Giovanni's Room

by James Baldwin

  She was very big and she was disquietingly fluid—fluid without, however, being able to flow. I felt a hardness and a constriction in her, a grave distrust, created already by too many men like me ever to be conquered now. What we were about to do would not be pretty.

  And, as though she felt this, she moved away from me. 'Let's have a drink,' she said. 'Unless, of course, you're in a hurry. I'll try not to keep you any longer than absolutely necessary.'

  She smiled and I smiled, too. We were as close in that instant as we would ever get— like two thieves. 'Let's have several drinks,' I said.

  'But not too many,' she said, and simpered again suggestively, like a broken-down movie queen facing the cruel cameras again after a long eclipse.

  She took the cognac and disappeared into her corner of a kitchen. 'Make yourself comfortable,' she shouted out to me. 'Take off your shoes. Take off your socks. Look at my books—I often wonder what I'd do if there weren't any books in the world.'

  I took off my shoes and lay back on her sofa. I tried not to think. But I was thinking that what I did with Giovanni could not possibly be more immoral than what I was about to do with Sue.

  She came back with two great brandy snifters. She came close to me on the sofa and we 'Youched glasses. We drank a little, she watching me all the while, and then I 'Youched her breasts. Her Ups parted and she put her glass down with extraordinary clumsiness and lay against me. It was a gesture of great despair and I knew that she was giving herself, not to me, but to that lover who would never come.

  And I—I thought of many things, lying coupled with Sue in that dark place. I wondered if she had done anything to prevent herself from becoming pregnant; and the thought of a child belonging to Sue and me, of my being trapped that way—in the very act, so to speak, of trying to escape—almost precipitated a laughing jag. I wondered if her blue jeans had been thrown on top of the cigarette she had been smoking. I wondered if anyone else had a key to her apartment, if we could be heard through the inadequate walls, how much, in a few moments, we would hate each other. I also approached Sue as though she were a job of work, a job which it was necessary to do in an unforgettable manner. Somewhere, at the very bottom of myself, I realized that I was doing something awful to her and it became a matter of my honor not to let this fact become too obvious. I tried to convey, through this grisly act of love, the intelligence, at least, that it was not her, not her flesh, that I despised—it would not be her I could not face when we became vertical again. Again, somewhere at the bottom of me, I realized that my fears had been excessive and groundless and, in effect, a lie: it became clearer every instant that what I had been afraid of had nothing to do with my body. Sue was not Hella and she did not lessen my terror of what would happen when Hella came: she increased it, she made it more real than it had been before. At the same time, I realized that my performance with Sue was succeeding even too well, and I tried not to despise her for feeling so little what her laborer felt. I travelled through a network of Sue's cries, of Sue's tomtom fists on my back, and judged by means of her thighs, by means of her legs, how soon I could be free. Then I thought, The end is coming soon, her sobs became even higher and harsher, I was terribly aware of the small of my back and the cold sweat there, I thought, Well, let her have it for Christ sake, get it over with; then it was ending and I hated her and me, then it was over, and the dark, tiny room rushed back. And I wanted only to get out of there.

  She lay still for a long time. I felt the night outside and it was calling me. I leaned up at last and found a cigarette.

  'Perhaps,' she said, 'we should finish our drinks.'

  She sat up and switched on the lamp which stood beside her bed. I had been dreading this moment. But she saw nothing in my eyes— she stared at me as though I had made a long journey on a white charger all the way to her prison house. She lifted her glass.

  'À la votre,' I said.

  'À la votre?' She giggled. 'À la tienne, chéri!' She leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. Then, for a moment, she felt something; she leaned back and stared at me, her eyes not quite tightening yet; and she said, lightly, 'Do you suppose we could do this again sometime?'

  'I don't see why not,' I told her, trying to laugh. 'We carry our own equipment.'

  She was silent. Then: 'Could we have supper together—tonight?'

  'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I'm really sorry, Sue, but I've got a date.'

  'Oh. Tomorrow, maybe?'

  'Look, Sue. I hate to make dates. I'll just surprise you.'

  She finished her drink. 'I doubt that,' she said.

  She got up and walked away from me. 'I'll just put on some clothes and come down with you.'

  She disappeared and I heard the water running. I sat there, still naked, but with my socks on, and poured myself another brandy. Now I was afraid to go out into that night which had seemed to be calling me only a few moments before.

  When she came back she was wearing a dress and some real shoes, and she had sort of fluffed up her hair. I had to admit she looked better that way, really more like a girl, like a schoolgirl. I rose and started putting on my clothes. 'You look nice,' I said.

  There was a great many things she wanted to say, but she forced herself to say nothing. I could scarcely bear to watch the struggle occurring in her face, it made me so ashamed. 'Maybe you'll be lonely again,' she said, finally. 'I guess I won't mind if you come looking for me.' She wore the strangest smile I had ever seen. It was pained and vindictive and humiliated, but she inexpertly smeared across this grimace a bright, girlish gaiety—as rigid as the skeleton beneath her flabby body. If fate ever allowed Sue to reach me, she would kill me with just that smile.

  'Keep a candle,' I said, In the window'—and she opened her door and we passed out into the streets.

  Chapter Three

  I left her at the nearest corner, mumbling some schoolboy excuse, and watched her stolid figure cross the boulevard towards the cafes.

  I did not know what to do or where to go. I found myself at last along the river, slowly going home.

  And this was perhaps the first time in my life that death occurred to me as a reality. I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it—it, the physical act. I had thought of suicide when I was much younger, as, possibly, we all have, but then it would have been for revenge, it would have been my way of informing the world how awfully it had made me suffer. But the silence of the evening, as I wandered home, had nothing to do with that storm, that far-off boy. I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine.

  The city, Paris, which I loved so much, was absolutely silent. There seemed to be almost no one on the streets, although it was still very early in the evening. Nevertheless, beneath me—along the river bank, beneath the bridges, in the shadow of the walls, I could almost hear the collective, shivering sigh—were lovers and ruins, sleeping, embracing, coupling, drinking, staring out at the descending night. Behind the walls of the houses I passed, the French nation was clearing away the dishes, putting little Jean Pierre and Marie to bed, scowling over the eternal problems of the sou, the shop, the church, the unsteady State. Those walls, those shuttered windows held them in and protected them against the darkness and the long moan of this long night. Ten years hence, little Jean Pierre or Marie might find themselves out here beside the river and wonder, like me, how they had fallen out of the web of safety. What a long way, I thought, I've come—to be destroyed!

  Yet it was true, I recalled, turning away from the river down the long street home, I wanted children. I wanted to be inside again, with the light and safety, with my manhood unquestioned, watching my woman put my children to bed. I wanted the same bed at night and the same arms and I wanted to rise in the morning, knowing where I was. I wanted a women to be for me a steady ground, like the earth itself, where I could always be renewed. It had been so once; it had
almost been so once. I could make it so again, I could make it real. It only demanded a short, hard strength for me to become myself again.

  I saw a light burning beneath our door as I walked down the corridor. Before I put my key in the lock the door was opened from within. Giovanni stood there, his hair in his eyes, laughing. He held a glass of cognac in his hand. I was struck at first by what seemed to be the merriment on his face. Then I saw that it was not merriment but hysteria and despair.

  I started to ask him what he was doing home, but he pulled me into the room, holding me around the neck tightly, with one hand. He was shaking. 'Where have you been?' I looked into his face, pulling slightly away from him. 'I have looked for you everywhere.'

  'Didn't you go to work?' I asked him.

  'No,' he said. 'Have a drink. I have bought a bottle of cognac to celebrate my freedom.' He poured me a cognac. I did not seem to be able to move. He came toward me again, thrusting the glass into my hand.

  'Giovanni—what happened?'

  He did not answer. He suddenly sat down on the edge of the bed, bent over. I saw then that he was also in a state of rage. 'Ils sont sale, les gens, tu sais?' He looked up at me. His eyes were full of tears. They are just dirty, all of them, low and cheap and dirty.' He stretched out his hand and pulled me down to the floor beside him. 'All except you. 'Yous, sauf toi.' He held my face between his hands and I suppose such tenderness has scarcely ever produced such terror as I then felt. 'Ne me laisse pas tomber, je fen prie,' he said, and kissed me, with a strange insistent gentleness, on the mouth.

  His 'Youch could never fail to make me feel desire; yet his hot, sweet breath also made me want to vomit. I pulled away as gently as I could and drank my cognac. 'Giovanni,' I said, 'please tell me what happened. What's the matter?'

  He fired me,' he said. 'Guillaume. Il m'a mis à la porte.' He laughed and rose and began walking up and down the tiny room. 'He told me never to come to his bar anymore. He said I was a gangster and a thief and a dirty little street boy and the only reason I ran after him— I ran after him—was because I intended to rob him one night. Après l'amour. Merde!' He laughed again.

  I could not say anything. I felt that the walls of the room were closing in on me.

  Giovanni stood in front of our whitewashed windows, his back to me. 'He said all these things in front of many people, right downstairs in the bar. He waited until people came. I wanted to kill him, I wanted to kill them all.' He turned back into the center of the room and poured himself another cognac. He drank it at a breath, then suddenly took his glass and hurled it with all his strength against the wall. It rang briefly and fell in a thousand pieces all over our bed, all over the floor. I could not move at once; then, feeling that my feet were being held back by water but also watching myself move very fast, I grabbed him by the shoulders. He began to cry. I held him. And, while I felt his anguish entering into me, like acid in his sweat, and felt that my heart would burst for him, I also wondered, with an unwilling, unbelieving contempt, why I had ever thought him strong.

  He pulled away from me and sat against the wall which had been uncovered. I sat facing him.

  'I arrived at the usual time,' he said. 'I felt very good today. He was not there when I arrived and I cleaned the bar as usual and had a little drink and a little something to eat. Then he came and I could see at once that he was in a dangerous mood—perhaps he had just been humiliated by some young boy. It is funny'—and he smiled—'you can tell when Guillaume is in a dangerous mood because he then becomes so respectable. When something has happened to humiliate him and make him see, even for a moment, how disgusting he is, and how alone, then he remembers that he is a member of one of the best and oldest families in France. But maybe, then, he remembers that his name is going to die with him. Then he has to do something, quick, to make the feeling go away. He has to make much noise or have some very pretty boy or get drunk or have a fight or look at his dirty pictures.' He paused and stood up and began walking up and down again. 'I do not know what happened to him today, but when he came in he tried at first to be very business-like—he was trying to find fault with my work. But there was nothing wrong and he went upstairs. Then, by and by, he called me. I hate going up to that little pied-à-terre he has up there over the bar, it always means a scene. But I had to go and I found him in his dressing gown, covered with perfume. I do not know why, but the moment I saw him like that, I began to be angry. He looked at me as though he were some fabulous coquette—and he is ugly, ugly, he has a body just like sour milk!— and then he asked me how you were. I was a little astonished, for he never mentions you. I said you were fine. He asked me if we still lived together. I think perhaps I should have lied to him but I did not see any reason to he to such a disgusting old fairy, so I said, Bien sûr. I was trying to be calm. Then he asked me terrible questions and I began to get sick watching him and listening to him. I thought it was best to be very quick with him and I said that such questions were not asked, even by a priest or a doctor, and I said he should be ashamed. Maybe he had been waiting for me to say something like that, for then he became angry and he reminded me that he had taken me out of the streets, et il a fait ceci et il a fait cela, everything for me because he thought I was adorable, parce qu'il m'adorait—and on and on and that I had no gratitude and no decency. I maybe handled it all very badly, I know how I would have done it even a few months ago, I would have made him scream, I would have made him kiss my feet, je te jure!—but I did not want to do that, I really did not want to be dirty with him. I tried to be serious. I told him that I had never told him any lies and I had always said that I did not want to be lovers with him— and—he had given me the job all the same. I said I worked very hard and was very honest with him and that it was not my fault if—if—if I did not feel for him as he felt for me. Then he reminded me that once—one time—and I did not want to say yes, but I was weak from hunger and had had trouble not to vomit. I was still trying to be calm and trying to handle it right. So I said, Mais à ce moment là je n'avais pas un copain. I am not alone anymore, je suis avec un gars maintenant. I thought he would understand that, he is very fond of romance and the dream of fidelity. But not this time. He laughed and said a few more awful things about you, and he said that you were just an American boy, after all, doing things in France which you would not dare to do at home, and that you would leave me very soon. Then, at last, I got angry and I said that he did not pay me a salary for listening to slander and then I heard someone come into the bar downstairs so I turned around without saying anything more and walked out.'

  He stopped in front of me. 'Can I have some more cognac?' he asked, with a smile. 'I won't break the glass this time.'

  I gave him my glass. He emptied it and handed it back. He watched my face. 'Don't be afraid,' he said. 'We will be alright. I am not afraid.' Then his eyes darkened, he looked again toward the windows.

  'Well,' he said, I hoped that that would be the end of it. I worked in the bar and tried not to think of Guillaume or of what he was thinking or doing upstairs. It was aperitif time, you know? and I was very busy. Then, suddenly, I heard the door slam upstairs and the moment I heard that I knew that it had happened, the awful thing had happened. He came into the bar, all dressed now, like a French businessman, and came straight to me. He did not speak to anyone as he came in, and he looked white and angry and, naturally, this attracted attention. Everyone was waiting to see what he would do. And, I must say, I thought he was going to strike me, or he had maybe gone mad and had a pistol in his pocket. So I am sure I looked frightened and this did not help matters, either. He came behind the bar and began saying that I was a tapette and a thief and told me to leave at once or he would call the police and have me put behind bars. I was so astonished I could not say anything and all the time his voice was rising and people were beginning to listen and, suddenly, mon cher, I felt that I was falling, falling from a great, high place. For a long while I could not get angry and I could feel the tears, like fire, coming
up. I could not get my breath, I could not believe that he was really doing this to me. I kept saying, what have I done? What have I done? And he would not answer and then he shouted, very loud, it was like a gun going off, 'Mois tu le sais, salop! You know very well!' And nobody knew what he meant, but it was just as though we were back in that theatre lobby again, where we met, you remember? Everybody knew that Guillaume was right and I was wrong, that I had done something awful. And he went to the cash register and took out some money—but I knew that he knew that there was not much money in the cash register at such an hour—and pushed it at me and said. Take it! Take it! Better to give it to you than have you steal it from me at night! Now go!' And, oh, the faces in that bar, you should have seen them. They were so wise and tragic and they knew that now they knew everything, that they had always known it, and they were so glad that they had never had anything to do with me. 'Ah! Les encules! The dirty sons of bitches! Les gonzesses!' He was weeping again, with rage this time. Then, at last, I struck him and then many hands grabbed me and now I hardly know what happened, but by and by I was in the street, with all these torn bills in my hand and everybody staring at me. I did not know what to do, I hated to walk away but I knew if anything more happened, the police would come and Guillaume would have me put in jail. But I will see him again, I swear it, and on that day— !'