“I saw you stand there, and I had to take this opportunity to let you know, because no one else has been kind enough.” He smiles and repeats: “Kind enough to say something to you, as I have now.”
And Less feels it swelling up within him, the phrase he does not want to say and yet, somehow, by the cruel checkmate logic of conversation, is compelled to say:
“Thank you.”
Finley removes the book from the bookshelf and exits into the crowd as he opens it to the dedication page. Perhaps it is dedicated to him. A ceramic chandelier of blue cherubs hangs above them all and casts more shadows than light. Less stands below it, experiencing that Wonderland sensation of having been shrunk, by Finley Dwyer, into a tiny version of himself; he could pass through the smallest door now, but into what garden? The Garden of Bad Gays. Who knew there was such a thing? Here, all this time, Less thought he was merely a bad writer. A bad lover, a bad friend, a bad son. Apparently the condition is worse; he is bad at being himself. At least, he thinks, looking across the room to where Finley is amusing the hostess, I’m not short.
There were difficulties, looking back, in the time after Mulhouse. It is hard to know how someone else will travel, and Freddy and Less, at first, were at odds. Though a virtual water bug in our adventures, in ordinary travel Less was always a hermit crab in a borrowed shell: he liked to get to know a street, and a café, and a restaurant, and be called by name by the waiters, and owners, and coat-check girl, so that when he left, he could think of it fondly as another home. Freddy was the opposite. He wanted to see everything. The morning after their nighttime reunion—when Mulhouse malaise and Freddy’s jet lag made for drowsy but satisfying sex—Freddy suggested they take a bus to see all the highlights of Paris! Less shivered in horror. Freddy sat on the bed, dressed in a sweatshirt; he looked hopelessly American. “No, it’s great, we get to see Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Pompidou, that arch on the Champs-ély…ély…” Less forbade it; some irrational fear told him he would be spotted by friends as he stood in this crowd of tourists following a giant gold flag. “Who cares?” Freddy asked. But Less would not consider it. He made them see everything by Métro or on foot; they had to eat from stands, not from restaurants; his mother would have told him he inherited this from his father. At the end of each day, they were irritable and exhausted, their pockets filled with used subway billets; they had to will themselves out of their roles as general and foot soldier to even consider sharing a bed. But Freddy got lucky: Less got the flu.
That time in Berlin, taking care of Bastian—the sick man he recalled was himself.
It is all, of course, hazy. Long Proustian days staring at the golden bar of sunlight on the floor, the sole escapee from the closed curtains. Long Hugonian nights listening to echoing laughter that rang inside the bell tower of his cranium. All of this mixed with Freddy’s worried face, his worried hand on his brow, on his cheek; some doctor or other trying to communicate in French, and Freddy failing, since the only available translator was on his deathbed, moaning; Freddy bringing toast and tea; Freddy in a scarf and blazer, suddenly Parisian, waving a sad good-bye as he went out; Freddy passed out, smelling of wine beside him. Less himself staring at the ceiling fan and wondering if the room was in motion below a stationary fan, or the opposite, much like a medieval man wondering if the sky moved or the earth. And the wallpaper, with its sneaky parrots hiding in a tree. The tree—Less happily identified it as the enormous Persian silk tree of his boyhood. Sitting in that tree in Delaware and looking out on the backyard and on his mother’s orange scarf. Less let himself be embraced by its branches, the scent of its pink Seussian flowers. He was very far up in the tree for a boy of three or four, and his mother was calling his name. It never occurred to her that he would be up here, so he was alone, and very proud of himself, and a little scared. The sickle-shaped leaves fell from above. They rested on his pale little arms as his mother called his name, his name, his name. Arthur Less was inching along the branch, feeling the slick bark in his fingers…
“Arthur! You’re awake! You look so much better!” It was Freddy above him, in a bathrobe. “How do you feel?”
Contrite, mostly. For being first a general, then a wounded soldier. To his delight, only three days had passed. There was still time…
“I’ve seen most of the sights.”
“You have?”
“I’m happy to go back to the Louvre, if you want.”
“No, no, that’s perfect. I want to see a shop Lewis told me about. I think you deserve a present…”
This party, on the rue du Bac, is going as badly as possible. Having been approached by Finley Dwyer and informed of his literary crimes, he still cannot manage to locate Alexander; and either the mousse is off or his stomach is. It is clearly time to leave; his stomach is far too weak to hear about the wedding. His plane is in five hours, in any case. Less begins to eye the room for the hostess—hard to pick her out in this sea of black dresses—and finds someone beside him. A Spanish face, smiling through a deep tan. The blackmailer.
“You are a friend of Alexander? I am Javier,” the man says. He holds in his hand a plate of salmon and couscous. Green-golden eyes. Straight black hair, center parted, long enough to push behind his ears.
Less says nothing; he suddenly feels hot and knows he has flushed bright pink. Perhaps it is the drink.
“And you are American!” the man adds.
Nonplussed, Less turns an even brighter hue. “How…how did you know?”
The man’s eyes dart up and down his body. “You are dressed like an American.”
Less looks down at his linen pants, his furred leather jacket. He understands that he has fallen under the spell of a shopkeeper, as has many an American before him; he has spent a small fortune to dress as Parisians might rather than as they do. He should have worn the blue suit. He says, “I’m Arthur. Arthur Less. A friend of Alexander; he invited me. But he doesn’t seem to be coming.”
The man leans in but has to look up; he is quite a bit shorter than Less. “He always invites, Arthur. He never comes.”
“Actually, I was about to leave. I don’t know anybody here.”
“No, don’t leave!” Javier seems to realize he has said this too loudly.
“I have a plane to catch tonight.”
“Arthur, stay one moment. I also know nobody here. You see those two over there?” He nods toward a woman in a backless black dress, her blond chignon lit by a nearby lamp, and a man all in grays with an oversized Humphrey Bogart head. They are standing side by side, examining a drawing. Javier gives a conspiratorial grin; a strand of hair has come loose and hangs over his forehead. “I was talking with them. We all just met, but I could…sense…very quickly that I was not needed. That is why I came over here.” Javier pats the stray hair back in place. “They are going to sleep together.”