The Quirk (8 page)

He went back to the hotel to check and then, knowing that the hotel added its own service charge for using the telephone, went on down the street to a
tabac
and paid for a token. He pulled Nicole’s card out of his wallet and called her from the instrument next to the toilet Of his recent new encounters, Nicole was the one who had really gotten a grip on his imagination–more so than he wanted to admit. When she answered he stifled his excitement by telling her that he had a couple of troublesome pictures he wanted to finish before he took any time off. She was cordial, and they agreed that they would try to arrange something the following week. He hung up satisfied that as long as he could put her off, she didn’t represent a threat to his working routine. The mystery of Patrice still nagged him.

He went out and turned a few corners and was in the rue de Verneuil. He realized that he hadn’t bothered to look at the number of Patrice’s place, but he was sure that he could find it. He passed building after building with great impenetrable double doors. He was certain which side of the street it was on and knew it had to be right along here somewhere. It was only a few minutes from the hotel. He came to a wide cross street that he hadn’t seen yesterday and turned back. Forget it. He didn’t even know Patrice’s last name. He had been picked up by a kid who had failed to turn up for a lunch date. So what? Was he afraid he was losing his sex appeal? His instinct to avoid queers made sense. They were odd and undependable, not capable of normal friendship.

He set off resolutely for the hotel and within minutes was back in his room. He went to work but remained fretful. When there was no longer enough daylight to gauge color accurately, he set out all the canvases around the room and studied them one by one for flaws. Were they really as good as Patrice had said? His not showing up seemed a slap at his work. That was what bothered him. If Patrice hadn’t made such a fuss about the pictures, he could write it off as faggot pique at Rod’s not being fun in bed.

Eventually he joined his cronies for dinner in the rue de Buci. He was evasive with Jeannine when she tried to pin him down about his plans for the evening. After he had eaten–when the conversation around the table had reached a high pitch–he muttered something about going to the john and slipped away. He headed for the Pagode. There would be people he knew there, even if he didn’t find Patrice. He didn’t care as much about finding him as making sure that he was all right. His not showing up had spooked him.

He crossed the boulevard when he neared St.-Germain-des-Prés but kept an eye on the busy sidewalk in front of the Deux Magots and the Flore. He had almost reached his destination when he caught sight of a trim cloaked figure swinging along toward him on the other side of the boulevard. He plunged into traffic and heard the squeal of brakes and saw headlights flash before he landed safely in front of Patrice. He didn’t know whether he was angry or relieved. Patrice, his face radiant with mischievous delight, looked as if they had been playing a game that had come to a satisfactory conclusion. Rod decided he was angry.

“You’re here,” Patrice exclaimed.

“I’m here. I was at the hotel all day. Where were you?”

“You wanted me to come?”

“What a stupid question. We had a lunch date.”

“And are you angry with me?” Patrice asked, still delighted.

“Angry? Why shouldn’t I be angry? It’s a fucking bore sitting around waiting for somebody for an hour.”

“Then I was wrong, and I’m sorry. Come with me, and I will try to explain. It’s good if you are angry. I know you’ll forgive me.” He turned and started back toward the rue de Verneuil.

Rod followed automatically. “It doesn’t matter whether I forgive you or not. The fact remains, you loused up my day.” He looked down at the comic face and the appealing mop of hair and was glad to have found him despite being angry.

“I am truly sorry. I thought if you cared about lunch you might come by and look for me.”

“I did. I tried to. I couldn’t find your house. I didn’t know the number.”

Patrice stopped dead in his tracks. “You tried? You wanted to find me?

“Of course. I was worried about you. I thought you might be sick.”

Patrice’s smile faded. But in the uneven light of street lamps, Rod couldn’t read what else was taking place in his face. He set off again. Rod followed. “Yes, I see,” Patrice said almost to himself. He cleared his throat and spoke up. “Were you going to the Pagode to look for me?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might be there.”

“I hoped
you
would be.” He laughed. “We timed it very well.”

“Where are we going now?”

“But home, of course. You will have a drink with me, no?”

“More of Grandma’s magic potion? I wish you’d tell me why you didn’t show up.” The prospect of basking once more in this kid’s unstinting approval and adoration was unexpectedly pleasing. It could easily become a habit.

Patrice laughed again, this time with an apologetic note. “It’s difficult, but I will try. You said not to be shy, but think how it is for me. All day yesterday and today I think about your work. You are a very good–probably a great painter. I think I shouldn’t let you waste time on sketching me. And because I am queer–that word means other things, doesn’t it?–because I am a homosexual I might imagine that we like each other more than it means to you. So I say to myself not to insist. Let him decide. If he wants to see you, he will find you. It was the most difficult thing I ever made myself do.”

Rod detected a slight roughness in his voice as he finished, and he instinctively lifted a hand to his shoulder. “You haven’t imagined anything. I don’t go for the same kind of sex as you, but that doesn’t keep me from liking you. I was really impressed by you yesterday, the way you really looked at the pictures. Not many people know how. I wasn’t even angry until I saw you looking so cheerful. I really worried about you this afternoon.”

“And I–I was sick with worry that you wouldn’t care if you saw me or not. You see, I think you’re the most important person I’ve ever met in my life.”

They glanced at each other across the considerable difference of their heights, and Patrice moved in closer so that Rod’s hand slid across his shoulders, and he gave him a little hug. “OK. We’re getting to know each other. Promise not to get me drunk again.”

“Never. But truly it wasn’t I who made you drunk. You already were.”

Rod laughed, and Patrice joined in. They entered the maze of side streets that Patrice navigated with brisk confidence, turning corners as if there were no other way to go. They turned another corner, and Rod recognized the stretch of the rue de Verneuil that he had covered that afternoon.

“This is it, isn’t it?” he asked as they approached a great double door. “Of course. I almost tried here, but I wasn’t sure of your last name.”

“It seems that we have gone very fast without stopping for a few important details.”

He pointed up at an enameled plate over the door. “That is the number. My surname is Valmer. It’s quite important for you to know because this is where you are going to live.” He pushed the button and held the door open and called “Valmer” as they passed the concierge’s loge. “I will tell her tomorrow. From now on when you come home after 9 o’clock, you must call ‘Mac-an-teer,” he said. Rod heard, but the suggestion was so outlandish that he could think of no rational reply and remained silent. They crossed the courtyard and mounted creaking stairs. And in another moment Rod was installed on the sofa in front of the fireplace. Patrice stood in front of him. “What would you like? Some wine or my grandmother’s alcohol?” he asked as if he had never uttered his extraordinary proposition.

“I think wine would be safer.”

Patrice went to the end of the room and returned with a bottle and two glasses. He filled them and lifted one ceremonially. “Cheers. Now you are home. I’m very glad.”

Rod reached for his glass but was seized by a fit of incredulous laughter. The kid leaped so blithely to improbable conclusions. “You’re as mad as a hatter,” he said. “What’re you talking about?”

“It’s very simple, but we don’t have to decide it now. I want you to stay here tonight. You have to. I must prove to you that you can stay without anything happening that you don’t like. I will sleep out here if you wish. Tomorrow is Saturday. I don’t have to go to work. We will have the weekend to get you settled here.”

Rod’s heart began to beat fast with astonishment, with gratitude, above all with excitement at the impossible possibility of having this room to work in. “You’re mad,” he said again, wanting to hug him for even suggesting it. “You’re talking about my moving in here with you?”

“Of course. You can’t go on working in that ridiculous room. If you don’t want to move in with me, then I will go. This place must be for you.”

Rod was stunned by the reckless generosity of the offer and immediately filled with dismay at having to refuse it. “Listen. This is crazy. It won’t work.”

“Why not? We don’t have to talk about it tonight. Will you sleep here, please? It will prove that we’re true friends.”

“If you put it like that, of course.” There was nothing physically displeasing about the clear-skinned, fresh-faced boy, nothing that gave him any qualms about sleeping in the same bed now that Patrice understood that passes would be unwelcome. “Just remember, if I stay here tonight that doesn’t mean I’m going to move in.”

“Of course not. Tomorrow you might decide that you really don’t want to, but I think you would be foolish not to consider it at least. You would save the money of the hotel. You would have room to work. You say the light is good. I would try very hard to be what you want me to be. I love you. Is it all right to say that in English? In French I can say,
Je t’aime bien
or
beaucoup.
I must not say,
Je suis amoureux de toi.
That would mean I am
in
love with you. Do you understand the difference I make?”

“Sure. OK. I love you too. No, I guess that doesn’t sound quite right in English. I like you, monkey, but we hardly know each other.”

“That is only partly true, I think. I can’t paint pictures that show you all of me. You are willing to discuss the idea?” Rod nodded and picked up his glass, and Patrice sat on the chair beside the fireplace. “Very well. You have showed–shown?–shown me very much of yourself and–”

“I sure have,” Rod interrupted with a chuckle.

Patrice’s eyes twinkled at him, and he burst into laughter. “You’re very wonderful. I didn’t want to talk about that. I’m talking about everything else. I will be very proud if I can make your work easier for you. That is the most important thing you should know about me. Please do what is reasonable for you.”

“All right. Let’s be reasonable. What would I do about girls? As far as that goes, how about you and boys?”

“There will be no boys. I can promise you. For you there is the room back there, very far and private. I can sleep here.”

“No, monkey. It’s too much. I’m not going to rearrange your whole life.”

“Don’t you know that you’re a person whom people
should
rearrange their lives for if it would help you?”

“No, actually. That’s never occurred to me.” An unexpected lump in his throat made it difficult to speak. He was deeply touched. He tried to imagine what it would be like living here. Sharing the bed didn’t bother him. Sharing his daily life was another matter. There was a fastidiousness about Patrice that suggested he would know how to avoid encroaching on his privacy, but he hadn’t lived with anybody since his school days and hadn’t intended to do so again until he got married. He liked the place. But as its owner had said, it wasn’t the Ritz, so he could be reasonably sure that he wasn’t being undermined by his habit of comfort. The thought of placing his easel where he had decided he would want it was the greatest temptation. He felt the boy’s eyes on him and met them with an intense gaze as he went on. “Listen, I don’t mean to sound as if I don’t trust you–you’re being so goddamn nice, but–you’re not thinking I might turn out to be queer after all are you?”

Patrice met his eyes without flinching. “If I hadn’t seen your pictures, I might still be thinking only of seducing you. Now I can truly say that it is much more than that.”

“OK. No sex. Would there be any rules? Would you expect me to keep any regular hours, do things with you, that sort of thing?”

Patrice uttered his light merry laughter. “You mean, as if we were married? No, only things we might like to do together. We will lead our own lives as usual.”

“You say there won’t be any boys?” Rod asked. “I don’t think I’m the first guy you’ve brought home with you.” He watched Patrice’s face turn very grave and his off beauty become striking.

“When you know me well you will perhaps understand,” he said. “I’ve been with many boys. You make me very tired of them.”

Their eyes held for another moment. Then Rod nodded and took a long swallow of wine. He wasn’t about to believe that anybody would take a vow of celibacy for him, but maybe it was a problem that Patrice knew he could work out. His glass was refilled, and he lifted it and toasted him with it. “Well, it’s all pretty crazy, but I’m thinking about it. Let’s sleep on it. And I certainly wouldn’t let you sleep out here. If anybody uses the sofa, I will. As a matter of fact, I rather like to wake up with my work beside me.”