by Michael Cart
A secret never shared.
I never asked for your attention.
I never dared.
“Of all the things that might be true
Of all I’ve said upon the earth,
I love you most, and still I do,
For what it’s worth.”
The lyrics are an eighteen-year-old’s, unnaturally old-fashioned. They don’t even make much sense. Still, the older Faroukh gets, the more his own juvenile words mean to him. Was it Noel Coward who said, “Astonishing, the potency of cheap music”? Something like that.
Professor Tod Farber is leading the applause. Matthias says, “I peed in my snow pants.” Faroukh ducks out with his boys.
I see Blaise once more before I leave. He is crossing the lawn to a parking lot, moving fast as if he doesn’t intend to be recognized or intercepted. Abby Desroches is all but jogging next to him, trying to say something enticing. I know that look.
I can’t help myself; I start to wave, as if my small gesture will somehow register just because it’s me. Hey, look! Blaise d’Anjou! It’s Faroukh Rahmani, remember? From last week? Your incidental boyfriend? Your secret passion for nine days straight? Though maybe straight isn’t the best word.
He has seen me. He turns and jogs in place, pointing to his wristwatch. “Got your address from the registrar. I’m way ahead of you. I’ll write after I get back to France. Promise. Roukh, I promise. But I have to fly. Morgan Goodwill’s coming with a truck to the house at noon today and my folks can’t deal; it’s all coming down around my head…. Later. Later!”
And again he is running forward, running away. He is running toward his children, his wife, the future that will formally compensate for the loss that he and his parents suffered this summer. I was the accidental lover. We all take advantage of each other.
Professor Tod Farber confers upon me a B plus. I persuade Colchester to reinstate my financial aid. I buy a new duffel bag. I move through my days like a person who has had a stroke. Baba doesn’t ask what’s wrong. Once he says, “I hear Laurel Finn is seeing counselor from school. She will study to be nurse. Good work for single woman who wants so much for baby she doesn’t have. Yet.” I think that is as much an apology as he can muster. I’m glad for it but I can’t answer. I go sit on the roof over the garage and get some sun. There is nothing left for me but college and grown-up life. I might as well roll off the roof and snap my spine and die in the ferns that have already crisped up in the oven of the summer.
I pretend I’m not waiting for the phone to ring. When it does ring and it’s for me, it’s never Blaise. It’s always Auntie Nurjahan in tears, braying about how much she misses me.
I can’t listen to the radio for almost a year. Crafty old Farber ended up being right: Every song is a love song.
Faroukh is done; he’s had enough. But Matthias has lost the sippy somewhere, and he threatens to raise the roof with his grief. There’s nothing for it but that Faroukh has to skulk back into the room with two boys, one under each arm, to hunt for it. The crew is clearing away the folding chairs. Side doors Faroukh hadn’t noticed are being opened in stiff, ugly accordion pleats, like huge ribs of cardboard, revealing a sumptuous reception. Candlelight and cheese platters and waiters circulating with hot hors d’oeuvres. Matthias decides, sensibly, something more or less like fuck the sippy, and he breaks free to dart toward the goodies.
“I thought I saw a familiar form,” says Tod Farber.
Odd, they seem to be the same height now. “You’re still here.”
“Here isn’t here anymore, it’s the university. A much better pension package, for one thing. And yes, I’m the department chair this year. You haven’t stayed in music, have you—” And Faroukh sees that Professor Farber doesn’t remember that the lyrics of the famous sentimental pop song are written by Faroukh Rahmani, and date from that summer course.
“No. I’m, um, self-employed in the Twin Cities. I manage real estate from home.”
“Shocking. Have you seen our guest of honor yet?”
“No. I saw him from a distance; that’s enough.”
Tod Farber takes a sip of wine. “You were the same summer, weren’t you? Do I have that right? I taught that course so many times. He hasn’t seen you, or he’d be over here in a flash.”
“He doesn’t recognize me. I’m surprised you do.”
“Of course I’d recognize you anywhere. That lithe and lovely form.”
Faroukh isn’t eighteen anymore. “You sound downright lecherous, Professor Farber.”
“I never laid a hand on a student,” says Tod Farber placidly. “I knew my place. But I could look, couldn’t I? And if boys will prance naked around the music building in the middle of the night, it’s not because I handed out any assignment requiring them to do it.”
Faroukh grabs Jamesy by the hand to keep him from tripping up a waitress carrying spring rolls. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, I wasn’t the one climbing up into the maple tree in the middle of the night,” he replies. “Was I? Looking in the windows?”
“I don’t know,” Faroukh says. “Were you?”
As I’m climbing down, having seen nothing in the dark window, I can also see no one in the dark shadows. Professor Farber always wears black, of course. Black rayon, an odd choice for such a blisteringly hot summer.
Faroukh is in the lobby busy shucking the boys into their coats. The noise in the reception room increases in volume as people lurch for their third glasses of champagne. But for Faroukh the adventure is over. The boys are beginning to lose it. They will be asleep in the car in minutes. Back to the Marriott Courtyard. Tomorrow, back down the highway several hours to the Avis depot at Logan. Back halfway across the country to the sweet surcease of the hip and happening Twin Cities. Something has finished that needed to be finished, that wasn’t finished the time Faroukh and Blaise met in New York.
Faroukh feels as tired as his boys. Jamesy is almost asleep on his shoulder. If someone could only pick him up and carry him…
Matthias can’t get his arm in his parka because it has gotten twisted up with the strings from the mittens. If Faroukh lays Jamesy down he’ll pop back awake and wail. It’s a monkey puzzle of an effort, needing another pair of hands.
“May I help?”
Faroukh is on his knees and looks up. Blaise has come out of the men’s room situated off the lobby. He’s not looking at Faroukh. His eyes are on Matthias twisted in his winter wear.
“I never say no to help.”
Blaise is fiddling with the mitten, turning it right, winking at skeptical Matthias. Then the certain music of Faroukh’s voice hits the musician’s brain. Blaise swivels his head. His eyes widen. This close, Faroukh can scrutinize the bags under Blaise’s eyes; also the very faint hint of eyeliner.
A week before Baba died of his heart attack—a month ago now, the longest month of Farouk’s life—they have invited Faroukh’s parents to see the new Ang Lee film, Brokeback Mountain. It’s still packing the small art house they frequent, and Faroukh hopes the presence of a general audience will soothe his parents somewhat. Faroukh and Jake have already seen it, so Faroukh knows what his parents are in for. Faroukh wants to complete something he never completed. His father has given him so much—the money to buy his first rental, the distance that has allowed him to grow into himself—Faroukh wants to pay him back with a kind of honesty, at last, that his parents might understand.
They have never cared for films, but in their old age, removed from Tonawanda and living in Minneapolis on the generosity of Faroukh and Jake, they accept the invitation without complaint. Faroukh and Jake cry harder the second time. Afterward they take Baba and Maman out for an Indian meal. When the basmati rice has come steaming to the table and the chicken korma is being passed around, Jake says, “What did you make of it, Mr. and Mrs. R?”
Both Yusuf and Amina Rahmani have raw eyes. They are not abashed by emotion at this stage of their lives. “Is good movie-fil
m,” says Baba, looking back and forth between his son and his son’s husband. He tears up.
Maman puts her hand upon her husband’s on the tabletop. She says to them all, “Those boys in movie-film such good friends. Why not their wives be good friends too?”
Jake grins. “Why not? I never know the answer to questions like that.”
But now Baba is crying harder. It has taken a while for the film to get to him. “What is it, Baba?” asks Faroukh. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. “We’re all right, Baba. We’re all here. Your best little boys are home safe with the sitter. What’s the matter?”
Yusuf Rahmani blows his nose and sips some water. He says. “You do not understand. The sheep on sides of hills—the sky singing with wind. I am homesick. This is my boyhood. This movie-film is made in Iran.”
“Not possible,” Blaise says to solemn Matthias. “Not possible that this voice is your, um, your—”
“Your dad’s,” Faroukh supplies. He stands up. “Hey there, Blaise. I was trying to sneak out.”
“If I’d have known you were here,” says Blaise, “I’d have given you the credit for the lyric.”
“No matter. The lyric is hogwash without the melody.”
“It means so much to me.”
“It means a lot to me. That annual royalty check on a little tiny chromosomal twitch of popular culture…” Not enough to live on, not enough to boast about, but enough to appreciate from time to time if Faroukh starts feeling low.
The whole building is abuzz with celebratory glee, and somehow they are alone in the lobby. Alone but for the boys.
“How old are you, you fine fellow?” Blaise asks Matthias. The bleary kid raises a hand to display a number of raised fingers, but the hand is already mittened against the cold. “Oh,” says Blaise. “That many already?” Matthias nods.
“How long are you here?” Blaise asks Faroukh.
“I was leaving ten minutes ago.” Faroukh is not working at being cool. The kids’ exhaustion dictates what happens next. There is no other option. They are his life.
“But Roukh—” And Faroukh has forgotten that that was Blaise’s nickname for him, that he’d been given a nickname. It had been buried. Roukh. “You can’t—you can’t. This won’t last long. I’ve done my bit. I’m not committed beyond another half hour, tops. We can slip out—”
“Mon coeur,” says a voice, someone emerging from the women’s room. A tapering flame of a woman with hair so fine it looks almost translucent, coiled like the thinnest sort of fiber-optic filament on her head. Baked into a solid form. She is weird and stunning. Faroukh didn’t notice her in the hall. Maybe she was sipping green tea backstage somewhere.
“Darling,” says Blaise. “Come here. An old, dear friend in the business. Faroukh Rahmani.”
Faroukh puts forth a hand. She raises hers in a sanitary salute, eschewing contact.
“My wife,” says Blaise. “Katrín Minervudóttir.”
Well, thinks Faroukh. Her name isn’t Mary Lou Polka-Dot from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Big surprise.
“Enchanté,” says Blaise’s wife, as if she does mean it, but intends to mean little more than that. “Will you be long?” she says to her husband.
“I’m leaving right now,” interjects Faroukh.
She smiles beautifully, but she is talking to her husband.
“Not at all. Minutes only, darling,” says Blaise.
“As you wish. Au revoir, Monsieur—” Katrín can’t attempt a name like Rahmani. We all have our limits. Her taupe skirt is elegantly constructed, a slim sepal of sorts. Faroukh can’t imagine she has two legs. It seems she would have one leg ending in a ball bearing. She glides away.
She hasn’t looked at the little boys, not a glance.
“I’ll walk you outside,” says Blaise. “A breath of fresh air. I’m allowed.”
They move forward, stumbling a little, it all happening too fast—as life does.
“So you’re married,” says Faroukh. The air has gotten icily colder.
“So are you.”
“Children?”
“None. My wife—it is not possible.” He doesn’t elaborate. A woman that thin, that porcelained, Faroukh can imagine it. Auntie Nurjahan never had children either; her teenage anorexia had wreaked havoc with her potential. That had been the end of her brief marriage, too, as it happened. All that food she had made for Faroukh—she never ate more than a mouthful herself.
Faroukh said, meaning it, “She’s exquisite. If you were to be married, I’d expect nothing less.”
“If.” Blaise is brave enough to repeat the word. “You’re brave enough too, I see.”
Faroukh lifts his chin. “Yes.”
“I see your fine boys, I see your ring. So we both have what we wanted, don’t we?”
How can Faroukh answer this? Even now he’s not sure. Can one want more than one thing at a time? “You wanted children,” he says.
“Oh,” says Blaise. “Pfahhh,” he says. “Well yes,” he admits, “if you will. Children.” He opens his hands, palms out, one near Jamesy, one near Matthias. “Children would have been worth it,” he says more quietly. “It wasn’t just to soothe my parents in their nightmare, nor to replace Monette or Cecile. Children for their own sake are worth it.”
“Everything is worth it,” says Faroukh. “Even the past is worth it.”
“Your wife?” Blaise looks around. “She is with you? Or are you braving this reunion alone?” He looks suddenly eager, less tired. Even hungry.
Faroukh hoists Jamesy farther up his chest. He is a living breastplate laid against Faroukh’s heart. He is asleep, but he is still protection. “The boys have two dads,” he says. Not boasting, not defensively, not acidly. “We got married last fall in Cape Cod, where Jake maintains a second home. But we live in Minneapolis. Jake is a software engineer. I do what my baba eventually did: I manage properties. So I can be a stay-at-home dad.”
“Oh,” says Blaise. His arms open, shrugging a question into the air.
“His name is Jake,” says Faroukh again. “But he’s home with the dogs. I wanted to come alone. My father died last month—well, you know. When someone dies. The past is up for review. Anyway, I wanted to see this place. I didn’t dare expect to see you. Not close up.”
“But you came. You didn’t come alone? You have a nanny at the hotel?”
“No.” Faroukh laughs. “I’m managing. A lot of effort, no nanny. A kind of choice we made. So I’m never alone anymore. Even when I want to be.”
“We can go out,” says Blaise. “Later. You and I. We should. For old time’s sake. Katrín will understand. She’s very understanding. I give her her life, she gives me mine….”
“Will she understand?” But Faroukh doesn’t need to know if she really will or not. “I can’t get together with you,” he says. “I brought my children to be a reminder just in case I was tempted. They’re in the way.”
Jamesy is twitching in his sleep, Matthias is beginning to whine. “Can I carry one of them to the car?” asks Blaise. Matthias defies all expectation and allows Blaise to pick him up. Blaise and Faroukh step side by side off the granite ledge of the new performance center. Crystals of ice melt crush under the soles of their shoes.
Faroukh carries Jamesey, leaning in toward Blaise, singing a song the boys know, so they can hear it deep in their sleep, the way he deeply heard and will always remember his own baba’s beloved Iranian songs. Faroukh sings, “‘I gave my love a cherry without a stone….’”
“I want you,” says Blaise. “I always do. How can I say it so you know?”
Faroukh pauses, shivering. Wordlessly he takes Matthias back, balancing, balancing: a boy in each arm. Everything is modern now. In the brilliant snow, the buildings of Tupperneck stand out like architectural drawings lit from within. Students must be working in every room. Faroukh can see the stone steps leading up to the weighty porch that flanks three sides of Pierce. He turns back to answer Blaise, not knowing what he will say, just that he
wants to say something. But at the sight of the famous man standing with two clenched fists against his breastbone, like the carving of a medieval knight readied for his own tomb, a carving still improbably upright, impossibly attractive and alive, Faroukh finds there is little in the library of all the lyrics he has ever heard to express what he now feels.
About the Editor
Past president of the Young Adult Library Services Association, MICHAEL CART is a columnist and reviewer for Booklist magazine. He is also the author or editor of nineteen books, including the gay coming-of-age novel MY FATHER’S SCAR and—with Christine Jenkins—THE HEART HAS ITS REASONS, a critical history of young adult literature with gay/lesbian/queer content. His anthologies include LOVE AND SEX: Ten Stories of Truth and NECESSARY NOISE: Stories about Our Families as They Really Are.
In 2008 he was the first recipient of the YALSA/Greenwood Publishing Group Service to Young Adults Achievement Award, and in 2000 he received the Grolier Foundation Award for his contribution to the stimulation and guidance of reading by young people. Mr. Cart lives in Columbus, Indiana.
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WRITTEN BY
MICHAEL CART:
WHAT’S SO FUNNY?:
Wit and Humor in American Children’s Literature
FROM ROMANCE TO REALISM: 50 Years of Growth
and Change in Young Adult Literature
MY FATHER’S SCAR
THE HEART HAS ITS REASONS: Young Adult Literature
With Gay/Lesbian/Queer Content, 1969–2004
(with Christine A. Jenkins)
EDITED BY
MICHAEL CART
LOVE SEX: Ten Stories of Truth
NECESSARY NOISE:
Stories About Our Families as They Really Are
Credits
Jacket art © 2009 by Si Scott
Jacket design by Jennifer Heuer