by Colum McCann
Victor has often said to Rudi that to love one man is impossible, for he must love all men, though at times Rudi has grieved and fulminated over lost love, which is not Victor’s style at all, Victor believes in the roll and the spin, the gamble, and he can’t quite understand how Rudi has been in love, in the past, how he can actually fall for one man, dedicate his heart to him, like Rudi did with Erik Bruhn for many years, the two greatest dancers in the world in love with each other, it seemed impossible, and it galled Victor the way his friend talked, as if a million tuning forks had all been struck at once in Rudi’s chest, and Victor detested hearing about the dancers’ small moments together all over the world, on yachts and in drawing rooms and fancy hotel suites and health spas high in the Danish countryside, Victor couldn’t understand it, Bruhn seemed to him the antithesis of life, tall and blond and brooding, coldhearted, meticulous, that fucking Viking! it wasn’t so much jealousy on Victor’s part, or so he insisted, it was more that he feared Rudi being brokenhearted, that Rudi would get torn up by love, that he would lose everything in the same way married men disappear into the floorboards of their wives and children, and Victor dreaded being one of those people suddenly left by Rudi, forced to carry the sheer weight of having once been his friend, but he needn’t have worried because in the end it was Rudi who left Bruhn, and Victor remembers well the night they finished—it was not the first time but it was the final time—Rudi on the telephone weeping in great heaving sobs that racked even Victor, and finally it transpired that Rudi was in Copenhagen—it’s so fucking cold here—but was on his way back to Paris, he had broken up with Bruhn and wanted Victor to come over, and Victor packed immediately, went to the airport where a first-class ticket was waiting, and Victor couldn’t help smiling a little at the quality of the journey, despite Rudi’s heartache, and he laid back in the comfortable seat and wondered what he’d say to Rudi, what answers he could conjure, but when he got to the apartment on the quai Voltaire there was nobody there except the French housekeeper, and Victor sat by the window, momentarily happy for Rudi’s misery since it meant another drama, but when Rudi walked through the door, his face long and haggard and carved by grief, Victor felt a huge stab of remorse, he could see the black lines of tears on Rudi’s face, and Victor hugged his friend close, which he didn’t often do, made tea with six sugars, then brought out a bottle of vodka, closed the curtains, and the two men sat in the darkness, drinking, talking not about Erik—which surprised Victor—not about the breakup or the misery or the loss, but about their mothers, feeling curiously like clichés at first, two grown men settling back into maternal solace, but after a while the yearning for their mothers became terribly real, and Rudi said to Victor, Sometimes, Victor, my heart it feels as if it is under house arrest, which sent a shiver through Victor, he knew that for years Rudi had been trying desperately to get a visa for her, even just for a day, so Farida could see him dance just one more time, share his world however briefly, sometimes it was harder for Rudi to be away than to be happy, he thought about her constantly, and Rudi had been in touch with everyone, presidents, ambassadors, prime ministers, queens, senators, congressmen, princes, princesses, but to no avail, the authorities wouldn’t budge, they’d never give his mother a visa, and they certainly wouldn’t give Rudi a visa, and Rudi was afraid Farida would die, and there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t give just to see her one more time, and Victor downed another vodka and said he too spent his life wishing he could see his mother, resurrect her somehow, simply go back to Caracas to say that he had loved her, just to squeeze those three words together in tribute, and the conversation drew them so close that Rudi and Victor were able to sit in silence for an hour, more intimate than sex, without fraudulence, without mimicry, deep and soulful and necessary, never once mentioning Erik, instead recalling happier times, and finally both men fell asleep by the window to be awoken by the housekeeper, Odile, who brought coffee then left them alone, and Victor said to Rudi, Perhaps you should phone Erik, maybe you need to talk to him, but Rudi shook his head, no, and Victor knew then that it was definitely over, that Bruhn would become another milestone, and before they launched themselves into the day Rudi went to the mantelpiece to get a picture of Farida, she was standing in a factory with a white hat on her head, a wry sadness to her, the photo seeming incongruous among the fine art and furniture in the apartment, and Rudi held the photo close to his chest, as if tilted to the past, and later when the two men stepped out into the clean day they were slightly embarrassed, in the sunlight, by what had transpired in the dark, Look at us Rudi, we’re soaked in tears! and yet they knew, even as the morning traffic threw its fumes along the Seine, that they had somehow arrived at the elemental litter of their hearts
the steam rising up around Victor now, thinking to himself that he shouldn’t hit the pause button, that it rips him up too much, these memories, and he calls on a fellow bather for a cigarette and lighter, draws in the satisfaction of it, hears a murmur and sees Rudi settling down beside him in the water, a line of his hair from his belly button, his waist tiny and hammered into shape, no coyness at all, his cock with a sort of long satisfactory limpness like a traveler on a journey, and this amuses Victor, he needs amusement, thinking of all the cocks in the world being on journeys, some on package holidays, some in English gardens, some in stuffy Mediterranean rooms, others on Siberian Expresses, but some indeed, oh yes indeed, some would be Bedouin gypsies, ha! having been everywhere and back again to no peculiar purpose but the fulfillment of life itself—Hey Rudi! You and me! We’re Bedouin boys!—and he explains the joke to Rudi and the two men lie back in the enjoyment of the moment, laughing, chatting about the party in the Dakota, about who wore what, who was with whom, and for half an hour they allow the water to surround them, the silence, the closeness, until Victor says with a grin, Hey Rudi, what’ll we do with the rest of our lives? and Rudi shuts his eyes and replies that he should leave soon, he has to be up early, he has rehearsal piling up upon rehearsal, his life is like a never-ending practice for the real thing, that he has a series of big events coming up, all important, two charity galas, five photo shoots, a dozen television interviews, a trip to Sydney, to London, to Vienna, not to mention a screen test for a movie, it never seems to end, Rudi wishes sometimes he could just freeze it and temporarily step outside his life, there is so much to do, it takes away from the dance, he wishes he could just perform and not worry about a single other thing, and Victor stands up, sighs, raises one arm in the air and shouts, Oh drown me in martinis! Buy me a Tiffany gallows! Prepare my last meal at Maxim’s! Electrocute me in my Jacuzzi! Throw my platinum hand dryer in the bathtub! and Rudi smiles, he knows he cannot play these sorts of games with Victor, and he nods to Victor who is now standing on the edge of the bath, taking a bow, so Rudi grabs him by the leg, pulls him back into the water, plunges his head down, Watch my hairstyle! and they laugh until they are exhausted, breathing hard, hanging on to the rim of the bath, two little boys charmed by each other, and suddenly another wicked gleam shines in Rudi’s eye, he is out of the water, his towel draped around his neck, his body replenished, saying he is off for one final round, that William Blake would have approved—The road of excess, Victor, leads to the palace of wisdom—and there is another murmur through the baths, and Victor checks his own mental clock, thinking where to go next, where the best drugs might be, the best music, where another round of spontaneous sex might fuel the inner need, and he too rises from the water but steps in the opposite direction, ignoring a couple of handsome advances, a sacrifice indeed, and returns to his locker, sits on the wooden bench, pulls on his black pants and orange shirt, out of view of Rudi—Time for another dose of resurrection!—and after snorting the line he slips into his shoes, nods to the men in the corridors, walks around, looking for Rudi, but Rudi is nowhere to be found, perhaps he is shuttered away in some corner or is hiding or has left without saying good-bye, not unusual of course, just one of those things, Rudi owns the world so why say good-
bye to any one part of it? and after checking the baths thoroughly Victor still finds no sign, so he steps out on the street, looks right and left, even jogs to the corner, but the avenue is curiously quiet and sinister, not a soul breaking its shadows, dangerous times, there have been beatings of gay men, but you live your life only as long as it lives you, so Victor starts to walk, rolling his shoulders once more, onwards and upwards—Whoever brought me here, my friends, is going to have to pay the price!—and he hails a cab driven by a handsome young Mexican man, Victor flirting with the idea of inviting him out for a drink at one of the downtown clubs, deciding against it when he sees the plastic Jesus bobbing on the dashboard, religion being nothing more to Victor than a worldly suppository, and he winds down the window to watch Manhattan glide by, its violence and gaudy neon, the West Side, flashing red yellow orange green wonderland, hustlers johns grifters whores, boys and girls ground down by the chemicals, Victor waves at them and they flip him off, so he waves some more as the taxi moves south to the Anvil, which is alive and throbbing now, especially alive at three-thirty in the morning, disco lights spinning, men in leathers and studs, men in denim jeans with the asses scissored out, men in country and western gear, men with steel nuts and bolts for zippers, a drag queen on a small stage performing with a six-foot boa constrictor, a group of go-go boys hanging from ropes, and Victor checks the bar just in case Rudi is here, but he’s not, and as he looks around Victor realizes there’s hardly a man in the bar he hasn’t fucked, let alone a man’s brother, and a good few of their uncles for crying out loud! not one of them ever holding a grudge against Victor, since fucking is as necessary as breathing here, maybe even more so, fucking is the bread and water of existence, and this bar is one of the hotter hot spots, tongues flicking into ears, hands wandering beneath waistbands, fingers circling nipples, the air itself smelling like sex, and before Victor knows it half a dozen vodkas with grapefruit have crossed the bar towards him, in grimy glasses, from different sources, like nighttime artillery, and he accepts them all with a bow, More ice, gentlemen, please! and he doles out the last of the free quaaludes, but still keeps a little powder for himself, a man has to be a little greedy, and he begins to dance, followed by a brood of admirers, all the anthems of summer moving through them, Victor resurrected again, like a migratory bird on the last leg of its journey, fighting on through whatever head wind the night might give him, wondering where in the world Rudi might have gotten to, if he really went home, when the two of them will get together again, and there is one final place, Victor knows it well, not too far from here, which may well be the night’s resting point, the trucks! the infamous trucks! those dark rooms on sixteen-wheel axes! ah yes! the trucks!
a place that Rudi also likes, dark, anonymous, dangerous, a ditch of desire
and Victor debates it, whether to go down there or not, to the nightly row of vehicles in the meatpacking district, yes indeed, a lot of meat being packed, the last stage of the evening, and Victor—looking out over the dance floor—notices the drift has already begun, and he ponders that he does not want to become one of the hot-flush queens of New York, lamenting that he’s now fucking boys half his age, no, not that, not ever that—I have signed the charter of life! I will continue! I will roll on! Indeed I’ll roll over!—and with a wave of his hand and a few deft whispers, Bring only five thousand of my most intimate friends! he gathers up a flock, boys so far strung out that this may be the very end of their elastic, their eyes in the depths of their sockets, but a mania still there, traipsing behind the great Victor, a flotilla of yellow taxicabs waiting in the street, one of the few places in Manhattan at this hour where a cabby is guaranteed a fare, and Victor clicks his fingers while also kissing the bouncers good-night, and he and his cohorts hop into the taxis, some of them leaning from the windows, like cowboys on a urban drive, down the West Side, Out with the lassos, girls! telling the drivers they’ve just come in from Texas, that they’re looking for a place to lay their saddles, Cowboys make better lovers, my friend, just ask any bull! the smells from the Hudson wafting in the open windows, the cobblestones shining from a recent rain, fires burning in oil drums where bums share cigarettes, the night air still chill with possibility, the taxis negotiating corners, until the trucks appear like mirages, silver and huge and shiny, a mill of activity, men in various states of elation and annihilation, some laughing, some sobbing, a couple attempting a waltz on the sidewalk, everyone so close to being broke that they are finally generous with the very last of their drugs, pills and poppers and powders they’ve been hoarding away for the dregs of the evening, names being called from truck to truck, small cups of Crisco and jars of Vaseline being passed along, a man roaring about a pickpocket, a drag queen screaming at a lover, young boys jumping down from the back tailgates, older queens being shunted upwards, all of it like a magical war zone, a human hide-and-seek, but Victor stands outside the commotion for a moment, holds the end hairs of his mustache between his teeth, scans the crowd, all sorts of familiar faces, and—just before Victor climbs into the rear of a truck, Who knows, the world might very well end before sunrise!—he looks up the cobblestoned street and sees a lone man walking towards the trucks, disturbing the globes of lamplight, moving with certainty and grace, the volume of the walk turned up so that Victor’s attention is arrested, and instantly he knows, because he recognizes the leather hat, the bend of the brim, the lean of the body, and Victor feels a rush of emotion like wind over grass, causing the hairs on his arms to tingle, and Rudi shouts, You Venezuelan turd! You left me there! and he is laughing, his whole face worked into happiness, showing his fine white teeth, and a tremor runs through Victor’s spine as he watches Rudi approach, thinking here comes loneliness applauding itself all the way down the street.
2
LENINGRAD • 1975–76
In the winter of 1975 I walked around Leningrad, fretting over poems that were only half-translated. After divorcing Iosif I had moved to a communal apartment just off Kazanskaya. It was a bare, unadorned room with a linoleum floor, close enough to the Fontanka River to connect me to my old life. I rose early each morning to walk and work. The poets were socialist leftovers who still managed to rally and cry—in the beauty and space of the Spanish language—against the horrors of Franco. They had written to preserve what would have been forgotten, to give it a longer lease on life, and their words consumed me.
It used to be that I had gone to the countryside to think, to wade in rivers, but somehow Leningrad was a balm to me now. Barges moved slowly on the dark waters of the canals. Birds swooped above the boats. I still felt warmed by my father’s notebook from years before, which I kept inside my coat pocket and read while I sat on park benches. My display of seeming leisure was questionable to some—another pedestrian would look too long in my direction, or a car would slow and the driver gaze suspiciously. Leningrad was not a city in which to be seen idle.
I began to carry a shawl and held an imaginary bundle in the crook of my arm, reached in to touch the emptiness, pretending there was a child there.
I spent my fiftieth birthday working on a single verse, a highly antifascist tract about a thunderstorm where small countries of light and dark rushed headlong over fields and gullies. It had obvious political resonance, but I began to think the poem related directly to me, having imagined a child of sorts for myself. My interpretation wasn’t so much a wish fulfillment as a blatant mockery of how I had lived my early years with Iosif. Even after the two miscarriages it had been possible, when young, to be ambitious, for the Party, for the People, for science, for literature. But those ambitions had long been shut off, and the light that penetrated me now was the notion that I might become the sculptor of something human.
