Another Country (50 page)

“A few weeks.”

“Why?” She did not answer. He came toward her again. “Answer me, baby. Why?” He leaned over her, imprisoning her in the chair. “Is it that you wanted to hurt me?”

“No. I have never wanted to hurt you.”

“Why, then?” He leaned closer. “Did you get bored with me? Does he make love to you better than I; does he know tricks I don’t know? Is that it?” He wrapped the fingers of one hand in her hair. “Is that it? Answer me!”

“Richard, you’re going to wake the children—”

“
Now
she worries about the children!” He pulled her head forward, then slammed it back against the chair, and slapped her across the face, twice, as hard as he could. The room dropped into darkness for a second, then came reeling back, in light; tears came to her eyes, and her nose began to bleed. “Is that it? Did he fuck you in the ass, did he make you suck his cock? Answer me, you bitch, you slut, you
cunt!
”

She tried to throw back her head, choking and gasping, she felt her thick blood on her lips, and it fell onto her breasts. “No, Richard, no, no. Please, Richard.”

“Oh, God. Oh, God.” He fell away from her, and, as though in a dream, she saw his great body stagger to the sofa; and he fell beside the sofa, on his knees, weeping. She listened, listened to hear a sound from the children, and looked toward the door, where they would be standing if they were up; but they were not there, there was no sound. She looked at Richard, and covered her face for a moment. She could not bear the sound of his weeping, or the sight of those breaking shoulders. Her face felt twice its size; when she took her hands away, they were covered with blood. She rose, and staggered into the bathroom.

She ran the water, the bleeding slowly began to stop. Then she sat down on the bathroom floor. Her mind swung madly back and forth, like the needle of some broken instrument. She wondered if her face would be swollen in the morning, and how she would explain this to Paul and Michael. She thought of Ida and Vivaldo and Ellis, and wondered what Vivaldo would do when he discovered the truth; and felt very sorry for him, sad enough for her tears to begin again, dripping down on her clenched hands. She thought of Eric, and wondered if she had also betrayed
him
by telling Richard the truth. And what would she say to Eric now, or he to her? She did not want, ever, to leave the white, lighted haven of the bathroom. The center of her mind was filled with the sight and sound of Richard’s anguish. She wondered if there was any hope for them, if there was anything left between them which they could use. This last question made her rise at last, her dry belly still contracting, and take off her bloody dress. She wanted to burn it, but she put it in the dirty-clothes hamper. She walked into the kitchen and put coffee on the stove. Then she walked back into the bathroom, put on a bathrobe, and took the cigarettes out of her handbag. She lit a cigarette and sat down at the kitchen table. It was three o’clock in the morning. She sat and waited for Richard to rise and come to her.

BOOK THREE

:

TOWARD

BETHLEHEM

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

—
SHAKESPEARE
, Sonnet
LXV

1

Vivaldo dreamed that he was running, running, running, through a country he had always known, but could not now remember, a rocky country. He was blinded by the rain beating down, the tough, wet vines dragged at his legs and feet, and thorns and nettles tormented his hands and arms and face. He was both fleeing and seeking, and, in his dream, the time was running out. There was a high wall ahead of him, a high, stone wall. Broken glass glittered on top of the wall, sharp points standing straight up, like spears. He was reminded of music, though he heard none: the music was created by the sight of the rain which fell in long, cruel, gleaming shafts, and by the bright glass which reared itself bitterly against it. And he felt an answering rearing in his own body, a pull fugitive and powerful and dimly troubling, such as he might have felt for a moment had there been the movement and power of a horse beneath him. And, at the same time, in his dream, as he ran or as he was propelled, he was weighed down and made sick by the certainty that he had forgotten— forgotten— what? some secret, some duty, that would save him. His breath was a terrible captive weight in his chest. He reached the wall. He grasped the stone with his bleeding hands, but the stone was slippery, he could not hold it, could not lift himself up. He tried with his feet; his feet slipped; the rain poured down.

And now he knew that his enemy was upon him. Salt burned his eyes. He dared not turn; in terror he pressed himself against the rough, wet wall, as though a wall could melt or could be entered. He had forgotten— what? how to escape or how to defeat his enemy. Then he heard the wail of trombones and clarinets and a steady, enraged beating on the drums. They were playing a blues he had never heard before, they were filling the earth with a sound so dreadful that he knew he could not bear it. Where was Ida? she could help him. But he felt rough hands on him and he looked down into Rufus’ distorted and vindictive face.
Go on up,
said Rufus.
I’m helping you up. Go up!
Rufus’ hands pushed and pushed and soon Vivaldo stood, higher than Rufus had ever stood, on the wintry bridge, looking down on death. He knew that this death was what Rufus most desired. He tried to look down, to beg Rufus for mercy, but he could not move without falling off the wall, or falling on the glass. From far away, far beyond this flood, he saw Ida, on a sloping green meadow, walking alone. The sun was beautiful on her blue-black hair and on her Aztec brow, and gathered in a dark, glinting pool at the hollow of her throat. She did not look toward him, walked in a measured way, looking down at the ground; yet, he felt that she saw him, was aware of him standing on the cruel wall, and waited, in collusion with her brother, for his death. Then Rufus came hurtling from the air, impaling himself on the far, spiked fence which bounded the meadow. Ida did not look: she waited. Vivaldo watched Rufus’ blood run down, bright red over the black spikes, into the green meadow. He tried to shout, but no words came; tried to reach out to Ida and fell heavily on his hands and knees on the rearing, uplifted glass. He could not bear the pain; yet, he felt again the random, voluptuous tug. He felt entirely helpless and more terrified than ever. But there was pleasure in it. He writhed against the glass.
Don’t kill me, Rufus. Please. Please. I love you
. Then, to his delight and confusion, Rufus lay down beside him and opened his arms. And the moment he surrendered to this sweet and overwhelming embrace, his dream, like glass, shattered, he heard the rain at the windows, returned, violently, into his body, became aware of his odor and the odor of Eric, and found that it was Eric to whom he clung, who clung to him. Eric’s lips were against Vivaldo’s neck and chest.

Vivaldo hoped that he was dreaming still. A terrible sorrow entered him, because he was dreaming and because he was awake. Immediately, he felt that he had created his dream in order to create this opportunity; he had brought about something that he had long desired. He was frightened and then he was angry— at Eric or at himself? he did not know— and started to pull away. But he could not pull away, he did not want to, it was too late. He thought to keep his eyes closed in order to take no responsibility for what was happening. This thought made him ashamed. He tried to reconstruct the way in which this monstrous endeavor must have begun. They must have gone to sleep, spoon-fashion. Eric curled against him— oh, what did this cause him, nearly, to remember? He had curled his legs, himself, around Eric, since Eric’s body was there; and desire had entered this monastic, this boyish bed. Now it was too late, thank God it was too late; it was necessary for them to disentangle themselves from the drag and torment of their undershorts, their trousers, and the sheets. He opened his eyes. Eric was watching him with a small half-smile, a troubled smile, and this smile caused Vivaldo to realize that Eric loved him. Eric really loved him and would be proud to give Vivaldo anything Vivaldo needed. With a groan and a sigh, with an indescribable relief, Vivaldo came full awake and pulled Eric closer. It had been a dream and not a dream, how long could such dreams last? this one could not last long. Instantaneously, then, they each seemed to become intent on carrying this moment, which belonged to them, as far as it could go. They kicked their trousers to the floor, saying nothing— what was there to say?— and not daring to let go of one another. Then, as in a waking dream, helpless and trustful, he felt Eric remove his shirt and caress him with his parted lips. Eric bowed and kissed Vivaldo on the belly button, half-hidden in the violent, gypsy hair. This was in honor of Vivaldo, of Vivaldo’s body and Vivaldo’s need, and Vivaldo trembled as he had never trembled before. And this caress was not entirely pleasant. Vivaldo felt terribly ill at ease, not knowing what was expected of him, or what he could expect from Eric. He pulled Eric up and kissed him on the mouth, kneading Eric’s buttocks and stroking his sex. How strange it felt, this violent muscle, stretching and throbbing, so like his own, but belonging to another! And this chest, this belly, these legs, were like his, and the tremor of Eric’s breath echoed his own earthquake. Oh, what was it that he could not remember? It was his first sexual encounter with a male in many years, and his very first sexual encounter with a friend. He associated the act with the humiliation and the debasement of one male by another, the inferior male of less importance than the crumpled, cast-off handkerchief; but he did not feel this way toward Eric; and therefore he did not know what he felt. This tormented self-consciousness caused Vivaldo to fear that their moment might, after all, come to nothing. He did not want this to happen, he knew his need to be too great, and they had come too far, and Eric had risked too much. He was afraid of what might happen if they failed. Yet, his lust remained, and rose, chafing within and battering against the labyrinth of his bewilderment; his lust was unaccustomedly arrogant and cruel and irresponsible, and yet there was mingled in it a deep and incomprehensible tenderness: he did not want to cause Eric pain. The physical pain he had sometimes brought to vanished, phantom girls had been necessary for them, he had been unlocking, for them, the door to life; but he was now involved in another mystery, at once blacker and more pure. He tried to will himself back into his adolescence, grasping Eric’s strange body and stroking that strange sex. At the same time, he tried to think of a woman. (But he did not want to think of Ida.) And they lay together in this antique attitude, the hand of each on the sex of the other, and with their limbs entangled, and Eric’s breath trembling against Vivaldo’s chest. This childish and trustful tremor returned to Vivaldo a sense of his own power. He held Eric very tightly and covered Eric’s body with his own, as though he were shielding him from the falling heavens. But it was also as though he were, at the same instant, being shielded— by Eric’s love. It was strangely and insistently double-edged, it was like making love in the midst of mirrors, or it was like death by drowning. But it was also like music, the highest, sweetest, loneliest reeds, and it was like the rain. He kissed Eric again and again, wondering how they would finally come together. The male body was not mysterious, he had never thought about it at all, but it was the most impenetrable of mysteries now, and this wonder made him think of his own body, of its possibilities and its imminent and absolute decay, in a way that he had never thought of it before. Eric moved against him and beneath him, as thirsty as the sand. He wondered what moved in Eric’s body which drove him, like a bird or a leaf in a storm, against the wall of Vivaldo’s flesh; and he wondered what moved in his own body: what virtue were they seeking, now, to share? what was he doing here? This was as far removed as anything could be from the necessary war one underwent with women. He would have entered her by now, this woman who was not here, her sighs would be different and her surrender would never be total. Her sex, which afforded him his entry, would nevertheless remain strange to him, an incitement and an anguish, and an everlasting mystery. And even now, in this bright, laboring and doubting moment, with only the rain as their witness, he knew that he was condemned to women. What was it like to be a man, condemned to men? He could not imagine it and he felt a quick revulsion, quickly banished, for it threatened his ease. But at the very same moment his excitement increased: he felt that he could do with Eric whatever he liked. Now, Vivaldo, who was accustomed himself to labor, to be the giver of the gift, and enter into his satisfaction by means of the satisfaction of a woman, surrendered to the luxury, the flaming torpor of passivity, and whispered in Eric’s ear a muffled, urgent plea.

The dream teetered on the edge of nightmare: how old was this rite, this act of love, how deep? in impersonal time, in the actors? He felt that he had stepped off a precipice into an air which held him inexorably up, as the salt sea holds the swimmer: and seemed to see, vastly and horribly down, into the bottom of his heart, that heart which contained all the possibilities that he could name and yet others that he could not name. Their moment was coming to its end. He moaned and his thighs, like the thighs of a woman, loosened, he thrust upward as Eric thrust down. How strange, how strange! Was Eric, now, silently sobbing and praying, as he, over Ida, silently sobbed and prayed? But Rufus had certainly thrashed and throbbed, feeling himself mount higher, as Vivaldo thrashed and throbbed and mounted now.
Rufus. Rufus
. Had it been like this for him? And he wanted to ask Eric, What was it like for Rufus? What was it like for him? Then he felt himself falling, as though the weary sea had failed, had wrapped him about, and he were plunging down— plunging down as he desperately thrust and struggled upward. He heard his own harsh breath, coming from far away; he heard the drumming rain; he was being overtaken. He remembered how Ida, at the unbearable moment, threw back her head and thrashed and bared her teeth. And she called his name. And Rufus? Had he murmured at last, in a strange voice, as he now heard himself murmur,
Oh, Eric. Eric
. What was that fury like?
Eric
. He pulled Eric to him through the ruined sheets and held him tight. And,
Thank you,
Vivaldo whispered,
thank you, Eric, thank you
. Eric curled against him like a child and salt from his forehead dripped onto Vivaldo’s chest.