“Arthur! Young Arthur Less!”
On the phone: Alexander Leighton, of the Russian River School. A poet, a playwright, a scholar, and a gay black man who left the overt racism of America for the soigné racism of France. Less remembers Alex in his headstrong days, when he wore a luxuriant Afro and exclaimed his poetry at the dinner table; last time they met, Alex was bald as a malted milk ball.
“I heard you were traveling! You should have called me earlier.”
“Well, I’m not even supposed to be here,” Less explains, caught up in the delight of this birthday parole, knowing his words make little sense. He has emerged from the Métro somewhere near the Marais and cannot get his bearings. “I was teaching in Germany, and I was in Italy before that; I volunteered for a later flight.”
“What luck for me.”
“I was thinking maybe we could get a bite to eat, or a drink.”
“Has Carlos got hold of you?”
“Who? Carlos? What?” Apparently, he cannot get his bearings in this conversation either.
“Well, he will. He wanted to buy my old letters, notes, correspondence. I don’t know what he’s up to.”
“Carlos?”
“Mine are already sold to the Sorbonne. He’ll be coming for you.”
Less imagines his own “papers” at the Sorbonne: The Collected Letters of Arthur Less. It would draw the same crowd as “An Evening…”
Alexander is still talking: “…did tell me you’re going to India!”
Less is amazed how quickly intelligence moves around the world. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, it was his suggestion. Listen—”
“Happy birthday, by the way.”
“No, no, my birthday isn’t until—”
“Look, I’ve got to run, but I’m going to a dinner party tonight. It’s aristocrats; they love Americans, and they love artists, and they’d love for you to come. I’d love for you to come. Will you come?”
“Dinner party? I don’t know if I…” And here comes the kind of word problem Less has always failed at: If a minor novelist has a plane at midnight but wants to go to a dinner in Paris at eight…
“It’s bobo Paris—they love a little surprise. And we can chat about the wedding. Very pretty. And that little scandal!”
Less, at a loss, merely sputters: “Oh, that, ha ha—”
“Then you’ve heard. So much to talk about. See you soon!” He gives Less a nonsensical address on the rue du Bac, with two kinds of door code, then bids him a hasty au revoir. Less is left breathless below an old house all covered in vines. A group of schoolgirls passes in two straight lines.
He is certainly going to the party now, if only because he cannot help himself. A very pretty wedding. Bright promise of something—like the card a magician shows you before he makes it vanish; sooner or later, it will turn up behind your ear. So Less will mail his VAT, go to the party, hear the worst of it, make his midnight flight to Morocco. And in between—he will wander Paris.
Around him, the city spreads its pigeon wings. He has made his way through the Place des Vosges, the rows of clipped trees providing cover both from the light patter of rain and from the Utah Youth Choir, all in yellow Tshirts, performing soft-rock hits of the eighties. On a bench, perhaps inspired by the music of their youth, a middle-aged couple kisses passionately, obliviously, their trench coats spattered with droplets; Less watches as, to the tune of “All Out of Love,” the man reaches into his lover’s blouse. In the colonnades surrounding, teenagers in cheap plastic ponchos clump together by Victor Hugo’s house, looking out at the rain; bags of gewgaws reveal they have visited Quasimodo. At a patisserie, even Less’s incomprehensible French cannot prevent success: an almond croissant is soon in his hands, covering him in buttered confetti. He goes to the Musée Carnavalet and admires the decor of crumbled palaces restored, room by room, and studies a strange groupe en biscuit of Benjamin Franklin signing an accord with France, marvels over the shoulder-high beds from the past, and stands in wonder before Proust’s black and gold bedroom: the walls of cork seem more boudoir than madhouse, and Less is touched to see Proust Senior’s portrait hanging on the wall. He stands in the archway of the Boutique Fouquet when, at one o’clock, he hears a chiming throughout the building: unlike in a certain hotel lobby in New York, the ancient clocks have all been wound by some diligent worker. But as Less stands and quietly counts the chimes, he realizes they are off by an hour. Napoleonic time.
He still has hours and hours before meeting Alexander at the address he has given. Down the rue des Archives and through the small entrance to the old Jewish sector. The young tourists are lined up for falafel, the older ones seated at outdoor cafés with enormous menus and expressions of distress. Elegant Parisian women in black and gray sip garishly colored American cocktails that even a sorority girl would not order. He remembers another trip, when Freddy met him in his Paris hotel room and they spent a long indulgent week here: museums and glittering restaurants and tipsy wandering through the Marais at night, arm in arm, and days spent in the hotel bedroom, both in recreation and in recuperation, when one of them caught a local bug. His friend Lewis had told him of an exclusive men’s boutique just down the road. Freddy in a black jacket, seeing himself in the mirror, transformed from studious to glorious: “Do I really look like this?” The hopeful look on Freddy’s face; Less had to buy it for him, though it cost as much as the trip. Confessing to Lewis later of his recklessness, and getting the reply: “Is that what you want on your grave? He went to Paris and didn’t do one extravagant thing?” Later, he wondered if the extravagant thing was the jacket or Freddy.
He finds the black signless storefront, the single golden doorbell, and he touches its nipple before ringing it. And is admitted.
Two hours later: Arthur Less stands before the mirror. To the left of him, on the white leather couch: a finished espresso and a glass of champagne. To the right: Enrico, the small bearded sorcerer who welcomed him and offered a place to sit while he brought “special things.” How different from the Piemontese tailor (sea otter mustache) who wordlessly took his measurements for the second part of his Italian prize—a tailored suit—and then, when Arthur discovered, to his delight, a fabric in his exact shade of blue, said, “Too young. Too bright. You wear gray.” When Less insisted, the man shrugged: We shall see. Less gave the address of a Kyoto hotel where he would be staying four months hence and headed to Berlin feeling cheated of his prize.
But here is Paris: a dressing room filled with treasures. And in the mirror: a new Less.