Diary of an Innocent

by Tony Duvert

  Pablos’s conversation was often highly interrogatory. And when he questioned me, he seemed to be imitating a schoolmistress busy with a tot with a boo-boo who doesn’t know how to answer: she worries about him in a very reassuring tone. Sometimes, however, his face expressed an astonished rapture as if, in listening to himself speak, he’d discovered a stupendous pleasant surprise; it was like he wanted to mimic his curiosity and conscientious good intentions and at the same time anticipate the pleasure I was feeling, savor it, demonstrate it before I did. This approach to miming both roles reminded me of the playacting kids who begged at the old market. I liked them, got involved with the little rascals from time to time—but more about that later. To get a handout when a stranger came along, they’d quell the mischievousness in their eyes, extinguish the cheerful health in their cheeks and strike a sad, afflicted pose, their head tilted to the side, a fake look of suffering in their eyes—as if you were the beggar who had aroused enormous pity in them. In a pithy, ironic way (since passersby shot back an icy look), this method combined the outstretched hand of someone in need with the tender face of someone who gives.

  Francesco swore to me that his house had no windows. It was easy for him to moan about his lot, but I didn’t really believe him. It turns out that he was telling the truth—all the while lying, of course. The first evening we took a long dirt alleyway under two dark rows of buildings, walked through a low door, crossed an unlit hallway and ended up in a large, tiled, barely lit room with a very low ceiling and several double-shuttered doors. Women were seated in the back of this cavern, and there were brats everywhere (his uncle’s, some neighbor’s). The room where we huddled with the older brothers was narrow and elongated and really was deprived of windows. Other than the flowered benches, there was a dark wooden armoire and a television with little curtains in blue gauze. I was hot, there were too many unknown people, you had to listen to the men’s boring platitudes, they’d carried away the kid, who was asleep, I felt like I was suffocating, was full of angst and would have liked to leave.

  When I got back the following noon, the big central room that was like a vaulted tomb revealed the entire sky—because it was a patio. I’d mistaken the night sky for a ceiling because there were no stars and the women in the courtyard had placed their lamps on the ground; with the light at ground level, so the edge of the darkness was very low. Besides, I’d thought that only the rich had houses with a patio surrounded by rooms, which got their light through the door and sometimes also through one or two small windows that were often left shuttered. So Francesco’s dungeon, teeming with females and kids, became a cool, tranquil, lovely, nearly uninhabited place, full of sunlight, once the neighbors were gone and it was day again.

  The image of Pablos asleep remained associated with my first impression of a sepulchral house, like the pose he’d assumed in the arms that carried him when he’d looked like a pieta. The crypt that held us, the round shadows on the bare plaster walls and the child being carried formed a scene in my memory that kept getting more and more intense, and false; I could have framed it, made it into a religious painting in grisaille like the kind that hung gloomily over the beds of the sick.

  If they were a good catch, Francesco sometimes brought his queers back to the house. With me he hesitated because he knew about my taste for children. My questions about his brothers got on his nerves, and after five or six months together, when he finally invited me into the sheepfold, he gave me fierce looks every time I showed interest in the little kids. He was afraid it would jeopardize him and that the freedoms I took would compromise the role he was playing. Since the age of twelve it had been understood that Francesco would have encounters with strangers in the street because they’d ask him to help them find their way; he was pleasant, personable, intelligent, honest; they loved him like a son, and presents would follow. One of these men (two or three were invited before me) became good friends with his aging, and then dying, father.

  Francesco’s family, or at least his older brother, must have suspected that he was, in a sense, hustling—that he fucked men, which was a venial sin. But this revealed secret was hiding another, which my carelessness risked revealing: his homosexuality. All people would have to do was think of my relationship with Pablos as dubious, and the clear-cut sexual categories of the population would take a clumsy turnabout. If I liked boys, I couldn’t be on the bottom. I’d be a boy fucker, and that would mean I was using Francesco as a woman. My desire for Pablos, once it was revealed, would make me more manly and feminize Francesco; as far as he was concerned, this was the danger.

  I wasn’t worried about it. They let me approach the little boy precisely because they were absolutely certain that I was big time—one of those gentlemen whose wallet is like a strainer and whose butt has holes in it and whom certain sly young foxes in the city so willingly bring back to the family lair. Such a conviction was useful to me, as was their belief in Francescos virility; they’d hesitate a long time before placing a fine young son into the degrading role in which it made so much sense to stick his foreign friend. Since these false notions allowed them to protect the nature of things, they stuck with them; it was up to me to draw some advantage from this; after all, maybe they were loaning me an imaginary costume, but it was better than having to walk around butt naked. And could I wait, to try out certain opportunities, offered by human tolerance? I’d kick the bucket as a hundred-year-old before having lived. It’s better to reckon with stupidity, the baseness of humans, when you want what there is no point in hoping to get from their intelligence or their heart. What individual, what nation has ever survived by any other means? Moreover, it’s not infallible, at least when you mix a bit of humanity in, or make it serve less repugnant ends—as I rapidly saw.

  Since Francesco only knew how to save himself by hiding, he didn’t understand that I saved myself by revealing. That’s why I’d give Pablos long caresses, kisses in front of his close relations; and as long as he didn’t see anyone disapproving, the child would respond with delight. His mom would offer me the fake smiles of a mother-in-law, and everyone else grimaced their version of a sympathetic expression; the older brother would tell me the story of his life, feeling sorry for himself and lying with every word (and his smooth-talking felt like gentle claws scratching at the tear in my pocket to make it larger so that the money would fall out); but Francesco was in agony.

  However, as time went by, he saw that my tactic was a good one. During the last weeks we knew each other he even helped me with the very difficult task of getting Pablos out of the house, inviting him to my place. A strange tenderness made him do it; our relationship had weakened, was coming to an end; he was unhappy and jealous that I liked his little brother and was trying to revamp himself into an accomplice, to make himself indispensable. It wasn’t able to salvage anything; when he’d understood this, at the first pretext, he stopped coming. Such a wordless breakup depressed me, yet I appreciated it.

  The fear that he’d had about the suspicions of his family had turned out to be too simple. They saw that the least kiss from Pablos made the money rain from my fingers in a way that no decorum, courtesy, pressure had been able to. It made them think, and they forgot about Francesco and his morals.

  The big brother, however, had read my mind. He didn’t show any of it directly. He had no scruples. For years he’d been emptying Francesco’s pockets, filching from his brother, using or reselling the gifts Francesco got. My affair with Pablos didn’t bother him, and when he understood the intensity of my strange ways, he drafted some plans based on it. He supported the entire household by himself and would have liked to get out of it, even if it meant my appropriating Pablos. Unfortunately, he had to handle his mother and the others carefully because they were less radical and had been distressed by a similar transaction. It was impossible to sacrifice the child to me without his mother knowing about it; so there needed to be a more moderate solution. He hoped that a harmless flirtation would be enough, and he already
saw me covering the house with electrical appliances, the women with dresses and the children with chances for study. But the real difficulty came from elsewhere. Pablos wouldn’t have responded to me if he hadn’t had permission to; as soon as it was granted, he believed that it completely justified an intimacy that—as I’ve pointed out—was only superficially condemned among the working classes. If the boys feared others’ opinions, they turned it down; if they weren’t afraid of it or if by any chance it was favorable, they opted for it. After being allowed his first kisses, Pablos began acting very forward, looking for ways for us to be alone together, getting flirtatious, lying down against me, returning each and every caress, trying tricks out in the open whose message was crystal-clear. Then it became necessary to put him off. They cruelly poked fun at him for the suspect devotion being shown to him by a man; they derided him, made insulting insinuations. Very sensitive to majority opinion, and unable to be cunning, he turned to the favorable camp. Now the only choice was reestablishing that trivial bit of license that was useful to the intrigue; Pablos wouldn’t go beyond it, or would very slowly. They tried not to leave him alone with me, as a further precaution. But if the one watching was Francesco, the result was unusual; then we only respected appearances. The two brothers had begun to trust each other a little, without saying anything. So, for example, I’d have the child on my knees with Francesco sitting opposite, and I’d be masturbating the little one through his trousers. Completely hard, his breath a little shortened, he’d pretend to be telling something to his brother, who’d avoid looking at my hand and would answer Pablos with a more understanding and serious expression than was usual. Not the slightest thing on our faces at all showed that we were in cahoots: what was the point, since nothing was happening?

  Apart from these very rare examples of misbehavior, the arrangements that now involved the child were unbearable, and so complicated that they failed all the time—the older brother was heavy-handed, he set up his dupes with mind-boggling tactlessness. Without my inordinate interest in Pablos and his receptiveness to it, nothing would have lasted eight days. Even so, I thought a great deal about withdrawing. I did it several times, ridiculously hoping that it would help clarify the situation. These rebellions took them by surprise, and they’d quickly send an ambassador: one of the older brothers with Pablos under his arm. It was to give me the scent again, to make me remember and return to the fold. And I would. They’d offer me dinner to celebrate the reunion. But the time for invitations had passed; they’d make me pay four to five times more than the family meal was worth. And I was to bring wine, whiskey, expensive cigarettes, medicines; and then there was that overdue electric bill, a new pair of trousers the tailor was holding back, two dresses at the dry cleaner’s, the doors of the house that needed painting, and next, an urgent affair: that pitiful moped belonging to the older brother, whereas he’d seen an enormous motorcycle on sale, it barely cost six months of his salary, it would get him to work so much more quickly, he’d be able to sleep in mornings; and the second oldest brother would definitely be able to find a good job if he had new clothes and a train ticket for the other side of the country; and now that I’d given Pablos those new clothes the other children were jealous, they’d had to buy some for them, too, and they couldn’t pay the salesman, and let’s not forget the ladies (when were they getting their perfume, slippers, coat?), and that friend whom they’d bet a watch—and I don’t know how many other pretexts, until the middle of the night. I gave in as much as necessary, for a few minutes they’d surrender Pablos, whom such a scramble for the spoils was making morose and who’d slipped away, and then they’d fawn on me with all the Cheshire cat smiles that put an uncle in the mood to leave an inheritance. They were pleased with themselves, saw me as hooked, and now I was supposed to come every day. I was surprised that they didn’t guess over time the only reason for my compliance, the fact that Pablos was worth more than them. But he didn’t show it in front of his family any more, now he waited to be at my place with Francesco.

  When Francesco split up with me, an essential piece of the game was lost for all the players. After a slack period, they tried to patch things up by sending me a lot of people. This new mission didn’t thrive. I’d decided I was done with it; I said that I wouldn’t go over there any more, but that I’d welcome the little one as much as he liked, with or without accompaniment. They took the suggestion. Pablos came several times; his chaperone was the small older brother with the floppy ears, whom I liked a lot. They’d given the boys some commissions to carry out: mention the words studies, clothes, perfume, Frigidaire, invite me to the house. They performed their duty quite unenthusiastically, then got back to the three of us. These times—which were more chaste than when Francesco had been chaperoning us—were happy ones. The checkmating of the little legations soon put an end to them; nobody came any more, the chess pieces were tucked back into each of their boxes, the checkerboard stayed empty. For how long?

  This affair had made me sick, and I was suspicious of everything near or far that called itself friendship. However, the adventure had brought me a change of scene, a benefit: it came from a situation that was, all in all, heterosexual. I’d been yanked out of my cave, illicit desires had been admitted, life had been arranged around them; I’d been made to look like a rich old fart who was infatuated with an innocent virgin, I was being given a filly from a poor family who’d decided to charge a lot for her underage cherry, and presto, I was becoming normal. Up to this point, no one had ever tolerated my love affairs. With emotion, I watched this attempt to tie puppet strings to my limbs, and I actually wanted them, if they’d free me. For a moment I believed this had happened, hoped the boy would come over often to eat, or sleep some days, like Francesco had been able to do. But it’s because I was imagining that family as either naive or depraved; instead, they were only a bit perverted, and too lily-livered. Not to mention that, contrary to my old fart disguise, I wasn’t rich. In a few months of plenty, I’d used up the part of my royalties that my debts hadn’t devoured. Now I was spending an amount barely equal to what an ultra-shabby, stuttering, novice French teacher—to scrape the bottom of the barrel—gets, one whose teaching, which comes packaged with slaps, stinks of cavities, a bachelor’s asshole or a cafeteria. It was still a lot of money, because the standard of living in this city is low, and Pablos’s family had nothing but the eldest’s salary—nearly three times less than my own resources. Still, I was too parsimonious to buy motorcycles; I wasn’t going to be any son-in-law, and playing old farts was too challenging, so I became abnormal again.

  When I stopped promoting this fake social identity of mine, all that were left were some ruined friendships and an outlook on things that was more frigid than it had ever been. Strange penalties for my having spent three or four months striving to live as if I weren’t marginal.

  I went back to the sterile, isolated existence I’d had before, littered with anonymous encounters, enlivened by moments of savage thrills: gorging on huge pricks, shooting loads in nice backsides, gobbling up every bit of these brats. I stopped speaking because there was nobody to listen, heard very little of what others said. Went out as little as possible, and slept during the day so I could stay up at night—something I hadn’t done for a long time; the time for sharing was over.

  But I’m exaggerating. Because it’s also empty pockets and writing this book that keeps me shut up inside. The unfettered life of a single man is just as costly as the sheltered life of a family, maybe more, since there are no established limits beyond which you can refuse to have others around. You spend in order to enjoy your peace and independence, to have friendships without ulterior motives, not to guard your prison or possessions. But if your income’s too small, you’re still under the thumb of family rules, desires, prohibitions; you live in the wake of their values, at the mercy of their reprisals; that’s when you become miserable, dirty, torn to pieces.

  Having no children, wife, salary or fellow workers; no boss, car
eer, TV or car, no business card or voter registration card, social security or alarm clock, no radio or newspapers, no Saturday bargain hunting or Sunday picnic, no songs or sports records in your head, no movie or horse-racing tickets in your pocket means a slew of opportunities for freedom and a lot of risk of being alone. Money decides between the two; the slightest action performed outside the usual hours, places, circumstances, institutions or approved persons costs a fortune. Unless you subscribe to “the fringe,” which I can’t bring myself to do. It means rejoining the same world by another door. Middle-class hangers-on in beards and worn dungarees disgust and repel me in the same way that their kinsmen in ties and cars do. A different style of speech, ideas that are against the grain, different threads equal the same civilization, limits, dependencies, pretenses. And neither revolution, drugs nor pop turns me on. Frankly I’d rather be a nasty, puritanical, self-satisfied, imbecilic, withdrawn, hypocritical, despotic, intolerant, marriage-advocating, illiterate, sunken-eyed, deaf-as-a-doornail flabby-mouth than be all of it with a coating of libertarian mega-bullshit.

  Besides, one side is just as oppressive to me as the other. Whether it comes from clean-shaven faces, whose treasures don’t impress me enough, or from pious mugs, because I don’t take communion, or whether I’m eating with families or chowing down with the guys, they can spot me. Usually I don’t say a word, make a gesture that would reveal the disgust and distress I’m feeling, so I’m more likely to be judged for being halfhearted. Like a skeptic at a seance who ruins the perfect circle. They root out the guilty one, come down him, ask him one more time to obey and approve, show he’s like the others, one of the guys. But I don’t know how.

  Occasionally, it turns bad. The guys, especially, can get really vicious, offensive when you question their religion and their wholesomeness. I don’t react; but if it really gets on my nerves, I only know how to respond physically. My rages are extremely rare but very sudden. I’m likely to grab the bastard, shake, slap, pound on him. It’s a drag, and I’m not proud of myself afterward. But you can’t make due with words since every single one of them is rotten to the core when it’s a matter of these geniuses of self-deception. In a language surprising for someone who is nonviolent, my body transcribes what they really are, were really saying and doing. It would probably be better to stomach it; but I’m not that community-minded; as soon as it gets too bad and smells too awful, I send it back where it came from—minus its evangelical gift wrapping.