Like People in History (31 page)

Pierluigi told me his expansion plans as though they were already solidified—which I suspected was pretty much the case.

I, however, still saw this talk as a chance to fry my own fish: especially one particular big-mouthed Vincent Faunce. I knew I had to tread gingerly. Though it was a part of the store and thus under my titular control, the art gallery was run by Faunce and Pierluigi as a separate demesne, and thus for all practical purposes out of my control.

"In these new shops, what are you going to use to fill up the new art galleries?" I asked, and rapidly answered myself. "Don't tell me. Faunce will supply all the art?"

"Not all," Pierluigi temporized.

"But most of it?"

"This you don't approve of?" He asked the obvious.

"I wouldn't mind. Except he does have a lot of crap."

The word seemed to offend Pierluigi. "Mees-trrrr Sans-arc!"

"Well, a lot of it definitely is
not
authenticated. And some of the things I've seen framed and hung in his apartment look as though he and his wife spent a morning and simply ripped them out of Skira books and hand-penciled the numbers."

He seemed genuinely intrigued. "You don't think?" "I wouldn't put it past him. Or her!"

Pierluigi tsked. "Such a cynical view from one so young."

"Maybe," I admitted. I wasn't at all cynical; in fact I was prepared to be a complete naif, a ninny if needed, about my Adonis downstairs, who I hoped was still waiting for me. I wished the Goose would come to the point.

"Your Alistair, for example, seems to think we could get a good price if we purchased more from the Faunce."

The use of "for example" was one of Pierluigi's affectations. He seemed to use it whether it made sense or not.

The possessive my boss had used, on the other hand, was one of the few signs that Pierluigi was at all aware Alistair and I had known each other before the job. I wondered exactly how much he did know. I'd certainly not said anything, and I doubted that Alistair had allowed any glory to be reflected away from himself. There were thirty people on staff: something could have gotten out.

"If you want to attract more Mill Valley trade," I said, "you should upscale the art. Get more expensive items. Send Alistair to private auctions."

"No, no, no, no, no," Pierluigi quickly said.

"Well, you asked."

"Why do you keep looking at your clock?"

My watch, he meant. "I'm meeting someone for dinner," I admitted.

"Go then!" He gestured imperiously with his hand.

I hated being dismissed like that. But I sure wanted out.

"I'll let you know before I decide." Pierluigi stood up to pull down his roller map of central coastal California.

I doubted that. As with most decisions, I'd hear about it after it had been implemented. As I left, he was searching for Palo Alto on the map. I rushed to the elevator and down to the art gallery, dreading that...

But Matthew was there.

We didn't get to dinner. Not that night. We left the shop and headed the few blocks toward Chinatown, considering various restaurants but evidently not considering seriously enough. Matthew was carrying a black grip with him and said it contained a change of clothing. I asked if he'd be more comfortable out of his Navy whites, and admitted I wouldn't mind changing out of my work clothes and into jeans and a flannel shirt. I thought we'd find some place to eat we both liked in my area, along Ashbury or Masonic streets. He agreed, and I began calculating how long it would take to get home with a change of busses, and how it would feel sitting next to Matthew all that way and not knowing if... At Montgomery and Market, I spotted an empty cab in front of a taxi company office. On impulse I got in.

Matthew joined me without a word. A fog had begun to roll in off the bay, straight up Market Street. Even with headlights and streetlights on, it provided sudden darkness. A touch of chilliness, and yes, privacy too.

I was surprised to feel Matthew's hand reach over and touch my knee.

"You're shivering," he said.

I couldn't deny it. "I'll never get used to these sudden changes of weather," I said. His hand hadn't lifted off my knee. I covered it with my own. "Last week, I went to sleep with the window open and a light sheet on, and I woke up freezing." His hand slid under mine off my knee and ranged along my thigh. "Two quilts later I finally managed to warm up," I added, moving my hand onto his knee and from there onto his thigh.

Our hands slid and caressed and ultimately managed to get to almost every inch of the lower parts of each other's body during the cab trip to Fell Street. While I paid the fare and before we could get out, we had to arrange our erections in our trousers.

That didn't last long; once in the building's foyer, we found ourselves smashed against the wall, necking and groping each other. And inside the door, once I remembered to unlock it. And up the two flights of stairs. And inside my apartment door, even with the two locks to undo. And inside the flat, along walls and bookcases. And despite sudden obstacles like closet handles, until we finally made it to my bedroom, where we tore off each other's jacket and shirt and ripped off each other's belt and tore at each other's pants as though, like Nessus's cloak in the story of Hercules, they were soaked in flaming poison. Thus, mostly undressed, we fell upon each other like leopards exposed to fresh meat.

Something like two hours later, I called for a cigarette break. We lay amid the ruins of my bedclothes and our own clothing. Certain areas of my body ached from being grasped so hard, held so tightly, while others continued to sting, having been so well beard-burned. We lay athwart each other, his larger limbs more than half covering mine.

"That's better!" I made smoke rings Matt poked a finger through.

"Want some grass?" I offered. "You have to roll it."

"Think we need it?" We both giggled. Clearly we didn't.

Ten minutes later, we broke off that kiss and I said, "How hungry are you, really?"

"I don't know. How long do restaurants stay open?"

"Another hour or so."

Matt rolled onto me. "We'll never make it," he groaned.

"There's one right downstairs," I protested. "Five minutes from here to there if we got dressed now." Instead I let him take me away with him. When I came up for air, I said, "You're right. We'd never make it."

At our next break, I said, "There's food here. In the fridge."

"Sounds good," Matt admitted. Then we started in again, and he said, "We'll never make that either."

Sometime later I actually managed to escape Matt's unstoppable hands and probing tongue long enough to get up and put together melted cheese sandwiches with tomato slices. We sipped a single bottle of root beer through two straws.

"Yourrr foudssll nnyrrspnmnnts," I said, while being rolled over and having a pillow stuffed in my mouth.

"What?" Matt asked.

"Yourrr foudssll nnyrrspnmnnts."

"What?" he asked again, this time removing the pillow.

"Your foot's still in your pants!" I said. Pointing to where his sailor pants hung off one shoeless foot. "Might as well take it off."

"It's okay. " Matt shrugged off the problem.

"Take it off. Especially if, as I hope, you're going to spend the night."

"I'll take it off later on," he said.

I heard something unexpectedly hard in his tone of voice. Maybe he didn't like commands. Maybe he didn't like contradictions.

"I give up!" Hands up in the air, I simpered. "Make love not war."

He laughed and grabbed me. "You dare to say that?" he demanded. "To me? A man who's seen action?"

I wrestled back. "You've probably seen more action in the last few hours than you did in the past two years."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

An hour later, I said, "Dear Abby. I've met the most wonderful man. Except for one peculiar fetish he has. He insists upon keeping one pants leg on while we're in bed. Do you think it's a sign of noncommitment? In case he wants to make a quick getaway? What do you suggest? Signed, Half-panting."

Matt reached up and moved the lamp on the table. He threw my dress shirt over it so all was pale blue. Then he took the other pants leg off.

"Satisfied?"

"Am I ever?"

"I meant about my pants."

"Want me to get up and hang them so they won't wrinkle?"

Together we answered, "No! Never make it!"

We lay next to each other listening to the radio. It was playing low, but it was audible now that we weren't quite so distracted.

"That's pretty," Matt said.

"Saint-Saens's Third Symphony. Second movement. Here comes the organ. It's sometimes called—"

"Don't tell me." Matt fluffed up his poor overused dick. "The
Organ Symphony!"

After laughing, we listened awhile.

"I wish I knew music like that," Matt said.

"You hear enough of it, eventually you get to know it."

"The last time I spent, any time in the missile room," Matt said, "this wild guy Jerry who we used to call Jerry the Axe was there playing this reel-to-reel tape he'd gotten from some guy or other in Bangkok. It was beautiful. Just beautiful. From Strauss. Richard Strauss," Matt explained, pronouncing the first name the American way. "And it was from some opera. I don't remember exactly. But Jerry explained the story. This woman's left stranded on this island and left to die. Only she's not alone. She's with this theater company. Strange, huh? I never completely got it. Only she sings about how much she wants to die...."

Matt's voice fluttered slightly. "You know, because this man she loved has left her there and all."

"Ariadne auf Naxos,"
I said, not believing what he'd been describing.

"Yeah! That sounds right."

I went further. "
'Es gibt ein Reich!'
is the name of that aria."

"Do you have it?"

I got up and found the album and looked for the libretto, and there it was, close to the beginning of the third disc,
"Es gibt ein Reich, wo alles rein ist,"
Schwarzkopf's most effusive outpouring, her love-death paean. I began to play it and came back into the bedroom, where Matt sat on the edge of the bed, listening.

"Come," I said, pulling him and the quilts along with him, until we were out in the living room, plumped down in front of the couch.

"Play it again," he said, when the aria was over and Harlequin, Scaramuccio, and the other commedia dell'arte figures came out to sing. I put the libretto in his hand and showed Matt where we were in the translation, while the Vienna Philharmonic's strings and winds caressingly rose to the same fever pitch as Schwarzkopf, and he looked at me. "Don't you think it's beautiful?"

What could I say? As beautiful as he was.

"You were playing this on the ship?" I had trouble believing it. "While you were firing missiles?"

"Yeah, we were all three-quarters tanked on bennies, and we'd been eating opium for about a week. We were stuck in this sort of big, round turret, only it was completely electronic, deep inside the front deck of the ship. We'd been there an hour already, busily popping away, when Jerry the Axe pulled out this tape and switched it with our usual soul and blues tape. At first everyone complained. It was weird music. Long-hair. Beyond long-hair. He insisted on playing it. And this guy Jerry the Axe was like a lunatic, whenever he wanted something bad, you know. So we gave in. Then as we kept listening and following the blips on our screens telling us where to aim our shots deep upriver, in support of some platoon or other, we came to like it a lot. A lot. Jerry'd gotten the whole set of three reels. And we played 'em all. But mostly this middle one, and whenever we'd reach this part, we'd sniff Amyies and go nuts, mo-rassing them VC motha-fuckers!"

The image he'd presented was so... was it tragically funny, or absurdly sad? I'd be damned if I could tell.

"When was this?" I asked.

"Some months ago."

I wanted to ask,
Was that when you were wounded?
Since now I was sure that his lower left leg had scars on it. That was why he'd not taken off the pants leg or sock before, why he kept his leg wrapped in the quilt now, and probably why he was getting out of the Navy at last—because he might not have a choice anymore. Instead I said, "Sounds like you had some times there."

I guess I expected him to tell me more, to continue on in that same tone of voice. Instead he darkened up and said, "It's over now."

"The war?"

That's what we—my friends and I, the doves, the antiwar people— hoped. Not what they—the Nixonites, the hawks, the gung-hos—were admitting. At least not yet.

"The war too," he said. Then, "Let's not talk now, okay? Let's just listen to this."

"Rossini's
Torvaldo e Dorliska!
Would I make that up?" Calvin asked.

"Of course you would."

"Bitch!" he replied, without emotion. "However, I did not. That was Miss Smith's choice. Either that or Donizetti's
Imelda de' Lambertazzi.
Go on, say it."

"Say what?" I asked.

"That ain't real either."

"Who knows, girl! Donizetti wrote about a million operas. Besides the dozen or so we all know about, just this week I've heard of
Torquato Tasso, Il Duca d'Alba, Poliuto, Maria di Rohan,
and
Linda di Chamoimix!
But, are you ready, Leontyne? 'Cause, lucky you, the dish-mobile has driven up to your door."

"What dish-mobile?" Calvin asked suspiciously.

"I actually talked with Estelle this morning and finagled her recommendation out of her."

Estelle Thunneman had been editor at the magazine before Calvin took over, and she remained the magazine's doyenne, still much beloved and respected among the staff. At least some of the staff. Calvin remained ambivalent.

"Well?" he asked.

I let it spin out: "Marschner's
Der Vampyr."

"Whaaat!"

"Marschner's
Der Vampyr,"
I repeated.

"Get real, Hildegarde. This is Big Girl Stuff."

"It is real. She's even got a recording of it."