And then there was the particular flash of light ahead, the one in the striped jersey pedaling across the rocky plain that was the Coussouls de Crau, across that expanse of salt-loving grass and windworn ovoid stones. What was it in that being, unique among all others, that drew him? There was a seeking in Varian that he’d come to think of as a natural element of his existence, an element that predated his college days, one that went back almost to his earliest recollections. He remembered being ten years old on the beach at Coney Island, where his grandfather ran a fresh-air program for city kids; he and the residents of Manhattan tenements would race up and down the strand, sand in the hair and sand between the toes, and he would feel desire pulling him along like a kite on a string. Then, for a time, when he and Grant knew each other at college, the feeling had changed. A stillness settled over his life, so different from anything that had come before that it snapped him awake. How he remembered it, the feeling of walking the brick sidewalks of Garden Street or Mass. Ave., hard light falling on ice-glazed snow, his chest full of quiet, an unmatched silence that rang in his ears like the aftermath of an explosion. And here again, inside the radiant circle of Grant’s presence, was that silence of soul that was not selflessness, not the disappearance of his own particularity into Grant’s, but a kind of wholeness. There was no need to seek, no need to search. All was found. The feeling gratified and terrified him—yes, it terrified him, more than the endless expanse of the Coussouls de Crau, more than the war, more even than the idiot dictator shrieking nonsense at the world. He knew exactly what it was that he feared; it wasn’t hard to understand. He feared that he might sit down at the center of a floodplain in the South of France and cease to exert a force of will upon the world. He feared the blindness of the sensation, the inability to see things as they were. He feared how vulnerable the feeling made him. He feared returning to the place he’d been with Grant in Cambridge before Grant had disappeared. And he feared the world he’d lived in afterward, the Grantless world he’d inhabited until the night Grant had appeared at the Dorade.
They had talked about it all those years ago, laughed about it when they were college men. Having read the Symposium, favorite text of budding classicists—Grant for the first time, Varian for the second or third, as he’d studied it in high school and been prepped upon it by countless tutors—they’d ridiculed the idea of love as a conjoined twinship, lovers as double paper dolls attached at hands and feet. In league with Plato, they’d ridiculed Aristophanes’ idea of a perfect match; love was biology’s farce, the logical mind a necessary tonic against it. Of course, after one such conversation in Grant’s room at Gore, they’d fallen into bed and fucked desperately, then lay in each other’s arms all night, discussing exactly nothing. Beneath their silence—their speechlessness—was the understanding that they were home at last, disciples of Aristophanes to the last detail; they had been reattached at hands and feet and pelvis, and would never let Zeus split them again. But that certainty, too, had proved false.
Now, far ahead, a line of blue-black cloud appeared on the horizon, trailing banners of rain. Electric blue flashes needled from its underside. The clouds were distant enough to make the rainstorm seem a transparency on a screen, not part of their immediate reality. But before long the wind picked up and slowed their pedaling, the air became fresh and sharply sweet, and the sky filled with birds winging away from the rain as fast as fear. At last Grant threw a look back over his shoulder at Varian: they were headed into the storm, and, judging from the wind’s direction, it would meet them soon. There was no shelter in sight, not a stick or brick of a house, not a barn, not a shepherd’s hut. The tallest vegetation was knee-high grass. Grant slowed his bike and stopped, and Varian pulled up alongside him.
“Now what?” Grant said.
“No way to get out of it.”
“Whistle for the rescue vehicle,” Grant said. “Signal for an airlift. You brought the semaphore flags, didn’t you?”
The light around them had begun to take on a greenish cast, the patina of violent weather. “What have you got in your pack?”
“Water. Two days’ worth of clothes. Bread and cheese. Whiskey.”
“Well, the water will come in handy,” Varian said, as the first raindrops began to fall, great drenching gumball-sized drops that pocked the dust and blackened the rocks. Varian lowered his bike to the roadside and motioned for Grant to do the same. There was a kind of relieving absoluteness to the situation: no way to conjure shelter out of ether. The best they could do was to lie absolutely flat so as not to be the tallest objects on the steppe. Upright, they were lightning rods.
They sat beside their bicycles, waiting. Varian thought with regret about what was about to befall the black Gitane; its owner would never have left it out in the merest sprinkle, much less in a green-bellied thunderstorm. Grant drew out his silver flask, and they both swallowed long pulls of whiskey as the intermittent raindrops came faster. Some indeterminable distance off, a glare of lightning legged from ground to cloud; a second later, an earbreaking concussion rocked the earth. They both went prone and pressed their foreheads against their bent arms. They edged together until they touched, then came closer still: leg against leg, side against side, a single warm line of contact. If he and Grant were struck by lightning, Varian thought, how would Eileen learn of his death? What would she imagine he and Grant had been doing in the middle of the Coussouls de Crau? Who would find their bodies, and in what state? Varian angled his head to look at Grant, his open eye just visible in the darkness of his tented arms; Grant didn’t try to hide his fear. Another airsplitting flash and crash. Rain fell fast and fierce and slantwise, hitting them from the west; wind scoured their backs, forcing them to press their elbows and knees against the half-sunk stones of the plain. The dust quickly turned to mud. Lightning struck close by, so close the water in the earth seemed to go electric; for a moment their bodies seemed to hover on a thin layer of pinpoints, millions of them. Varian anticipated a heartstopping jolt, a whiteout of the brain. But the feeling subsided and they were not dead. The rain continued, and the wind, and the vibrant explosions in the sky, and the answering concussions of the earth. The ground jumped with each strike like the taut skin of a drum. They felt it in their sternums, in the jolt of their jawbones against the sunken stones. Their nostrils filled with the scent and grit of mud. Earthworms floated past Varian’s half-closed eyes, blindly writhing. An incomprehensible noise approached, a sound like ranks and ranks of babies crying; Varian could make no sense of it, one more note of disorder in the general disorder. A heavy rumbling cloud seemed to move over the ground, threatening to subsume them; then the cloud came closer and resolved into the bodies of sheep, hundreds of them, dingy-gray and darkened by the rain, with slim black legs that flashed like the flipped pages of a book. The sheep, bleating, surged around Varian and Grant and the bikes; surged and surged and surged, flowing westward in a smooth liquid panic; and then, as if they were part of the storm, abated. The rain slowed. The dark cloud and its lightning passed overhead, the maelstrom of sound and sensation slackened and at last went quiet.
Grant and Varian lay still. A fretful after-rain made rings in the newly sprung pools. A stray sheep bent its head and drank. Grant sat up and pushed his wet hair back from his forehead; his chest was black with mud, his bare arms slick with it.
“Ha!” he shouted. “Ha!” He felt his breast pocket for his cigarettes, took one out of the silver case; it quivered on his lip, pristine, the only dry thing on the Coussouls de Crau. The case next produced a dry matchbook; the match produced a flame.
“You really oughtn’t to have quit, Tommie,” he said.
Varian pushed himself up and sat on his heels. “Give me that,” he said, and swiped the smoke from Grant’s mouth; he took his own long drag. “Jesus.”
“Your hair’s a mess,” Grant said. He was close enough to touch it, and did; after what they’d been through, any int
imacy seemed possible. Varian held still. Grant’s hand lingered, smoothed a few wet strands behind Varian’s ear, and fell.
“How far to Arles, do you think?” he said.
“Another twenty K at least.”
They dragged themselves to their feet, got the bikes up, wiped them down with their hands. There was no hope of riding; the road had turned to mud. The only way forward was to walk.
* * *
________
They walked for what seemed like hours before a vehicle came along, one of the stinking trucks converted to run on sheep droppings instead of petrol. The sun was still high in the sky, the storm clouds a low band on the eastern horizon, wreaking havoc elsewhere. The sheep farmer called them into the truck in some Camarguesque dialect Varian could scarcely decode. They loaded the bikes into the back and climbed into the cab, apologizing for the state of their clothes. The sheep farmer didn’t have much to say. From what Varian could make out, he was driving a circuit to see how far his flock had ranged. In French, Varian described being nearly trampled; the farmer laughed and said that he and Grant were lucky to be alive. He deposited them on the outskirts of St. Martin de Crau, some ten kilometers from their destination. It took another hour and a half to reach the stone gates of Arles.
* * *
________
At the Hôtel du Forum, the desk clerk straightened his tie and gave a harumpf of displeasure at the sight of them. It seemed a matter of some discomfort to him that Messieurs Fry and Grant had reserved rooms in advance, that the clerk was expected to find a place to park the filthy bikes, then call the bellboy and ensure the delivery of the gentlemen’s luggage, if it could be called that, to the spotless rooms. He banged the bell with the flat of his hand. When no bellboy appeared, he banged it again.
“Edouard!” he shouted.
No response. The clerk flitted from behind the desk and crossed the lobby, then flung aside a red velvet curtain to reveal a closetlike recess near the entry. There, in a leatherette armchair, slept a young man of twenty-five or so, blond, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, his arms crossed over his chest. His mouth hung slightly open. Beneath faintly blue lids, his eyes traced the panorama of a dream.
“Edouard,” the clerk snapped. “Réveilles-toi!”
The young man’s eyes fluttered, then opened wide. “Sir!” he shouted, and jumped to his feet. “Messieurs! At your service!”
“Show these gentlemen to their rooms,” the clerk said. “And take their things.” With a glance he indicated the mud-plastered rucksacks beside the door.
Edouard raised his eyes now to Varian, now to Grant; a charged moment passed, and then a subtle understanding passing between them. He smoothed his shock of wheat-colored hair with both hands and reinserted his shirttail into his uniform pants, then buttoned the gold buttons of his jacket. Without a word, he slid past Varian to take up the bags. He followed the clerk to the desk, where he received two keys on round brass fobs.
“I hope you’ll find everything in order, messieurs,” the clerk said. “Edouard will show you to your rooms.”
With a beckoning shrug, Edouard invited Varian and Grant to follow.
Up the stairs they went, the single flight interminable. Varian’s thighs burned with exhaustion, his gut with hunger, but the need to bathe and sleep and eat had been crushed by a new want. They met no one on the stairs, no one in the hall. A long corridor stretched toward the back of the building; at the end, their two rooms. When Edouard opened the first door, a blast of western sun fell through the aperture and slammed against the tile. They all crossed the threshold and Grant closed the door behind them. The room was red-floored like the corridor, plainly decorated; a double bed with a white coverlet, a narrow wardrobe, a desk with a vase of bluebells, a washstand with a blue-rimmed bowl. The window a blinding block of sun. Edouard removed the luggage stand from beside the wardrobe and laid the rucksacks side by side upon it like dead gamebirds. Then he looked from Varian to Grant: What next? The question in his eyes was a casual one, a playful one; they had already reached an agreement. Varian allowed himself, finally, to meet Grant’s eye. Grant gave the slightest nod.
“Take off your clothes,” Varian said to the young man. “Lie down on the bed.”
Edouard complied. He wasn’t shy or coy; his skin had that particular opacity that makes a person seem dressed when undressed. He lay back on the smooth white coverlet and waited. His legs were parted, one arm thrown above his head. He looked entirely at ease. Varian and Grant, covered with mud and sweat and dust, could defile neither Edouard nor bed; there was only one course of action.
“Please yourself,” Varian said, and the young man smiled. Without hesitation he did as told. He performed swiftly and neatly as Grant and Varian watched. When he was done, he got to his feet and dressed.
“Thank you, Edouard,” Varian said.
Grant reached into his pocket for his wallet and drew out a handful of francs.
“Non, merci,” the young man said.
“But you must,” Grant said. “At least for bringing the luggage.”
“That’s not luggage,” Edouard said, and grinned, taking the proffered francs. “I’ll be downstairs later. Find me if you like.” He buttoned his jacket and touched his cap, then disappeared through the door, leaving Grant and Varian alone in the room. The key to the neighboring room lay on the desk. Grant raised his eyes to Varian’s.
“Well,” he said. “Here we are.”
And in an instant he and Grant were undressed and devouring each other. Here was Grant now, beneath his hands. Long flanks, slender arms, plane of belly. Unbroken fields of skin. Grant’s mouth. Grant’s cock in his hand, familiar as his own. Grant’s shale-colored eyes. Grant’s hands gripping his waist. And all the private charms of Grant’s body: the triad of flat dark moles at the right antecubital fold; the mute circlet of his navel; the pubic whorls, each its own minute spiral; on his thigh, the pale trace of a childhood wound and its sutures. And something new: a fine line that ran from his shoulder to his waist, a near-invisible scar. And then Grant’s specific tenderness for him, Grant rehearsing with a hand all of Varian’s imperfections: strawberry spot, old burn, bone spur on the rib. They were filthy with mud, they smelled of peat and sweat and rain, they had lain in a clean field of grass under a sky shot with electric charge; their bodies seemed to radiate blue-white energy. Grant’s eyes on Varian’s. His mouth pronouncing a hymnal O. O hymen, o hymenee, why do you tantalize me thus? And who might be listening, what consequence waiting? Who cared, no one cared, all worth it. It would even be worth the moment after, the moment he knew was coming: the falling away of the blinding want, glamour ceding to grammar, its linguistic root. O! how he remembered that moment twelve years ago when they were boys in Gore Hall, when they opened their eyes to the wet and twisted sheets, bodies abraded, needs spent, lives ruined. And here they were, still living in the ruin, its marble walls intact; here they were, still wanting and doing and having, still climbing, all the way across the ocean and over the span of years, and Varian knew he was old, he was old, he was O
Grant crying now. Grant laughing. The ruined bed. Their bodies.
How could they have imagined anything else? They hadn’t. This was all.
* * *
________
The next day they visited the ruins of Arles: the grand stadium that had once hosted gladitorial competitions, its thirty-six perfect arches and its stage channeled to drain the blood; the ancient theater with its sixteen marble tiers, the terraced cup of it acoustically perfect at the backmost row. They traced the track in the stage along which scenery had once rolled, and examined the tiers themselves, marble fitted into marble, each crevice with its answering rise. A low flat sky stretched its strata over the ruins, over Varian and Grant, as they picked their way across the stones and read the informative plaques. Who knew what farces had played out there,
what farces would play out still?
When they reached the end of the last row, they stood looking toward what had been the stage. It was noon, the light flat and diffuse through the cloud cover; that morning they’d slept till half past ten, Breitscheid and Hilferding be damned. They were clean now, fragrant, shaved, combed, dressed. Their biking clothes were in the care of a laundress, the bikes hosed down and polished. Now here they were in the ruins, and Arles seemed to belong to them alone. No other soul appeared in the amphitheater. It was, Varian thought, as if they had stepped into another reality, one without war or rules or wives; they had gotten there by some alchemical magic, just as Varian, as a child, had imagined walking into the pages of a book. But they weren’t there alone; there were shadowy presences just out of view.
He sat down on a marble block at the end of the tier and beckoned Grant. Grant joined him, hooding his eyes with one hand as he looked toward the empty stage.
“Do you know what I’m not keen to talk about?” Varian said. “But what I can’t stop thinking about?”
Grant’s brow gave an almost imperceptible twitch. “Maybe.”
“Your esteemed colleague. My client. Herr Katznelson.”
Grant put his elbows on his knees, extending the long plane of his back. “Let’s not, just now. Can’t we leave it alone for a while?”
“Understand me, Skiff. I’m a married man. I can’t take this lightly.”
“And I, unmarried, can?”
“Are you unmarried? I mean, really. That wasn’t exactly the impression I got.”
Grant frowned, his eyes steady on Varian’s. “I never took it lightly,” he said. “I never did. You were the one.”
And here was the accusation, the one he’d been running from: it was Varian who’d left Grant on the sandy shore at Sculpin Point in Maine, Varian who’d stepped into a boat with Eileen and struck out for the island, Grant growing smaller on the beach, his ankles involved in sea grass, his form shadowed by shaggy pines, while Eileen adjusted the tiller into the wind and pointed them toward the island’s leeward side. The white flare of Grant’s sailcloth pants and oxford shirt like a beacon, visible long after his features had faded and his stature shrunk to a semicolon’s; until finally Varian blinked and the beacon went out, and he was alone on the water with Eileen.
The Flight Portfolio Page 18
