The Prince's Boy (6 page)

‘You are booked for an hour,’ she stated, matter-of-factly. ‘That was the arrangement.’

‘My father’s arrangement, not mine. Cezar Grigorescu will pay your bill, if he hasn’t done so already.’

‘I hate to see you upset,’ she whispered. ‘You poor soul.’

‘Yes, that is exactly what I am. Let me kiss your hand at least.’

‘Please do.’

‘I shall leave you quietly.’

’You are still crying.’

‘I know I am. I shall stop soon. I can’t bear to stay here a moment longer. I feel imprisoned.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘God bless you,’ I said and closed the door behind me. I ran down the stairs, out of the house and along the busy Bois de Boulogne, playing a carefree game in which I managed to flit past the late afternoon shoppers without touching or bumping into them. My well of tears had dried up. I was rushing towards R
ã
zvan, the first deep love of my life.

‘You are sweating, Dinule
þ
, and you are out of breath and you look as if you have seen a colony of ghosts. What is the matter with you?’

‘Shall I tell you? Everything?’

‘Not in gasps, my sweet. Calm yourself. I can already guess what you will say to me will be amusing.’

‘My cousin took me to a brothel near the Bois de Boulogne.’

‘Ah, yes. It’s world-famous, Dinu. That old crone Laurette caters for ambassadors and visiting royalty as well as politicians and businessmen. How much did you pay her?’

‘You tease me. I paid her nothing. My father settled the bill. It was his gift to me.’

‘What a kind man he is.’

‘Do you know Mme Laurette?’

‘She is a fixture of Paris. She isn’t such a snob as our friend M. Albert because money is more important to her than rank. She is not a personal acquaintance, Dinu.’

‘She looks like a witch.’

‘Did she frighten you?’

‘Yes.’

I accounted for the eternity I spent with Sonia. I described her dress, her jewellery, her hair and the bangs on either side of her head. I recalled that she had mentioned Charles Lindbergh and that she had tried, and failed, to unbutton my trousers.

‘It’s amusing, as I predicted.’

‘I broke down, R
ã
zvan,’ I protested. ‘I wept. I screamed at her.’

‘I hope you apologized for your childish behaviour.’

‘Have you no sympathy for me?’

‘Did you apologize to her?’

‘I kissed her hand.’

‘Then I have sympathy for you, my dearest. I sympathize with you completely. Let us pray that your father, the beneficent Cezar, will be as sympathetic as I am.’

‘I have wasted his money.’

‘He may be angry with you for doing that.’

‘He will be,’ I predicted, accurately.

He reminded me, then, that he had something to offer me that it wasn’t in Sonia’s power to give. I was to come to him and accept it, this very minute.

I was happy, as ever, to do as I was bidden.

I heard nothing from my cousin for almost two weeks and there were no messages or postcards from my father. R
ã
zvan guessed rightly when he observed that my failure with Sonia was indicative of a greater failure. I had disgraced, or dishonoured, the manhood of the Grigorescus. I had shamed the family with my perverse behaviour.

I finished reading Proust and then I started reading him again. The accusatory blank sheet of paper on the writing table had lost its power to accuse me of idleness or lack of discipline. I had discovered my literary hero and I intended to devote my contemplative life to him and whoever I might find to be his fellow spirit if not equal. That was my ambition now.

‘Do you remember the fallen angel?’ Albert Le Cuziat asked me as I stepped out of the bank one morning.

‘Of course I do,’ I answered. ‘Monsieur Jupien.’

‘You recognized me in Marcel’s portrayal?’

‘I did, indeed. To the life.’

‘That is not a particularly flattering thing to say, my dear Domnule Silviu. But it is fame of a kind, I suppose, to be immortalized under another name. Have you withdrawn enough money to invite me for coffee at the Ritz?’

‘I think I have. Shall we get there by cab?’

‘You are a beauteous, courteous, handsome Romanian.’

I was enjoying this chance encounter so far, even though I was vaguely aware that Albert had some cunning scheme in mind. There was a game about to be played and I was anticipating it with a relish that both startled and exhilarated me. There was entertainment of a curious kind ahead, I suspected.

All was decorous to begin with, as befitted our opulent surroundings. The waiters brought us Italian coffee and dainty glasses of iced water and a selection of exquisite little savouries and pastries.

‘I do so appreciate gracious living, Silviu.’

‘It is my pleasure to provide it.’

I waited for my guest to mention R
ã
zvan. He had said nothing about him as yet.

‘When do you return to Bucharest?’

‘All too soon, I fear. At the end of September.’

‘Are you feeling homesick?’

‘No, not in the least. I think I have come to regard Paris as my spiritual home.’

‘Only spiritual?’

‘Shall we say
partly
spiritual?’

‘My first inamorato was a priest. He was a Breton, like me. He understood all too well the battle that rages between the flesh and the spirit. My golden loveliness, if I may indulge myself in a moment’s immodesty, captivated and tortured him. I put the poor prelate on the rack, I must confess to you.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘Only at your insistence.’

‘I insist.’

‘He had a past, my father confessor. Do you understand what I mean by a past? You are, perhaps, too young to have had one.’

‘I hope I am wise for my years, M. Albert. I believe you are referring to matters of a physical, as distinct from a spiritual, kind.’

‘You are a clever, peach-bottomed boy. Oh, by the bye, one of my regular gentlemen is completely smitten with Jean-Pierre, the
nom de guerre
you assumed on the day you plucked up all your reserves of slightly inebriated courage to set foot in my Temple of Iniquity. He saw you hesitating outside and was totally enchanted by your black eyes and pale complexion. The sentiment is his; the description is mine. He has a title and is richer than most of the European aristocrats whose tarnished lives are my speciality. He would delight in crossing your palm with as many pieces of silver as you desire.’

‘I am flattered.’

‘He is obsessed with his Jean-Pierre. I have scoured Paris for pretty minxes to satisfy him, but none of them has afforded him the delicious pleasure he hopes and prays you will give him.’

‘Are you soliciting on his behalf, M. Albert? I cannot believe you are. My heart, as you must surely know, belongs to another. Isn’t that the appropriate, romantic cliché?’

‘I am sorely afraid it is. Love is such a hindrance to business. Lust and obsessiveness are infinitely more conducive to financial stability. I have ceased being a practising Catholic, Alexandru – oh, wicked me, did I really say Alexandru? – but I find myself making the sign of the cross on Wednesday afternoons as soon as Safarov arrives to satisfy the over-eager tycoon. Safarov is my devilish saviour. His brutishness enables me to keep the police at bay and my bank manager contented. I thank God there is no danger of his falling in love.’

‘You called me Alexandru.’

‘Did I? Yes, yes, I did. My partner in sexual crime, Mme Laurette, informed me that a certain Romanian gentleman matching your description visited her renowned premises in the company of an older man. She said you gave your name as Alexandru, Silviu.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘You were, perhaps, in a conquering mood?’

‘I wasn’t, Albert. I was terrified. The episode convinced me, though I did not need convincing, that I belong to R
ã
zvan, or Honoré, as he was when I first caught sight of him. We are lovers. We adore one another.’

‘So I feared. Love is such a time-wasting condition, Silviu. I bade it adieu as soon as my hair fell out. It exhausts your talents. I am talking, I trust you appreciate, about romantic infatuation, the malignant disease that blights the lives of the perpetually young. You will recover from your enchanted episode with Honoré – oh, do forgive me, R
ã
zvan – when you are safely back in Romania. These are my wise words for you. Heed them, pretty one. I should be pleased to accept your invitation to luncheon, if such a kind thought has occurred to you.’

‘Would you care to join me for luncheon, M. Albert?’

‘What a delightful surprise. I should be honoured. In case you had not noticed, today is Wednesday. The dreaded Safarov is not expected until five o’clock. Shall we eat and drink at a leisurely pace?’

‘That is an admirable suggestion.’

My guest was known, in some cases well-known, to the waiters in the restaurant at the Ritz. They greeted him effusively and welcomed me, too, with quite unusual friendliness.

‘They are assuming, my dear Domnule Silviu, that you are of noble birth. I only dine here with dukes, counts, princes and their like. I would never be seen here, dead or alive, with the wealthy industrialist. My reputation as a man of taste and discernment would be in tatters otherwise. He dresses well enough, at all-too-obvious expense, but his essential vulgarity cannot be concealed by silk and cashmere. Let us toast him, nevertheless, Silviu.’

‘Must I?’

‘Oh, yes. It is thanks to him that you were able to enter my Bains d’Alsace and meet your beloved. I am dependent, I regret to admit, on his largesse.’

‘How can I raise my glass to a man with no name? Am I toasting a phantom?’

‘No, no. He is real. He is composed of flesh and blood. Let us call him, for convenience, Nemo.’

‘To M. Nemo,’ I said.

‘Amen.’

‘Is it your belief,’ I inquired of my limitlessly snobbish acquaintance, ‘that I shall remain perpetually – I think you chose the word ‘‘perpetually’’ – young?’

‘Unless you come to your senses, that is indeed my belief. Enjoy to the full the sorrows of young Werther before you attain the age of thirty and then cast them aside for ever and a day. Do that and give yourself the opportunity of living a reasonably contented life thereafter.’

‘You sound very serious and more than a little pompous. Do you regard Albert Le Cuziat as a contented soul?’

‘No, no, not at all. I wish to God I were,’ he said, making the sign of the cross again. ‘But I do hope you will achieve happiness.’

‘So do I.’

‘I wish, Silviu, I wish most earnestly, that I had refrained from introducing you to R
ã
zvan. He is a tortured creature.’

‘Tortured?’

‘Indubitably. He will transport you to hell with him under the name of love.’

Albert Le Cuziat conveyed these bad tidings with a smile I would describe as pitying. His alert eyes and nicotine-stained teeth were united in conveying the message that my adoration of the prince’s boy was the merest folly.

‘I have no evidence of his being, as you say, tortured.’

‘That is because you are besotted. You are seeing what you want to see and nothing more.’

The renowned, or notorious, M. Albert and his distinguished, if not entirely aristocratic, host were then presented with the finest dishes the Ritz’s chef could offer: a sublime lobster bisque; lamb with an apricot stuffing; a ripe Camembert and raspberry, strawberry and lemon sorbets. M. Albert chose the wines, which were – predictably – expensive.

‘This is a rare indulgence for me, Silviu. It is a pity R
ã
zvan is not here with us.’

‘Is it such a pity? I sense you are being ironic or sarcastic or ambivalent.’

‘You listen well.’

‘I look at faces, too. When the words coming from your mouth do not match the expression in your eyes – your twinkling eyes, M. Albert – I become aware of a certain insincerity.’

I wanted to know more about the prince’s character, beyond the fact that he had shown inordinate kindness to my lover. R
ã
zvan had told me little of any consequence concerning him, I lied.

I waited a long time for an answer.

‘I am not lost for words, I do assure you. I am weighing them, placing them in the correct order. You speak of the prince’s kindness. It is not a characteristic of the man I knew. He was far from kind to his friends and relatives when he killed himself in a cheap hotel in a drab suburban town in England ten years ago. I have retained enough of my Catholic faith to assert that I consider suicide a sin – a sin composed of vanity and cowardice, to put it precisely. His death reduced the dry-eyed Marcel Proust to tears; it left his doting, admiring brother bewildered and heartbroken, and his cousin horrified at his cruelty.’