The Prince's Boy (12 page)

‘You could come with me, Dinicu. You could come and live with me.’

‘Not yet, my love. Not just yet.’

I had explained to him during our stay in Eforie why I had to remain, without him, in Bucharest. I had commitments to honour. I was a respected teacher and a moderately successful journalist, reviewing books and plays for moderately liberal magazines and newspapers. I hoped, in time, to be financially independent.

‘There are outlets for your cleverness in Paris, Dinicu. There are plenty of them. I will pay for your ticket.’

‘No, no. I can’t go with you to Paris. I want to. You must never doubt that I want to. Please send me letters from now on, R
ã
zv
ã
nel, instead of those bland postcards.’

‘I shall be lonely.’

‘So shall I.’

The truth was, and is, that I feared to be with him. I sensed that the time had come for us to hurt each other. A few more weeks or months apart might be beneficial to both of us, absurd though it seemed. Besides, I craved his respect. I was beginning to be too old and cynical now to have him think of me solely as his beautiful boy. Hadn’t we progressed beyond attractiveness, enchanting as it was? I said none of this as I looked at him, as I would always look at him, with adoration.

‘Trust me, R
ã
zvan. We shall be reunited for ever, I promise you.’

He raised his glass and smiled. ‘If you say so.’

‘I do.’

There are occasions when even the most sophisticated lovers indulge themselves by sounding like the vapid characters in a cheap romantic novel, of the kind consumed by lovelorn schoolgirls and regretful old maids. That is how we sounded now.

‘There is a man at the bar who is staring at us.’

I turned and saw one of the clerks in my father’s practice. I nodded by way of recognition and he did the same.

‘He is a novice lawyer, much prized by Cezar Grigorescu.’

‘He seems to be sneering.’

‘That is his permanent expression. I think he was born with it. He will find it useful in the courtroom when he is acting on behalf of the prosecution.’

‘He is studying my reflection in the mirror. Perhaps he considers me a criminal.’

‘If he does, he is seriously misguided. R
ã
zvan, I will join you in Paris as soon as possible, I swear to you. Let us be patient a little longer.’

‘Patient? Longer? We have been separated for five years.’

‘Yes,’ was all I could manage to say.

‘You have not asked me how many lovers I have clutched to my hairy bosom.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Then ask me now.’

I hesitated before asking him to let me know how many lovers he had clutched to his hairy bosom.

‘As it happens—’

‘As it happens?’

‘As it happens, none. Not one. I have been conducting an affair with your image and my right hand. Until two weeks ago, that is.’

‘So have I, R
ã
zv
ã
nel. I mean
your
image and
my
right hand.’

We kissed one another’s right hands. It was a kiss that transcended formality. It wasn’t the kiss Romanians bestow on ladies they intend to seduce. It was the kiss – for both of us, then; for me, today – that specifically defined our love.

We said what we hoped would be a temporary farewell on platform 4. I was weeping and so was he. We Romanians cry easily. It is our national gift, to weep for our sorrows.

‘You are my everlasting sweetheart,’ he whispered.

My cousin Eduard dined with us the following evening. He had severed his business links with London and Paris and was now in residence again in Bucharest. He was to act as broker for the rejuvenated National Bank, which the previous year had forced the Marmorosch, Blank & Co. bank, a predominantly Jewish concern, into liquidation. Under its governor, Mihail Manoilescu, a man Eduard Vasiliu was proud to be personally acquainted with, the bank’s intention was to represent the interests, and protect the interest, of its Christian customers. The Jews had held sway over the nation’s money for too long.

I had never heard such talk at the Grigorescu family’s table before. Cezar’s criticism of politicians, his fellow lawyers and men in high office had contained no references to Jews. The word ‘Jewish’ had not been employed, in my presence, as a term of abuse. Yet here he was endorsing Eduard’s opinion that the Hebraic fraternity had been a pernicious influence on Romanian affairs.

‘I hope you are not including my heavenly Jewish dressmaker Leon Becker in your pernicious Hebraic fraternity, Eduard,’ said Amalia. ‘I should be helpless without him. Since Cezar restricted my clothes allowance to a shadow of what it was when he married me, Leon has copied the designs of Worth and Chanel on my instructions at a mere fraction of the Parisian price. Do you wish me to look dowdy – Eduard? Cezar? Dowdiness is not my métier.’

‘Your humble Domnul Becker is neither a financier nor a politician, my love.’

After dinner, when Amalia and Elisabeta had left the gentlemen to drink cognac and smoke cigars, my father remarked casually that I had been spotted saying an emotional farewell to a middle-aged man at Gara de Nord.

‘Is he the Popescu to whom you introduced me in Paris, Dinu?’

I looked at my cousin in silence for long minutes. ‘Yes, he is,’ I replied. ‘The very same.’

‘He is, I believe, the peasant boy Prince E adopted some thirty years ago.’

‘Your belief is well-founded.’

‘What is the nature of your friendship, my son?’

‘I am confused by your question, Tat
ã
. R
ã
zvan and I are friends, that is all.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes. We are soul mates.’

‘Soul mates?’

‘Soul mates. We love the same books, the same art, the same music, the same language.’

‘You must find yourself a wife, Dinu. There is already speculation about you.’

‘Speculation?’

‘I fear so.’

‘Of what kind?’

‘It was your refusal to enjoy yourself at Mme Laurette’s that alarmed us,’ observed my increasingly uncousinly cousin. ‘It seemed strange behaviour for a hot-blooded youth.’

‘I was not attracted to Sonia.’

‘You remember her name?’

‘I cannot forget it.’

‘There is a psychiatrist on Victoriei who may be able to help you. I shall arrange a consultation with him.’

‘Thank you, Eduard. It will be a waste of his time and mine.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because I cannot be cured of whatever disease you think afflicts me – if afflict me it does.’

‘I made no mention of disease.’

‘Is he a Freudian analyst? Is he, by any chance, a Jew?’

I guessed, to judge by my cousin’s embarrassment, that he was.

‘I have no need of his help or assistance or guidance. I am happy as I am.’

For the first time in many years, my father pleaded with me to honour and respect Elena Grigorescu’s memory.

‘She would be shocked – no, more than shocked, horrified – to hear you say that you are happy to declare that you are a – I have no wish to pronounce the word—’

‘Pervert,’ Cousin Eduard suggested.

‘That will suffice.’

‘I am happy to be Dinu Grigorescu,’ I said. ‘The son of Cezar and Elena. That is the extent of my current happiness.’

I tried to look serene. I was determined not to be frightened or upset by their accusations. I had progressed beyond Orthodox guilt towards a state of mind that was attuned to my love – which from the start had intimated that it would transcend lust – for the R
ã
zvan I had left weeping at the station.

‘You are enamoured of this peasant, I fear.’

Oh, that choice of word:
peasant
. It implied subjugation, ignorance, centuries of servility.

‘The peasant to whom you are referring so unkindly is a cultivated man, as my cousin will testify.’

‘I can testify that he speaks with obvious refinement, Cezar. I can certainly say that in his defence.’

‘Defence? What defence?’

‘He has the manners of the salon, to be sure. He could pass for a gentleman were it not for his features.’

It was as if Albert Le Cuziat, the snob beyond
pareil
, was speaking.

‘His face proclaims his ancestry, which is that of the woods and fields. He looks like a son of the soil despite his patent sophistication.’

Listening to Cousin Eduard’s patent nonsense, I began to understand why R
ã
zvan, in the role of Honoré, insulted and humiliated his aristocratic clients. It was their turn to experience abasement, even if they were paying for it. By denying them his peasant’s body, the strong-boned and muscled body of his ancestors, he was exacting a sweet revenge on their complacent forefathers, who had been content to function in a restricted feudal system which guaranteed into eternity that the poor remained poor while the already and always rich flourished. They anticipated that my lover would be rough with them, but he plied them instead with polished insults. How they must have squirmed as he demonstrated, for their startled edification, not roughness, not brutishness, but a culture superior to their own. He knew, by heart, poems they had never read; could talk of paintings and church interiors they had only been afforded a cursory glance of, and of music by composers to whom he had been introduced – Saint-Saëns, for example, and the young Maurice Ravel. And all the while he was unattainable. The son of the soil refused to be contaminated and defiled by the pomaded and scented men who had heard that Honoré provided a unique service. It occurred to me as I reflected on R
ã
zvan’s assumption of Honoré that my father and my cousin had heard tell of his anarchic activities. I allowed myself a smile at the notion.

I was aware that I was making history, private history, when I declared, in the drawing-room of the house near Ci
º
migiu, that I was deeply and irretrievably in love with R
ã
zvan Popescu. I could not imagine life with anyone else. If there were to be tragic consequences, I would face them. I would die for him, I said, aware even as I did so that I was being melodramatic. The confession was a large factor in the enjoyment I felt at being honest.

‘We will talk in the morning,’ said my father. ‘We must devise a plan to preserve, or restore, your reputation.’

My father’s plan for my restoration was not immediately forthcoming. He had been embarrassed by my passionate declaration. There was still the likelihood, he insisted on reminding me, that I might marry. Elisabeta was entranced by me before she met George V
ã
duva, but there were plenty of girls who considered Dinu Grigorescu a ‘catch’. A sham marriage was a marriage just the same. The world need not know it was a deception.

‘But I should know it was. I cannot picture myself as a contented deceiver.’

‘What has contentment to do with it, Dinu? You could provide me with a grandson and then conduct your affairs discreetly without your wife knowing anything about them.’

‘Are you speaking from experience, Tat
ã
?’

‘Your mother was more devoted to her son and her God than she was to her husband. That is all I intend to say on the subject. Men have done worse things than enter into a marriage of convenience. I shall be blunt with you. It would be convenient for my reputation, and for yours, if you married an attractive woman.’

‘Why attractive?’

‘Because you are an attractive man, in appearance at least, and society here in Bucharest would find it perplexing if you attached yourself to a frump, however amiable her disposition.’

‘I promise that I shall never wed a frump. I can give you that assurance with heartfelt confidence.’

After a time, my father informed his colleagues and acquaintances that I had decided to remain a ‘confirmed bachelor’, a combination of words that signified I was a callous soul whose appreciation of women never progressed in the direction of the altar. I would continue to be a constant temptation to the fairer sex. I was not alone in my predilection.

I went on wearing the clothes Amalia chose and bought for me. I dressed plainly, though, whenever I had myself photographed for R
ã
zvan. I cared to look decadent in the company of men and women in Bucharest to whom I was either moderately affectionate or completely indifferent, but I knew beyond doubt that the beauty R
ã
zvan detected in me, and treasured, required no adornment or decoration. I was his in anything casual there was to hand.

R
ã
zvan abandoned the art of the cryptic postcard message and wrote me letters, varying in length and substance, instead. They came in monthly instalments. They were mostly professions of his undying love for Dinicu, but occasionally he told me of chance encounters with famous artists who were aware, after many years, of Prince E’s educative involvement with him. One such was the shy and strange Constantin Brâncu
º
i, who had been struck by the very features my cousin Eduard deplored or lamented – I wasn’t sure which. The retiring and modest sculptor had drawn his fellow peasant’s face from several angles, with the intention of sculpting an imposing figure of him, perhaps. He captured his eyes, his nose, his chin and his always unruly hair in the drawing I am looking at as I write. It is a work of spontaneous genius.