“Hey,” he called, softly. “Were you sleeping?”
“No,” said Lyle. “You’re a little late.”
“I know,” said Robert. “I came to apologize.”
“Would you like to come in?”
“Is it O.K.? I know it’s late.”
Lyle answered by ducking his head back in the window. In a moment he was unlocking the front door. The parlor floor of the brownstone was one large room with windows facing both the street and the garden. A living room in the front gradually transformed itself into a kitchen as it neared the back. “Sit down,” Lyle said. “You look hot. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Just some water, please,” said Robert. He sat on a large leather sofa.
Lyle filled two large glasses from the kitchen tap. He handed Robert a glass and sat in a chair opposite the sofa. “So,” he said, after they had both drunk some water, “you came to apologize.”
“Yes,” said Robert. “I’m sorry I didn’t come by this evening. I had to work tonight after all, so I couldn’t.”
“You could have called.”
“I was going to, but I lost your number.”
“I was sure you had changed your mind,” said Lyle. “I was sure I’d never see you again.”
“No,” said Robert. “I’m sorry. Things just got messed up tonight. They changed the schedule at the last minute.”
“Are you a waiter? You look suspiciously like one.”
“Yes,” said Robert.
“Where?”
“In an Indian restaurant.”
“On Sixth Street?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“Agra.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been there.”
“You’re not missing anything.”
“Are you Indian?”
“I’m half Indian,” said Robert. “My father is Indian.”
“And your mother?”
“She was American, but she’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lyle.
“She died a very long time ago. When I was a baby.” Robert sipped his water.
“Were you born in India?” Lyle asked.
“Yes,” said Robert.
“And you grew up there?”
“Until I was fourteen. Then I moved to my grandparents’ in Wilmington.”
“That must have been a shock.”
“Actually, I wasn’t very happy in India, with my father. So it was O.K.”
“Were you happy in Wilmington?”
Robert laughed. “No,” he said. “But I’m happy now. I’m happy in New York. At least I think I am.”
“Except that you need a studio,” said Lyle. “Should we go up and take a look?”
“I could come back,” said Robert, “if it’s too late. I really just came by to apologize.”
“And you have. And I’ve forgiven you.” Lyle stood up. “So let’s go look at the room. It’s upstairs,” he said. “This way.”
They climbed the narrow, curving staircase, and then Robert followed Lyle down a hall toward the back of the building.
“Here we are,” Lyle said. He opened a door and switched on the light but the room remained dark. “Oh,” he said, “I forgot. The bulb’s dead. Well, go look. I’ll try to find one.”
Robert entered the hot room. It was small, and crowded with a desk piled with magazines and books and papers, and a sofa piled with more magazines and books and papers. A globe, as large as a medicine ball, stood on a floor stand. Robert tried to make it turn but it was stuck. A large casement window overlooked the trees in the back garden. Robert opened a window and leaned out. Below him people were eating dinner in one of the gardens. He could hear their talk and laughter and the clink of their cutlery, but he couldn’t see them, so dense was the intervening foliage. Robert had not realized that there were gardens behind brownstones. He had assumed that all buildings in the city were divided, like his own, by air shafts.
Lyle returned with a lightbulb. He held it in his hand like a curiosity. It was frosted a soft, seashellish pink. “Let’s try this,” he said. He removed the brown paper shade from a lamp on the desk and unscrewed the bulb, replacing it with the new one. A rosy light warmed the room. Lyle looked around. “Goodness,” he said, “what a mess.” He picked up some piles from the sofa and then stood with them, as there seemed to be no place else to put them. “Here, sit down.”
Robert sat on the sofa. Lyle continued to stand, holding the stack of magazines. “So what do you think?” he asked.
“It’s not empty,” said Robert.
“What?” asked Lyle.
“This room. You said you had an empty room, that you didn’t use it. But obviously you do.”
“Oh …” said Lyle. He looked around the room, as if its emptiness just had to be found. “You’re right,” he said. “But I don’t use it. I meant we could empty it, if you wanted to use it for a studio. I would have done it myself, but I didn’t have time.”
“Why don’t you use it?” asked Robert.
“It’s not—it belonged to Tony,” said Lyle.
“And it doesn’t now?”
“No,” said Lyle. He shuffled the magazines for a moment, as if looking for a specific one. “Tony is dead,” he said.
“Oh,” said Robert.
“He died last summer,” said Lyle.
“He was your lover?” asked Robert.
Lyle nodded.
“I’m sorry,” said Robert. He moved another pile of magazines from the sofa to the floor, clearing a spot beside him. “Sit down,” he said.
Lyle sat down beside Robert. They were not touching, but
Robert could feel the warmth from Lyle, and smell him. It was a natural, yet curious, odor: a sort of emotional perspiration.
“Was he a writer?” asked Robert.
“Yes,” said Lyle. “Among other things. He wrote about travel. Very facile articles for stupid magazines. Blah blah blah blah don’t drink the water.” He tossed one of the magazines to the floor.
“Did you travel with him?”
“Sometimes.”
Robert picked up the magazine. “I would love to travel,” he said. “I think traveling is the most interesting and worthwhile thing you can do.”
“Where would you like to go?” asked Lyle.
“I don’t know. Just about anywhere. I want to go to South America. And Japan. And Europe, of course. Everywhere, basically.”
Lyle had always maintained that traveling was a pointless and distracting activity. He did this mainly because it was something Tony had done: Tony traveled, and Lyle stayed at home, and so Lyle had come to dismiss traveling. You do not need to see the world to know it, he would say. Or traveling doesn’t enrich you, it exhausts you. All sorts of bogus, pompous things. I was a bogus and pompous person, he thought. I am still.
“You seem tired,” said Robert. “You should go to bed.”
“I think I’m too tired to go to bed,” Lyle said. “I’m going to have a glass of wine. Would you like one? I’d offer you a beer, but I don’t have any.”
“Are you sure?” asked Robert. “I don’t want to keep you up.”
“Yes,” said Lyle. “Please join me.”
“O.K.,” said Robert.
“I’ll be right back,” said Lyle. He reached out and touched Robert’s head, and then went downstairs.
Robert opened one of the magazines. He was looking at a picture of the bludgeoned Berlin Wall when Lyle returned with two glasses of wine. Robert put the magazine down.
“So,” said Lyle, “what do you think?”
Robert thought he meant the magazine. “It looks interesting,” he said.
“I meant the room. As a studio. Of course, we would move all this out. It’s really bigger than it looks. You’ll see, when we get it cleared.”
“But …” Robert began.
“But what?”
“Don’t you want to—I mean, do you really want to move these things?”
“Yes,” said Lyle. He handed a glass of wine to Robert, and took a sip from his own. “I should have done it ages ago. I’ve just been waiting for a reason. Now I have one. At least I hope I do. You are a painter, aren’t you? You do need a studio?”
“Yes,” said Robert. “But …”
“But what?”
“It’s just that it’s … well, I’m not sure that it’s right. I mean, I feel like I should pay you rent or something. You could probably rent this room for a lot of money.”
“Perhaps I could. But I don’t want to. I want you to use this room for a studio. Of course, if you don’t want to use it, please tell me. I’m not going to force you.”
Robert didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” said Lyle, after a moment. “I get impatient sometimes, when people are being polite. It’s very rude of me. I’m sorry.” He got up and looked out the window. The dinner party was breaking up. A chorus of good nights floated up into the dark. He looked over at Robert, at the back of his head, at his
dark sleek hair. He went over to the desk and turned out the light. A shadowed trellis of leaves and branches arched across the ceiling. He sat down beside Robert. He wanted to touch Robert again, but he didn’t know how or where. So he raised his hand and made an odd gesture, as if he were holding some heavy object. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s O.K.,” said Robert. He sipped his wine.
They sat there for a moment, without talking. Lyle reached out and put his hand on Robert’s dark pants leg. Robert did not respond. He looked straight ahead, as he had at the movies, watching something.
After a moment Lyle said, “I’m tired.”
“I’ll go,” said Robert. He put down his glass of wine.
“No,” said Lyle, “I didn’t mean—I meant: Are you tired?” He paused. “I meant, let’s go to bed. I would like to sleep with you. Just sleep.”
Robert was looking down at the floor, at his glass of wine. In the darkness he could just vaguely discern its color.
“Yes?” asked Lyle. “No?”
“Yes,” said Robert.
Lyle stood up. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll clear out this room.”
Some birds on the windowsill woke Lyle. Robert was sleeping. He was turned away from Lyle, lying on his side, the sheet rising up over his legs and hip, his back and arms and head uncovered and beautiful in the soft morning light. Lyle lifted the sheet and peered beneath it at Robert’s buttocks. They were paler than the rest of him, full, yet—even in sleep—taut. Lyle would have reached down and touched them but he was afraid it would wake Robert, so keenly would he have felt it himself.
Sleep veils some people; it takes them away. But sleep only stilled Robert; he lay there present and calm. There were no grinding teeth, no thrashing, no twitching, no groaning or snoring: it was an amazingly simple, peaceful sleep. It suggested to Lyle that if you unwound Robert like a wrapped mummy, you would find nothing bad, nothing rotten or broken or unnecessary, just everything, down to the bones of him, clean and perfect.
When Lyle got out of the bed the birds noisily erupted from the windowsill. This commotion stirred, but did not awaken, Robert. He turned over onto the part of the bed Lyle had vacated. Lyle watched Robert resettle himself. Then he got dressed and went downstairs.
He had made some coffee, and was sitting on the narrow wrought-iron terrace overhanging the garden, when the phone rang. He went into the kitchen and answered it.
“It’s early, isn’t it?” Marian said. “Did I wake you?”
“No,” said Lyle.
“I had a feeling you were awake.”
“I just got up. I was sitting out on the terrace, having coffee.”
“I’ve just been for a swim.”
“Lucky you,” said Lyle.
“Yes,” said Marian. “It was lovely.”
“I’m looking forward to next weekend,” said Lyle.
“That’s why I was calling. To see when you were coming up. Can you make it on Friday?”
“I doubt it,” said Lyle. “It will probably be Saturday morning.”
“Well, I’m planning a little dinner,” said Marian. “I should make it for Saturday, then?”
“Yes,” said Lyle. “Who?”
“Her name is Laura Ponti. She’s Italian. She knew John’s mother. She’s rented a house up here. We met her at a party the other
night, and then I saw her again at the bookstore. The copies of
Neo This, Neo That
I ordered had come in, and when I went to pick them up, she asked me why I had ordered so many. She knew about you. And I said you were a friend. She seemed very interested, so I invited her to dinner.”
“How many books did you order?”
“Five,” said Marian. “So I’ll tell her Saturday?”
“Yes,” said Lyle.
“You’ll like her, I think. She’s very chic and intelligent. But come on Friday, if you can. Or come whenever. You haven’t been up in ages. It’s getting very boring up here in the country without you. You told me when we moved up here that you’d visit all the time.”