“I want a cigarette,” Javier says, with a child’s abashed face.
“I’ll join you,” Less says, and together they step out of the open window, onto a narrow stone balcony where other smoking Europeans glance back at the American as on a member of the secret police. At the corner of the house, the balcony turns, offering a view of slanted metal rooftops and chimneys. They are alone here, and Javier takes out a pack and pulls on its contents so that two white tusks emerge. Less shakes his head: “Actually, I don’t smoke.”
They laugh.
Javier says, “I think I am a little drunk, Arthur.”
“I think I am too.”
Less’s smile has expanded to its full size, here alone with Javier. Is it the champagne that makes him emit an audible sigh? They are side by side at the railing. The chimneys all look like flowerpots.
Looking out at the view, Javier says, “Here is something strange about growing old.”
“What’s that?”
“I meet new friends, and they are bald or they are gray. And I don’t know what color their hair used to be.”
“I never thought about it.”
Now Javier turns to look at Less; he is probably the type to turn and look at you while he is driving. “A friend, I have known him for five years, maybe he is in his late fifties. And I asked him once. I was so surprised to find he was a redhead!”
Less nods in agreement. “I was on the street the other day. In New York City. And an old man came up to me and hugged me. I had no idea who he was. He was my old lover.”
“Dios mío,” Javier says, swallowing a gulp of champagne. Less feels his arm against Javier’s, and even through the layers of fabric his skin comes alive. He so desperately wants to touch this man. Javier says, “Me, I was at dinner, and an old man was beside me. So boring! Talking about real estate. I thought, Please, God, do not let me be this man when I am old. Later I find out he was a year younger than I.”
Less puts down his glass and, bravely, puts his hand again on Javier’s. Javier turns to face him.
“And also,” Less says meaningfully, “being the only single man your age.”
Javier says nothing but just gives a sad smile.
Less blinks, removes his hand, and takes one half step away from the railing. Now, in the new space between him and the Spaniard, one can make out the Erector-set miracle of the Eiffel Tower.
Less asks, “You’re not single, are you?”
Smoke leaks from Javier’s mouth as he shakes his head gently side to side. “We have been together eighteen years. He is in Madrid, I am here.”
“Married.”
Javier waits a long time before he answers. “Yes, married.”
“So you see, I was right.”
“That you are the only single man?”
Less closes his eyes. “That I am foolish.”
There is piano music inside; the son has been put to work, and whatever hangover he has does not show in the bright garlands of notes that come out the window, onto the balcony. The other smokers all turn and walk over to see and listen. The sky is now nothing but night.
“No, no, you’re not foolish.” Javier puts his hand on the sleeve of Less’s ridiculous jacket. “I wish I were single.”
Less smiles bitterly at the subjunctive but does not move his arm. “I’m sure you don’t. Otherwise you would be.”
“It is not so simple, Arthur.”
Less pauses. “But it is too bad.”
Javier moves his hand up to Less’s elbow. “It is very too bad. When do you leave?”
He checks his watch. “I leave for the airport in an hour.”
“Oh.” A sudden look of pain in those gold-green eyes. “I am not to meet you again, am I?”
He must have been slim in his youth, with long black hair, colored blue in certain light, as in old comic books. He must have swum in the sea in an orange Speedo and fallen in love with the man smiling onshore. He must have gone from bad affair to bad affair until he met a dependable man at an art museum, just five years older, already going bald, with a bit of a belly but an easy demeanor that promised escape from heartbreak, off in Madrid, that palace of a city shimmering in the heat. Surely it was a decade or more before they married. How many late dinners of ham and pickled anchovies? How many arguments over the sock drawer—blacks mixing with navy blues—until they decided at last to have separate drawers? Separate duvets, as in Germany? Separate brands of coffee and tea? Separate vacations—his husband to Greece (completely bald but the belly in check), and he to Mexico? Alone on a beach again in an orange Speedo, no longer slim. Trash gathering along the shoreline from cruise ships, and a view of Cuba’s dancing lights. He must have been lonely a long time to stand before Arthur Less and ask such a thing. On a rooftop in Paris, in his black suit and white shirt. Any narrator would be jealous of this possible love, on this possible night.
Less stands there in the furred leather jacket against the nighttime city. With his sad expression, three-quarters turned to Javier, his gray shirt, his striped scarf, his blue eyes and copper-colored beard, he looks unlike himself. He looks like Van Gogh.
A flight of starlings goes off behind him, headed to church.
“We’re too old to think we’ll meet again,” Less says.
Javier rests his hand on Less’s waist and steps toward him. Cigarettes and vanilla.
“Passengers to Marrakech…”
Arthur Less sits in the Lessian manner—legs crossed at the knee, free foot fidgeting—and, as usual, his long legs find themselves in the way of one passenger after another, with their rolling suitcases so enormous, Less cannot imagine what they are bringing to Morocco. The traffic is so constant that he has to uncross his legs and sit back. He still wears his new Parisian clothes, the linen of his trousers slackened from a day of use, the coat suffocatingly hot. He is weary and drunk from the party, and his face is aglow with alcohol and doubt and arousal. He has, however, succeeded in mailing his tax-free form, and for this he wears (having passed by his nemesis, the Tax Lady) the smug smile of a criminal who has pulled off one last heist. Javier promised to mail it in the morning; it is tucked inside that slim black jacket, against that firm Iberian chest. So it was not all for nothing. Was it?
He closes his eyes. In his “distant youth,” he often comforted his anxious mind with images of book covers, of author photographs, of newspaper clippings. These things he can now call easily to mind; they hold no comfort. Instead, his brain’s staff photographer produces a contact sheet of identical images: Javier pulling him toward the stone wall and kissing him.
“This flight is overbooked, and we are looking for volunteers…”