“Do you think I’m being sweet?”
“You’re being sweetish,” said Jane.
“I’m sorry.”
“That was sweet,” said Jane.
I didn’t say anything. We lay in bed, listening to Eleanor and Scott come into the house. We listened to them climb the stairs, use the bathroom, get into bed. We listened to them make love. Then everything was quiet for a long time.
“Are you asleep?” I finally asked.
“No,” said Jane. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s all right if I sleep here?”
“If you want,” I said.
She turned and put her face against my neck. “You smell like him,” she said. I didn’t say anything. She must have felt me tense up because she laid a hand on my chest, over my heart, and said “Relax.”
I tried to relax. I looked up at the ceiling. Jane continued to speak into my throat. “Did you get a postcard from Ethan?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“He mailed them that morning. We had written them the night before, on the terrace. We were staying at a castle. It wasn’t really a castle, but they called it one. A cheat.” She paused. She lifted her face away from my throat, and I could tell she was looking down at me. I continued to look at the ceiling.
“I think he knew what was going to happen,” she said. “I mean, in some way he knew. Some instinctual way. He sent me a postcard. He bought it in town that morning. It was of the church in Dingle.” She stopped talking. I thought she might cry.
“And what did it say?” I asked. I looked at her.
She wasn’t crying. Her face was bright, her eyes and skin shone. “It said, ‘Having a wonderful time. You are here.’”
Teddy was staying the week at the lake, so I went home alone. I took a bus to Toronto and flew to Washington. I got home about nine o’clock at night. Charles was out at some embassy reception. I got in bed and waited for him. I fell asleep and awoke an hour later to see Charles standing in the semi-darkness, removing his tuxedo. I felt a little as if I were dreaming. I lay there and watched him. He watched me. He unknotted his tie and it slithered out from his collar. He unwrapped his cummerbund. He unstudded his studs.
“I want to come to Africa,” I said, once he was in bed.
“So come to Africa,” he said.
“Do you want me to come to Africa?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “What would Africa be without you?”
I thought for a moment. “Hot,” I said. “And beautiful. Full of baobab trees, and lions.”
“Exactly,” said Charles.
for Stephanie Gunn
THE MEETING AND GREETING AREA
THE NEW “EDUCATION” GOVERNMENT, in its quest for literacy, has labeled everything. The buses proclaim BUS, the benches BENCH. I was awaiting the arrival of my ex-boyfriend, Tom, in THE MEETING AND GREETING AREA of the AIRPORT.
I hadn’t seen Tom in six months, since I was posted here. Before that we had lived together in Washington, D.C. We broke up shortly before I moved. We fell slowly out of love, paratroopers, floating back down to earth, landing with a quiet thud: friends. So when Tom called and asked me if I would like a visitor, if I would travel with him as we had once planned, I said yes.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his familiar voice echoing itself.
“Of course,” I said. “It will be fun. You’re my favorite person to travel with. We can go up north to the mountains, where it will be cool.”
“Wherever,” said Tom. “It’s up to you. I just want to get out of D.C. And I’d like to see you. How are you doing?”
I debated telling him about Albert, but I didn’t, because Albert was something I hadn’t yet figured out. “I’m fine,” I said, and I heard my echo say I’m fine, as if I had repeated myself for emphasis.
THE MEETING AND GREETING AREA was empty. Dust blew in from the runway and was roiled by the overhead fans, each of which revolved at its own particular speed. Tom’s plane was intimated rather than announced. A murmuring excitement spread through the building: Vendors woke from their drowse and dusted their ancient merchandise; the baggage wheel shuddered and began to rotate; the lights above the ticket counter flickered on. And then the plane itself appeared in a huge sky pulsing with heat.
For such a big thing it disgorged few passengers. They appeared at the top of the metal steps hastily appended to its side, one by one, like bewildered contestants, blinking at the bright sun, stunned by the heat. Tom, as polite as he is patient, was the last to emerge. I watched him glance out and around, looking for me, and I enjoyed that moment of seeing him before he saw me. It made me feel in control. I didn’t move or call out—I stood still and let Tom find me.
“It’s great,” Tom said. “And wow, you even have a terrace.”
“Everyone has a terrace here,” I said. “Most people live on them. Only foreigners have air conditioning.”
“Is it always this hot?”
“You get used to it,” I said.
He was standing by the French doors, looking down into the garden. A woman was washing clothes in the fountain. He looked at me. “I’m excited,” he said. “I’m happy to be here.” He came over and touched me. We had embraced once, briefly, outside the airport. Tom had smelled of toothpaste and cologne; I could picture him performing a brief ablution in the tiny bathroom of the plane as it bumped in over the mountains.
“Are you exhausted?” I asked. “Or hungry? I thought we could go get some lunch. There’s a cafe at the bazaar.”
“It might be nice to lie down,” he said. “Just for a little while. I’m not really that hungry. I still can’t believe I’m here.”
“You are,” I said.
We looked at each other, and then Tom looked away. “I’ve missed you,” he said. “Seeing you makes me realize. It’s weird.”
This admission seemed to embarrass both of us. “I brought all the things you asked for,” Tom continued. “Here, I’ll show you.” He opened his suitcase and removed a plastic bag of groceries: peanut butter, salad dressing, jam, a squat ball of Gouda. An elegant bottle of vodka.
“Thank you,” I said. “Should we have a drink to celebrate your arrival?” A drink suddenly seemed a good idea.
“Sure,” Tom said. “Whatever.”
The telephone rang. “Hello,” I said.
“Mission accomplished?” asked Albert.
“We just got back.”
“Is it awful?”
“No,” I said.
“Charles, darling, tell me.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“He’s listening, isn’t he?”
“Of course,” I said.
“So it is awful,” said Albert.
“It’s not,” I said. “We’re going out to lunch. I’ll talk to you later.”
“I hope you’ll do more than talk,” said Albert.
“Good-bye,” I said. “Thanks for calling.”
“Wait,” said Albert.
“What?”
“Don’t forget tomorrow night, will you?”
“No. What time do you want us?”
“Probably eight. I’ll have Irene give you a call, how would that be? Wouldn’t that be proper? To have the hostess call you? You know how I like to do things properly.”
“I know,” I said.
“I miss you already,” said Albert. “Do you miss me?”
“It goes without saying,” I said, and hung up.
We brought the elegant bottle of vodka to the cafe. As the place emptied, we loitered at our table. The combination of my drunkenness and Tom’s jet lag suited us to each other, and we spent a few hot hours in an easy camaraderie I was afraid we might have lost. A beautiful somnambulistic boy mated pairs of chairs on top of tables, overturning one onto the lap of the other. Then he swabbed the floor with a mop and a pail of dirty water. We watched him as if he were the main attraction of a floor show.
“We could
go walk around the old town,” I finally suggested.
“O.K.,” Tom said. “In a while. It’s nice just to sit here.”
“Is it how you pictured?”
“I don’t think so.” He looked around. “But I always forget how I pictured something once I actually see it. I mean, I know I had this picture in my mind, but now it’s gone.”
“I know that feeling,” I said.
The boy with the mop paused and leaned against it, resting. It looked as if he had fallen asleep, standing up, holding the mop.
“What goes without saying?” asked Tom.
“What?”
“Before, on the phone. You said something went without saying. What?”
“I forget,” I said. “Something about work.”
“That was someone from work?”
“In a way. He’s with the French Embassy. We’re going to his house for dinner tomorrow night.”
“How did you meet him?”
“At a party.”
“I thought you hated parties.”
The boy tottered, awoke, and continued his job. “I do,” I said. “But there isn’t much else to do over here. Besides, it’s important to meet people, starting out.”
“Of course,” said Tom. He paused. “Is he gay?”
For a moment I thought he meant the boy. Then I realized he meant Albert. “Oh, no,” I said. “He’s married. You’ll meet his wife tomorrow.”
For a brief moment, when I first met Albert at a reception in the turquoise-walled garden of the French Consulate, I thought he was ugly, his beauty is so distinct. He has a strangely elongated onslaught of a face, rather like that of a Bedlington terrier. It is the sort of preternatural face that implies there are idiots in the family, that the genes that had found amazement here must surely have collided less fortunately elsewhere.
Albert was married to a large, beautiful woman named Irene. She was not very bright, but she dressed well and could muster herself to the dim verge of charm. She drank, and handwrote all the invitations to embassy events in her beautiful conventual script. Her bedroom was separate from Albert’s. They had what he called an “English” marriage.
The sun had gone down somewhere but from where we sat in the garden of the French Consulate it looked as if the sun had gone down behind everything. The air was just beginning to cool or, more aptly, become less hot. A large pitcher of martinis sweated on a carved teak table.
“So you come to us from New York?” Irene asked Thomas.
“Washington,” said Tom.
“Ah, yes, Washington. I loathe Washington. Albert and I spent a dreadful year there. When was it darling? Eighty-three?”
“Eighty-two,” said Albert.
“That’s right,” said Irene. “I found them surprisingly backward in Washington. Of course everything is relative. The situation here is hopeless.”
“It seems very beautiful here,” said Tom.
Irene looked around the garden. “Oh,” she said, “but beauty is only half the game, and the easy half at that. A city needs more than beauty. It needs charm, and it needs energy. Of course I am partial, but I believe Paris to be a perfect city. Would you agree?”
“I have never been to Paris,” says Tom.
“Have you really not? Imagine coming all this way, to this godforsaken spot, and never seeing Paris. It is criminal. But then I envy you, because you have that to look forward to: entering Paris for the first time.”
“How does one enter Paris?” Tom asked.
Irene looked up into the sky. It was the same purple color as her dress, but it was inexorably darkening and her dress was not. “Oh,” she said. “I was wrong to mention Paris. It only makes me sad.”
“Irene grew up in Paris,” said Albert. “She has never forgiven me for taking her away.”
Irene smiled and reached out to pat Albert’s cheek. “That is the least of what I haven’t forgiven you for,” she said.
After dinner, while Irene showed Tom her collection of gold snuffboxes, Albert and I smoked on the veranda. Tall gecko-filled trees rose up from the dense, imported foliage below. The lizards inhabited the trees as disinterestedly as lichen.
“He’s so … enthusiastic,” said Albert. “And simple.”
I smiled. I had drunk more than I ought. The veranda seemed to be pitching in some silent nonexistent breeze. I held onto its marble balustrade and closed my eyes. “Actually, he’s very smart,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sure he is. In a simple, enthusiastic sort of way.”
“You shouldn’t say mean things about him,” I said.
Albert inhaled. His cigar lit up, and for a second I could see all the furiously focused sparks of it. Then they went out. “May I tell you something?” he asked.
“What?” I said.
“Thomas still loves you,” Albert said.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because I can tell he is in love. And I doubt seriously it is with either me or Irene. That leaves you, Charles.”
“How can you tell he’s in love?” I asked.
“You forget I’ve had some experience with these things.” Albert traced the route of a blue vein up my forearm with a manicured finger.
I pulled my arm away. “Tom’s my friend,” I said. “I’m very fond of him, but he’s just my friend.”
“Famous last words,” said Albert.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I said.
“Of course you don’t,” Albert said. “This is precisely the sort of thing you avoid talking about.”
“It’s not my fault if Tom loves me,” I said.
“I didn’t say it was.”
“I don’t love Tom,” I said. “I love you.” I said this partially to disarm Albert and partially to see if it might be true. I couldn’t tell. I was about to repeat it when the shutters opened. Irene and Tom appeared, silhouetted against the brilliantly lit drawing room. For a moment everyone stood still.
“When do you boys head north?” Albert asked.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
“You’re going up to Kunda?” Irene asked.
“Yes,” I said. “And Lake Moore. And then we’re going down south.”
“You’d better be careful. There’s been some trouble up north,” Albert said. “I hear the border is hot.”
“What did you think of them?” I asked. Tom and I were walking home along the muddy unmotivated river that curled through the city. I had yet to figure out in which direction it was supposed to flow, never having seen it do so.
“Irene seemed a little crazy.”
“She was drunk.”
“I know, but she seemed crazy, too. She tried to give me one of those snuffboxes.”
“You should have taken it,” I said. “What did you talk about up there?”
Tom smiled. He was kicking a piece of glass along the cobble-stoned street, paying it concentrated, irksome attention. I intervened and kicked it into the river, which swallowed it without a ripple.
“I forget,” Tom said.
“What did you think of Albert?”
Tom looked at me. “He’s charming,” he said. “In a neo-fascist kind of way.”
“What do you mean?”
Tom was scuffing the pavement, looking for something else to kick. He seemed nervous. A posse of nuns on bicycles passed us, and then disappeared. The city was full of nuns. I decided to change the subject.
“So,” I said. “Tomorrow we head north. Let’s hope it will be cooler.”
Tom stopped walking, and leaned against the river wall. A dugout canoe with a goat tethered in it was moored in the middle of the river. The goat bleated at us. “I don’t think I’m going,” said Tom.
“What?” I said.
“I think maybe I should go home.”
“What do you mean? You just got here.”
“I know that,” said Tom.
“So why do you want to go back?”
“I have a feeling maybe this won’t work out.”
“Why wouldn’t it work out?”
Tom looked at me. He shrugged. “It’s just a feeling,” he said.
“It will be fine,” I said. “We’ll spend some time in Kunda, it will be cool and beautiful. Kunda’s supposed to be really great. We like to travel together. We’re good at it. Why would there be a problem?”
Tom stared at the river, at the goat in the boat, and on the far shore at the abandoned skeletons of the office buildings the Commerce Government had begun to build before its recent demise. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Everything’s cool, Tommy,” I said. “Relax.”
I was sitting up in the king-size bed in our hotel room, safe within a flurry of mosquito netting. Tom stood beside the bed, wearing a pair of gym shorts, drying his hair with a towel monogrammed “The Royal Kunda.”
“There’s a lizard in the bathroom,” said Tom,
“Better lizards than bugs,” I said.
“There are bugs, too,” said Tom. “Are you going to take a shower?”
“I’ll take one in the morning.”
“I’ve never slept under a mosquito net,” Tom said. Tom is the sort of person who takes delight in doing things for the first time. He is constantly losing some sort of virginity. I once found this quality endearing. He touched the gauze shroud. “How do you get in? Do you climb under?”
“You lift it up,” I said.
“Oh.” He returned the towel to the bathroom, bolted the door, switched off the light, and resumed his post beside the bed. The combination of the gauze and dark masked his features, but I could feel him looking at me.
“Get in,” I said. “Let’s go to sleep.”
He lifted the net and stooped beneath it, and then he was inside, better focused, large and luminous. I thought of him entering Paris for the first time. I moved to one side of the bed as he got in. We lay side by side for a long, silent while. I could smell his clean skin. And then, like a perfectly scheduled train, I saw his hand set out across the blank expanse of sheet between us. For a moment I thought my anticipation and dread had set it in motion—that I had somehow willed him to touch me by dreading he might. And then he did touch me; his fingers slid up and gently clasped my arm right below my elbow. It was an odd, unerotic place to hold someone. It was where you’d hold someone to pull him back from traffic, or other sudden dangers.
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