he had been the discoverer. Bryce was not accustomed to holding forth on the spur of the moment, but Paul evidently was. While Bryce listened, Paul spoke of music and movies. Abruptly, Bryce asked Paul what kind of performer he was.

  "One who never need talk as much as this," Paul said, and Bryce wondered, had this man, who seemed so cool, gotten nervous?

  "No?"

  "I dance," said Paul.

  "Oh," said Bryce. He thought he ought to have guessed it, yet still surprised himself with his offer to see Paul perform. Paul didn't seem startled at all. Apparently he was accustomed to such interest, perhaps even expected it. He promised to mail Bryce a flyer and with this reason noted down his address.

  Together they walked out of the café, into the gray, still dripping afternoon, and parted immediately at the door. "I've got to run," Paul said, and did. So Bryce had left it up to Paul in the beginning, and he hadn't had to wait very long. The following week, before Bryce had received a flyer in the mail, Paul called to ask him to a rehearsal. With the phone at his ear and Paul's voice at the other end, Bryce found himself unaccountably shielding his eyes. He was almost ashamed of his degree of gladness at Paul's invitation.

  Warned by Paul that what he would see was only a practice, Bryce ascended the front steps of a theater existing in isolation on the Upper East Side at the appointed time, in the early evening. Flanking the porch, supporting a classical pediment, were wide wooden columns whose peeling paint gave a decrepit look to what once must have been a noble facade. Bryce wondered how old the building was. Most of the old wooden construction in Manhattan had burned down long ago and been replaced by brick or stone or steel-and-glass. It pleased him to discover that this entrance, while dilapidated, had survived.

  Following Paul's directions, Bryce took the wheezing elevator up to the third floor. Around a corner, down a corridor, two doors faced each other. Bryce heard the tinkling of a piano through one and selected it. He was mistaken. He had opened the door on a children's ballet class. There was the instructress, thin, strong, and sallow, with rod in hand, and there were the little girls in black leotards, pink tights, and soft shoes, their hair twisted back into neat small buns, already assuming a dancer's silhouette.

  Embarrassed by his intrusion, Bryce quickly closed the door. His brief glimpse left its impression on him of these children's concentration made careful by a sterner authority.

  He hesitated and then knocked on the other door. It was opened by a petite Oriental woman wearing a shiny lycra unitard and striped legwarmers. Under her straight black bangs, her eyes questioned Bryce. He looked past her for Paul and found him kneeling beside a portable tape player on the floor.

  "He invited me," Bryce said, and she nodded.

  "Come in," she said.

  Paul didn't look up at first. He seemed absorbed. Bryce stood over him, feeling shy, an intruder in street clothes. "Hello."

  "Hi there!" Paul sprang up, embracing him warmly. "I didn't see you come in."

  He introduced Bryce, trying to put him at ease. Bryce nodded politely each time he was told a name, though the names came in one ear and went out the other. One man was quite a bit older, already gray. He was the artistic director. Paul unfolded a chair for Bryce to sit on. The six dancers took their places as if the two ends of the long, bare room were the wings of a stage. Bryce sat by the tape player. When he was asked to, he'd change the cassette.

  The dance began, and the director interrupted. He went over a particular placement, and they started again. The music was Ravel, for violin and piano. Hearing it, Bryce pictured a cold night, a bright moon, silvery ice, and darkness. The dancers were weaving spaces around each other. Then they formed three pairs, meeting and turning in intricate patterns. The men lifted the women, first by grasping their thighs. They raised them higher, supporting the smalls of their backs.

  These rising movements seemed to Bryce like surges of a feeling still mostly submerged. He watched carefully, even critically. He observed that twice Paul fell out of step with the other dancers and then quickly recovered. He saw that Paul caught on, but did not catch fire, and still it seemed to Bryce that Paul's presence was too great for the spare, dusty room.

  Several times the director stopped the dancers to correct them or to emphasize a movement. At last they went through the entire dance without a pause. Abruptly, the rehearsal was over.

  Bryce was too self-conscious to applaud. He was surprised at the extent to which he'd felt involved with the dance and the music. He recalled the melody afterwards as he waited for Paul to change. Paul came out, appearing paler and slighter in jeans and a jacket. He had taken so long that the others were already gone, and Bryce had the pleasure of Paul's approach all to himself. The blond hair was dampened, combed back.

  "I'm starving," Paul said. "How about dinner?"

  It was all right with Bryce. Because the neighborhood was familiar to Paul, it was he who made the selection, leading Bryce to a fish and seafood restaurant. It was popular and noisy, with nets draped over panelled walls as a marine motif, dim lighting, and candles on the tables. Faced with a half-hour wait, the two men sat at the bar. As he took a stool, Paul's thigh brushed negligently against Bryce's.

  For Bryce, no touch could be casual. Instinctively he drew away
, but his thoughts were on the other man's body. He did not yet desire Paul, nor yet adore him, but he admired him, though he had hardly an idea of what Paul was really like.

  The waiter motioned them to an empty table. Continuing their conversation, Paul held forth, describing the members of the company for Bryce's benefit, but he was not quite as exuberant as on that other day. The rehearsal had tired him. Bryce thought of how Paul's strength must be regularly sapped and regularly renewed.

  Grilled red snapper and pan-fried flounder accompanied by salad, garlic bread, and baked potato made up the second of several meals they enjoyed together over the course of the next couple of months. Bryce remained reserved with Paul, but a friendship slowly began to develop. Their meetings took place in restaurants, cafés, and bars. It was Paul who first invited Bryce to visit his home.

  They had planned to hear some music in a club, but when they arrived, they found that the set was sold out. They stood outside on the sidewalk in the cold, wondering what to do. A freezing wind scattered debris in the street. "Why don't we bag it and go over to my place?" Paul suggested, and, not having an alternative plan, Bryce was willing to let Paul take charge. He agreed instantly, without considering the implications.

  His apartment was a temporary arrangement, Paul explained to Bryce as they headed east together in a cab, an illegal sublet in the East Village that he was lucky to get because the rent was low. But it probably wasn't what Bryce was used to, he continued, as if he knew. The cab turned down a narrow side street lined with tenement buildings. Some were in better shape than others, but none were really nice. Paul told the driver to stop in front of one painted a dull red, which appeared to be in decent condition. The two men split the fare, and got out.

  "Well, here we are," said Paul. "It's one flight up, facing the back."