Bryce felt foolish, watching Paul eye the package with disdain. I bought the gift on an impulse, but why did I attach Paul's name to it? he wondered. Out of concern, out of pity, for the same reasons, he concluded, that Paul might have sent me the harp that he'd really bought for himself. Hence, the gift is being offered in repayment for the harp, and out of anger, too- Bryce admitted to himself—as a substitute for the emotion, the love that we don't give each other.
"Please, open it," Bryce urged.
"All right." Without enthusiasm, without suspense, Paul untied the bow, laboring over the knot. He unfolded the wrapping paper with exaggerated care. Inside the box, under tissue paper, he found a graceful ceramic bowl, cream-colored with a black geometric design.
"It's Southwestern pottery, isn't it fine?" Bryce exclaimed. He didn't resist the impulse to stand right next to Paul, crowding him, as if he were somehow claiming the bowl just as he was relinquishing it. "A modern copy of a thousand-year old piece found in a tomb. The original would have been smashed, you know, when it was buried, so that it could never be used again."
As he heard the sound of his voice, eager to impart knowledge and persuade, Bryce was embarrassed. When I'm nervous, I become boring, he admitted to himself. He suddenly realized why he had desired the Indian bowl enough to buy it, and why he had decided to make it into a present for Paul. It was as if, in giving Paul an object that reminded him of Bill, he was hoping to transmit to him a desirable quality of his uncle—his equanimity or his graceful resignation.
Paul picked up the bowl, studying its pattern. Four identical winged figures outlined in black radiated from a single head.
"The design is called 'Flying Birds,'" Bryce explained, tracing it with an index finger.
Slowly, Paul set the bowl down on the bed, as if it were heavy, and Bryce automatically drew back his hands, clenching his fists. He watched as Paul reclined against the pillow and closed his eyes. Assuming he was indifferent, Bryce felt annoyed. He realized that he was expecting that Paul would be more appreciative.
With this recognition, Bryce stiffened slightly, recoiling from himself. He studied Paul more closely. Paul lay still, breathing shallowly, as if he were asleep. Bryce observed the violet shadows under Paul's eyes and the translucent cast of his skin.
And as he watched Paul, Bryce felt a change stealing over himself, as if he were being transformed. Instead of opposing himself to Paul, instead of expecting something and not getting it and growing angry about it, he began to identify with Paul. He ceased to demand appreciation from him or gratitude.
He was struck by this irony: for as long as he and Paul had been together, he had wished he were more like Paul. Sometimes he'd tried to imagine that he was. Now that Paul was more like him, he felt like Paul.
He recognized in Paul's attitude the same resistance that he used to feel when his parents gave him presents. He had never been able to take any joy in their gifts because he was afraid of what might be demanded in return. He recognized that he had been behaving like his family by obliging Paul to be grateful.
What ritual of gift-giving has been evolving between us—the harp and then the bowl? he wondered. The exchange now struck him as silly, his expectation presumptuous. He lifted the bowl and placed it out of the way, on top of the dresser.
He sat down on the bed as gently as he could. He laid his hands over Paul's. Paul remained still, but Bryce believed he observed Paul steal a glance at him under fluttering eyelids. Perhaps Paul is only pretending to be asleep, he thought. The possibility that Paul was secretly watching him filled him with excitement. He wondered how long the pretense would last, and how Paul would betray himself.
Gently Bryce began to stroke Paul's arms. He could sense Paul's response, under the passive mask of his false sleep. I'm not mistaken; Paul is acting, he thought.
Paul's body lay open to him like a pool. He seemed to float, motionless, on the bed. Bryce couldn't help himself; he lay down full-length beside Paul.
At last, at long last, he had Paul to himself. He breathed Paul's scent, was warmed by his warmth. In these sensations, dear and familiar, their months of estrangement were obliterated. Yet a part of him shrank back. Abstinence had made him afraid.
Still, Paul did not stir. He did not betray himself. He is waiting for me to awaken him, Bryce realized. Nothing will happen unless I want it to. But now, at last, he wants it, too.
Bryce's fear dissolved. As gently and effortlessly as into water, he slipped into Paul's fantasy. He began to touch Paul deliberately, enticingly. He willed Paul to remain dormant under his caress until he could bear it no longer—a membrane stretched to the breaking point. Bryce felt their wills in unison, and when at last Paul groaned and gave himself away, Bryce exulted. He, too, was transported, swept by relief, and comforted.
* * *
When René had first asked Jeanne to come to Paris with him for a few days, she supposed that it was only a whim, and so she refused. But he persisted and she finally capitulated, intrigued. Why not? she'd thought. Wasn't this what I was longing for last summer—a foreign country to visit and a new man to share it with?
All this first day in Paris, she'd thought, Here I am, on another adventure. Just yesterday they had left New York. It was the second week in December. All night they flew into the dawn, arriving in Paris in the morning. They took a taxi from the airport to a narrow, graceful hotel on the Left Bank. Soon they went out again and ate omelets, bread, and salad in a bar. Afterwards, drinking espresso in a café, they sat at a tiny table next to a plate glass window. The café also had a shiny zinc bar and tile floors. "All Parisians have two homes, their apartment and their café," said René. They took turns inventing their ideal café, looking out the window from time to time at passersby. Like waves lapping a shore, Jeanne thought, the pedestrians seem to wash up against the glass and then recede.
René paused, reaching for Jeanne's hand. "It's almost as if they don't even exist," he said.
She was consumed by the certainty which neither of them spoke aloud though she knew he was thinking it, too: Soon we are going to make love for the first time. She remembered how he'd surprised her while she watched the swans at The Mount. When was that? Three weeks ago? Almost a month? From that initial contact, she had guessed that they might have to make love. Ever since, they had been slowly approaching it, tacitly postponing it, then saving it for Paris: a celebration.
They wandered for hours down grand boulevards and twisting streets. He pointed out to her monuments and landmarks that she had once seen before, as a college girl on a tour, and others that she had never visited. They drank Chablis with oysters and ate trout with almonds for dinner. Leisurely, arm in arm, they strolled back to the hotel.
Jeanne was laughing at a remark René made, but her laughter stopped at the door to their hotel room. As soon as she entered it, she headed for the balcony, as if she hadn't already had enough of the chilly, dirty air, as if she were stifling.
Now that the inevitable was soon to happen, Jeanne realized that she had misjudged what this consummation was really about- not just an adventure, but a transformation.
I am going to marry René, she thought. We are going to spend our lives together. I feel this, even if he doesn't. She was struck by the idea, It's almost as if we are married already and this is our honeymoon.
So overcome was she that she had to make a gesture of escape. Flinging open the windows, she stepped out on the tiny balcony, still wearing her coat. The curtains fluttered white behind her. She overlooked a narrow courtyard. Just across from the hotel was an apartment building. Most of its windows were dark, but one was lit, and she could look into a room lined with books, where a man sat in an armchair, wearing a robe, reading.
She gazed at this scene, scarcely seeing it, so focused was she on what she couldn't see: René still inside the room, watching her. She knew he was waiting to see if she would come back in, or if he should join her outside. Her heart was beating wildly, her mouth was dry. If
this is my fate, she thought to herself, then I can't escape it. But I can't help resisting.
But she remembered how he had presented himself to her that evening at The Mount—as a prospective fiancé. So maybe he wasn't just being brash then, she considered, perhaps he'd surmised all along what she only just conjectured. Besides, the air outside was cold and gritty, and she was cold, too, so she retreated back inside the room. She saw that he was about to speak and then thought better of it. They exchanged a clear, durable glance. She observed him, not yet touching him. She studied his slightness, his narrow face almost like a woman's, his surprising dimples when he smiled. She regarded his honey-colored skin, his brown hair in ringlets like a Classical statue, his eyes like a cat's, but more thickly lashed.
These features, still a stranger's, she told herself, frightened by how much she wanted him.
He advanced, and she thought he was going to embrace her. Instead he locked the windows and drew the curtains and secured the chain on the door. He is careful, even obsessive, she observed, disappointed.
At last, at his touch, a shiver went through her like a wave. The sound of his voice calmed her. Raising her face to his, he kissed her, and at once he began to undress her.
He took her by surprise. He slipped off her coat. He unbuttoned her sweater and slid it off her shoulders, but no sooner did it slip to the floor than she bent to retrieve it. Neatly she folded it, arranging it over the back of the chair. She did the same thing with her skirt and blouse. Each time he paused and watched her without comment.
It's almost like a game, she thought. I'm obsessive, too, methodical, just as he is. She wondered why she was killing spontaneity by acting so deliberately, but she couldn't help herself. I'm trying to exert some kind of control, because I really don't have any, she realized. At least he doesn't seem to mind.
She laid her hands under his shirt. His flesh was warm and dry. The skin over his ribs was wonderfully smooth. She put her head against his chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart. Isn't he nervous? she wondered.
"Tell me what you like," he said.
What I like is for him to sense what I like, without having to ask, she thought to herself. But she didn't say this, because then they would be having a discussion about it rather than intuiting it. Instead, she just smiled. So he is nervous after all, she realized.
Her belief that they were bound to be together, that this had to happen, made her feel confident. He was hers—or he would be soon.
They lay down in the white bed. As he touched her, she suddenly thought of the white swans swimming in the dark pool at The Mount. She pictured light suspended in darkness, her life in shades of black and white.
Paul and Althea were an experiment that didn't work out, she suddenly decided. Or at least Althea was an experiment. Paul was a fling.
René lay against her, his soft weight pressing her, growing against her leg. And it seemed to her, as he entered her, that she was burying the past; all that had happened to her with Paul and Althea could disappear into the dark depths of her. She would never have to speak of it. Her wild oats, sown, were being plowed under. She understood that she had not changed her life by herself; it was being changed by a man, in the old-fashioned way.
She thought, I don't have to hide my love for René. It's an acceptable love. I can wear it out into the world, like clothes, to protect my vulnerability. It's going to be a safe love, not a love that strips me bare.
Yet even as these thoughts went through Jeanne's mind, she realized they were partially wrong, because every love is dangerous. Because it is dangerous to love, she reminded herself; it is difficult to accept the burden of another's self, of another's flaws and frailties along with my own. But it is worse not to.
Then she ceased to think, because they were making love, and she only wanted to feel where they were, together.
Afterwards they lay reliving where this day had brought them: from the airport in the morning, where a customs official had sleepily waved them by, to the hotel. René had written her name in the register. Now she wondered if she would change her name when she was married. "Jeanne Duval"—she said it aloud without realizing it. Embarrassed at having betrayed this thought, she was glad that René couldn't see her blush.
"It has a ring," he remarked.
"She was Baudelaire's mistress."
"Yes, I think I knew that." But his voice brushed aside the past and its ghosts. "There's no one else in your life now, is there?"
"No." This time she gave him the answer that he had waited for in vain that first evening at The Mount. In the pause that followed, she guessed that he wanted her to lob the question back to him, but she didn't need to.
"What would you like to do tomorrow?" he wondered instead.
"Take me on a tour of your Paris. We've seen official sights of the city. Now show me the landmarks of your past."
"I didn't come to Paris until I was fourteen, you know."
"I thought it was earlier."
"No, Paris was the city of my adolescence. Here I invented myself as an individual. Against its backdrops, I discovered my vocation. Perhaps that's why I wanted to bring you to Paris of all places, because once before I found a new life here."
Under the velvet cloak of darkness, under the dim, diffused light through the covered windows, his words sank into her heart.
"I was dreading this first night as much as I was looking forward to it," he confessed.
She wondered what caused him to tell her these things. She was intensely curious about him. She realized that he wanted to reveal himself to her. All she had to do was listen.
"My parents are temporarily away, in case you've been wondering," he announced.
"I assumed they no longer lived here, or else you would have mentioned it."
"No, they're in Switzerland at the moment. I have another confession—I asked you to come to Paris while they were away because I wanted it to be just the two of us. I wanted to stay in a hotel. I wanted us to be tourists, adventurers. We'll come again, and you'll meet my family. This time I want to keep you to myself. You'll get to know my family—and my friends—soon enough."
They had not moved at all; they were still lying in bed, René idly stroking her arm as he spoke, but it seemed to Jeanne as if they had been swept a great distance out to sea, and there was no turning back.
"Are your parents nice people? Will they like me?" she wondered.
"They're quite presentable. I expect they will like you, if I do. They usually approve of me. What about your parents?"
"I don't think they do approve of me. But they'll probably approve of you." She laughed. "Maybe they'll begin to approve of me."
"I'll tell you what. Tomorrow I'll show you my imaginative landmarks. I'll show you, among sites I love, not the grand monuments, but quieter places that are nonetheless beautiful."
Jeanne thought to herself, If we are lucky, we will never exhaust each other's depths. The truth is, with Althea and Paul, I never could go as far as I would need to. With Paul I was right to hold back. Otherwise, I might have ended up like Althea, pacing the lounge of the Joyce Theater, suffering. I no longer understand what was between Althea and me. I'm glad that I don't have to think about it anymore.
She exhaled a long sigh, ridding herself of these lugubrious thoughts. Her awareness of René returned. "So, tomorrow, your Paris."
"And yours, too, while you are here. 'We'll always have Paris,'" he quoted.
"You sound as if you're pronouncing our epitaph."
"No, I just don't want to have to leave in three days."
"We'll be leaving together," she reminded him.
Chapter 24
On the second Saturday afternoon in December, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a crowd thronged the entrance to the exhibit on the Italian Renaissance. Althea ignored the snatches of other people's conversations around her and the buzzes from the headsets of those taking the self-guided audio tour. The best way to see art, she believed, is alon
e and in silence.
She went straight past the milling clusters of viewers in the first gallery. I'll retrace my steps later, she decided. The second gallery was emptier. In one corner, on a raised platform, were sixteenth-century furnishings: an inlaid table, a heavy chair with carved arms and feet, and, against a backdrop of draped tapestry, a small statue of a sleeping Cupid set on a chest. On the wall was a photograph of the same furnishings in the room they apparently came from. Althea read the description attached to the photograph:
A private study, or studiola, was an indispensable cultural symbol for a Renaissance ruler. The one constructed by Isabella d'Este in her apartments in the Castello di San Giorgio in Mantua was among the most famous. In this study and in the neighboring room known as the Grotia, she amassed a notable collection of antiquities as well as paintings and sculpture by modern artists.
Among the antiquities was a marble figure of Cupid asleep on a lion skin, optimistically ascribed to Praxiteles. Opposite it, Isabella installed another sleeping Cupid, this one by Michelangelo, who had passed his work off as an ancient sculpture.
In the description Althea recognized with growing excitement Michelangelo's early sculpture which she had read about in Vasari. She recalled that the cardinal who had bought the cupid was outraged to discover that it was not an antique. She wondered if the savvy Isabella had acquired the sculpture directly from him, or if there had been other owners in the interim.
It was the curator's guess, considered Althea, whether the sleeping cupid in the exhibit resembled Michelangelo's Classical forgery. She remembered how, the night she had returned from Block Island, she had lain in bed, imagining the subject of Michelangelo's snow sculpture for Piero di Medici. She felt suddenly strange, as if there were a connection for her to grasp that she was barely missing.
Was it about the Block Island paintings? For now, at last, she had completed them. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, she had returned to New York from Connecticut early in the morning. She worked through the weekend. On Sunday she laid down her brush and said aloud, "I'm done." Now, a week later, she was trying to put those paintings behind her by looking at this exhibit of great art.
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