Wildalone (47 page)

Arthur Rimbaud: Poèmes/Poems

“The wild child of French poetry. Came up with all this insanely original verse, then quit when he turned twenty and never wrote a line again.” He found the page he needed. “This was a hundred and fifty years ago. He must have met you back then—except you were called Nina—and wrote his most beautiful poem about you: ‘Nina's Replies.' The rhymes are lost in English, but the rest is all there.”

“Read it to me in French first.”

“You speak French?”

“Almost none. I just want to hear you read it.”

The lines were short and crisp, weaving their rhyming echo through the air: one with three, two with four. He reached the end but wouldn't stop, and at first I didn't realize that the same poem was now in a language I understood. That he was speaking directly into my heart:

                     
—Your breast on my breast
,

                          
Yes? We'll walk

                     
Through fresh sunbeams
,

                          
Our lungs full

                     
Of crisp blue morning, bathing us

                          
In the wine of day.

                     
Mute and lovestruck
,

                          
The forest bleeds

                     
Green from every branch
,

                          
Transparent buds
,

                     
They open and we feel

                          
Their shiver:

                     
You bury your white dress

                          
Into alfalfa
,

                     
Blushing, blue rimming

                          
Your big black eyes
,

                     
In love with the field
,

                          
Sowing it

                     
With laughter, bubbling

                          
Like champagne:

                     
Laughing at me, drunk and wild
,

                          
I'd take you

                     
Just like that—by your lush hair
,

                          
How I'd drink

                     
Your taste of berries
,

                          
Your flowery flesh!

                     
Laughing as the quick wind kisses you

                          
Briefly, like a thief
,

                     
Wild blooms tease you

                          
Laughing, mostly

                     
At the madness of your lover—

                          
Me!

He whispered the last few words into my lips, having already closed the book. I couldn't have imagined it, the impact someone would have on my body from being the first man to have taken it. Each contact between us now made me want him, only him, and I was unaware of anything else while his hands undressed both of us.

“Rhys”—his naked body shivered at the touch of mine—“I love you.”

I had never said it, to anyone.

He made love to me for hours. Whenever we stopped to rest, the silence of the field fell over us—an impenetrable, weightless quilt. But there was one thing neither of us dared to bring up:

The next full moon was only three weeks away.

C
OME, I WANT
to show you something.” Rhys opened the door to his room but I didn't see anything that hadn't been there before. “It's in here.”

“In here” turned out to be the bathroom. The decor was as usual: white marble bathtub, mahogany towel rack propped like a ladder against the wall, crisp towels cascading down its bars. But on the left, under the wall-to-wall mirror, two sinks were carved in the stone where earlier that day there had been one.

“When did you manage to do this?”

My perplexed face made him laugh. “The physical world isn't exactly a challenge for me, remember?”

I did, of course. Yet seeing the nonhuman side of him still startled me every time.

“Some of it was a guess, by the way.” He ran his fingers over the empty pieces of a crystal bath set (toothbrush holder, soap dish, tissue box), next to an identical set that held his own things.

“Rhys, that's sweet of you. But I don't mind us sharing a sink when I sleep over.”

“We're done with the sleepovers. I want you to live here from now on.”

The effect was probably exactly what he expected: I stared at him in shock, couldn't react.

“Come on, say it! Say you'll move in with me.”

“Move in . . . how? I have to stay in the dorm, like everybody else.”

“Don't worry about the dorm.” He took out his cell phone.

“Wait . . . What are you doing?”

“Calling housing before they close for winter break. Since you won't be needing a room next spring, they'll appreciate the heads-up.”

“Keeping my room doesn't mean I won't live here.”

The phone froze, halfway through the air. “You aren't sure about this?”

“That's not what I meant. The room can be a backup, in case you . . .” I didn't want to say the rest.

“In case I what?”

“Change your mind.”

“I'll never change my mind.”

He kept looking at me, until I said that I wasn't going to change my mind either. Then he dialed. Asked for a woman by name, thanked her for arranging a dorm room for Jake back in September, inquired about her holiday plans, made small talk about boutique hotels in Rio, before finally informing her that his girlfriend was now moving in with him, so the room in Forbes would no longer be needed. And, yes, Thea would be happy to sign the paperwork, but could they please mail it directly to his address?

“Done!” He hung up and kissed me. “Welcome to your new home, babe.”

“That was . . . quick.”

“Why waste time? We can also go get your things now, although it's probably better to deal with all of this tomorrow. Or any other day, really. We have the whole break to ourselves.”

All we had was a week, but he didn't know it yet. My flight home was the following Thursday, and since he had never asked what I was doing for the holidays, I hadn't brought it up either.

“Rhys, there's something . . .”

“Yes?”

“. . . something I have to tell you.”

“Sure, I just need to turn this darn thing off—” A text message distracted him. “Give me a minute. I'll be right back.”

He rushed out as if the house was on fire. When I followed him downstairs, I saw immediately why.

Across the lawn, still visible despite the quickly falling darkness, walked six tall figures—lined up like a firing squad, almost identical in their jeans and black bomber jackets. He intercepted them before they could reach the house. The tallest one said something to him (I recognized the face only now: Evan), although Rhys didn't seem to care. The others started saying things too. Then Evan raised his voice. No one moved. Rhys took a step forward, but Evan pushed him back. Another step. Evan pushed him again. A second later, the guy was on the ground, Rhys on top of him, holding him by the collar and bending in for some kind of a warning that probably no one else could hear.

When he came back into the living room, his face was calm and he turned around only once, to make sure the unwanted visitors were leaving.

“Sorry you had to see this. It's not how I meant our evening to start.”

“What did they want?”

“The others were brought in for dramatic effect. While Evan, apparently, wanted trouble.” His eyes checked the empty lawn one last time. “He thinks the world should revolve around his party hormones. But I am not the world.”

The thought of how that guy had looked at me and called me a “snack” gave me shivers. “What did he really want?”

“To convince me to go out with them tonight. And next weekend also.”

“Isn't everyone gone by then?”

“Not the swimmers. They practice during winter break and stay at Princeton for most of it. To abandon the team for a woman is the ultimate betrayal.”

“You aren't on the team, though.”

“I used to be. For all practical purposes, I still am. But now I'm also with you and have a promise to keep.”

“Rhys, this isn't about promises.” Nor about reluctant sacrifices, which was how he made it sound. “If you want to go out with your friends, you should.”

“I'm exactly where I want to be right now: at home with my girl. Unfortunately, Evan wouldn't take my word for it. So I had to give him a friendly reminder that the parties won't evaporate without me.”

“Maybe not the parties at Ivy.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Ivy isn't the whole story, is it?”

A hint of alarm passed across his face. “Do we have to talk about this? I've put my party life behind. You just saw me do it.”

“I want to put your party life behind too. But the secrecy doesn't make it easier.”

“I see . . .” He remained quiet for a while, looking through the French doors, as if trying to make up his mind, then turned back to me: “Of course Ivy isn't the whole story. When men are growing up, especially certain men, they need more than just beer and college girls.”

“Which is to say . . . ?”

“Which is to say that the team gets together in private, once a month, with real liquor and women who are paid a lot to provide elite services and to be absolutely discreet about it.”

“Elite?”

“Top-notch, in every respect. Nothing is off-limits.”

His callous tone made me wish I had never asked. “And you're the one who subsidizes all this?”

“You saw Evan's house; the kid has a trust fund. There are others like him. We split the expense.” He laid out the rest for me as if it were college admissions: “Being on the swim team gets you in automatically; money is never even mentioned. Everyone else comes by invitation only. We screen them first, to make sure they can afford the tab and know how to keep their mouths shut. Which, by the way, is a rule that applies to everyone, including me. So not a word can leave this room. You know this, right?”

Of course I did. For a bunch of boys trying to grow up, secrecy had to be half of the appeal.

“Come on, Thea, don't give me that look. What I've done in the past shouldn't matter from now on.”

“Except you talk about it as if it's the most natural thing.”

“How else should I talk about it? This
is
my nature, I'm supposed to be a version of Dionysus. Didn't your art professor mention that about daemons?”

“Yes . . . sort of.”

“Well, Dionysus had his retinue and so did I. Imagine me stuck on this campus for fifteen years: raising my brother, fucking your sister, you name it. Pissed off and bored out of my mind. So, because of me, fools like Evan got a taste of the Dionysian, thinking it was just frat parties.”

“I understand. But that doesn't mean I'm ready to be part of this.”

“Who says anything about being part?”

“If this is your true nature, then sooner or later it will become my life.”

“My nature changes when I'm around you. I become human again, and that's who I want to be.” He smiled, looking content. Almost at peace. “By the way, you wanted to tell me something when the guys showed up.”

“Yes, about the holidays.”

“Of course, I keep forgetting! Ivy's winter formal is tomorrow. And we also have a dinner here on Christmas Eve—a family staple that ought to take place, or else evil shall descend upon the house of Estlin.”