From Enrico: “I have…no words…”
It is a traveler’s fallacy that one should shop for clothing while abroad. Those white linen tunics, so elegant in Greece, emerge from the suitcase as mere hippie rags; the beautiful striped shirts of Rome are confined to the closet; and the delicate hand batiks of Bali are first cruise wear, then curtains, then signs of impending madness. And then there is Paris.
Less wears a pair of natural leather wingtips, a paint stroke of green on each toe, black fitted linen trousers with a spiraling seam, a gray inside-out T-shirt, and a hoodie jacket whose leather has been tenderly furred to the soft nubbin of an old eraser. He looks like a Fire Island supervillain rapper. Nearly fifty, nearly fifty. But in this country, in this city, in this quarter, in this room—filled with exquisite outrages of fur and leather, subtleties of hidden buttons and seams, colors shaded only from film noir classics, with the rain-speckled skylight above and the natural fir flooring below, the few warm bulbs like angels hanged from the rafters, and Enrico clearly a bit in love with this charming American—Less looks transformed. More handsome, more confident. The beauty of his youth somehow taken from its winter storage and given back to him in middle age. Do I really look like this?
The dinner party is on the rue du Bac, in former maids’ chambers whose low ceilings and darting hallways seem made more for a murder mystery than a banquet, and so, as he is introduced to one smiling aristocratic face after another, Less finds himself thinking of them in terms of pulp fiction: “Ah, the bohemian artist daughter,” he whispers to himself as a sloppy young blonde in a green jumpsuit and cocaine-brightened eyes takes his hand, or, as an elderly woman in a silk tunic nods his way, “Here is the mother who lost all her jewels at the casino.” The ne’er-do-well cousin from Amsterdam in a pinstriped cotton suit. The gay son dressed, à l’Américain, in a navy blazer and khakis, still reeling from the weekend’s Ecstasy binge. The dull ancient Italian man in a raspberry jacket, holding a whiskey: secret former collaborateur. The handsome Spaniard in the corner in a crisp white shirt: blackmailing them all. The hostess with her rococo hairdo and cubist chin: spent her last penny on the mousse. And who will be murdered? Why, he will be murdered! Arthur Less, a last-minute invitee, a nobody, and the perfect target! Less peers into his poisoned champagne (his second glass, at least) and smiles. He looks around, again, for Alexander Leighton, but he is either hidden somewhere or late. Then Less notices, by the bookcase, a slim short man in tinted glasses. An eel of panic wriggles through him as he searches the room for exits, but life has no exits. So he takes another sip and approaches, saying his name.
“Arthur,” Finley Dwyer says with a smile. “Paris again!”
Why is old acquaintance ne’er forgot?
Arthur Less and Finley Dwyer have, in fact, met since the Wilde and Stein Literary Laurels. This was in France before Freddy joined him, when Less was on a junket arranged by the French government. The idea was for American authors to visit small-town libraries for a month and spread culture throughout the country; the invitation came from the Ministry of Culture. To the invited Americans, however, it seemed impossible that a country would import foreign authors; even more impossible was the idea of a Ministry of Culture. When Less arrived in Paris, thoroughly jet lagged (he had not yet been introduced to Freddy’s sleeping-pill trick), he took one woozy look at the list of fellow ambassadors and sighed. There on the list, a familiar name.
“Hello, I’m Finley Dwyer,” said Finley Dwyer. “We’ve never met, but I’ve read your work. Welcome to my city; I live here, you know.” Less said he was looking forward to all traveling together, and Finley informed him that he had misunderstood. They would not be traveling together; they would be sent off in twos. “Like Mormons,” the man said with a smile. Less held his relief in check until he learned that, no, he would not be paired with Finley Dwyer. In fact, he would be paired with no one; an elderly writer had been too ill to make her flight. This did not lessen Less’s joy; on the contrary, it seemed a small miracle that now he would be in France, alone, for a month. Time to write, and take notes, and enjoy the country. The woman in gold stood at the head of the table and announced where they would all be headed: to Marseille, Corsica, Paris, Nice. Arthur Less…she looked at her notes…to Mulhouse. “I’m sorry?” Mulhouse.