Grace (6 page)

“Will you vanish, or will we see each other again?”

“I hope we will see each other again,” I said, afraid of losing it. “I feel like we might have something.”

“Then you should move here.” She nested deeper into me, before I could leave the bed to dress. “We are free. We can live wherever we wish.”

“I do not know if it is that easy. Let's see what happens.”

“We will see what we make happen,” was her riposte. I was old enough then to appreciate what I had been given, and knew the sympathy between us demanded I do whatever I could to see if we should be together. What I still did not know was whether I had the faith to trust in it.

I returned home plagued with longing, unable to focus on anything besides her. Weeks later our calls and messages to each other continued to grow, leaving me surprised at the strength of my yearning.

“Do you want to come for a visit?” I asked, late one night for me, early in the morning for her, after we had spoken of the strength of our emotions.

“I thought you were against long-distance relationships,” she said matter-of-factly. “You are supposed to be forgetting about me, and focusing on all of your important things in New York. I did not want to cross the ocean for an affair.”

The sound of her voice over the line always excited me. But I matched her move and retreated. “You are right. I should not have asked.”

“You are awful,” she said. “How will anyone ever live with you?”

“Who said anything about living together?”

“Do not joke around with what you care about,” she declared, present and unafraid of showing herself. “Now you miss me and are sorry for the way you behaved. For your fear.” She did not ask, but stated it triumphantly. “Because I know you understand how we must embrace the people who deserve our embrace, without reservation.”

Listening to her made it sound so simple, and the distance no longer seemed so great an obstacle. I asked her again to come for a visit.

“I will think about it, but what about your other girls?” she probed. “Won't they be jealous?”

“There are no girls,” I said.

“Tell me you miss me then.”

“I miss you,” I assured her. “I want you here.”

“Are you completely certain?”

“Yes. Come over next weekend.”

“Before it was simple, now you must wait. You will not catch me again so easily.” She gave out the deep, breathy laugh of vitality that had won me before, and it won again. “But if you do, it will be because you are my man.”

When we hung up I realized my fear of giving in to what I wanted was not dread of not having it, or of gaining and losing and the resulting pain, only the anxiety of being exposed. As we ended the call I understood why people make such fools of themselves for love. I had no desire to be a fool, of course. But who was I not to be?

She arrived a few weeks later, and I took the train to meet her at the airport, where I found her as beautiful and high-spirited as I remembered, the magnetism between us an electrical storm of attraction. We went back to my apartment, where we made lunch, then spent the rest of the afternoon making love. In the evening we went to Film Forum to see a lost Kurosawa movie, and afterwards walked the sweltering summer streets to Washington Square Park, where we sat on the edge of the fountain to cool off and listen to a jazz quartet, before heading to dinner.

I loved the city in summer, when it metamorphosed from a northern capital to a more southerly pace, but Genevieve had no interest in it. “Let's go home,” she said, looking up from her half-eaten salad. “If you don't make love to me this second I will explode.”

We taxied back to my apartment, where the unbearable intensity of our thirst for each other was slackened and slackened, but could not be quenched.

“I told you I always know my man,” she said, as we lay awake late into the sultry night.

“How many times have you known it?”

“What kind of question is that? I share with you the most beautiful thing, and you ruin it with your petty little jealousy.”

I was not a jealous man, but the strength of our attraction made me greedy and insecure even for the past before I knew her.

She soon made it clear, though, that if I wanted to pursue the relationship it would have to be in Paris. After we left dinner with friends at a locavore place in Brooklyn the next day, she told me exactly what she thought of New York.

The restaurant did not take reservations, so our wait was interminable, and I could see she was not going to enjoy the meal, even before we sat down. I suggested we try another restaurant, every place on the block seemed like better or worse versions of the same menu, but it had a meaning to the friends we were with, so we waited.

When we were finally seated the wine was overpriced, and not very good. The food was perfectly fine, but the waiters, and our friends, made too much of it, so no pleasure we received could compete with their self-satisfaction. Genevieve grew antsy, mouthing the word
pretentious
to me when no one was looking.

“What is wrong with Americans?” she asked, as we walked back to the subway. “Everything is ‘I like. I do not like.' But it is only opinion, not discernment. All they could talk about was money and food, as though they have never eaten before. But there are more people in pain than in restaurants, and they cannot speak about that, only put money in their stomachs. And then, did you see on the way to the subway, they put books in the street, which I have never seen except in war films, so that is the truth about them.”

“It was a fine dinner,” I said, trying to take the edge off, and wondering how much I was included in her criticism.

“No, I enjoyed it. Yes, very much.” She would not be appeased. “What is not to enjoy? It was like the
ancien régime
.”

“That bad?”

“Please do not make me go with them again. We do not have to, do we? No, of course not.”

I agreed, but as we exited the subway back to my apartment, she stopped in the middle of the street. “
Amour
, promise me we will never be with the Philistines.”

“Okay, but don't be a snob.”

“Not a snob. The values I wish to live,” she turned intently. “To live, you must be like a simple person with no pretense, or else like a genius, who does not care about convention. Nothing in between. If that makes me a snob, I'm a snob. Not about the things that come from money, but how I live. Democracy is for how to act with other people. For ourselves, and whom we love, everything we do must have a meaning. Only Philistines confuse little pleasure and real joy.”

“You mean Americans, don't you?” I asked defensively.

“Not because they are Americans, because they are materialists.”

“Well, there was land, then power, and now we care about all the simple pleasures we did not have before. Eventually we will get it right.”

“Just promise me we will not be with the Philistines.”

“They are just people fumbling through life, like all of us.”

“They are Philistines. I do not care. We will not be like that, but like civilized people, who know the difference between the stomach, the mind, and the heart. We will live the right way.”

“What does that mean to you?” I asked.

“Like a poet.”

I nodded as we came to my building, wondering whether I, or anyone, could live up to her way of seeing.

She was a fine, beautiful girl. Spirited, open. Full of love for me. I decided to spend the rest of the summer in Paris. She was there, and Davidson was there. And that was work and that was love and that was most of life.

Genevieve's apartment was tiny, so I rented a hotel room near Canal St. Martin to use as an office, but stayed most of the time in her little flat on the hill in Montmartre. The walls were hung with her work and the rooms suffused with her energy, making the close quarters intimate and restful as a sanctum.

She worked at her studio in the morning, before going to the office where she did temp work. I spent afternoons in my room on the canal, or else worked in cafés, until we met again each evening. It was as she said it would be, I was a free man, and happy as I had not been in as long as I remembered. I felt cared for and I felt free.

“We are on a ship, my love,” she declared one morning, opening the windows as high as they would go, onto a narrow widow's walk. “You see, the antennae of the buildings are masts, and we were sailing on a great journey in our red boat.” she swept her arms out to the imaginary sea. “Where shall we go?”

“I've never been to Tahiti,” I suggested.

“That is a great plan. We can see what inspired Gauguin, and if it inspires us still we can stay. I am a citizen, you know. But in order for you to stay, of course, you may have to marry me.”

“Maybe I can get a work visa.”

“That will be impossible. You are American, the great imperialist. The only way will be to get married.”

We were goofing around, but the sound of the words pleased me. I remembered her admonishment from before, though, refusing to be too light with what we had. “We should not joke about the things that have meaning for us,” I said, turning the words back at her.

“You are awful,” she yelled over the rooftops. “Here I thought you were so sweet, like a sad puppy I would pick up and take home, and—what is the word?—redeem. Yes. I would redeem you, and then you would be full of life again, and not anxious or afraid, and be my wonderful little pet.”

“In your little cage.”

“
Mon Dieu, non. Mon amour
, a cage large as the world. Large as love. Strong as gravity. But mine, yes, all mine. Now it is too late.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because you second-guessed your heart again. You say you want to be together, but you think there are rules for how to do everything. But there are not, only what we make. You were supposed to say, ‘Yes. Let's elope to Tahiti.' Then we would be married. You were not supposed to say, ‘Why?' The prince never asks the princess
why
? He knows
why
. She knows
why
. Little babies in their cribs know
why
. Everyone knows this when they are born, but they forget. You are supposed to remember that, not analyze it and be impossible. Your line should have been, ‘Genevieve, my true love, I am your knight at your service. I have my armor and my sword but I am lost without you, my grail, my purpose.' Or else, she feigned swooning, ‘Let us gather up the threads of our affection and braid a rope to raise a sail on our little ship, to journey wherever we wish.'”

“Okay,” I said. “I am your knight.”

“Why are you my knight? See how it all goes away? Now, tell me again what you think of Tahiti?”

“I think we should go,” I said.

“To do what?”

“Become citizens?”

“I already am a citizen.”

“Then I suppose I will have to marry you.”

“No. That is entirely insufficient. Don't you know anything? I thought you were my man.” She laughed.

“Okay,” I said, infected by the idea of doing something spontaneous, “why don't we take a short trip this weekend?”

“A short trip? No one knows how long a voyage will be when it begins, only how far away the place is you are going.”

Our playing around turned into plans to spend a few days in Spain. I liked the spontaneity, but it was a spontaneity with which she approached everything, and found it liberating to give in to it.

“I am so happy,” she said, giving me a hug. “It will be wonderful. You will see. And, just so you are aware, we do not ever have to get married. It is old-fashioned, unless, one day it comes from inside you, when you have no doubt of your heart and future, and everything else belongs to your past.”

We spent two splendid days in Madrid, where all our meals were communal, the wine abundant, and the street music came from a time before their Civil War, when the people had killed each other, which they tried to forget and hear as songs of forgiveness, putting aside what they knew of history. When the heat from the
meseta
descended on the city, we took the train north to the emerald coast and periwinkle ocean for respite. The little towns of Galicia were inspirited by pilgrims on the Camino; the food was simple, and the wine tasted of sea grapes and loss. We drank our share, knowing we would overstay our tickets.

When the weather turned gray we fled to find the sun again in San Sebastián. There the locals were clever, leaving the crowded streets to tourists, to enjoy their own vacations by the shore. The wine was fresh and evanescent as we danced with the country folk and ate their offering, which was the best we could hope for.

In old Castile the people were taciturn, starchy as their food. The kind of realists who scoff at Quixotes, so we were out of there by the end of the afternoon.

In Barcelona the locals were self-protective and hard to fathom, but the art and architecture were fanciful, rich, and rebellious, telling us everything the people did not say. Seville was where the Arab gardens were cool, as the musicians played flamenco cautiously, for Catholic ears.