The Quirk (27 page)

“All this talk about boys,” Germaine objected. “How do you think it’ll make me look? People will think you’ve made a complete fool of me.”

“Who the hell cares? Can’t you take an interest in a faggot? There must be plenty of faggot painters. Let’s have the bottle put on the table.”

“Are we going to get drunk for the next month? How do you think all this is going to work as far as Nicole is concerned?”

“After last night I’m not worried about that. Not just last night, darling. Just now. You’re rather pleased with that cock of yours. Justifiably so, I must admit. As long as ladies share your enthusiasm for it, I’m sure you’ll find opportunities to indulge their weakness.” She put her hand on it again and laughed complacently as it responded.

Rod experienced again the odd massive slippage in himself, this time in reverse, like the old Charlie Chaplin sequence of a house teetering on the edge of a cliff with everything careening from one side to the other as the balance shifted. Values resumed their meaning. A sense of his own dignity and worth returned. What had possessed him to open his pants? Why was he bartering his decency, if only by hearsay, for the favor of a vicious corrupter of youth? Poor Germaine was a saint by comparison.

He didn’t want to get drunk, but wine offered some relief from his anger with himself, and he finished one bottle and signaled for another while they progressed through a meal that was ornate without being distinguished. They were waiting for the bill when Germaine was greeted by a tall middle-aged man who was elaborately tailored. He stood in front of their table, bowing over her hand with a mannered grace that immediately made Rod want to do something boorish.

“
Tiens,
Gilles. What in the world are you doing here?” Germaine asked.

“I wondered the same of you. Perhaps we’re starting a trend.”

“I hope not. I’ve never had such a ghastly lunch. This is Rod MacIntyre. An important American painter.”

Rod lifted himself a few inches from his seat and shook hands. The newcomer scarcely glanced at him.

“I’m planning to launch him in Paris,” Germaine went on. “Wait until you see his work. You’ll want to do a piece about him for your paper. I’ll let you know when the time is right.”

“Splendid. He’s a very lucky young man. I’m sure he’ll be an enormous success. Wasn’t the last one a prizefighter? The catholicity of your tastes is admirable.”

“You dreadful man.” They laughed as the man took his leave. She turned to Rod full of brisk decision. “That’s Gilles Delannoy. He has
Les Arts Francais.
Very influential. We must plan our campaign. I’m not sure I understand your plot with Gérard. I can count on Gilles. There are others you must meet. It’s important not to spread ourselves too thin. With a handful of the right allies, the rest fall into line or attack you, which is good too.”

Rod listened without feeling that it had anything to do with him. His St-Germain-des-Pres friends jeered at
Les Arts Francais
as the mouthpiece of academic reaction, but they’d quickly stop jeering if it meant solving their financial problems. Were his really over? “You seem to have everything well in hand,” he said with only a faint shading of irony. If she was aware of it, she ignored it.

“I’d have done it sooner if you’d given me the slightest encouragement. It’s too stupid for you to go on grubbing in some wretched attic.”

They had brandy and coffee, which threatened to shift the balance in him once more. His response to Germaine became warmer, jocular, and slightly drunken. He made her laugh and laughed himself. He paid the bill and pocketed the change. They left in a gale of laughter somehow inspired by him, clinging to each other to support their merriment.

“We do have fun, don’t we cousin?” she said with a comfortable sigh when they were in the elevator. “I’m so glad they haven’t pulled the tower down yet.”

Rod felt as if he were being returned to the scene of some catastrophe. He resisted the pull of the earth. Nothing awaited him there but insoluble problems. More disloyalties? More whoring? Honorable starvation?

They left the elevator and, following Germaine’s lead, strolled toward the river. “The car’s waiting in the Quai Branly,” she explained. “We can give that handsome cock the attention it demands, and then we can decide what to do about Gérard.”

“I’ve decided,” he said quietly, knowing finally that he had. “Here’s your change.” He handed her a few bills.

She drew away. “Don’t be silly. I must give you more. You’ll have expenses. I’m going to introduce you to Lucie Dessailley. You’ll have to flirt with her a bit, send her flowers. It would be obvious to a blind man that people make a fuss over her because of her connections, but she goes on believing that her charms are irresistible. Silly goose.”

“Look, Germaine–”

“Now, darling, don’t be tiresome. I’m determined to do this thing right. You must act like a success in order to be a success. You Americans understand that. We have a lot to talk about. We must make plans.”

“I’ve had enough of your plans. I don’t want your money, goddammit.” He halted abruptly. Germaine turned and looked at him coolly.

“You seemed to want it rather badly last night, darling,” she said.

“Goddamn you,” he gasped in a voice choked with welcome rage. Here was something simple and straightforward to deal with at last. He threw the bills he was holding into the air and leaped at her and seized her pocketbook and wrenched it from her hands. He sprang back and held it up before her.

“There. Now I’ve got it,” he cried. “Why don’t you call the police? I’m a real thief. A purse snatcher. You can have me arrested.”

He saw her poise draining from her as it had at the party. She glanced around with panic-stricken eyes.

“How dare you–in public–” Germaine stammered. “You must be insane.”

“You’ll see how mad I am. How much have you got in here this time? A couple of hundred thousand? Half a million? How much do you think it will take to launch my career?” He tore open the pocketbook and clawed through it and brought up a bundle of bills. “What do we care about money? Let’s throw some around. Flowers for Lucie Dessailley. Flowers for
Les Arts Francais.
Flowers for Gérard Thillier. Flowers for all the whores and perverts who really count in artistic circles.” He shook the bundle loose. Bills spilled and fluttered around him. He brought out more and flung them into the air. “That’s for anybody we’ve forgotten. Now I’m a success. A genius has been born. I can throw as much money around as you can. And if you try hinting around to Nicole about any of this, I can get a lot madder. Just remember that.” He hurled the pocketbook at her. He saw her hands go up in self-defense as he turned and strode away.

He walked fast, expecting at any moment to hear sounds of pursuit, whistles, angry shouts, running feet. Nothing happened. As he calmed down he realized that it was part of his insanity to suppose that anything would. She was a coward.

So much for Germaine. He had no more lessons to teach her. So much for Thillier. So much for the whole fucking art world. He was out of the market.

He had no commodity to sell. He had stripped everything down to a simple question of survival. You had to be tough for that, and he could see that it might easily turn you into a real shit.

He slowed down and became aware of the painful pounding of his heart. Easy, he told himself. There was nothing to get worked up about. He’d never had any intention of having an affair with Germaine. He didn’t want anything she could do to launch him. If he hadn’t been more or less drunk for almost 24 hours, he wouldn’t have let her go so far. Survival had nothing to do with his work. Survival was money. For most people there was a connection, but for him they were two separate things. Hang onto that fact.

He passed elegant doorways, one of which must be the prince’s. Should he pay a call and indulge in the luxury of contemplating beauty as an antidote to the ugliness that had ruled his life since yesterday? The prince would quite understandably assume the obvious. He didn’t need that. He needed Patrice, but Patrice was either at work or trying to straighten things out with Thillier. Survival was money, not work. Money might come from almost anywhere if you kept your eyes open. He hadn’t succeeded in putting that weirdo François entirely out of his mind. For once he didn’t agree with Patrice; his boy was being overcautious. There was no harm in at least finding out about the deal. Double your money. If he doubled his money only twice, he’d be set until fall. François had said he could always be reached through the Flore. He turned into an avenue that led up to the Ecole Militaire and headed for the nearest Métro. He’d like to have some good news for Patrice for a change.

Patrice was filled with dread as he approached the handsome old house on the Ile-St-Louis. The day was piercingly sweet and made him feel as if he were defiling it just by coming here. He had first seen this street, with its trees leaning romantically over the river, seven years ago, and he still remembered the innocence and the boyish sense of adventure he had brought with him. The innocence hadn’t survived long, but the sense of adventure had been intensified when Gérard had taken him to bed and introduced him to the pleasures that seemed to have been stored in his imagination, waiting to be realized from the moment he had become aware of his sexuality. It had not been a reluctant capitulation. He had been Gérard’s lover, sequestered and shielded from the household’s realities barely a week when he learned that his status was no different from that of the two older boys whose residence predated his.

The number of boarders (he soon thought of the place as a sort of school) fluctuated. There were never fewer than two and sometimes as many as six. Gérard’s standards were high. He demanded some degree of physical beauty in face and body, and any boy who was particularly well-endowed between the legs was granted almost automatic admission. It took Patrice the first year to adapt to the basic house rule–total obedience in sexual matters. They were permitted, even encouraged to go to bed with each other, but any display of preferences, of emotional involvement, of love, was strictly forbidden. He had found it difficult at first to respond sexually to boys he disliked, but they were all taught tricks calculated to overcome the most deep-rooted resistance. After his body had been used in every possible way by men that he found actively repulsive, he had become an adept in simulating desire. Neither he nor any of them, while in residence, had been whores in the sense that money was paid for their services. Whatever value others placed on them accrued to Gérard’s benefit.

They were recruited from all over France and across the borders in Germany and Italy and even North Africa. They shared one characteristic–they were all orphans or sons of widowed mothers. Patrice learned eventually that Gérard protected himself from the law by insisting on being their legal guardian. The establishment was known throughout Paris as the
Cercle Vert,
green for youth and perversity, although only the habitués knew exactly what it was. It was primarily a social center for exclusive homosexual gatherings. The boys were there for Gérard’s pleasure and to strengthen his hold on his influential friends. The boys met leaders of the arts and industry and politics. They were sent to good schools, and Gérard encouraged whatever talents, outside of bed, he might detect in them. The turnover was high because he lost interest in them as they approached manhood. He let them go to qualified suitors or arranged for them to complete their educations outside the home.

Patrice had been there two years when he sensed that the end was approaching for him, but a literary man of such worldwide celebrity that even Gérard deferred to him fell passionately in love with him, and he was kept on to satisfy his weekly demands. The literary man was followed by an elderly politician who had served several times as prime minister. By the time the politician’s ardor had cooled, Patrice had become a fixture. He was good with the younger boys, helping them get through the traumas and confusions that he had experienced at the beginning. He had developed a diplomatic finesse that was useful on one occasion when scandal threatened. Despite Gérard’s disdain for conventional affections, Patrice knew that he had established some obscure power over him. Even for the last year, living on his own, he had continued to act as a kind of house mother and sexual coach to newcomers who attracted him, under Gérard’s active surveillance. He looked at his watch. Gérard had told him to come after lunch, sounding cordial enough and not surprised to hear from him. “After lunch” in Gérard’s rigidly regulated life meant a quarter to three. He was on time.

He was admitted to the austerely magnificent first-floor apartment by a coarsely handsome manservant with whom he had shared many boys long ago and who was one of Gérard’s few discoveries who had sunk rather than risen in the world. When Gérard had discovered that the man was in love with a girl, he had promptly married him off and obliged him to take the first job he could get. They exchanged friendly greetings, and Patrice was informed that he was expected in the salon where coffee had just been served.

The big room with long windows giving onto the river was sparsely furnished with formal groupings of Louis XVI pieces and a few striking Renaissance treasures. The paintings and sculptures, half a dozen of the latter, were severely contemporary. Gérard was sitting on a sofa alongside a youth dressed like a schoolboy–slacks, pullover, white shirt with an open collar–and didn’t rise for his visitor. Patrice went to him and took his outstretched hand and leaned over for the ritual kiss on the forehead that Gérard customarily bestowed on him. The youth had leaped to his feet while Gérard spoke a few words of introduction, and Patrice turned to him and received a kiss on the lips, a greeting that all Gérard’s boys were taught to offer their male elders. He felt in the mouth that was pressed to his a tendency to linger, and he hastily pulled back. The boy was a bit taller than Patrice and slightly chubby, with dark curly hair and pert features and lingering traces of baby fat that made him look very young. Gérard’s type. He had an cheerful grin that reminded Patrice of himself at that age. He was as friendly as a puppy. Patrice seated himself in a high-backed armchair, and the boy stayed with him, leaning against the chair above him and grinning down at him, giving the impression that he wanted to wag his tail and lick Patrice’s face.