* * *
The student union at West Penn is a reconverted hotel from the belle époque, a huge, ornate building I loved. Afternoons when class was over, and weekends after swim practice I used to sit and relax there, in one of the large rooms that were filled with sofas and plush chairs. Now and then I’d nap.
Late one Friday as I was nodding off there, I heard Danilo’s voice.
“Men always look sweeter asleep.”
I opened my eyes and gaped at him a bit surprised. I hadn’t seen him anywhere but the museum. “Danilo. Hi.”
He smiled. “Maybe it’s the innocence. Or the illusion of it.”
He was in shorts, a tight tank top and sneakers. I had never seen him dressed so casually before. His body was lean, smooth and muscular, even better than I’d imagined. His legs were just perfect. I couldn’t help thinking he had the body of a king from one of the old Egyptian carvings. But in the light, there he looked older than he had; if I hadn’t known better, I’d have taken him for a man in his fifties.
I started to tell him he had seen me asleep before. But I caught myself; that had only been in my dreams. I yawned and sat up. “I’m sorry you’re seeing me this way.”
“It’s all right, Jamie. As I said, you look… ” He broke off, made a vague gesture with his right hand and smiled. “I wanted to give you the news right away. The paperwork came through. You are my assistant.”
It took a moment to register. It seemed like I’d been waiting forever. “That’s great. I can finally see those sub-basements.” I tried to make it sound like a joke, but I was genuinely curious.
“Not yet. You’re not to go lower than I’ve taken you.” His voice was stern. “Do you understand that?”
“I was only making a joke, Danilo.”
“It is not amusing.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re to go to the student employment office and sign something or other. You begin Monday.”
“Sure. I’ll go right now.”
He sat down next to me. “No, let it wait for a while. Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Then let me buy you lunch, to celebrate.”
Ten minutes later we were at a local eatery, waiting for take-out. Then we walked across the Panther Hollow Bridge to that same park where Tim and I had gone, that first night.
It was a brilliant summer day, floods of sunlight, a few wispy white clouds. The park was in full flower, a riot of color. There were sunbathers and people running. Danilo looked at the near-naked guys and smiled a lot. “Do you run, Jamie?”
I told him no.
“I do. It’s the best exercise for me. I find I can think more clearly when I’m running.”
“Like the pharaohs.” He had told us that that ancient kings always celebrated their jubilees by running the perimeter of a symbolic course that represented their realm.
He seemed pleased that I remembered. “You’re learning.”
I knew the park was popular with a lot of students and faculty, but I hadn’t been there since that night with Tim. The memories weren’t pleasant. But that day, with Danilo…
We sat on the grass and ate. He asked me about my life before college.
“There’s not a lot to tell. It was always boring.”
“Bore me, then.”
I laughed. “Ebensburg, Pennsylvania. Half dried-up farmland, half played-out coal mines. Lots of rusting machinery everywhere, tractors, mining equipment… Not the kind of place where things like Chopin count for much.”
“Chopin,” he said with mock-sternness, “counts everywhere.”
I laughed. “I think I was a really naïve kid. Or maybe inexperienced would be the word. Or callow, or trusting… ”
“Was that unusual there?”
“Not exactly unusual. But not really something you’d want to be. There were kids like me, and there were predators.”
“There always are.”
I shrugged. “I was different. In a lot of ways. Too many, I guess. I was a target.”
“Frederick the Great used to say that if he hadn’t been the son of a king, he would have been tormented to death by the other boys.”
“Frederick and I would understand each other, then.”
“More than you think. He was one of us, too.”
I looked at him, not sure what to say.
“And he always added that surviving that was what made him a good ruler.”
He had used that turn of phrase about “one of us” before. That first time I thought I knew what he meant. Now I wasn’t so certain. “You’re an Egyptologist. What do you know about Frederick the Great?”
“I know a lot of history. A lot.” It might have been my romantic imagination, but I thought he sounded terribly sad when he said that.
“I used to spend time in the Ebensburg Public Library. As often as not, I was the only one there. It didn’t help my image.”
“Did they have the kind of book you wanted to read?”
I shook my head. “Once I got online, I started finding things.”
“There’s more for you to discover, Jamie.”
“I know it, believe me.” Still again I wasn’t quite sure what he meant. “There are things I’m anxious to learn about.”
“Such as?”
I lowered my voice and looked away from him. It was time to be bold with him, I decided. I had made the first move with Tim, way back when. But with Danilo it was different. I actually found myself stammering. “The… the K-kissing Kings.”
Danilo looked straight into my eyes. For a moment I couldn’t read his expression. Then he smiled. “I think you already know about that. Something about it, at least.”
“Not nearly as much as I want to.”
We had finished eating. He stood up. “It’s getting late. I have a department meeting at four.” It was the last thing I wanted him to say. Not then. Not after what I’d—“Why don’t you walk me to my office?”
I must have broken out in the largest grin. “Yes, boss.”
The day was so gorgeous there were people everywhere, jogging, playing volleyball, basking in the sun. There were pairs of lovers holding hands… I swear, the only one I saw was Danilo. We crossed the bridge back to the campus. Friends, acquaintances, said hello to one or the other of us. Us. It was the first time I thought of Danilo and had the word us come into my mind. Us.
At his office he invited me in and closed the door. “We don’t want Feld interrupting us.”
“Not now, no.”
“There’s an empty office down the hall. It’ll be yours. It’s small, but—”
“I don’t need much room.”
“I’ll have to get you the keys.”
There was an awkward silence. That wasn’t what we wanted to be talking about, not either of us.
“What do you know about the Kissing Kings, Jamie?”
I told him I had seen the engraving in a book on his desk. I told him what I thought it meant.
“There is more to it than just that.”
“What could there be?”
“You couldn’t read their names.”
“No. I’m not good with hieroglyphs yet, but I—”
“Suppose I told you the two men in the engraving are father and son?”
I didn’t know how to react. “I—they—”
“Are you shocked?”
“No. Not at all. I mean, I’ve never had a father. I’ve never known how I’d… I don’t know.”
“And they are pharaohs, co-regents.”
“I would have guessed that.”
“And they knew secret things, not just their love for one another, but deeper secrets.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“The secrets are there for you, Jamie, if you want them.” He touched my hair the way he always did.
“I want them. You know I want them.”
He put his arms around me, and we kissed.
And I had never been kissed before, not li
ke that. I swear I felt all his energy rush into me, and it exhilarated me. I’d almost say it made me high.
For the longest time we sat there in each other’s arms, kissing, fondling. I could have stayed forever.
There was a knock on the door. We pulled apart and arranged our hair and clothes. It was one of the girls in my class, one of the ones who had a crush on him.
“Come in.”
The door opened. “Excuse me, professor. I didn’t know you had someone in here.” She smiled at him, ignored me.
“It’s all right, Jane. What can I do for you?”
“Well… ” She had not stopped smiling at him. “I wanted to discuss my research paper with you. I have a topic I like, and—”
“After class on Monday, all right? I’m afraid Jamie here has a prior claim to my time this afternoon.”
She looked at me dismissively. That geeky boy from the music department. “Oh. Well, I’ve found some interesting things about the Sphinx, and I—”
“Monday, Jane.” He smiled at her and made his voice firm. “Please.”
Suddenly her smile was gone. Her moment with the dreamy prof would have to wait. “Well, I’m not sure I can make it Monday.”
“Some other time, then.”
“But, I—”
“I’m sorry, Jane. But Jamie was here first.”
She finally gave up and left, looking more than slightly unhappy.
For a moment we stared at each other without talking. Then we broke out laughing.
“We really have to be careful, Danilo. She could spread a lot of scandal.”
“She won’t.”
“You’ll have to charm her next week.”
“I will. I don’t have many gifts, but that one I do know how to use. My wife used to tell me—”
“Wife?” It hit me like a sucker-punch.
He realized how it had affected me, and he spoke slowly, deliberately. “Wife, yes. My family expected it. She’s been dead for a long time.”
“Oh.” I was still reeling from the revelation. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was an arranged thing. You know, the Old World.”
I laughed again. “I know Ebensburg. The same kind of thing goes on there, pretty much. Only nobody ever acknowledges it. They just let you know what’s expected of you, keeping up appearances and—” I shrugged.
I wanted, more than anything else in the world at that moment, to ask him if he had loved her. But, of course, there was no way I could.
Still, he knew what I was thinking. Very softly he said, “No, Jamie, you don’t have to ask. I didn’t.”
I played dumb. “Didn’t what?”
“I didn’t love her.” He shifted his weight and looked out the window. “I told you it was strictly a family thing, all arranged for me. I would never have…” He glanced at me and smiled a shy smile, then looked quickly away. “When I… when I made myself unavailable to her, she married my brother. Then she… It was all a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry, Danilo, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Yes, you did. And it’s all right.” With that gesture that had become so familiar by now, he touched my hair, ran his fingers through it. “You are such a beautiful man.”
In that moment I was so happy I could have cried. Instead I forced myself to say, “Danilo, we can’t be doing this. You know how the university feels about faculty-student affairs.”
Instantly he was himself again, confident and in control. “They won’t do anything to us, Jamie. Not even if they find out about us, which I doubt they will.” He looked directly at me. “I promise you that.”
I gestured vaguely at the office door. “Jane… ”
“She saw what she wanted to see, a rival student, nothing more.”
“She’s not dumb. And she’s not the only one.”
“Believe me, Jamie, they’ll never understand what’s happening between us. There’s no way they could.”
The smartass in me wanted to ask him, all right then, what is happening between us? But I kept my mouth shut for once. I touched his hand. “I hope you’re right.”
“I am.”
“Thinking about it makes me a bit afraid.”
“Don’t be. You—we—are more important than you can imagine yet. And more powerful.”
“Try telling that to the dean.”
He took me by the front of my shirt and pulled me to him. And we kissed again.
Nothing else mattered, not my academic standing, not Tim, nothing. I actually found myself shaking. “Danilo, make love to me.”
He stood up and took a step away from me. “Not yet, Jamie. Not till the time is right.”
I wanted him so badly. “I’d do anything to have you here and now. I’d kill to feel you inside me.”
Again, he pulled me to himself and kissed me. I felt his hands exploring my body. I touched his. My palm pressed his naked thigh.
Then it was over. The time was getting late. “I have that department meeting. It started five minutes ago. I should get to it.” He picked up his briefcase. “I’ll see you in class Monday. All right?”
“Can’t I see you tonight?”
“I have plans, I’m afraid. Soon, soon enough, we’ll have all the time in the world together.” He kissed me, lightly this time. “Believe me.” And he was gone.
There in his office, once he left, I felt more alone than I think I ever had. I started collecting my things, started to go. Then I decided I had to see it again. The Kissing Kings. I sorted through a few books on his desk looking for that one.
It didn’t take me long. They were exactly as I remembered them. Lean bodies, muscular legs, full lips; I tried to convince myself they looked like Danilo and me, but that was absurd.
I needed to get over to the fine arts building. There was a passage in one of the Chopin polonaises I wanted to work on, an exuberant piece of music that caught my mood at that moment. I had always focused on the darker Chopin. Now… There had to be music he wrote when he was in love. I’d find it, and I’d know it when I found it.
Another book on the desk caught my eye. Thick, heavy, oversized, obviously an old book and I thought probably a rare one. Gilt-edged pages. Embossed gold letters on the leather binding. It was The Book of the Dead. I knew nothing about it except that it was a collection of spells for the dead, for the afterlife. But it was such a beautiful volume that I found myself opening it and thumbing through it.
It was a bilingual edition. On the left pages were the hieroglyphs, on the right an English translation. The title page said the translation was by a man called Flinders Petrie and carried the date 1878. It had to be worth a fortune. Danilo had told me there were valuable things in the department, but an antique book like this… I didn’t expect it.
A purple silk bookmark hung out of the bottom of the volume. I carefully turned to the page. Hieroglyphs, most of them indecipherable to me, and opposite to them were the words in English. “In the eyes, in the heart, in the genitals resides the power and the vitality. In them is the force of the magick. In those organs of the ones sacrificed is the secret to life unending.”
It didn’t seem to make sense. In a very small typeface, there was a footnote to the English version. “According to many ancient religions, the bodily organs of those sacrificed carry enormous magical power. Cf. Lucan, Civil Wars, vi. 540-8 and Apuleius, Golden Ass, iii. 17. F.P.”
This cleared it up not at all. I’d have to ask Danilo about it.
* * *
Instead of the polonaises, I worked on the waltzes. They had always seemed lightweight to me, trivial even. That day they fit my mood perfectly.
Except… Why wouldn’t he let me see him till after the weekend? I was terrified there might be someone else. Why did I keep finding men who had wives, or who used to?
I needed him. I needed… I didn’t know what I needed. On a mad impulse I left a note for Justin, packed a few things and headed downtown to the bus station. “Ebensburg, please. Round trip.�
�
The Greyhound traveled slowly, more so than I would have liked. It seemed to stop at every town and wide spot in the road, Salt Lick, Pennsylvania; Gas Pit, Pennsylvania; 84, Pennsylvania… By the time we reached Ebensburg it was after dark. I found a pay phone and dialed Millie’s number.
“Jamie.” She sounded tired. “You decided to come home after all.”
“Just for the weekend, Mil, just for a visit.”
“Oh.”
“I’m at the bus station. Can you come and pick me up?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I stepped out of the station to wait. It was nearly 11 p.m.. A large moon lit Main Street. Small town, narrow streets, streetlights so old they might qualify as antiques. There weren’t many people in sight; they tended to go to bed early. It had been nearly a year since I had seen it.
Half an hour later Millie showed up in her battered old station wagon. She honked the horn as she pulled up, and I jumped in. I leaned over to kiss her cheek and she pulled away from me. So much for homecoming.
We chatted as she drove to the farm. I asked about her other kids. The younger ones were fine. When I asked about the oldest, Bobby, she changed the subject. Her husband Harry was, she said, “still Harry.” He and I had never much liked each other.
“Everybody expected to see you at Tim’s wedding.”
Oh. “I couldn’t come. Late finals.” I hoped the lie would be convincing enough for her to drop the subject.
“We all knew what close friends you were when you were in school. Everyone was so happy he was getting married.”
“To tell you the truth, Millie, we’re not as close as we were. He didn’t even invite me.”
She looked me up and down, as if to say, well, what did you expect?
I kept talking. “How’s Coach Harrison?”
“Not well. He had a stroke last month. The day after the wedding, in fact.”
“That’s too bad.” I hoped she couldn’t see me smiling in the dark car.
“What happened between you and Tim?”
“Nothing.” I said it firmly. “Nothing happened at all. I think he just decided he had outgrown me, that’s all.”
“That’s all?”
I made an exaggerated shrug. “We never really had that much in common. Can you imagine him at a Chopin recital?”
The Blood of Kings Page 8
