Allan Stein (13 page)

"I ate mud when I was little," Per said. Stéphane began laughing, and when Serge took the last bowl from the tray the boy set it down and put his head on my shoulder to stifle the laughter. "It was very special mud, Danish mud. All the children ate mud." I felt the boy's hand through the cloth of my shirt; he went on laughing for a while. Serge and Per watched in silence until the boy was done. How sweet that he chose my shoulder.

"It was very good mud," Per insisted. "You think mud is just mud, as if meat is just meat. There are families who eat the mud of Denmark at meals."

"How do they cook it?" the boy asked.

"No, it's true." Miriam put in. Denis turned back to me (to anyone who would listen) hoping, soon, to make his point. "They've made a tourist attraction of it, you know. One can buy jars of Danish mud in the markets of Jutland—as a novelty, I mean."

"But that isn't the real mud," Per objected.

Serge agreed. "No, it is like the tourist bakeries in Paris. The plum tarts." He took the plum blossom from Per and smashed it on the table. "These aren't real plum tarts they're serving. They serve the idea of the tarts, the image of tarts, so the tourists can think they are being French. The tourist does not want a true French tart. It is too sour."

"It
is
too sour," Stéphane said, sitting down on his stool.

"They sweeten them for the tourist."

"Like the Picasso Museum and its Picasso," Denis announced, at last heard by all. He made a gesture with his hand, then took the wine and filled our glasses.

There was some kind of special bottle, its dust much thicker, with sediment gathered inside, that Serge brought up long after the soccer match ended, after the beans and squash and potatoes were
gone, after the last bread end had sopped the last drops of gravy, and a salad and cheeses had come and gone. We were very drunk. Afghan wrapped (he brought out several for his guests), Serge wobbled with the twin bottles through the chilly end of the evening, to the table where we lurched at each other's comments. I'd finished telling Denis my (that is, Herbert's) minimal plans for the acquisition of the Picasso drawings, and what a torrent of admiration these had unleashed. He was full of ideas, some of which I caught and all of which I applauded, saying yes, go ahead, thank you, you're too kind, by all means you write the widow, whatever. I was expansive. Denis became a friend, and life was very sweet as Herbert. Per and Miriam danced under the plum tree, a slow shuffle to the Chet Baker songs our boy waiter had pointed out the window while he studied. How could he study? It was his job, as legal secretary was Miriam's and art acquisition had become mine. It always helps to have a purpose. He applied himself to it without much fuss, even a little drunk in the late evening while his parents caroused in the chilly garden below.

The buildings broadcast a mix of channels now, flickering in the later night, after the monarchy of soccer had ended and no one could agree on anything anymore. Our garden was an oasis in this desert of dim, aggravated gazes, and we leaned into one another as only new drunk friends can. The dancing pair danced; Serge, Denis, and I sprawled around the table, talking about geography and the peculiar way in which a new place, Africa once for Serge, Paris for me and Denis (he grew up in Marseille), is unable to resist the power of one's imagination—there is too little reality gathered there— which makes it malleable and transporting like a dream or a thin-skinned fantasy that both enchants and is completely misleading to the traveler, who falls in love with it and stays, only to discover that every place is real, its intransigent bulk hidden, the airy island drift
of its first appearance an illusion, and that unless he keeps moving he is trapped in a world of stubborn realities, of actual places.

The almanac records that it became stormy late that night, the air stirred by a steep drop in temperature coming down from the north behind a wide band of moisture. The rain managed to skirt the city, while its cold back edge caught us and lingered until the hour before dawn. By morning it was bright and warm again, so that for anyone who had gone to bed at a decent hour, eleven or twelve, and slept through the freeze, spring simply continued in its glorious first flower without interruption.

♦9
  
♦

I
n the fall of 1912 a young American named Sylvia Salinger came to stay with the Steins. Her romance in San Francisco with a man known only as “the coffee boy" had upset her family, and they sent her to Paris with a girlfriend to end it. Visitors were always coming from America, and Sylvia stayed for almost a year. Allan Stein fell in love with her. He was sixteen years old, and she was twenty-three.

“
D
earest family, Paris is such a strange place. After six hours on the train we landed, and Sarah and Mike and Allen [sic] and Gertrude and Alice were there to meet us. Alice and Gertrude got into one cab and disappeared. Our trunks got into another and the rest of us into still another. Then the cabs had a race up to the Hotel Lutecia, where we had engaged two rooms. The Steins stayed here awhile Friday evening, and then we went to sleep in wonderful beds. I have had absolutely no recollection of the steamer and I think that is rather unusual,
nicht wahr?
" Which reminds me, I must drop German and take up French.

“Saturday morning we woke up at ten-thirty and had breakfast in bed. Mike called for us at one and we went to the Steins. The first impression of their home was a never to be forgotten one. I
could not make out much, but finally decided the thing to do was to concentrate on one painting at a time until I could see something. I have hopes for myself. In several of them I could see what was meant, the object, but in few could I see beauty, and from what I hear that is doing rather well. And I did it all by myself too.

"After lunch Allen took me to see Paris. We did not walk, we ran, just everywhere and through everything, Allen giving me the historical significance to every piece of everything as we ran by. His chief object was not to have me see anything definitely, but just to kind of get an impression, so that I should fall in love with Paris immediately. It was a funny afternoon. I ran through the Luxembourg Gardens, through the Luxembourg Gallery— just imagine it—through the Cluny Museum, through some funny little church, through Notre Dame, and along the river. It was not to see anything, remember, but just to get an idea of the possibilities of Paris. He certainly is some youth. I forgot the Pantheon. Then he rushed me to Gertrude's and he vanished."

S
ylvia Salinger was a clotheshorse, an avid shopper who put Matisse and Picasso and all the Steins' arcane concerns out of mind just as fast she could hail a fiacre to the nearby Bon Marché. Her letters home are rife with shopping lists—hats and boas, coats, dresses, and handmade shoes—which betray a covetousness that easily outstripped the Steins' enthusiasm for art. Even at the fabled Autumn Salon, where, nine years earlier, the Steins had made art history when they bought the reviled Matisse painting
Woman with a Hat
, Sylvia had eyes mostly for the decor.

"They are having the Autumn showing just now. The main attraction is Matisse. He has two things that are supposed to be tres wonderful! I can see the coloring wonder of it, but as far as grace, etc., are concerned, I don't get it at all. Still, I am not supposed to, they tell me. The one interesting thing about the Salon is the dis
play of wallpapers that have been designed just as all the other arts are worked out. Some of them are very lovely. Then, another thing is the rooms—bedrooms, drawing rooms, tearooms, dining rooms, libraries—everything complete, each little room a thing apart from everything else. There was one, a child's bedroom, that was the prettiest I have ever seen. They are completely furnished, even to the books on the shelves. It's a splendid way to get ideas."

Allan, a teenager preoccupied with horses, boxing, and tennis, also had little time for his parents' passions. Sylvia must have been a bracing tonic for him. American, brash, naive, and stunningly beautiful, Sylvia enchanted Allan. Her letters home record the course of his infatuation, and of his escape from the claustrophobic seriousness of his family's salons.

"Yesterday afternoon I went riding with Allen out in the country. It was a beautiful day and we had a glorious ride! There were two aeroplanes—monos—flying up over us the whole time, which helped to make things exciting. They are not allowed to fly over Paris proper. Last night, when I went to my room, I found a big box of all kinds of assorted milk chocolates, with a verse to Sylvia, and a little book with a French story started therein—what the story means I have yet to know, but the verse I could translate a little of. It was very well done, and so well put up. Allen, of course."

While Sarah's little boy was turning into the impulsive, extravagant, woman-chasing man he would soon become, the Picasso painting of the boy, age eleven, remained unchanged, hanging in the bedroom at 58 rue Madame. Collectors had been courting the Steins, some offering upward of $5,000 for Picassos the Steins had spent less than $100 on. Mike sold a few, but they held on to Allan's portrait for the rest of their lives.

I
n the bright morning sunshine I saw the boy in the garden wearing his worn-out khaki shorts and nothing else. He was alone, star
ing at the sky above the wall through a branch of plum tree blossoms. I had got up to pee and watched him through the window by my toilet. Stéphane stood facing away, the air full of calling birds, tilting his head like a slow metronome or a boy whose thin neck is sore. Dirty hair tickled his shoulders. Bright sunlight shadowed the grooves of his spine, and feathered outward along his ribs. His shoulder blades this morning were made golden and prominent by the sunshine, and they rose from his smooth back whenever the boy moved his arms. The hollows behind his knees hid in the shadow of his baggy hemmed shorts. Stéphane turned toward the house, toward me, and what I saw verged on abstraction: the hollows of his collarbone, the way sunlight pooled in the slim lip of his belly button, his pale nipples soft as drained blisters, the broad gap between his rabbit teeth, plus the relaxed, arrogant tilt in his hips and neck. He stood looking at the sky, scribbling. I watched from the toilet, and then the boy walked back inside.

O
n Monday Herbert phoned. It was before noon, and he was very drunk. It must have been the middle of the night in California.

"Herbert?"

"Thank God it's you, I can't remember a word of my French."

"What time is it there?"

"Here? I haven't any idea. Jimmy's asleep in front of some tedious video."

"In the big room?"

"Of course in the big room. He insisted I watch it with him and then he fell asleep, and now I'm stuck with the video and Jimmy, and you know he has me sleeping on the futon, so until I get him out of here
I
can't go to sleep. I started rummaging around in the kitchen and found this incredible coffee, just thick as tar. I'm so glad I have your number, no one on this continent is awake yet."

"What's the video?"

"Some four-hour silent; I think it's
Napoleon
. How are you? I've been worried to death, waiting for a card, anything."

"You're drunk."

"Of course I'm drunk. That doesn't mean I haven't missed you."

"Well, I've missed you too. I'm fine. It's beautiful here, as you can imagine. It's been sunny and warm, with pleasant cool evenings."

"I didn't call for a weather report. How
are
you? I mean, how are you,
really?
"

I left a long pause, and the distance was audible in the line, all sorts of intergalactic crackle and hiss marking the deep curve of space through which this phone call traveled. There was no clipped delay, thank goodness; I can't speak if there's a delay, it's just too disturbing. It makes so vividly clear exactly what the telephone is supposed to disguise—that is, how impossible the distance is that separates us.

"Hello? Are you there?"

"Yes, of course I'm here. I was just wistful. I miss you too, you know. It's just terrific to hear your voice."

"Sweet."

"I'm fine. The family is lovely as can be, and they've even got a young son who's a bit of a distraction."

"How young?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Of course you know. How young is he?"

"Fifteen, I think. Maybe he's sixteen."

"Mmm. You're not doing anything, are you? Because you know I wouldn't, and it's me who's staying there, on the museum's tab no less, so obviously doing anything is out of the question. He must be gorgeous."

"Oh, completely. Of course I'm not doing anything."

"I'm worried about you."

"Sweet."

"Maybe you should come home, come to Jimmy's."

"I couldn't."

"The weather is absolutely stunning. I haven't left the compound since getting here."

"I really couldn't. The drawings have got me very busy already. I've set up something with the widow, Allan Stein's widow."

"Jimmy's got Vicodin, I mean bottles of it.

"I don't like Vicodin, and anyway, Herbert, I'm enjoying myself here. It's a great relief having something to do for a change. You may have been overworked for months but I've just been sitting in my room. The last thing in the world I need now is to be idle, even at Jimmy's, which I'm sure must be heaven."

"You don't like Vicodin?"

"I loathe Vicodin. I'm probably going to have those drawings in hand by the end of the week."

"You really should write to Allan's son, he's got an address in Paris."

"Allan Stein's son?"

"Yes, hold on, I'll get it for you."

"Why didn't you give it to me before I left?"

"Oh, I don't know. I never thought you'd take these drawings so seriously. Hold on a second." Herbert rummaged for a while, and when he returned he recited the address and sighed. "The end of the week?"

"Probably. I mean, between the widow and the son I can't imagine I'll have any problems."

"Then you're coming home?"

"Of course I am."

The phone call left me torn apart, as if Herbert's kindness had obliged me to span the distance which separated us, so that now I felt dispersed, like an aerosol spray. I wanted to occupy myself and
so I wrote to the son straightaway, asking for his help and signing the letter with my usual flourish. It was almost one, and I was still completely out of focus. Swimming seemed like a good idea.

According to Herbert's antique guidebook (Baedecker, 1907), an artesian well fed a bath for indigents on the Butte aux Cailles, just a short walk up the rue Bobillot from home.
Une station balnéaire (avec piscine, buvettes, etc.)
, curiously located on the summit of a butte, was promised, though no hours or fees were listed. I packed two towels, my baggy trunks, stale bread and cheese, and left a note promising my four P.M. return (school's end). Dazed by the bright sunshine, I stopped for a coffee at the Café Bobillot. A woman with a purse and a purse-sized dog spooned her way up to the bar beside me and propped the dog sidearm so that his tiny clean butthole was poised exactly at the lip of my
petit
c
rème
. Good Parisian, I pretended it wasn't there. With the broad windowed walls pulled open to the street, the café became littered with blown trash, shouted French, and car-horn honks in the billowy air. I enjoyed another
petit
c
rème
, plus a baguette smashed with camembert and butter. Time wafted away with the odor of this pungent bread and cheese, and I got lost in it, delirious with ammonia and cream and the grim resistance of the chewy bread.

T
his part of the Thirteenth District was plain and quotidian beside the Paris I remembered from my trip with Louise. I was sixteen then, and we stayed in a small hotel near the Place Saint-Denis, where it seemed like every street at every hour was loud and crowded, decorated with the come-hither blandishments of tourism. Card shops and overpriced cafés punctuated this twisting labyrinth of streets in every direction, and I loved it, thinking this was just like TV, which it was: a constant jumbled stream of pumped-up sensations that left us exhausted and irritable, so irritable that Louise and I decided, for
the first time in any place, traveling or at home, to go our separate ways for great chunks of time. We set up rendezvous for certain meals back at the hotel and spent the next ten days like strangers who have met each other abroad, get along well, and agree to share a few dates in the course of their separate vacations. It is clear to me now that Louise, progressive mother that she was, had decided it was time I began having some independence, some kind of adventure, and where better for a handsome young boy to start than Paris? I know that now, but at the time of our trip what I had figured out was exactly the reverse. In Paris, thrust onto my own by my mother's eagerness to "explore" (as she put it), I reasoned that she was pursuing sex, or at least romance, and wanted to get rid of me. I was hurt by it, and suspicious. My forced independence became an affliction, and I spent most of the time paranoid and morose, staying close to the hotel so I could monitor her comings and goings as closely as possible.

Our rooms were separate but they shared a thin wall, and I always knew if she was in, and what she was doing when she was. Typically we had breakfast at the hotel and discussed our plans for the day. I improvised elaborate fictions, long walking tours of great swaths of the city that I never actually carried out, pinioned as I was to my surveillance of Louise. Always I had maps and guidebooks to lay over the small table, covering the coffee and stale pastries, as I explained my ambitious tours. Louise was attentive to all this bluster, but it was clear she wished I would just calm down and enjoy myself. Usually she had no plans except to go somewhere in another neighborhood and sit for a while in a café, and, as I discovered, that's exactly what she did. She always invited me to come along, but since my "new independence" was the great victory of this vacation, accepting Louise's offer would clearly have been a defeat, disappointing to both of us. No, I always said, thanks, but I must get ready
and be off. In my room I waited, silent, for Louise to return to her room, then I scrambled out the door to an awful Formica café across from the hotel's front entrance, where I had a Gini soda (in a can, no glass, so I could take it with me the moment I had to leave). I waited, hidden behind a mirrored pillar, for my mother to emerge, and then I followed her.