The Married Man (25 page)

Julien thought Austin had lost his talent as a “cooker,” as he said in English, and he appeared to find his gossip less spicy than in France; Austin couldn’t make him understand that the local ingredients were inferior. Julien was, of course, quick to concede that everything that happened “over here” was simply material for future anecdotes to be
told later around the Paris dinner table. Austin didn’t think of it that way. This wasn’t a half-humorous field trip for him. He was back among his own people. He realized, when they invited the bearded colleague for dinner and the instructor from the Brown French department along with his boyfriend, that in America (at least outside New York) people didn’t feel the Parisian necessity to be “brilliant” in conversation—and Austin’s efforts had a chilling effect on the others. In fact, the table talk kindled only when Austin left the room to slice the free-range turkey. When he returned, he cast everyone into a fit of self-consciousness; he interrupted, he translated, he wheeled out a sure-fire old Paris anecdote that fizzled without provoking any response other than confusion. The professors began to discuss an enemy of theirs, someone who’d chained an undergraduate to a radiator and thrashed him. When the boy had complained to the Dean of Sexual Harassment and Gender Infringement Issues, the professor had impenitently insisted that the boy had “begged for it” and the Department of Humanities had tried to hush everything up since the sadist was a leading Elizabethan scholar—irreplaceable, apparently.

Despite the juicy possibilities of this gossip, the professors didn’t know how to serve it up. They got bogged down in detail, they introduced too many names, and they never told the end. Their main activity was to work up indignation over the minor players. Although the French professor spoke French to Julien over drinks, at the table he reverted to a voluble, joky English and frowned when he caught Austin mistranslating him.

Most nights they were alone and watched TV from the revolving chairs. Since the aesthetics professor specialized in popular culture the TV was state-of-the-art and, as promised, fully loaded with fifty channels. Julien was specially fascinated by the shopping channel—all those ropy, arthritic hands displaying diamond chips, the strange household appliances, the ghastly pantsuits in fabrics that resembled shower curtains. He laughed with his bass rumble.

Julien said, “In France we have only five channels, but here, where you have fifty, people don’t even have the focus of the same few programs to discuss the next day at the office. In France there are a handful of cultural events everyone must know about and discuss—
the Goncourt Prize book, the latest Alain Resnais movie, a William Forsythe ballet, a Bob Wilson staging of an opera. But here you have so many cities and so few national newspapers—in fact there’s not much press.”

They were going past a kennel in the Massachusetts countryside when Julien begged to stop. They’d already discussed the possibility of buying a dog. Julien picked up a basset hound puppy. “Look how he presses his little pink belly against me. Let’s get him!”

“What will you name him?”

“Ajax. I’ve always wanted a basset. But you wanted a collie,
non?”

“Only because I had one as a child. But they’re rather stupid dogs.”

The tiny puppy staggered uneasily about the big, drafty house, stepping on his long ears. Julien was delighted with Ajax; he declared him the most intelligent and affectionate dog who’d ever lived, almost human in his sensitivity.

But he wouldn’t eat. Julien was certain that he’d been weaned too early.
“Merde!
He’s just a baby! These people are criminals! I’m going to sue them!”

“Spoken like a true American,” Austin said. “You’re learning quickly.”

One of Austin’s students, a girl with a classically beautiful face, red hands and split, over-treated blond hair, came by from time to time. Eleanor had a fascinatingly hoarse voice and a sly, dirty laugh; she laughed all the time as though Austin had just said something ironic and nuanced, although his years of living abroad had made him, on the contrary, wonderfully straightforward—“You’re wicked,” she’d exclaim and point at him with a badly bitten nail. She had a reputation for drugs and lying. She’d dropped out because she was shooting heroin and this semester was her first back in school after a year-long hiatus. Her stories about her father sounded possibly exaggerated. “He’d stolen away a big Mafia type’s girlfriend. Oh, no. Unh-unh. Hello-oh! I mean:
please
. So, he was, like, with her in some fabulous suite, like, overlooking the Mediterranean, fourth floor up. He was out on
the balcony in his cool smoking jacket, like, sipping champagne. Suddenly the girl, like, wasn’t there anymore. She’d, like, vanished. No one ever saw her again. And Dad was suddenly, like, on the sidewalk below—splat!—he’s a hopeless quadriplegic now. That’s how he got into drugs, helping him fight the pain.”

It was hard for Austin to look mournful about a cliché that had occurred to a figment, but Julien, who couldn’t follow the story but appreciated its setting on the Riviera, smiled with alternating bursts of sympathy and pleasure. He also liked Eleanor (who’d been in the weaving department) because she wore an old Chanel suit and a pillbox hat. Her very high heels, her bare, scratched legs, the soiled suit with the trademark gold buttons (they were sewed on very badly and one was missing), the Jackie Kennedy hat, bobby-pinned into her over-processed hair, her splashed-on Shalimar—oh, even Austin could see it was all supposed to be a big camp, but Julien just assumed this poor misguided American wanted to be chic in the authentic French manner but hadn’t yet mastered a few crucial details. Her grown-up clothes failed to disguise her extreme youth, and her constant tremor. She had a boyfriend—a lean, pasty-faced, long-haired boy who
slithered
when he entered a room—whom she called “Dybbuk” for some reason. Maybe he was the one who’d infected Eleanor with the idea that lurking under every bland statement was a dangerous steel trap of irony, since he punctuated every burst of mumbled speech with a bass chortle. He painted big scary canvases that were partially burned. Eleanor assured Austin that Dybbuk’s erections were “alabaster hard” since he’d started shooting up. Austin found it hard to believe that such an exhausted youth, who sat whenever he had a chance or just hunkered with his back to a wall if no other resting place presented itself, could manage even the most cursory Play-Doh erection.

Austin liked her because she wasn’t a PC harpy and because she saw him as an equal. She had tidbits of gossip about people they knew, about herself if necessary, and she assumed that Austin’s life (or at least thoughts) must be agreeably scandalous.

Two days after they bought Ajax Eleanor came by and saw the puppy lying mournfully in its wicker nest.

“He hasn’t eaten a bite since he got here,” Austin said. “I’m afraid he’s going to starve to death.”

“Let me handle this,” Eleanor said. She warmed up some milk and sugar and then fed the formula to him with an eyedropper. Suddenly he came back to life, tail wagging, nails slipping and clacking on the linoleum. Julien had tears in his eyes.

“He was weaned too early,” Eleanor said.

“Yes, I am of … agreement,” Julien said loudly.
“Mon pauvre petit bébé,”
he said to Ajax, cuddling him. “Can he eat something solid?”

“Do you have any turkey?”

“Turkey?”

“Dinde,”
Austin translated.

“I’ll drive over to the Healthy, right now.” Julien raced around the house looking for his keys and sunglasses. He dashed back into the kitchen to kiss Eleanor on the forehead.

Ajax never stopped eating after Eleanor, as Julien put it, “opened his appetite.” “That is a woman,” Julien declared. “We men are nothing beside the powerful maternal instinct. Only Woman can save us, civilize us, give us life.”

Nor was Julien ever far from his dog after that. He took him out for long walks. “Jax” would pull on his leash toward the sound of children’s voices. There was a preschool playground nearby and Jax would begin to whine and tug as soon as he heard that constant high hum. The kids would pretend to be scared of him, which was absurd, he was so small; their high-pitched cries would send Jax into ever more vigorous paroxysms of barking and yearning.

When they’d come home Julien would recount their adventures (“An old lady came down off her porch and offered him raw hamburger, but I told her he’d just been fed. Ajax was furious with me, but you can’t be too cautious”). Julien treated Jax as an invalid, though one who’d made a splendid recovery. He’d wash his ears, especially the tips which had dragged through the dust. He loved his paws and marveled over their four-leaf-clover pads. “Look at his giant curving nails, he’s like a pterodactyl. He’s a very primitive animal, one of the very first dogs.” On the first sunny day, though it was still cool, Julien took his nap with Ajax in a big ecru hammock they’d brought back
from Mexico. Austin took pictures of a dozing Julien and a wideawake Ajax peering out over the taut fabric.

They visited the vet for vaccinations and heart-worm pills. “Heart-worm” was the one English word calculated to defeat Julien (since it contained an initial aspirated
h
, an unfamiliar
o
, two hard
r
’s and too many other strong consonants in strange places), but he said it often out of anxiety. Ajax was outfitted with a thick, metal-studded leather collar to which an ID tag was attached giving their address and phone number. Julien said it was a very “butch” collar; Austin was surprised he knew the word and wondered if he’d learned it from a gay American.

The very next day Julien was walking in the woods with Ajax off the leash when the puppy heard the cry of children and took off like a bolt. Julien ran as quickly as possible after him but Ajax had soon outpaced him. By the time a panting Julien came jogging up to the playground, Jax had terrorized all the little kids. He would run toward them, jumping up on them, which would set them off in spasms of screams. He would then become all the more excited, turning and turning, looking for new playmates. As he wheeled around, his protruding tongue spattered the children with drops of saliva. His eyes were intelligent but vulnerable; his mouth appeared to be smiling. A teacher had come out with a broom to drive him away. Julien intervened and dragged Jax off on the leash. He was spluttering with rage against the sadistic teacher, but he hadn’t known how to denounce her in English.

“Pauvrepetite bête,”
Julien crooned to an exhausted Jax when they were back home. He wrapped the dog in his arms as Jax lightly snored. Every few seconds Julien swooped down to kiss his pink, freckled stomach. “He smells like hot popcorn,” he said.

“A boy I met out walking with Ajax,” Austin said, “told me he’d known lots of bassets. He says they are the most stubborn dogs alive. And always running away.”

“What nonsense!” Julien said, indignant.
“Le pauvre petit
just thinks he’s a human child. That’s why he wanted to play with the other children. But these neurotic American children just start to scream when they see him—what’s
wrong
with them?”

“Ajax is American, too, Julien.”

Julien kissed his stomach again as Ajax dozed on.
“Mon pauvre petit américain
. And he’s black, too. That’s why he wants to move to France. He’s heard that American blacks are better treated in France. I’ve already read him the life of Joséphine Baker.”

Austin had never heard any whimsy coming out of Julien’s mouth before, but now it never stopped. Julien decided that he would raise Ajax to be the next pope. He was constantly on the lookout for pious deeds and minor miracles, which would confirm his calling. Julien started calling him Pius VII, which in French was pronounced
“Pis-sette”
and also meant “little pisser.” The whole idea was mad and in the worst taste, but Julien clung to it so long that Austin suspected he took it half-seriously.

One day, while talking on the phone in his office at school with Peter, Austin mentioned Ajax. It just slipped out.

“Who’s Ajax?”

“A dog.”

“Whose dog?”

Austin didn’t want to say
ours
so he said, “Mine.”

“Your dog? You bought a dog?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s really a dog you and Julien bought.”

“You could say that.”

“A puppy?”

“Yes. It’s a basset hound.”

“How old?”

“Probably just two months old.”

“That’s a big commitment, isn’t it?”

“Not really.”

“Dogs live to be twelve or fifteen years old. It must have been Julien who wanted it. You’re too egotistical to want a dog, though I suppose you’re attached to him by now.”

“How do you know?”

“Who wouldn’t get attached to a puppy? Anyway, I know you. If you’re in love the person can talk you into anything. Although you’d never buy me a dog. When we were together you refused to buy me a dog.”

“Well, at first we were living in a one-room apartment in New York, then in two rooms in Paris. A third-floor walk-up.”

“I would have walked him. It’s good exercise. Good
cruising.”
Peter said the word
cruising
with a bitter explicitness, as though only by making such a sexual allusion could he hope to communicate with someone as depraved as Austin. Peter was silent for a moment, then Austin realized he must be crying.

“What’s wrong?” Austin asked.

“You never loved me enough to give me a dog. For a gay couple a dog is like a child. You and Julien have a child now. I guess he’s won.”

“Won what?”

Suddenly Peter was angry. “Oh, nothing. If you can’t figure that one out you’re even more out of touch than I thought.” He hung up.

Austin didn’t know what to do—send him flowers, call him back, fly down there? Now that he was far away from his Paris friends (and given that almost all his New York friends were dead), Austin contemplated with horror his new break with Peter. His world was shrinking rapidly. Soon he’d be all alone, and for Austin aloneness was the equivalent to death. He felt bad that he’d hurt Peter in so many ways—but he was even angrier that Julien should have treated Peter so high-handedly.