Apples and Pears

by Guy Davenport

  18 FRUCTIDOR

  Cockleburs, sticktights, and puppies that follow you home. Ten lengths of the pool at the gym, Gerrit with his coffee making conversation along the side, conquests of girls driven mad by his technique and longwinded loving. The secret, he said, is to turn them on good, slide it in and let it soak awhile up to the hilt while kissing and sucking teats. Then (with a sip of coffee for punctuation) you start off real slow, nudging along while holding it in deep. Tone is what it’s all about. Once you’ve got it tuned to a fine tone, you can start in with long strokes getting faster. Petronian all this, the baths and the hale attendant drinking his essence of roasted and ground tropical bean, talking skill in affection to a philosopher vain of his body crawling through crystal water, but all transposed into antiseptic Dutch practicality. When, dear Gerrit, I said on the way to the sauna, are you going to settle down with one good girl? Who knows? he said. My problem is that when I’m with one and fucking her eyeballs back into her head, I’m thinking of how I can get it better with another. Een vlinder.

  Drenched, soothed, the crick fading from my neck, tensions melting away, alone in the sauna except for a clerkly soul with a hangover. We exchanged a word about the weather and another about the miraculous powers of clouds of vapor. He was sighing and feeling his eyelids and I was sinking into a luxury of wellbeing, planning the day, when Gerrit slipped in two boys, not under eleven nor over thirteen, saying with a snap that if they gave us any trouble he’d snatch them out and sail them into the canal. They’d paid, it was a free country, and he could heave a snotaap with one hand through the door. The taller, a z’on jong broekje with curly brown hair, snoezig and slender but firm as a plank, gave me a bright smile as he stretched and sat with a whistled sigh across from me, having given a cursory, dismissing glance to the clerkly soul. The other, coppery blond, pretty as a boyish girl, plopped beside him and laid his head on his shoulder, limp with fatigue. Up all night, Curly Hair boasted, by way of explanation, gammel en gezogen. The clerkly soul gaped his pale face with alarm, time already to summon Gerrit. I spiked his jitters by remaining calm, raising interested eyebrows. Their penises, well developed for their age, had the pulled and bruised look of having been lovingly jacked with enthusiasm and regularity. Their argot was affected but down pat. All fucking night, Curly Hair said. Copper Blond admired him out of the top of his eyes. Was I up all night? I explained that this was my gym where I kept in shape. Neat shape, said Curly Hair, the kind of kid who smiles everytime he speaks. I deprecated the compliment with clicked eyes and a squinched grin. You’re hung heavy, golden smile. I’ll say, added Copper Blond. The clerkly soul, trying for a scandalized face, managed to look constipated instead. This is great, smiled Curly Hair. I’ve only been to a sauna twice before, and Michiel here never. I only lasted all night, cause I knew we could afford a sauna to soak out feeling shitty. I said, returning Curly Hair’s smile, that I wouldn’t dare ask what has kept two schoolboys out of bed all night. Out of bed, said Copper Blond, my ass. Curly Hair looked at me satirically with wide-open eyes, showing broad buckteeth under a rucked upper lip. Well, he said with full awareness that I was pulling his leg, Michiel and I, we’re friends, my name’s Wolfgang, we met these kids wearing their vay zet vay buttons and smoking a joint on the Prinsengracht and they liked our looks and we liked theirs. They took us to a place with nobody home. Clerkly Soul swallowed his cud. I turned my palms up and tried to look knowing and appreciative. Talk about horny, Michiel said, squeezing his dick idly, so that the glans slipped free. You like boys? Wolfgang asked with his shining smile, not that either of us could do a fucking thing right now. I’ll handle this, I had to say to Clerkly Soul, who was gathering himself to call Gerrit. To Wolfgang I rocked a hand and got from him a wink and a nod. He also unsheathed his glans, meaning God knows what. Wanneer zij willen, I said to show that I knew the button. Michiel sat up at my pedantry: everybody knew that. Clerkly Soul was confused. I explained, to his consternation. You can get zwemslipjen, Michiel helped, with little vay zet vay circles just here to the side, and patches for jackets. You see ’em on sneakers and chains you wear around your neck. The kid last night named Klaas, he’s fifteen, he had his on the side of his cap, Tomas on his sweater, Pier on a beltloop front of his jeans. Details, blandly imparted in the swelter of the steam, got through to Clerkly Soul, and he left, not without a word from me to tell Gerrit that all was serene, and details were getting through to me, geleerde as I’d thought of the erotic, not certain whether I was playing Diogenes at The Silver Hound or Montherlant on the plaine de Bagatelle. Wolfgang stood after Clerkly Soul departed, gave his peter a few gingerly pulls, and reported that it felt OK if sore and sprained, and lay along the bench on his back. Healthy ribcage, knobby knees. Michiel imitated him on the bench above, tummy down. I imitated Michiel, across from them, and we talked.

  Outside, in the bustle of the street, they looked even younger. We’d all come giddily alive in the cold showers. There was the information of our clothes for the three of us to learn from: I was not wholly surprised to see them wiggle into illfitting skimpy briefs grey with indifferent laundering and pissburnt, into socks worn too long, cheap snug trousers, doubleknit pullovers with sprung elbows. No wzw badges anywhere. Of my tweed jacket and jeans their shrewd eyes made much. They asked if I were a businessman, what kind of car I drove, if I had been to Germany. I invited them to have breakfast with me, and they proved to be starved, mannerless, wildly appreciative. It was like dining with barbarians for whom generosity and kindness came naturally but to whom a code of manners was alien. They wolfed and glupped, ate with their mouths open, talked while they chewed. I was a what? A philosopher. An hilarious word, which they thereafter said without warning.

  19 FRUCTIDOR

  Grietje and her friend Bunny to do the kitchen. Curtains, pots, pans, spices, and making all that will gleam gleam. Clitoria, Sander calls her. So we, with Hans and Jan in tow, head for the island by train, bus, and boat.

  Women who love women it was that gave Fourier the impetus to write the Nouveau monde amoureux. Grietje calls it supplementary sensuality. With, she says, a good gossip and lots of deeply satisfying meowing. Girls can get into each other with an ease and warmth men know nothing about. Their role as diaper changers and wipers of butts makes them intimate in a practical as well as a sweetly carnal way with the body. They can have forty orgasms in a row, whereas a man after one or two is a dead duck. Another meaning to continuous and discontinuous in the contrast between male and female. Sander explains it all on the train to Hans and Jan, in rather more clinical detail than Hans is comfortable with, though Jan chooses to be sophisticated, and a bit bored. Then they slide their eyes into looks at each other and get the giggles. Sander calls them brats.

  The boys sprokkeling, Sander and I savor, without saying a word, the cabin’s healing sense of refuge. He gives me a tight, long hug. Buffer, says Hans coming in with an armload of firewood, friendship everywhere.

  Woke, richly rested, to a squeeze of my shoulder by Sander, who brought mugs of good coffee to the bed, faunishly upreared, clad in my Finnish sweater. Rubbed noses for a greeting. I’ve pissed, he said, but he’s still stiff as a grenadier. Nifty. I like my body, I can say to you, vriendje Adriaan, but what I like best, after Jongeheer Jaap here with his plump long noddle and stout shaft and brace of goose eggs in his shotbag, is the dense strut of the top of my nose, and the runnel line from the scoop at the bottom of my neck that goes right down to my bellybutton, and my knuckly knees, and my toes, I’m wild about my toes. Groot God! I said, and got a thousand-guilder smile. It’s those little buggers, he said, so mad for each other. He swiveled off the bed and crept over to the bedroll full of boys, only their hair showing in two collided whorls. He poked them with his toe, mussed their hair with his heel, and knelt and stuck his arm in between them up to the shoulder. Are you two stuck together in there? We’re only two badgers, Hans said. Sakkerloot! Jan said of Sander’s pompslinger morning erection so proudly curved up in
a jaunty slant. Sander hauled him out by the armpits and brought him, a long naked boy with hair in his eyes, and dropped him beside me on the bed, turning down the blanket with his foot. He returned for Hansje and plopped him beside Jan. He offered each a sip of his coffee, which they took. Good, said Hansje, and got kissed by Sander on the dimple by his mouth. Good morning, badgers, said I, and was kissed by Hansje on the chin and by Jan on the cheek. Sander kissed Jan on the back of his neck, with a loud smack, and trotted off for more coffee. Jan kissed Hans on the lips, and was kissed so. Heigh ho, sang Sander. You two little buggers can drink from the same mug. I put in heaps of that nonmilk gunk and loads of sugar. Move over. Two of the little horde, one of the grand, and a philosopher in his prime. Hans and Jan looked charmingly dissipated, as no doubt they were, whereas Sander looked ready to win the Olympics. His erection held. This is neat! Hans said, with an arm around Jan’s waist, and around Sander’s, butting both on the shoulder, and a butt in my direction that didn’t reach. Is this breakfast? It’s coffee before breakfast, Sander said. For friendship. Whereupon he leaned and kissed Hansje’s peter, Jan’s, and, flipping back the blanket, mine. Pleased mightily with himself, he sat tall and grinned a doltish smile, gathering Hans and Jan into a lopsided hug. Hans, confused, crawled over and gave me a sound squeeze around the neck, and received my kiss on ears and nose with animal grace. Jan, breathing Arcadian air, pulled Hans off me and climbed across to copycat his embrace, straddling my chest. Hugged and kissed, he shifted to my knees, dabbed a kiss into my crotch, turned to Sander and swanked a reckless smack dab on his glans. For Hans, he put rather more nudge into his kiss. Wel allemachtig! Hans said half aloud. Fine doings, said Sander, but me, I’m hungry. In de looppas, badgers! Up and out. First Badger, fetch in more firewood. Second Badger, down to the spring for two buckets of water. They skittered off. Damn, said Sander, whose musky denim shirt I put on. I went down to the sea for a stroll and quiet moment to myself.

  21 FRUCTIDOR

  To explain is to evade.

  Crossing the Vondel, what do I see but een kastanjebruin krullende raagbol atop one Wolfgang sitting cross-shinned under a laurel studying a supply line of ants. Black crescents under fingernails, nape dingy. Two meters away I can see that his fly is open, a pink tip of peter poking out, foreskin drawn back. I halted, his eyes went to my shoes. If, I said in a jolly voice, I were looking for a minnow, I wonder if I haven’t just found one? Refulgent smile, rosy blush. De filosoof! And where’s Michiel? I asked. A redder blush. Cancel the question, I said. What about some lunch? Your fly’s gaped and your mannetje’s looking out upon the world. He smiled the brighter. I know, I said, a broodjeswinkel a hop and skip away where a philosopher and a spadger can glup the lunch of the century. He was not comfortable with my taking his hand to cross the street, but got the hang of it, with a delightful squeeze, and we held hands the rest of the way. For the utter mischief of it I compared Aristippos and Antisthenes while we ate, both to keep myself from asking questions and to have talk going. Happy smiles his only response. He tucked away two large beef, cheese, and onion sandwiches, a glass of Pilsener, and pineapple pancake. Coffee he conspued, but helped himself to a puff of my pipe, going crosseyed. Any engagements? I said with acted archness through a blue puff from the retrieved pipe. Wat zal ’t zijn? he shrugged. Tag along with me for a bit? Buff, he said. Hand in hand, we made for a warenhuis. Bought him, to his smiling wonderment, two niftily striped soccer jerseys, a pair of real American jeans, three pairs of cotton briefs, sturdy socks, and a pair of sneakers. He made all the choices. He was in a kind of trance when I handed all this over in a shopping bag for him to carry. Outside, he said, butting my arm, I don’t care what I have to do for this, it’ll be good. First of all, we have a stroll to where I live, in orde? This, with interruptions to look in the sack, another pull of my pipe, and some disagreements about waiting for a light to cross at the zebras, went well. I rang the doorbell, for the fun of it. Grietje came to the door. What is it? she said, pointing to Wolfgang, whom I picked up, shopping bag and all. A nipper, I said, who is going to live with us, if he likes us. Sander can use an apprentice. You can practice on him, like running a bath straightway and putting him into these spiffy new pulletjes, and taking him to a dentist very soon. Those curls! Grietje said. I set him down inside, closed the door, and showed him that anytime he wanted to he could walk out of it. I want, he said, to put on my new clothes.

  The Vestments of the Band

  DE HUISKREKEL

  Adriaan, Adriaan! Sander says, Wolfgang on his shoulders. Where did you steal this fellow? You can’t have him back. He’s mine. Grietje sprang him on me awhile ago, scared as a mouse in a corner, and the cat’s got his tongue. We’re still sniffing each other, that’s fine, but I can tell he likes me. Grietje says you and her washed him in the tub and stuck him into all these new clothes. He’s the little brother I never had. He’s the nipper, for now. Is he German? I love the little fucker.

  UITSTEKEND

  One of the bands or hordes, I say. Technically, I suppose, he’s plying his trade, the world’s oldest, though I think we can give him a stabler job as brush cleaner, errand boy, adopted mascot, early nipper, friend, model, and house cricket. We can put his bed on your floor, a rack of those modish trays in a stack beside it for his togs, soccer ball, ice skates, and such. Bedtable, with lamp. A bookcase. I can’t read, says Wolfgang.

  NIPPEROLOGY

  When Grietje undressed him for the bath, to see, as she said, how a boy works, I said just like Sander. Surely not, she said, pulling down his briefs. You’re beautiful, young man. I plied the shampoo, Grietje the washrag. He acted for a while as if we were boiling him in oil, but relaxed after a while, and even laughed. After we’d dried him, and Grietje was getting his arms into his shirt, he asked if both of us were going to suck his dink. Neither, I said, we’re going to eat hot buttered muffins with jam, and drink big glasses of milk, some of us tea, and get to know each other.

  GRIJS

  Sander painting, muttering grey grey such a color, Payne’s Grey (who was Mijnheer Payne?) with its flavoring of purple hidden in with its blue, the color of English sweaters and Dutch clouds before rain, of some of the granites and seabirds. There are more good greys than good blues. The friend of brown, of white, of black.

  HELEN IN PEARWOOD

  Philologus, said the horse. Nietzsche, having his afternoon walk in Turin (dashing student cap, officer’s overcoat, Viennese yellow-and-black-check suit, English underwear), stopped. Yes, O horse? Of time, said the horse, we can say that its structure is like that of the restless sea in its great bed. Without continents to dam its tides, the sea would slide around the earth as smoothly as brandy rolled in a goblet, its bulge toward the moon, fatter at the equator than at the poles, because of the spin. Time would be like that, except that we are its continents, and we experience it as one wave on the back of another rather than, as with God, one hyaline mass. Ganz recht! said Nietzsche.