Giovanni's Room (14 page)

Yet it was true, I recalled, turning away from the river down the long street home, I wanted children. I wanted to be inside again, with the light and safety, with my manhood unquestioned, watching my woman put my children to bed. I wanted the same bed at night and the same arms and I wanted to rise in the morning, knowing where I was. I wanted a woman to be for me a steady ground, like the earth itself, where I could always be renewed. It had been so once; it had almost been so once. I could make it so again, I could make it real. It only demanded a short, hard strength for me to become myself again.

I saw a light burning beneath our door as I walked down the corridor. Before I put my key in the lock the door was opened from within. Giovanni stood there, his hair in his eyes, laughing. He held a glass of cognac in his hand. I was struck at first by what seemed to be the merriment on his face. Then I saw that it was not merriment but hysteria and despair.

I started to ask him what he was doing home, but he pulled me
into the room, holding me around the neck tightly, with one hand. He was shaking. “Where have you been?” I looked into his face, pulling slightly away from him. “I have looked for you everywhere.”

“Didn't you go to work?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “Have a drink. I have bought a bottle of cognac to celebrate my freedom.” He poured me a cognac. I did not seem to be able to move. He came toward me again, thrusting the glass into my hand.

“Giovanni—what happened?”

He did not answer. He suddenly sat down on the edge of the bed, bent over. I saw then that he was also in a state of rage. “
Ils sont sale
,
les gens
,
tu sais?
” He looked up at me. His eyes were full of tears. “They are just dirty, all of them, low and cheap and dirty.” He stretched out his hand and pulled me down to the floor beside him. “All except you.
Tous
,
sauf toi.
” He held my face between his hands and I suppose such tenderness has scarcely ever produced such terror as I then felt. “
Ne me laisse pas tomber
,
je t'en prie
,” he said, and kissed me, with a strange insistent gentleness, on the mouth.

His touch could never fail to make me feel desire; yet his hot, sweet breath also made me want to vomit. I pulled away as gently as I could and drank my cognac. “Giovanni,” I said, “please tell me what happened. What's the matter?”

“He fired me,” he said. “Guillaume.
Il m'a mis à la porte
.” He laughed and rose and began walking up and down the tiny room. “He told me never to come to his bar anymore. He said I was a gangster and a thief and a dirty little street boy and the only reason I ran after him—I ran after
him
—was because I intended to rob him one night.
Après l'amour. Merde!
” He laughed again.

I could not say anything. I felt that the walls of the room were closing in on me.

Giovanni stood in front of our whitewashed windows, his back to me. “He said all these things in front of many people, right downstairs in the bar. He waited until people came. I wanted to kill him, I wanted to kill them all.” He turned back into the center of the room and poured himself another cognac. He drank it at a breath, then suddenly took his glass and hurled it with all his strength against the wall. It rang briefly and fell in a thousand pieces all over our bed, all over the floor. I could not move at once; then, feeling that my feet were being held back by water but also watching myself move very fast, I grabbed him by the shoulders. He began to cry. I held him. And, while I felt his anguish entering into me, like acid in his sweat, and felt that my heart would burst for him, I also wondered, with an unwilling, unbelieving contempt, why I had ever thought him strong.

He pulled away from me and sat against the wall which had been uncovered. I sat facing him.

“I arrived at the usual time,” he said. “I felt very good today. He was not there when I arrived and I cleaned the bar as usual and had a little drink and a little something to eat. Then he came and I could see at once that he was in a dangerous mood—perhaps he had just been humiliated by some young boy. It is funny”—and he smiled—“you can tell when Guillaume is in a dangerous mood because he then becomes so respectable. When something has happened to humiliate him and make him see, even for a moment, how disgusting he is, and how alone, then he remembers that he is a member of one of the best and oldest families in France. But maybe, then, he remembers that his name is going to die with him. Then he has to do something, quick, to make the feeling go away. He has to make much noise or have some
very
pretty boy or get drunk or have a fight or look at his dirty pictures.” He paused and stood up and began walking up and down again. “I do not know what happened to him today, but when he came in he tried at first
to be very business-like—he was trying to find fault with my work. But there was nothing wrong and he went upstairs. Then, by and by, he called me. I hate going up to that little
pied-à-terre
he has up there over the bar, it always means a scene. But I had to go and I found him in his dressing gown, covered with perfume. I do not know why, but the moment I saw him like that, I began to be angry. He looked at me as though he were some fabulous coquette—and he is ugly, ugly, he has a body just like sour milk!—and then he asked me how you were. I was a little astonished, for he never mentions you. I said you were fine. He asked me if we still lived together. I think perhaps I should have lied to him but I did not see any reason to lie to such a disgusting old fairy, so I said,
Bien sûr
. I was trying to be calm. Then he asked me terrible questions and I began to get sick watching him and listening to him. I thought it was best to be very quick with him and I said that such questions were not asked, even by a priest or a doctor, and I said he should be ashamed. Maybe he had been waiting for me to say something like that, for then he became angry and he reminded me that he had taken me out of the streets,
et il a fait ceci et il a fait cela
, everything for me because he thought I was adorable,
parce qu'il m'adorait
—and on and on and that I had no gratitude and no decency. I maybe handled it all very badly, I know how I would have done it even a few months ago, I would have made him scream, I would have made him kiss my feet,
je te jure!
—but I did not want to do that, I really did not want to be dirty with him. I tried to be serious. I told him that I had never told him any lies and I had always said that I did not want to be lovers with him—and—he had given me the job all the same. I said I worked very hard and was very honest with him and that it was not my fault if—if—if I did not feel for him as he felt for me. Then he reminded me that once—one time—and I did not want to say yes, but I was weak from hunger and had had trouble not to vomit. I was still trying to be calm and trying to handle
it right. So I said,
Mais à ce moment là je n'avais pas un copain
. I am not alone anymore,
je suis avec un gars maintenant
. I thought he would understand that, he is very fond of romance and the dream of fidelity. But not this time. He laughed and said a few more awful things about you, and he said that you were just an American boy, after all, doing things in France which you would not dare to do at home, and that you would leave me very soon. Then, at last, I got angry and I said that he did not pay me a salary for listening to slander and then I heard someone come into the bar downstairs so I turned around without saying anything more and walked out.”

He stopped in front of me. “Can I have some more cognac?” he asked, with a smile. “I won't break the glass this time.”

I gave him my glass. He emptied it and handed it back. He watched my face. “Don't be afraid,” he said. “We will be alright. I am not afraid.” Then his eyes darkened, he looked again toward the windows.

“Well,” he said, “I hoped that that would be the end of it. I worked in the bar and tried not to think of Guillaume or of what he was thinking or doing upstairs. It was aperitif time, you know? and I was very busy. Then, suddenly, I heard the door slam upstairs and the moment I heard that I knew that it had happened, the awful thing had happened. He came into the bar, all dressed now, like a French businessman, and came straight to me. He did not speak to anyone as he came in, and he looked white and angry and, naturally, this attracted attention. Everyone was waiting to see what he would do. And, I must say, I thought he was going to strike me, or he had maybe gone mad and had a pistol in his pocket. So I am sure I looked frightened and this did not help matters, either. He came behind the bar and began saying that I was a
tapette
and a thief and told me to leave at once or he would call the police and have me put behind bars. I was so astonished I could not say anything and all the time his voice was rising and people were beginning to listen and, suddenly,
mon cher
, I felt that I was falling, falling from a great,
high place. For a long while I could not get angry and I could feel the tears, like fire, coming up. I could not get my breath, I could not
believe
that he was really doing this to me. I kept saying, what have I done? What have I
done
? And he would not answer and then he shouted, very loud, it was like a gun going off, “
Mais tu le sais, salop!
You know very well!” And nobody knew what he meant, but it was just as though we were back in that theatre lobby again, where we met, you remember? Everybody knew that Guillaume was right and I was wrong, that I had done something awful. And he went to the cash register and took out some money—but I knew that he knew that there was not much money
in
the cash register at such an hour—and pushed it at me and said. “Take it! Take it! Better to give it to you than have you steal it from me at night! Now go!” And, oh, the faces in that bar, you should have seen them. They were so wise and tragic and they knew that
now
they knew everything, that they had always known it, and they were so glad that they had never had anything to do with me. “Ah!
Les encules!
The dirty sons of bitches!
Les gonzesses!
” He was weeping again, with rage this time. “Then, at last, I struck him and then many hands grabbed me and now I hardly know what happened, but by and by I was in the street, with all these torn bills in my hand and everybody staring at me. I did not know what to do, I hated to walk away but I knew if anything more happened, the police would come and Guillaume would have me put in jail. But I will see him again, I swear it, and on that day—!”

He stopped and sat down, staring at the wall. Then he turned to me. He watched me for a long time, in silence. Then, “If you were not here,” he said, very slowly, “this would be the end of Giovanni.”

I stood up. “Don't be silly,” I said. “It's not so tragic as all that.” I paused. “Guillaume's disgusting. They all are. But it's not the worst thing that ever happened to you. Is it?”

“Maybe everything bad that happens to you makes you
weaker,” said Giovanni, as though he had not heard me, “and so you can stand less and less.” Then, looking up at me, “No. The worst thing happened to me long ago and my life has been awful since that day. You are not going to leave me, are you?”

I laughed, “Of course not.” I started shaking the broken glass off our blanket onto the floor.

“I do not know what I would do if you left me.” For the first time I felt the suggestion of a threat in his voice—or I put it there. “I have been alone so long—I do not think I would be able to live if I had to be alone again.”

“You aren't alone now,” I said. And then, quickly, for I could not, at that moment, have endured his touch: “Shall we go for a walk? Come—out of this room for a minute.” I grinned and cuffed him roughly, football fashion, on the neck. Then we clung together for an instant. I pushed him away. “I'll buy you a drink,” I said.

“And will you bring me home again?” he asked.

“Yes. I'll bring you home again.”

“
Je t'aime
,
tu sais?
”

“
Je le sais
,
mon vieux.
”

He went to the sink and started washing his face. He combed his hair. I watched him. He grinned at me in the mirror, looking, suddenly, beautiful and happy. And young—I had never in my life before felt so helpless or so old.

“But we will be alright!” he cried. “
N'est-ce pas?
”

“Certainly,” I said.

He turned from the mirror. He was serious again. “But you know—I do not know how long it will be before I find another job. And we have almost no money. Do you have any money? Did any money come from New York for you today?”

“No money came from New York today,” I said, calmly, “but I have a little money in my pocket.” I took it all out and put it on the table. “About four thousand francs.”

“And I”—he went through his pockets, scattering bills and
change. He shrugged and smiled at me, that fantastically sweet and helpless and moving smile. “
Je m'excuse
. I went a little mad.” He went down on his hands and knees and gathered it up and put it on the table beside the money I had placed there. About three thousand francs worth of bills had to be pasted together and we put those aside until later. The rest of the money on the table totalled about nine thousand francs.

“We are not rich,” said Giovanni grimly, “but we will eat tomorrow.”

I somehow did not want him to be worried. I could not endure that look on his face. “I'll write my father again tomorrow,” I said. “I'll tell him some kind of lie, some kind of lie that he'll believe and I'll
make
him send me some money.” And I moved toward him as though I were driven, putting my hands on his shoulders and forcing myself to look into his eyes. I smiled and I really felt at that moment that Judas and the Savior had met in me. “Don't be frightened. Don't worry.”