The Romanian (39 page)

“Want to come back to my room?” I said, looking him in the eye.

Tristan nodded. I quickly paid the check.

As we walked through the hotel lobby past the desk clerk, I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead. “What about your friend?” he asked.

“Out for the night,” I answered.

The beds were unmade, and the room was in disarray. Romulus's wet bathing suit lay on the floor next to a pair of my shoes. On the desk were his boom box and several of his tapes. I'd packed the computer and put it under the bed; I'd been worried about thieves.

Tristan perched on the edge of a bed and surveyed the room. His pale blue eyes seemed to click as he took in its contents. Suddenly I was struck with a feeling of awkwardness. Nothing about his posture indicated that he would decide to lie back and relax. The legs no longer lolled, and his hunch looked protective. Resolved to carry out my intentions, I pushed aside a crumpled sheet and sat down close to him. As I did, he reached for one of the tapes, read the name of the rock group on it and fingered it desirously. It was then that I reached toward one of the locked thighs. His elbow rose gently to push my arm away. His grasp on the tape tightened. I stood and moved away, feeling very drunk all of a sudden. “You'd better go,” I managed to mumble, but his movement of rising was impudently slow.

“I'm sorry,” he said with mock humility. “I do not do this kind of thing.” Then he stood by the door like a stop-action frame, still clutching the tape.

“Put that down,” I said, pronouncing the words evenly, in a tone you might use to control fear when dealing with a dog. He opened the door a crack and I took a step forward, extending a hand to receive the tape. He held it close, one finger rubbing back and forth over the edge, his eyes staring proprietarily at the boom box.

“It's not mine,” I said, chancing another step forward. Then I reached out my hand again and pulled the tape from his. With the other I pushed softly against his shoulder, moving him aside so that I could swing open the door. He left a moment later, but not before fixing me with a steady gaze that seemed to say I was his debtor.

After locking the door, I fell back on the bed, but burying my face in my hands for only a moment. The ludicrous sense of a raw deal had returned, and like an old soldier, I rose for another quest. Disappointment and outrage, mixed with that desperate hope that comes from a survival instinct in the midst of defeat, impelled me out the door. The evening wasn't over.

Double vengeance addled my brain as I thought of both Romulus and Tristan. As if the weather were influenced by my roiling thoughts, it had changed. The breeze was gone, replaced by an eerie, starlit calm, like the hush before a disaster. I stumbled on the sand toward a spot of color that marked the entrance to the outdoor disco. It must have been past two in the morning, and only a few customers were clustered at the bar, while a single figure barely moved on the dance floor. It was Romulus, dancing alone, his violet shirt spotted by drink. He was making tiny shuffling steps to the rhythm of the music. His face was pale from booze and fatigue and probably disappointment. Nonetheless his hips swayed while his arms swung adeptly. It was a narcissistic dance, turned inward in a fantasy of popularity and fun, and his half-closed eyes seemed forlornly absorbed as he mouthed the words to the music. At the sight of me, his expression changed and relief flooded his face.

“Bruce,” he said, extending an unsteady arm, “so glad I am to see you.”

If truth be told, a surge of feeling had arisen in me at the sight of him, but I held it back with superhuman strength and merely replied, “How come?” Without giving him time to recover from the curt reply, I walked past him. I sat down at the end of the bar near a group of good-looking Romanian boys. I put my back to Romulus and ordered a drink, then tugged the sleeve of the boy next to me. “Would you like a drink?” I slurred, and surprised by his good luck, the boy replied, “Sure!”

It wasn't long before the other three had gathered around me. They must have ranged in age from seventeen to twenty-one, and all of them were fascinated by the friendly American. The one nearest me, particularly, had pleasant eyes and a graceful face and neck, attached to a flat, petite trunk. In the darkness illuminated only by red and blue lights, the skin of his neck looked satin. After buying each of the others a drink, I focused my attention on him. I was in that place I'd visited hundreds of times when drink, depression and a lack of context synthesized a certain suavity. It was a familiar role-play that came out with ease, half friendly but detached, loquacious with a tinge of exoticism. This all-purpose technique flattered him, leaving open the potential for seduction, but it also offered some foolproof retreats that could leave me looking like nothing more than a nice guy. Under my grooming, the boy performed, opening up to me about his life and disappointments. Unaccustomed to my wheedling words, he thought some miracle had brought him a confidant. He told me he was a university student who worked as a busboy at the resort for the summer. His salary was so miserably low that he could barely eat on it. As we sat softly talking, I sensed a shadow behind me. Then Romulus touched my arm and smiled in a way that asked to join the conversation.

“What do you want?” I said condescendingly, in a tone that must have embarrassed the boy.

“To talk to you is all,” Romulus blurted out with a face that betrayed humiliation.

“So talk.”

“Listen, Bruce,” he said in a stage whisper he hoped could not be overheard, “seven hundred thousand lei [about twenty dollars] you gave me today is gone, and I borrowed from people at that table.” He pointed to a table near the dance floor with two thuggish bodybuilders, one of whom wore dark glasses.

“Is it my business,” I answered coolly, “if you borrow money from strangers?”

“Listen, listen, Bruce, you don't understand. They are getting, you know, aggressive.”

With a hokey snarl, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a million lei. Turning my back to him so that I could face my new friend again, I passed Romulus the money. He took it and muttered a thank-you, but I didn't bother to answer. Behind my back, I could hear his steps shuffling toward the dance floor.

The boy was too cultivated to ask me about the transaction. However, from then on, conversation was halting. He'd obviously seen me in a new light. Moments later, he signaled to his friends and they all got up to leave. Incredible as it was to do so, I ordered another drink. As the aftermath of a fruitless evening passed through me in waves, I began to regret my behavior with Romulus. When I glanced toward the dance floor, an altercation was taking place. One of the thuggish men, the one wearing dark glasses, who was not only much more muscled but also much taller than Romulus, was standing, holding a raised index finger that nearly touched Romulus's nose. He was shouting at Romulus, who stood stock still, not budging an inch. The confrontation continued for several moments, until the thug gave ground. He walked out of the disco with his friend, shouting at Romulus, making threatening gestures with his fist.

I slid from the bar stool and walked over to Romulus, forcing a smile on my face. “What happened?” I asked as he stared at me with seething outrage.

“Nothing,” he answered in an icy, mocking tone. “I wouldn't give him money.”

“Why not?” I said. “I just gave it to you.”

“Something better I need to do with it,” and he threw all of the bills on the ground. “I am not your slave!” he spat, then gaped at me in outrage. This was the first time in our friendship I'd ever seen him express such fury.

It was one of those experiences that sobers you up faster than a cold shower. I gathered up all the bills, then reached out with a conciliatory hand to touch his shoulder. His face winced with disgust, and he wrenched my hand away.

“Come on,” I said, “let's go back.” We began walking toward the hotel.

“No one can treat me like you did,” he sputtered, “just a moment ago.”

“Romulus,” I said, struggling for a weak excuse. “I was talking to somebody.”

“You treat me like some whore asking you for money.”

Then I made the mistake of a lifetime, by saying, “If the name fits, wear it.”

His face contorted as if he'd been stabbed, and his eyes went hollow. Not since those early days in Budapest had I referred to the fact that I gave him money. Doing so would have changed the concept of our friendship, which I myself was always exalting, into something shallow and lurid.

Frantically, I tried to move the argument to a more reasonable level. “Okay. I was angry with you. Don't you care that I was slaving while you were out cruising girls?”

He looked me square in the eyes and said, “I hate you.”

“What did you say?”

“I hate you! Now you know.”

Back in the room, I made another weak attempt at putting the tantrum to rest. But for the first time ever, Romulus was out for blood. He flailed at the bond that suddenly seemed so demeaning. Each time he looked at me, he doubled over, as if he'd been punched in the stomach. Then he would whirl madly around the room, smashing glasses and flinging objects. He turned to the television and spat on it as if he were spitting on me. He lifted a chair and swung it back over his head, then aimed toward the glass door to the patio. I wrested it out of his hands and pushed him down on a bed. He fell back, and his eyes gleamed diabolically as he rubbed his hands together. “Let me tell you what was going through my mind all these months,” he offered chillingly. “Your money smells. The sight of your face make me want to puke in toilet.” With these words, he lurched toward the bathroom, and I heard him vomiting.

I calmed down by telling myself that he was drunk, that it was the alcohol talking. What I didn't realize was that I'd crossed a prohibited boundary. By demeaning him in public as I gave him money, I'd branded the last eight months as whoredom. The gaffe had revealed how low I'd sunk, like Armand in
La traviata.
He throws the money he's won gambling in Violetta's face, in front of everyone. But even more trenchant—if I could have thought of it at the time—was the lesson from
Kyra Kyralina.
There's no more loathsome gesture a lover can make than to turn the beloved into a commodity. It's a heinous act, with both personal and political dimensions. It doesn't matter if the relationship truly is defined by one partner's financially supporting the other. The stigma leveled at the whore never takes into account that we all need a way to earn money. To libel the gain that the beloved draws from a romantic arrangement is to withdraw the gift of love itself. What is more, it indicts all forms of work and stigmatizes all workers.

Back on the bed, Romulus writhed under the loss of the one thing he'd held on to, his dignity. He searched his mind for every obscene word that could reduce me to his level. Hysterically, he drew a portrait of me as a monster deformed by possession. He coated with disgust anything that could have been construed as kindness before. He finished by leaping up and throwing all his things into a bag.

“Where are you going?” I asked in a panic. “It's three o'clock in the morning.”

“To the road,” he said. “I will sleep in the woods and hitchhike back to Sibiu at dawn.”

“No, Romulus, please,” I begged. “I apologize for everything.” But though my voice sounded reduced to tears, he continued with his packing. My brain swam with guilt and confusion, galloped through the memories of the evening. “At least let me give you some money for the train if you're hell-bent on leaving.”

“Your money makes me sick,” was all he would say. Each time this came up, he'd run to the bathroom to vomit another round.

Any anger I'd felt was now replaced completely by guilt. So desperate was I to escape the feeling that I started promising that it was I who would leave in the morning. He collapsed on the rumpled sheets in the bed next to mine. I turned out the light, and a pall of quiet settled over the room. I lay listening to his breathing, and after about twenty minutes, neither of us was asleep. My mind was in high gear, roiling in a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. Guilt had receded somewhat, and a bitter resentment was taking its place. His attacks still hovered in my mind, like ears ringing after an explosion. I knew that my behavior that night had been tasteless and futile. I knew also, or at least I thought, that I'd been struggling for eight months for his love. Regardless of the factors that had led to this, I knew I couldn't tolerate it. With a desperate hope that the storm was over and that things could be patched by some miracle, I heard myself ask, “Are you all right now?” and offer to climb into bed with him. His voice was calmer and sounded more rational, but his answer was, “No.” I found myself trying to do it anyway, and he landed a blow on my face.

There I lay in the next bed, surrounded by broken glass, my face smarting from the smack, with an encroaching sense of injustice. An hour later we were both still awake and my distress continued to feel intolerable. Yet I hoped for a quick resolution that would release me into sleep.

“Romulus.”

“What.”

“If you can take back those things you said, we can forget it and go on.”

“I can't.”

The hurt congealed into a stony resentment. He, on the other hand, had fallen asleep with the labored breathing of a drunk. The thought came to me that I hated myself if I was willing to clear out for him. When morning came, and his birthday, he'd get a “salary” once more, a severance package, and be booted out. If his brother was on the way here, he could turn around and go home, too. After this trip was over, I'd go back to Bucharest alone and then return to the States.