The Apprentice Lover (21 page)
Read The Apprentice Lover Online
Authors: Jay Parini
N
igel and Nicola arrived on a blinding-bright morning on the ferry from Naples, a girl of sixteen and a boy of fifteen who looked shockingly alike. They were not twins, but nobody could doubt they were products of the same union. Lanky as their parents, with sharp blue-gray eyes, they were indistinguishable from a distance. Nicola seemed not to have the slightest trace of female sexuality, although close inspection revealed small breasts and slightly enlarged hips. Nigel was like an arrow, straight and fledged with thick yellow hair like that of his sister, worn long and parted in the middle. They both wore khaki shorts, white shirts, and sandals without socks.
“Isn't it darling? They wish they were twins,” said Vera, as they approached. “But they're rather hard work.”
More hard work, I thought. It relieved me to hear they would be gone from the island in five weeks or so. Back to the Hundred Acre Wood.
The children were eager to see Grant, but they would have to wait until lunch. As they understood, he would never break from his writing until just before one. This was a boundary he kept resolutely in place, though he hadn't seen his children for several months. I remarked on the oddity of this to Vera, but she dismissed the idea that anything was strange about it. “It's important for them to remember who he is,” she said. “It's part of who they are.”
The fact that Nigel and Nicola looked alike faded quickly, since their affects were entirely opposite. He was moody and ironic, casting his
scorn in random directions. Nicola radiated energy and optimism, and had brought a thick portfolio of art work recently completed, which she laid out for everyone to seeâa dozen pastel watercolors of damp English gardens. There seemed always to be a cathedral spire in the distance.
Nicola's portfolio was discussed over lunch. Vera and Holly enthused over the pictures, while Nigel maintained that “nothing serious was ever conceived in watercolors.” He admitted to a “certain restraint” in the pictures that he admired, but recommended that she “lose the spires.” Grantâwho hadn't seen the portfolio yetâmerely grunted, although one could see that he adored Nicola when she kissed his broad forehead and called him Daddy. Marisa put in a rare appearance, sitting gloomily through lunch, then disappearing to her room afterward. (“On the bloody rag?” wondered Nigel.) Holly, who had befriended Nicola during their last school holiday, chatted amiably about the latest exhibition at the Tate, a retrospective on the career of Henry Moore. “I adore Moore,” she said.
“I used to see a lot of Moore,” said Grant. “What an unpleasant fellow.”
This set the table aflame, and soon the conversation swirled around the question of what part character played in the quality of an artist's work. Holly was quite firm, saying that a painter's moral stature was evident in each brush stroke. Vera sided with her. I, impulsively, took the opposite side, arguing that Caravaggio, Titian, and Picasso were no paragons of personal virtue. I said that, where writers were concerned, there was less connection between the quality of the work and the artist. Joyce, for example, was self-centered and inconsiderate.
“Joyce was a minor figure,” said Grant. “Were it not for American academics, he would have disappeared from sight ages ago.”
“Oh, Daddy,” said Nicola, with a scorn that reeked of admiration.
“Pater is right,” said Nigel. “The Irish are always overrated.”
Grant nevertheless approved of my argument. “The life and the work are not related,” he said. “Or if they're related, it's in ways no critic could ever fathom.”
Nicola interrupted him: “I think one sees the personality of an artist
in the line itself, the firmness of character. That's why I think Michelangelo must have been a lovely man.”
Nigel acquired a mocking expression. “A lovely man? I can't believe I've come all the way from England to listen to this pseudy shit,” he said, the word “shit” rhyming with “kite.” It was a peculiar affectation of his, the distortion of certain key words so that he sounded hip. “Tell us the local gossip, Mummy. Who is bonking who?”
“Whom, darling,” said Vera. “Who is bonking whom?”
“Bonk?” I asked. The word was unfamiliar to me.
“It means fuck in your bloody language,” said Nigel.
“Lorenzo is a civilized American,” Grant explained.
“Is it possible?” wondered Nigel.
“You must ignore my son,” Vera said to me. “He puts great store by his sophistication, but he's just a schoolboy.”
“Good for Mummy,” Nicola said.
With a mildly scolding air, Vera cautioned: “Be nice to Alex, both of you. We consider him part of the family.”
“I'm always nice, Mater,” said Nigel.
I had never experienced anything quite like the Grant children, with their adult mannerisms and glorious looks. Young Nigel, in particular, was ethereal, with classic English features, although his straight teeth were anomalous in an English mouth. His nose was long and straight. His voice had recently lowered, hovering uncertainly on the brink of maturity, and occasionally squeaking. He slouched a bit, forcing his shoulder blades to poke through his T-shirt. His sandals exposed large toes, which he tended to wiggle whenever he spoke.
Nicola was also straight-toothed and straight-nosed. Like her mother, she was desperately thin, but strong. Without intention, she was sexy in a boyish, innocent way. There was something preternaturally wise in her steady gaze: a sense of balance that, as I soon learned, was a kind of emotional falsework put up, like scaffolding, while the building itself was under construction. It could not have been easy for a young girl, on the cusp of full sexual maturity, to have a father like Grant, who slept casually with girls who could easily be his own daughters, although I could not be sure exactly how much the children knew about their father's intimate arrangements.
“Who are you sleeping with around here,” Nigel suddenly asked me, over coffee.
“Be still, Niggy,” his mother said.
“Infy! Infy!” he bellowed, pounding the table. This was apparently a bit of school slang that nobody else understood.
“He's very rude,” Nicola said, “but his friends at Charterhouse are worse. That whole Carthusian lot should be taken into the woods and shot.”
“I simply want to know who is bonking whom,” Nigel said.
“I'm bonking nobody in this room,” I said. “It's unpleasant, but true.”
Holly looked at me briefly, then dipped her eyes. I detected a faint smile on her lips.
“Jolly well said, Lorenzo,” Grant observed.
“I'm writing poems, Pater,” Nigel said.
“Not homoerotic love poems, I hope? Carthusian speciality, that,” Grant said. He was himself an Old Carthusian, and in
Play the Game
âa memoir of his schooldaysâhe'd confessed to a homoerotic attachment to a boy called Aleric, two years his junior. (“Now a cabinet minister,” as he liked to say.)
“I'm hetero to the hilt, Pater,” said Nigel. “It's an affliction, as you know.”
“Good chap,” he said.
Vera clapped her hands over her ears. “I don't need to listen to this. You're all mad, the lot of you.”
Indeed, they were. I realized that the entire Grant clan, including Vera, was mad.
Now Maria Pia came into the dining room with an urgent expression. She whispered in Vera's ear, looking in my direction. There was apparently a telephone call for me from America, where by my calculations it was early in the morning, well before breakfast.
“Take it in the library,” said Vera.
This was a peculiar time for anyone to attempt to reach me by phone, and I knew something was wrong. As yet, I had not received a single call from home, and it was unlike my parents to attempt such a thing unless there was an emergency.
“H
ello?”
“Is that you, Alex?”
“Dad! Is anything wrong?”
“How ya doin' over there, in Italy?”
“I'm fine. I just didn't expect to hear from you. Is something the matter?” “I was trying to get through for some time. The operator, she didn't know from squat.”
“The Italian phone company is terrible. And Capri is an islandâit's like another country. The wires have to go under water from Naples.”
“You don't sound too far away.”
“Really?”
“Well, you do. There's like an echo or something. I keep hearing you twice.”
“I
am
far away.”
“Hey, tell me about it. I been there, remember? But that was a long time ago, thank God. I guess it's changed in the meantime. That's what they say.”
“So what's going on, Dad?”
“I don't want to worry you or anything, being a long way from home like this.”
“Just tell me what's going on, okay? Is Mom all right?”
“Not too bad, given the situation. It's her heart, Alex. The doctors aren't too happy about it.”
“What's happened?”
“She hasn't been good these past couple weeks. This isn't like a sudden situation or anything. Don't jump the gun on me.”
“Did she have a heart attack?”
“I wouldn't say that.”
“You can tell me the truth, Dad. Is she dead or something?”
“Alex, please. Don't say that.”
“You're making me nervous. It's like you never come to the point.”
“She's not dead, I swear. That's not the problem.”
“But she had a heart attack?”
“They think so.”
“Who does?”
“The doctors. It's not so easy to tell.”
“Where is she? In the hospital?”
“Intensity unit.”
“Jesus. Should I fly home?”
“I asked Dr. Ciongoli. He said no. Tell him not to worry, he's a long way from home over there. It's just the arteries. I guess they ought to be pumping better or something. She has chest painâruns right up her arms and down her fingers. And her breath is kind of short. As long as she don't get up⦔
“That doesn't sound good.”
“But she's definitely alive, Alex. They have medicine for that.”
“I'm worried, Dad. This sounds dangerous.”
“I didn't mean to call. But your mother thought⦔
“She asked you to call, right?”
“She said, whatever you do, don't tell Alex.”
“So you called?”
“You know Mom. She probably would have called herself, but they got tubes in her throat. She never complains, it's amazing. She's a good woman.”
“Maybe I should come home, Dad.”
“Don't be nuts. It's a long way, and it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. She's got more doctors around her bed than I got bills to pay.”
“I'm glad you called.”
“Hey, I wanted you to know. Your mother and you are pretty close. You always were.”
“Dad, I think I should come home.”
“I said don't bother, and I meant it. If there's a serious problem, I'll call back.”
“So it's under control? Is that what you're saying?”
“To tell you the truth, Alex, she looks pretty good. I mean, for a woman in intensity. I spoke to her on the phone a little while ago. She was hungry.”
“That's a good sign.”
“I agree. It's always better to be hungry. Especially in these situations.”
“Yeah.”
“So what about you? You eating okay? I mean, there's a lot of spicy food over there, I guess. I remember it from the war. I never had such heartburn.”
“I'm eating fine, Dad. How are you?”
“Good, Alex. I'm good.”
“That's great, Dad. So tell Mom I'm worried about her. I'll come home in a minute if there's any need. I could get a flight from Rome. They leave twice a day.”
“Hey, no need. She said the same thing herself. Tell him to stay there, she said.”
“She said that?”
“Yeah. He's learning a lot of stuff. That's what your mother said, Alex.”
“She's right, Dad.”
“Good, Alex. That's good, good. I hope you're doing your work for that guy, the writer.”
“Rupert Grant. Yes, I'm working hard.”
“Terrific. We want you to finish your degree, as you know. Not to bring up a sore subject.”
“Sometime. Not right away.”
“I know, I know. I don't understand what you did, Alex. The way you quit, with only a couple months before graduation. But hey, what do I know?”
“I love you, Dad.”
“Yeah. Me, too. We love you.”
“Thanks. So you'll let me know if anything changes. Either way.”
“Sure, Alex. I'll let you know. So long.”
“Yeah, so long. And thanks for the call.”
“Bye, Alex.”
“Bye, Dad. Bye.”
Dear Asshole,
Weather is here, wish you were beautiful.
How are things in the Ivy League? You thought I'd forgotten you, didn't you, sweetheart? Well, it's me. Up to my hips in elephant grass and flies like B-52s.
Let me tell you a story. Last week I was assigned to your basic listening-post operation, with half a dozen other bastards, all of us loaded for bear but hoping we don't find any. The idea behind this kind of operation is simple: hang around with your mouth shut, your radio turned on, just listening. Find out what kind of crap is going down up there, the captain told us. Captain Francis Fogg. That's not made up. Captain Francis Fucking Fogg.
So Fogg sent us over the river and through the woods. At twilight, I gotta say, it was something to behold, that river. Like pure red blood. It had been lousy to wade, but amazing to look at. Even Black Jimbo Samuels, who is no orator, made a little speech. “Ain't seen no scenery like this before, not nowhere,” he said. “It kind of make you forget about the war.” Mickey Donato shook his head. “I'm gonna write for a fucking brochure,” he said.
We went into the woods to make ourselves invisible. Camouflage, head to toe, with all kinds of black shit on our faces and hands. (“I don't need that shit on my face,” Black Jimbo said. “Just don't smile,” said Waller. He also said, “I don't want to see nobody waving. I don't want to hear nobody farting. We are the woods, man. We are bamboo-brained, with hearts of palm.” I liked that a lot. Bamboo-brained, with hearts of palm, and I told him he got an A from me, the professor.
After a while, we came to a place where the trail turned into a big woods, with a canopy of trees, and tiny flowers in the bush below. The area smelled mossy and damp. The usual jungle racket seemed to subside here, get absorbed into the tangle. And it was getting dark fast. That's when Waller said to spread
out along the trail somewhere, go as far as you want to, and spend the night. All by yourself in the dark. No mommy or daddy, he said. No night lights but the fucking moon and stars. If you can see them, and rots of ruck. (Waller's eloquence was not something you could rely on.)
So I said to myself, given the usual level of noise and the fact that you spend most of your time in close quarters with guys who in real life you wouldn't probably give the time of day, I decided to go a long way out. Walk to fucking Laos.
After maybe three hours, I found a cool spot under a humongous tree of some kindâI don't know one tree from the next out hereâthen I zoomed into a kind of trance. Was too excited to sleep: the jungle is like caffeine, the way it turns up the volume in your head. But I got a good trance going, and I began to think about home. About returning a goddamn hero or something like that. I go to visit the old high schoolâwalk in like a big shot. Look at me now, I say to them. But then I realize that Time has bit a chunk out of everybody's ass. Those still hanging on look like shitâMr. Donatello, Miss Lupinksi, Mrs. Rider. They have forgot my name. The principal doesn't know me from squat. So there was never any point in going back. In trying to prove anything. Never any fucking point.
Maybe I learned something here, something like Dad learned in Salerno but kept pretty quiet about all these years, though he once said to me that everything changed for him after Salerno. He said it was the central fact of his life, more important than everything before and most things after. This was like the last thing he said to me that night before I left for boot campâlike some kind of secret between us. I asked him to explain what he meant, and he said, “You'll get it, I know that.”
And you know what? He was right. I've come to a place inside myself here, a quiet place, that only gets clearer and quieter as it gets messier and noisier around me. Do you follow me, Bro???
In any case, I'm just lying there, having Deep Thoughts, such as those just transmitted, when the parade begins. I mean, The Parade! First I hear a few voices, and I want to shit my pants. Then I realize it's not just a few folks walking by in black pajamas, but the whole goddamn army of North Vietnam. The Commie Party of the Entire World. I mean, I must have fallen asleep beside the Ho Chi Minh Trail or something because I never saw so many soldiersâold men, medics, maniacs, gooks and geeks galore. I mean one after the fucking other, hoof and mouth, the whole fandango. And everybody's got a Russian automatic or some Chink weapon that could do serious damage if they pointed it your way and pulled the trigger. In the darkâand it was so damn darkâ
they might have been carrying sticks. Maybe I had fallen into a time warp, I thought, and this was the army of Genghis Khan?
If I'd sneezed or coughed, they'd have gunned me down on the spot. Or cut my dick off. Who knows? They seemed both scary and pathetic at the same time. Just a bunch of guys trudging through the jungle at night, going nowhere at a slow pace, following the leader like a bunch of ants, filing along the trail.
I must have fallen asleep, I don't know. The trudging had got to meâall those geeks like a long insect with a million feet. I didn't know if I'd ever get back to Waller, Mickey, Eddie Sloane and Fink O'Malley and Black Jimbo. But I figured those guys were dealing with the same shit, too. They were squatting in trees or bushes, watching the big parade that came out of nowhere. Or maybe the whole shabang was some kind of dream? I'd smoked some amazing shit that day. Hanoi Hash. I wondered if I was seeing the Army of North Vietnam or just having my worst trip ever.
In the moonlight, everybody looked like a ghost. The black pajamas disappeared, and it was loose, ghostly heads bobbing in the air, not smiling, not talking. Just walking. The whole world on foot. Old men and young men, middle-age men, even some women. I saw every shape and form in front of me, and I thought I recognized a few. I'd seen them before, back in Pittston. On the streets in Wilkes-Barre. Seen them on the Little League field and in the Catholic Youth Center in Scranton.
Maybe it was just the worst fucking dream I'd ever had? Anyway, by morning they were gone. The trail was empty, and sunlight sparkled on the cobwebs in the brush, and drops of dew glistened. Poetic, huh? I sipped at my canteen, ate some rationsâthe chocolate firstâand waited. I didn't want any nasty surprises. And when I finally headed back, retracing my steps through the jungle, I walked more carefully than before. Waller said he didn't think the area was mined, but what did he know? He'd also said we were alone out there. So I stepped careful onto the path, trying to avoid Toe Poppers and Bouncing Bettys. Followed the same path that the population of North Vietnam had followed, the whole goddamn country, the night before. It was kind of easy, getting in line behind the rest. Maybe it was their turn, in broad daylight, to take to the bushes, and to watch me.
I found the guys under a banyan tree or some fucking thing with big ugly leaves and gummy roots that stank like a hog's breath. O'Malley and Donato were playing cards and whispering, since this was a listening post. Like in church or something. Waller was writing a letter to his wife, Susie. We all knew about Susie. Black Jimbo was picking his toenails. I didn't see Eddie Sloane or anybody else.
“I'm glad you guys are okay,” I said.
They looked up like I was nuts. And when I mentioned the parade, they looked skeptical. Donato said, “I didn't see nothing.” Waller shook his head, with a shit-eating grin. No, said Fink, there was nothing down here. You probably ate something bad, and it was working its charms. Maybe you smoked too much. Nobody had seen a goddamn thing, and I wasn't going to argue about it. I mean, who am I to insist?
Vision is like that, right? I mean, you see something, and it's fucking fantasticâscary, beautiful, damned, whateverâand you don't dare tell anybody else about it. You keep it to yourself because that's where it lives best. Down and fresh, the dearest thing you know.
But here I am I'm telling you, asshole. So keep it to yourself.
Socrates