The Metropolis (24 page)

Ghislaine acknowledged as much in her introduction. “And here I present you with your doppelgänger, Leo,” she continued with a small bow as everyone laughed, “who in the interest of fair play I will also disclose is Arthur’s lover. He shall sit next to you, for his English is by far the best among us.”

As soon as Leo sat down, it dawned on Martin why he looked so familiar. His stomach flipped at the thought, even though he felt faintly ridiculous to acknowledge it, after all of the rock stars—and in some cases, musical heroes—he had met.

“Are you a singer?” he asked tentatively.

“Yes—opera,” Leo confirmed.

“
Tristan
?”

Leo raised an eyebrow. “You know it?”

“I was there tonight,” Martin admitted. “I was very moved—it was my first time.”

Leo seemed to waver before he responded. “So I’ve made you an expert.”

“I’ve been called worse.” Martin shrugged and then sipped his drink. He might have been more disappointed by the chill he detected in Leo’s voice if he had not long before trained himself to expect the worst from artists whose music he professed to admire. It was always a delicate procedure, given his assumption that someone on the level
of Leo Metropolis had no particular need for his approval, but Martin still felt it better to acknowledge his admiration than to pretend—as some of his former music industry colleagues always did—that he felt no particular attachment to an artist’s work.

To change the subject, Martin asked Leo where he was originally from and learned that he had grown up in Paris, although his father was from Greece.

“And you?” Leo asked in a tone that fell somewhere between dismissive and playful.

“Well, I’m American—I grew up in Pennsylvania,” Martin replied. “But I was adopted.”

“I see,” Leo mused. “Well, my mother was from the South of France, so if our passing resemblance is any indication, I think it’s probably safe to say you have some Mediterranean blood in you.” Another round of drinks arrived; while Ghislaine and the others resumed their own conversation across the table, chattering in French, Leo again turned to address Martin. “So you don’t know who your birth parents were?”

“No. The records were sealed, and my interest has always been more superficial—more of a conversation piece than a real desire to know.”

“And your adoptive parents know nothing?”

“No,” answered Martin and then briefly explained what had happened to Hank and Jane.

“I’m sorry,” Leo murmured and then seemed to look through Martin for a few seconds before he returned his gaze to him. “Although if it’s any comfort—and please don’t take this the wrong way, because I speak from my own perspective, which I understand often places me far outside of the norm—I sometimes like to think that death, at least in the case of those we truly love, allows us to appreciate what they have done for us in ways that are not possible when
we’re all here, constantly changing and fixated on how to get from one day to the next. Death offers us the chance to reflect on who they were, which of course is a way to understand ourselves. As painful as it can be to see them go—and I don’t mean to diminish the sense of loss or grief we all feel—there is also no greater gift.”

Martin, who in the surrounding mirrors could see an infinite number of Leos repeating into the distance, was struck by the man’s eyes—the way they glinted like jade in the shadowy light—as well as the beguiling tone of his voice, both of which made Martin remember he was talking to a man whose performance had shattered him only hours earlier. “I see you take your
Tristan
to heart,” he remarked, not unappreciatively, for Leo had accomplished the difficult trick of acknowledging death with neither cold detachment nor the uncomfortably overwrought displays Martin had come to expect from a certain percentage of others with whom he shared this information.

Leo’s expression barely changed as he nodded. “Let me guess—you’re thirty-three?”

“Very good.” Martin laughed, less unnerved than slightly astonished in a way that sometimes happened during such barroom conjecture, and also relieved to move away from the maudlin overtones of their earlier conversation. “How’d you guess?”

“Woman’s intuition?” Leo also laughed, then shrugged in a charmingly self-deprecating way that gave Martin the impression that it really had been nothing more than a lucky guess.

“And you’re … fifty-two?” Martin replied, taking care to shave a few years off his real guess.

“That’s not something we singers are ever inclined to disclose,” Leo said, pursing his lips in what struck Martin as less a flamboyant gesture than an allusion to one.

Martin extinguished his cigarette; he didn’t really care how old Leo was but remained curious. “And—and do you still live in Paris?”

“Yes.” Leo smiled. “Although I still keep something here.”

“ ‘Here’ meaning?”

“I have a house in Washington Heights.”

“Washington Heights,” Martin repeated, as if trying to place it. “Uptown?”

“You’re familiar with it?”

Martin shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been north of Columbia.”

“That’s too bad,” Leo said. “I’m about ready to sell.” He smiled at Martin. “And since fate—or Ghislaine, if there’s any difference—has brought us together, I thought I’d give you first dibs.”

Martin resisted the temptation to roll his eyes, having over the years endured his share of sleazy come-ons and farcical invitations that made sense only in the inebriated aura of night; in Leo’s case, however, there was a pleasing ambivalence to the offer—a complete lack of desperation—that intrigued him. It was the sort of conversation that pulsed through uncountable bars and cafés and restaurants of Manhattan every single night and—whether anything materialized or not—served as a barometer for any potential relationship, even one that could be expected to last no more than a few minutes. “Okay, I’m game,” he answered. “What kind of house?”

“A small-but-charming kind,” Leo playfully replied. “It’s perched on the cliffs of Washington Heights, and has the loveliest views of the Hudson. It’s also secluded in a way that in my experience is most difficult to find in Manhattan.”

“Why would you want to be secluded in Manhattan?” Martin asked, although even as the words left his mouth, it occurred to him that—though he had never thought about it in these terms—he could very much understand the desire. He saw a new version of himself, devoted to his new job during the day and returning home each night to somewhere peaceful and distant, not so far away from the heart
of the city that he would obsess about leaving or missing it, but far enough so that he would not be distracted by those parts of his life he was ready to leave behind.

“Isn’t that for you to tell me?” Leo smiled and to Martin’s disappointment got up from the table; apparently Ghislaine was ready to leave. Before he stepped away, he presented Martin with a calling card. “Here’s the address,” he said. “If you have any interest, I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon—come up and I’ll show you around.” He then shrugged. “And if not,
à la prochaine.
”

“Until the next time,” replied Martin, who already suspected—or was beginning to hope—it would not be very far away.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, after referring to a map of Manhattan, he walked to 14th Street and Eighth Avenue, where he took an A train all the way up to 190th; having no idea what to expect as he emerged from the station, he was surprised to find a hilly neighborhood, filled with five- and six-story prewar apartment buildings, that on the whole resembled a European city more than an American one. The streets were quiet and clean, and this part of Washington Heights, at least, seemed to have little in common with the “drug-infested” quarters to the south and east about which he had read; Martin knew that, as with Harlem, large swaths of the neighborhood had given way to a form of blight and disrepair that mirrored what he had seen in the East Village during his first years in the city.

He walked west to Letchworth Terrace, a street just one block long that jutted out from Cabrini Boulevard, and here paused in front of a stone wall to admire the view. To the south was the George Washington Bridge, while the sheer cliffs of the New Jersey Palisades extended impressively to the north. The bridge seemed to bring the same order to his thoughts as it did to the cars streaming over it, and as he considered the river, he was struck by a stillness and a grandeur
that had nothing to do with the more frenzied atmosphere in which he had lived for the previous twelve years. It was difficult to believe he was still in Manhattan, but the certainty that he was added to the allure; as he looked farther south, at the outline of midtown, he felt as if a fever had just broken. The city had always seemed alive to him—and in ways that were increasingly difficult to romanticize—but from this vantage point it appeared less monstrous than benevolent, and in his admiration he felt an encouraging spark of love and possibly forgiveness.

He went to the end of the street, where Leo’s property was situated behind a brick wall. He admired the deco motif in the wrought-iron gate and then peered through at the top stories of the house, which were just visible above the forested hillside. To see even this much filled him with longing and purpose, for already the house seemed to resonate with an aesthetic reminiscent of his prep school; it was, he noted, something his mother would have loved. He wanted his life to be marked by the same grace that allowed this house to erupt out of the cliff and to hover magically—presumably there was some sort of cantilever onto which it was built—above the river. As he walked down the steps, he looked up at the mottled brick exterior, which reflected the pink and orange tones of the western sun, and then kneeled down to touch the moss growing between the cobblestone pavers leading to the front entrance. He observed a lush wisteria growing up and over the southern façade, its woody vines wrapped around several of the drainpipes, before cascading over a railing that appeared to give way to an outdoor terrace.

He questioned moving so far uptown when he could afford to live almost anywhere on the island. He thought about how many hours he would be working at his firm, and how he could expect on many nights to arrive home at one or two in the morning, and then head back to the office after four or five hours of sleep, and whether he
would regret not buying an apartment on, say, Columbus Circle, only a ten-minute walk to his office. No sooner were any of these arguments made than he dismissed them; just as he now intended to give increasing amounts of time to the lawyerly side of himself, he wanted to offer what remained something serene and contemplative, completely removed from the clubs and bars and bathhouses that had marked his life during the previous years.

He stood on a small stoop and rang the bell, reminding himself that he was no longer drunk and there was a good possibility that Leo had changed his mind. When the door opened a few seconds later, Martin looked into a shadowed hallway beyond which he could see the sky, azure and shimmering. He tried to speak and could not, and for a moment regretted appearing so weak in front of a man he barely knew and from whom he might be buying a house; it was not a good way to start a negotiation. Flooded with intuition, he didn’t care if a few coughs and tears weakened his position; he knew he would gladly pay whatever it cost. “I can’t pretend,” he managed, as he looked up at Leo. “I’m ready to buy.”

Nor did he protest as Leo invited him through the door, where he kissed each of his cheeks and in a whisper acknowledged his failure ever to be surprised.

NEW YORK CITY, 1978. After a long bus trip, a harrowing walk through Port Authority, and a taxi ride across the neon extravagance of Times Square, Maria arrived on the Upper West Side
of Manhattan, where she rang the buzzer for what she hoped was her new apartment. She had spoken briefly on the phone with her new roommate, Linda Pasby—another incoming singer, a mezzo—and was worried about meeting her. As much as she wanted to like Linda, if only for Anna’s sake, Linda’s cheerful demeanor—combined with the knowledge that she was from Beverly Hills—made Maria think they might not make the best match. She felt greasy and exhausted by the trip but forced herself to smile as the door opened and she was confronted by Linda, who just as Maria had pictured her was petite, with short blond hair and very white teeth. She wore a T-shirt with an iron-on decal of a horse, the widest bell-bottoms Maria had ever seen, and a silver necklace with
Linda
spelled out in large, cursive letters.

“Wow—you really
are
tall!” Linda exclaimed and then added, “Hey, sista, can ya spare an inch?” in a Bronx accent as she assumed the swagger of a panhandler.

Maria took a deep breath and hoped that her smile looked more genuine than it felt as she stepped into a small living room and peered down a narrow hallway toward a tiny kitchen with a half-size stove and refrigerator. “I can’t believe I’m here,” she said. “It’s actually bigger than I expected.”

Linda gave Maria a complete tour of what was a ground-floor garden apartment. “Don’t you love Anna?” she mused at one point before she flapped her arms and tilted her head slightly. “ ‘My lee-tle robin,’ ” she cooed. “ ‘New York is such a von-da-fool city.’ ”

If it was jarring for Maria to hear someone poke fun at Anna, who had played such a serious role during the least funny part of her life, she resolved not to show it as they arrived at her new bedroom, which was about eight feet wide by twelve across, with a dingy window that faced a neighboring apartment building. She put her suitcase on the bed and pushed aside the curtain to peer out the window,
where she was confronted by a view of the basement of the building next door.

“The view’s incredible,” Linda noted, “so don’t pass out or anything.”

Maria decided that she liked the dusty, unswept quality of the alley, which was what she had imagined for an apartment in New York City. She even liked the gray block façade, which as she watched became momentarily illuminated by the sun’s reflection in the air shaft. She pulled on the metal bars.