Less Read online

  An outsider would say: That’s all fine, but the trick is not to fall in love. They would have both laughed at that. Freddy Pelu and Arthur Less? Freddy was as uninterested in romance as a young person should be; he had his books, and his teaching, and his friends, and his life as a single man. Old, easy Arthur asked nothing. Freddy also suspected that it drove his father nuts that he was sleeping with Carlos’s old nemesis, and Freddy was still young enough to take pleasure in torturing his foster parent. It never occurred to him that Carlos might be relieved to have the boy off his hands. As for Less, Freddy was not even his type. Arthur Less had always fallen for older men; they were the real danger. Some kid who couldn’t even name the Beatles? A diversion; a pastime; a hobby.

  Less of course had other, more serious lovers in the years he saw Freddy. There was the history professor at UC­–Davis who would drive two hours to take Less to the theater. Bald, red bearded, sparkling eyes and wit; it was a pleasure, for a while, to be a grown-up with another grown-up, to share a phase of life—early forties—and laugh about their fear of fifty. At the theater, Less looked over and saw Howard’s profile lit by the stage and thought: Here is a good companion, here is a good choice. Could he have loved Howard? Very possibly. But the sex was awkward, too specific (“Pinch that, okay, now touch there; no, higher; no, higher; no, HIGHER!”) and felt like an audition for a chorus line. Howard was nice, however, and he could cook; he brought ingredients over and made sauerkraut soup so spicy, it made Less a little high. He held Less’s hand a lot and smiled at him. So Less waited it out for six months, to see if the sex would change, but it didn’t, and he never said anything about it, so I suppose he knew it wasn’t love, after all.

  There were more; many, many more. There was the Chinese banker who played the violin and made fun noises in bed but who kissed like he’d only seen it in movies. There was the Colombian bartender whose charm was undeniable but whose English was impossible (“I want to wait on your hand and on your foot”); Less’s Spanish was even worse. There was the Long Island architect who slept in flannel pajamas and a cap, as in a silent movie. There was the florist who insisted on sex outdoors, leading to a doctor’s visit during which Less had to ask for both an STD test and a remedy for poison oak. There were the nerds who assumed Less followed every news item about the tech industry but who felt no obligation to follow literature. There were the politicians sizing him up as for a suit fitting. There were the actors trying him on the red carpet. There were the photographers getting him in the right lighting. They might have done, many of them. So many people will do. But once you’ve actually been in love, you can’t live with “will do”; it’s worse than living with yourself.

  No surprise that again and again, Less returned to dreamy, simple, lusty, bookish, harmless, youthful Freddy.

  They went on in this way for nine years. And then, one autumn day, it ended. Freddy had changed, of course, from a twenty-five-year-old to a man in his midthirties: a high school teacher, in blue short-sleeved button-ups and black ties, whom Less jokingly called Mr. Pelu (often raising his hand as if to be called on in class). Mr. Pelu had kept his curls, but his glasses were now red plastic. He could no longer fit his old slim clothes; he had filled out from that skinny youngster into a grown man, with shoulders and a chest and a softness just beginning on his belly. He no longer stumbled drunk up Less’s stairs and recited bad poetry every weekend. But one weekend he did. It was a friend’s wedding, and he did show up, tipsy and red faced, leaning into Less as he staggered, laughing, into his mudroom. A night when he clung to Less, radiating heat. And a morning when, sighing, Freddy announced that he was seeing someone who wanted him to be monogamous. He had promised to be, about a month earlier. And he thought it was about time he stayed true to his promise.

  Freddy lay on his stomach, resting his head on Less’s arm. The scratch of his stubble. On the side table, his red glasses magnified a set of cuff links. Less asked, “Does he know about me?”

  Freddy lifted his head. “Know what about you?”

  “This.” He gestured to their naked bodies.

  Freddy met his gaze directly. “I can’t come around here anymore.”

  “I understand.”

  “It would be fun. It has been fun. But you know I can’t.”

  “I understand.”

  Freddy seemed about to say something more, then stopped himself. He was silent, but his gaze was that of someone memorizing a photograph. What did he see there? He turned from Less and reached for his glasses. “You should kiss me like it’s good-bye.”

  “Mr. Pelu,” Less said. “It’s not really good-bye.”

  Freddy put on his red glasses, and in each aquarium a little blue fish swam.

  “You want me to stay here with you forever?”

  A bit of sun came through the trumpet vine; it checkered one bare leg.

  Less looked at his lover, and perhaps a series of images flashed through his mind—a tuxedo jacket, a Paris hotel room, a rooftop party—or perhaps what appeared was just the snow blindness of panic and loss. A dot-dot-dot message relayed from his brain that he chose to ignore. Less leaned down and gave Freddy a long kiss. Then he pulled away and said, “I can tell you used my cologne.”

  The glasses, which had amplified the young man’s determination, now magnified his already wide pupils. They darted back and forth across Less’s face as in the act of reading. He seemed to be gathering up all his strength to smile, which, at last, he did.

  “Was that your best good-bye kiss?” he said.

  Then, a few months later, the wedding invitation in the mail: Request your presence at the marriage of Federico Pelu and Thomas Dennis. How awkward. He could under no circumstances accept, when everyone knew he was Freddy’s old paramour; there would be chuckles and raised eyebrows, and, while normally Less wouldn’t have cared, it was just too much to imagine the smile on Carlos’s face. The smile of pity. Less had already run into Carlos at a Christmas benefit (a firetrap of pine branches), and he had pulled Less aside and thanked him for being so gracious in letting Freddy go: “Arthur, you know my son was never right for you.”

  Yet Less could not simply decline the invitation. To sit at home while all the old gang gathered up in Sonoma to drink Carlos’s money—well, they would cackle about him all the same. Sad young Arthur Less had become sad old Arthur Less. Stories would be brought out of mothballs for ridicule; new ones would be tested, as well. The thought was unbearable; he could under no circumstances decline. Tricky, tricky, this life.

  Along with the wedding invitation came a letter politely reminding him of an offer to teach at an obscure university in Berlin, along with the meager remittance and the meager time remaining for an answer. Less sat at his desk, staring at the offer; the rearing stallion on the letterhead seemed to be erect. From the open window came the song of roofers hammering and the smell of molten tar. Then he opened a drawer and pulled out a pile of other letters, other invitations, unanswered; more were hidden deep within his computer; still more lay buried beneath a pile of phone messages. Less sat there, with the window rattling from the workers’ din, and considered them. A teaching post, a conference, a writing retreat, a travel article, and so on. And, like those Sicilian nuns who, once a year, appear behind a lifted curtain, singing, so that their families can gaze upon them, in his little study, in his little house, for Arthur Less a curtain lifted upon a singular idea.

  My apologies, he wrote on the RSVP, but I will be out of the country. My love to Freddy and Tom.

  He would accept them all.

  What a ramshackle itinerary he has nailed together!

  First: this interview with H. H. H. Mandern. This gets him plane fare to New York City, with two days before the event to enjoy the city, aflame with autumn. And there is at least one free dinner (the writer’s delight): with his agent, who surely has word from his publisher. Less’s latest novel has been living with his publisher for over a month, as any modern couple lives together before a marriage, but s
urely his publisher will pop the question any day now. There will be champagne; there will be money.

  Second: a conference in Mexico City. It is the kind of event that for years, Less has refused: a symposium on Robert’s work. He and Robert split up a decade and a half ago, but once Robert became ill and unable to travel, the directors of literary festivals began to contact Less. Not as a novelist in his own right; rather, as a kind of witness. A Civil War widow, as Less thinks of it. These festivals want one last glimpse of the famous Russian River School of writers and artists, a 1970s bohemian world long receded over the horizon, and they will accept a reflected one. But Less has always refused. Not because it would diminish his own reputation—this is impossible, since Less feels almost subterranean in stature—but because it seems parasitic to make money off what was really Robert’s world. And this time, even the money isn’t enough. It’s not enough by half. But it neatly kills the five days between New York and the prize ceremony in Turin.

  Third: Turin. Less is dubious. He is supposedly up for a prestigioso award for a book recently translated into Italian. Which book? It took some searching to discover it is Dark Matter. A pang of love and regret; the name of an old amour on your cruise ship’s passenger list. Yes, we are happy to provide airfare from Mexico City to Turin; your driver will await—as glamorous a sentence as Less has ever read. He wonders who funds such European excesses, considers they are perhaps laundering ill-gotten gains, and finds, printed at the bottom of the invitation, the name of an Italian soap conglomerate. Laundering indeed. But it gets him to Europe.

  Fourth: the Wintersitzung at the Liberated University of Berlin—a five-week course “on a subject of Mr. Less’s choosing.” The letter is in German; the university is under the impression Arthur Less is fluent in German, and Arthur Less’s publisher, who recommended him, is also under this impression. So is Arthur Less. With God’s happiness, he writes back, I accept the pedestal of power, and sends it off with a flush of pleasure.

  Fifth: a sojourn across Morocco, his single indulgence on the itinerary. He would be tacking onto another birthday celebration, for someone he has never met named Zohra, who has planned an expedition from Marrakech into the Sahara Desert and from thence northward to Fez. His friend Lewis insisted; they were looking to fill one spot on the trip—how perfect! The wine would be copious, the conversation scintillating, and the amenities deluxe. How could he say no? The answer, as always: money, money, money. Lewis relayed the cost, all inclusive, and, though the amount was staggering (Less checked twice to be sure it was not in Moroccan dirhams), he was, as always, already too much in love. Bedouin music was already playing in his ears; camels were already grunting in the darkness; he was already standing up from embroidered pillows and walking out into the desert night, champagne in hand, to let the floury Sahara warm his toes as, above him, the Milky Way glowed with his birthday candles.

  For it was somewhere in the Sahara that Arthur Less would turn fifty.

  He swore he would not be alone. Memories of his fortieth, wandering the broad avenues of Las Vegas, still came to him in worser moments. He would not be alone.

  Sixth: to India. Who gave him this peculiar idea? Carlos, of all unlikely people. It was at the very Christmas party where his old rival first discouraged Less in one field (“My son was never right for you”) and then encouraged him in another (“You know, there’s a retreat center very close to a resort I’m fixing up, friends of mine, beautiful place, on a hill above the Arabian Sea; it would be a wonderful place for you to write”). India: perhaps he could rest at last; he could polish the final draft of his novel, the one whose acceptance his agent will surely be celebrating in New York with that champagne. When was monsoon season again?

  And, finally: to Japan. He was, improbable as it seems, at a writer’s poker game in San Francisco when it fell into his lap. Needless to say, these were heterosexual writers. Even in his green eyeshade, Less was not a convincing player; the first game, he lost every hand. But he was a good sport. It was during the third game—when Less began to think he could not bear another minute of the cigarette smoke and grunting and warm Jamaican beer—when one man looked up and said his wife was pissed at all his travel, he had to stay home and pass on an article, and could anyone could go to Kyoto in his stead? “I can!” Less shrieked. The poker faces all looked up, and Less was reminded of volunteering for the school play in junior high: the same expressions on the faces of the football players. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice: “I can.” A piece for an in-flight magazine about traditional kaiseki cuisine. He hoped he would not be too early for the cherry blossoms.

  From there, he will head back to San Francisco and return, once again, to his house on the Vulcan Steps. Paid for, almost all of it, by festivals, prize committees, universities, residency programs, and media conglomerates. The rest, he has found, he can cover with free airline points that, neglected over the decades, have multiplied into a digital fortune, as in a sorcerer’s magic chest. After prepaying for the Morocco extravagance, he has just enough in his savings to cover necessities, providing he practices the Puritanical thrift drilled into him by his mother. No clothing purchases. No nights on the town. And, God help him, no medical emergencies. But what could possibly go wrong?

  Arthur Less, encircling the globe! It feels cosmonautical in nature. The morning he left San Francisco, two days before the event with H. H. H. Mandern, Arthur Less marveled that he would not be returning, as he had his entire life, from the east but from the mysterious west. And during this odyssey, he was certain he would not think about Freddy Pelu at all.

  New York is a city of eight million people, approximately seven million of whom will be furious when they hear you were in town and didn’t meet them for an expensive dinner, five million furious you didn’t visit their new baby, three million furious you didn’t see their new show, one million furious you didn’t call for sex, but only five actually available to meet you. It is completely reasonable to call none of them. You could instead sneak off to a terrible, treacly Broadway show that you will never admit you paid two hundred dollars to see. This is what Less does on his first night, eating a hot dog dinner to make up for the extravagance. You cannot call it a guilty pleasure when the lights go down and the curtain goes up, when the adolescent heart begins to beat along with the orchestra, not when you feel no guilt. And he feels none; he feels only the shiver of delight when there is nobody around to judge you. It is a bad musical, but, like a bad lay, a bad musical can still do its job perfectly well. By the end, Arthur Less is in tears, sobbing in his seat, and he thinks he has been sobbing quietly until the lights come up and the woman seated beside him turns and says, “Honey, I don’t know what happened in your life, but I am so so sorry,” and gives him a lilac-scented embrace. Nothing happened to me, he wants to say to her. Nothing happened to me. I’m just a homosexual at a Broadway show.

  Next morning: the coffeemaker in his hotel room is a hungry little mollusk, snapping open its jaws to devour pods and subsequently secreting coffee into a mug. The instructions on care and feeding are clear, and yet somehow Less manages to produce, on the first go, nothing but steam and, on the second, a melted version of the pod itself. A sigh from Less.

  It is an autumn New York morning, and therefore glorious; it is his first day of his long journey, the day before the interview, and his clothes are still clean and neat, socks still paired, blue suit unwrinkled, toothpaste still American and not some strange foreign flavor. Bright-lemon New York light flashing off the skyscrapers, onto the quilted aluminum sides of food carts, and from there onto Arthur Less himself. Even the mean delighted look from the lady who would not hold the elevator, the humor-free girl at the coffee shop, the tourists standing stock-still on busy Fifth Avenue, the revved-up accosting hawkers (“Mister, you like comedy? Everybody likes comedy!”), the toothache sensation of jackhammers in concrete—none of it can dull the day. Here is a shop that sells only zippers. Here are twenty of them. The Zipper District
. What a glorious city.

  “What are you going to wear?” the bookstore employee asks when Less stops by to say hello. He has walked twenty wonderful blocks to get here.

  “What am I going to wear? Oh, just my blue suit.”

  The employee (in pencil skirt, sweater, and glasses: a burlesque librarian) laughs and laughs. Her mirth settles into a smile. “No, but seriously,” she says, “what are you going to wear?”

  “It’s a great suit. What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s H. H. H. Mandern! And it’s almost Halloween! I found a NASA jumpsuit. Janice is coming as the Queen of Mars.”

  “I was under the impression he wanted to be taken seriously—”

  “But it’s H. H. H. Mandern! Halloween! We have to dress up!”

  She does not know how carefully he packed his luggage. It is a clown car of contradictory possessions: cashmere sweaters yet light linen trousers, thermal underwear yet suntan lotion, a tie yet a Speedo, his workout set of rubber bands, and so on. What shoes do you pack for the university and the beach? What sunglasses for northern European gloom and South Asian sun? He would be passing through Halloween, Día de los Muertos, Festa di San Martino, Nikolaustag, Christmas, New Year’s, Eid al-Mawlid, Vasant Panchami, and Hina Matsuri. The hats alone could fill a shopwindow. And then there is the suit.