As Max Saw It

by Louis Begley

  Visiting Austin, to chair a symposium at the University of Texas, I almost succumbed to temptation: buy a revolver and twenty rounds of ammunition at a shopping mall, put them in a garment bag I would check in at the airport, and transport the cache to Cambridge. At least the odds would be more or less even in a fight to the death—gun against gun, and not my helpless, naked body against theirs, bleeding in my bed or eviscerated by the intruders on the floor of a closet in which I had been cowering. Fear of luggage being X-rayed, and the scandal that would ensue, stopped me. I rode my motorcycle to the police station in Central Square and held my temper until the administrative procedures were completed and I became the owner of a legally registered Glock pistol. Death! I was in possession of an instrument of death! Death of others and my own as well, commanded by my will, ending my loneliness and fatigue, bringing prosperity to rejoicing orphans in Alabama. That is what reposed in the bottom compartment of my cylindrical night table, a place intended for a chamber pot, one which, as I had no such vessel, my maid never opened. But was my gun in working order? I would go down to the cellar, put on gloves to prevent powder marks, fire bullet after bullet at the earth and boulder wall, then take the piece apart and, having oiled and assembled it carefully, return it to its place. And always the question remained: Will it let me down the next time?

  In the spring I applied for a leave. The Wooden professorship is like a Russian doll inside which is a series of other dolls, identical to the first but diminishing in size. Among its delights, revealed to me one by one, was the renewal, on the date I became the incumbent, of the sabbatical cycle. It was my right, once again, to be absent for a year! My Chinese friends had not forgotten me. I was ceremoniously invited to teach at Beijing University and thus found myself with a front-row seat from which to observe and mourn the events of May and June ’89.

  * * *

  I WAS DESCRIBING the Tiananmen spring to Charlie. The words came with difficulty. How could I convey the good humor of my students, their delight in interminable hours of talk and their unabashed affection for each other? It was as though the memories of what they and their families had suffered during the Cultural Revolution—and all my students were old enough to have such memories—had only reinforced their optimism. Sometimes I allowed myself to think that their secret might be that they truly were able to believe in the eventual victory of the good over the bad, but I realized at the same time that my notions of good and evil corresponded with theirs only approximately, so that perhaps what really sustained them was the conviction that in the end they could not be stopped from changing China. It was even harder to speak of the hurt caused by the massacre, their astonishment that such a thing could have happened. Some literally disappeared—fled Beijing. Many of those less seriously implicated quickly went into hiding, taking refuge behind a wall of others who wished them well—family, friends, workers, and in the case of one of my junior colleagues, an entire Chinese army unit with whom he and his wife, a military history researcher, happened to share barracks. The unit simply refused the police access to him. Many lessons in solidarity had apparently been learned during the Mao years.

  I made more tea. He put his pad of graph paper on his knee and wrote the list of changes I wanted to make in the house. They had a common theme: I wanted to be at the hub of a wheel, a man living in a large house organized for him alone. What I meant, of course, was that I did not want to live there without Camilla as though Camilla were still present.

  Charlie used a thick, old-fashioned fountain pen. I admired his angular draftsman’s script, a promise of sketches and elevations we would pore over together.

  These are problems that Toby should be able to handle, he announced. I will send him over tomorrow. Their solution will consecrate your friendship.

  I didn’t think Charlie would redo my house to celebrate a divorce as well as a marriage, so I had been waiting for something like this and wasn’t sure whether I wanted to object. In the event, I didn’t. Instead I asked, rather flatly I thought, about Toby’s progress at Pratt.

  He is gifted, very imaginative, quite as I had foretold. He has worked hard. Alas, as you will see at dinner tonight, in other ways he isn’t in top form. That is why I have suggested that he spend the summer in Billington, and not in the office. Has that added to his malaise? I am not sure, but I am glad to find a project he can do here. Let friendship and art combine! Come early. We will watch the sunset. You and Toby will talk while I take care of last-minute chopping and stirring.

  There are almost never mosquitoes in Charlie’s garden, the hillside being swept by breezes, but Toby preferred to sit on the screened porch. He wore a thin cashmere sweater the color of a pale green melon and particularly luxurious silk trousers. The puffiness of his face, the slight layer of fat about to turn into a second chin, which I had thought were going to coarsen his face, had disappeared. His features looked chiseled, even more finely than when I first saw him, stronger and nobler. It didn’t matter that his hair had receded; he must have come to think so himself, because he wore it very short now, making no effort to conceal the onset of baldness. He had adopted Charlie’s Roman style. I was moved by his beauty.

  Roland stopped in New York in January, on his way to the West Coast. He told me that you know. I am very sorry. It shouldn’t have happened. I wish he hadn’t talked. What was the use?

  I had not expected him to speak of Camilla, certainly not so abruptly, as soon as we were alone.

  It doesn’t matter now, I replied. But you are right to bring it up.

  You were angry, though. That’s why you went off the air.

  No, I was in another compartment of my existence, one where you and Charlie never set foot. Does he know? Did he know at the time?

  He figured it out. He felt very bad and very bitter, for himself and for you. It was harder for him than when I am with another guy. You probably find that strange.

  I admitted that I didn’t understand.

  He held out his hand. Come on, shake my hand. She would have left you anyway.

  I took the hand. What else was there to do? He was right, Camilla had not left me because of him, that much was clear even to me and picking a quarrel wouldn’t repair the indignity of having been cuckolded by a little fruit. Besides, I liked him. The droll side of the situation, that Charlie and I should be the two wronged husbands, was something I could savor.

  I said, You had better tell Charlie that it’s all in the open now.

  Oh, yes. He advised me to talk to you. He thinks it would be hard to remain friends otherwise.

  I knew that Edwina and Ricky Howe were coming to dinner. It would have annoyed me to think that they too had been in the audience, giggling at our misadventures, and I said so to Toby.

  I don’t know what they may have guessed, or what Camilla or Roland told them. Charlie and I never talked to them about it.

  So that was that. I would have to study the Howes’ behavior, attentive to excessive solicitude. Irony was not in the cards. They would have considered it ill bred.

  Toby came to my house the next morning, with a school-bag containing his own graph-paper pads and high-tech pens. He had studied Charlie’s notes and thought about them. Charlie was right, the boy had talent, and he had obviously been learning the business: as we went from room to room, he gave visual form to my wishes, even those that were still vague and contradictory. Certain projects, which I had told Charlie I felt strongly about—redesigning the garden, making a new kitchen—he responded to coolly, suggesting, as though he had not noticed the self-pity and pique of which they were the expression, that they should be postponed, or perhaps given up altogether. When we had finished the tour, I told him I felt I was in good hands. That was the truth; especially as I didn’t doubt that Charlie would keep an eye on the work.

  It was warm for the end of June in the Berkshires, and I had been heating the swimming pool to spa temperature since I arrived. I asked Toby if he wanted to have a swim before we both went to lunch wi
th Charlie. We tested the water. There was a layer of steam over the surface.

  Go ahead, he said, I’ll wait for you. I’ve been feeling lousy; now all of a sudden I am very tired. Charlie thinks I should go to New York to see another doctor.

  TIMES HAD CHANGED. Some days later, having agreed with Toby on the work program, I left for a holiday in Europe, which was to begin at the Rumorosa. The invitation had been issued by Edna Joyce herself; she had written and then telephoned twice, to urge me to stay for two weeks and longer, if I could, and above all to make sure I was coming. Arthur would be there during a part of my visit and so would Laura. I had not seen Laura since Arthur and I visited her house on the hill overlooking Belluno, but we had parted and, I hoped, remained on good terms, even though I had written to her only a few times. The last letter was to tell her I was about to be married. Meanwhile, my relationship with Arthur had soured. I had introduced him to Camilla at the first opportunity; she was already living with me at Sparks Street and prepared the dinner. They each talked a blue streak—but only at me, as though making sure it was about people the other didn’t know. During lunch the next day, Arthur infuriated me by announcing point-blank, without having been asked to express an opinion, You would do well to find a place of her own for that English girl; she’s not for you.

  Camilla was equally direct. Don’t let him come here again. He’s not my kind of pansy.

  When I protested that he wasn’t gay at all, she looked at me pityingly and said that I knew nothing about such things, and that anyway it didn’t matter whether he was or wasn’t.

  I don’t understand much about English attitudes. At the time, I understood even less. I did think, though, and have continued to believe, that the clash between those two was oddly unconnected to the disagreeable futility of the conversation at dinner or to Arthur’s sexual orientation. I wondered if Arthur’s being a Jew was not the more relevant element.

  My respect for Arthur’s shrewdness was considerable, so his remark about Camilla rankled, especially as he did nothing to withdraw it even after I announced, in due course, that I was marrying her. Nevertheless, I continued to see him, usually without her, until our divorce. Then I began to find it quite intolerable that he should have been so right, and all through the winter that preceded my sabbatical in China I was careful to avoid him, returning calls and leaving messages only when I thought he would be out, inventing reasons why all my lunches and dinners were spoken for. When Edna told me that I would be seeing him I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, and, almost immediately, I realized that the prospect was not unpleasant. Then came the conversation with Toby about Camilla. He had indeed cleared the air. I realized that I would be thinking about Camilla less and less, and it had become possible to feel frankly cheerful about renewing the friendship with Arthur.

  I returned to Billington at the end of August, in time for the celebration of Charlie’s sixtieth birthday. My house looked entirely ready. The huge sum I had agreed to spend had bought speed. Attractive young workmen apologized for not having removed all their tools and stepladders; others, like lepidopterists, bottles of Fantastik and rolls of paper towel in hand, were chasing scuff marks on doors and floorboards. My own inspection completed, I dialed Charlie’s number to congratulate and thank Toby. A woman whose voice I didn’t know answered the telephone. Toby was unavailable; I could speak to Charlie in a moment. My satisfaction would give Toby great joy, he told me, perhaps an important psychological lift. Of course, both Toby and he had seen the finished work, and I would have to forgive Toby for not inspecting it with me. But he, Charlie, wanted to see me before the evening’s party. Could he come over within the next two hours?

  I had landed in Boston the previous day, and had slept at Highland Terrace before setting out for the Berkshires, so I was fully rested. Nevertheless, I was experiencing, as always when I return home from a distant place, a sense of not having fully arrived, a sort of momentary estrangement for everything that should be most familiar. It’s a sensation that sharpens the power of observation; when Charlie appeared, it made me take note of the change in him. A change, but since when? The beginning of the summer? That other, earlier summer when Camilla left me? I would have been unable to say with confidence. And what did it consist of? Fatigue, an appearance of distraction, certainly entered into it. After we had embraced—Charlie had taken to kissing me even in public—and I had wished him happy birthday, we went to drink wine in the arbor around which, at Toby’s suggestion, there had been laid a low wall of old brick acquired from a Connecticut supplier specializing in scavenged materials. The missing element, I realized when we sat down, had to be Charlie’s perennial air of imperiousness and triumph. He was more like everybody else, except of course for his size and strength which was ever more astonishing.

  I have come to talk to you about Toby. Thanks to your confidence in him, your generosity, and, I suppose, the medication, he had a good summer. Now the honeymoon is over. He feels diminished. What a dreadful expression! Never mind, I’ve used it. Naturally, he doesn’t want his weakness to show; he is very sensitive about it. So much pride, his and mine! Offense taken at trifles. That’s why I am allowing this evening’s preposterous celebration to take place. He didn’t want people to say it had been canceled on his account. As though I cared! I thought you should know this before you meet.

  Is it bad?

  Yes—probably. Of course, his doctor is doing all the right things.

  I am very sorry.

  As I imagined the void that had opened before him, the embarrassment that overcame me was at least as strong as my feeling of pity. Together, they prevented me from finding a more adequate expression for sympathy or desire to help, and yet made silence intolerable. Instinctive garrulousness prevailed, so that hastily I told him of the importance to the Chinese, and others, like the Japanese and Koreans, whose cultures derived from China, of the sixtieth birthday, the figure sixty being the product of multiplying twelve (the number of animals each of which characterizes a year in the Chinese calendar) by five (the number of variable qualities of man). Thus sixty signifies the completion of a life cycle and the birthday marks the beginning of the period of “luck and age.” I told him that, according to tradition, rich men have a duty to make presents of gold pieces and finest fabrics, silk or cashmere, to members of their households.

  Toby was right to insist that you give the party, I concluded, it’s a grand birthday.

  I was launching into a disquisition on Chinese views about properties of numbers that made them lucky or unlucky when he interrupted me.

  Perhaps in China; not here and not for me. For me, it’s the first of the Stations of the Cross.

  He looked at his watch, stared at me for a moment, and said, Come upstairs to that cocotte’s bathroom you had Toby build for you. I want to show you something.

  Not without apprehension, I followed. The new bathroom was, in fact, striking. We had enlarged it so that, for the first time in my life, I was the master of a dressing room. Toby had had the insides of the closets lined with sandalwood, the doors were full-length mirrors, and a daybed covered with chintz portraying birds of the Amazon jungle stood at an oblique angle to the window. I was to rest upon it, wrapped in towels, after my bath.

  Charlie was never without a jacket in the country, inside his house or out. For the evening, these were apt to be voluminous, double-breasted blazers of heavy, smooth wool. During the day, he gave preference to tweed creations, the weight and roughness of which suited the season and the activity he had undertaken (thornproof, for instance, when he walked in the Billington woods) or, as now, at the height of the summer’s heat, unlined silk. He railed against my habit of going about in shirtsleeves, wallet sticking out of the back pocket of my trousers, according to him like a sailor on leave who has been invited to spend the weekend with somebody’s aunt. I watched him kick off his loafers and, more deliberately, remove his jacket, shirt, and trousers, until arms akimbo, majestic and naked, he stoo
d in front of one of my mirrors. I noted that he wore no underpants.

  Draw near, he said. Do not be afraid, you little devil. This isn’t a pass. It will be a demonstration of the physiology of aging.

  First, my face. You will have observed that I have turned gray—in that respect it helps to have once been blond. The color change is less unpleasant. Of course, my hair has remained thick. A tonsure will not needlessly inform the laity of my tastes. That is because my hair, like my mother’s, is so surprisingly wiry. We used to wonder about the purity of the race, down there in Virginia. Speaking of what’s wiry, behold my eyebrows. They have been invaded by pubic hair. Therefore, I pluck them. Each morning, I remove the more indecent hairs, those that curl, push in previously unaccustomed directions, or show split ends. It’s a losing battle; their successors are even more voyants. Other pubic hairs protrude from inside my nose, itself thickened and bulbous—perhaps because, in defiance of my sainted mother’s injunctions, I have always picked it. Soon its tip will be indistinguishable in form and jocund color from the gland that finishes my dick. Eyes injected with blood, the right one unpleasantly rheumy. Under these eyes, the windows of my soul, puckered brown bags, with striations and folds like a scrotum, studded with little warts. Brow permanently furrowed. Thus Priapus has usurped the place of Mars. Two years ago, before we knew of his sorrows—you realize now that he has become the man of sorrows—Toby wanted me to have these bags surgically reduced. Stretched and then sewed up from inside the lids, I suppose. Why? Was he ashamed of my aspect? A rare movement toward sadism and mutilation? Of course, I refused. Now it must be too late for the knife, and even if it weren’t, and I should, contra naturam, consent to such a procedure, what would Toby think? That my new, gay eyes are a get-well gift to him, or the lure I was preparing for another young fellow?