The Widower's Tale (39 page)

That year, Celestino had strained hard to follow their conversation. But they taught him to play Hearts, and Isabelle smiled at him across her hand of cards, so that even if he never spoke, he felt included.

Three years later, he was welcomed instantly. The "older children" were older still, half a dozen in their third or fourth year of college. The rum no longer required smuggling, certainly not the bottles of wine. Still they played Ping-Pong and Hearts, though four of the college boys now switched to poker, playing for money.

Isabelle put on a tape of what she declared to be her favorite French movie:
Les Enfants du Paradis
, a long black-and-white fantasy romance, a fairy tale from the look of it. Her efforts to get anyone to sit down and focus on the movie were futile. "Later," she said to Celestino, "I am forcing you to watch it with me. It is beyond awesome. These thugs just don't give a damn about art."

Celestino was careful not to drink too much of the spiked soda or wine. That Christmas, during his first year at the community college, he was still nearly paralyzed with gratitude to be there, to have returned to the magical life of the Lartigues. As he played Hearts with Isabelle and her girlfriends that night, he would glance at the TV screen, fascinated by the chalky, soulful faces of the hero and heroine in the movie. Their world looked strange, but no more strange to him than this world, in the basement of this richly decorated house.

The guests left after midnight. Dr. and Senora Lartigue went up to bed, leaving dishes, wineglasses, napkins where they lay. Etienne had gone into the Square with the other poker players.

Celestino was about to follow Isabelle's parents upstairs when she said, "I meant what I said. About the movie. So come on, you."

He was tired, but he let her lead him back downstairs. She rewound the tape and started it again. He sat down on the couch beside her.

The English subtitles were hard to follow, but the story, its fairy-tale essence, seemed familiar. He had just begun to sink into the characters' lives when he felt Isabelle's hand. Ever so gently, she laid it palm down on his thigh. She kept her eyes on the actors. Terrified, he did nothing in response. He froze. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, she removed her hand.

At the end of the movie, she turned to him and said, "Have you ever seen a greater love story? Isn't Jean-Louis Barrault the most haunting, soulful,
beautiful
man you've ever seen? Not to imply anything homoerotic, but ... What did you think, Celestino? Did you love it?"

Celestino said, "I did. It was ... it kept me wide awake." He looked at the clock. It was three-thirty in the morning.

She laughed. "Kept you awake? I hope it was better than that."

That was the beginning--not literally, because he held out until the spring, when Isabelle, as she had promised, gave him swimming lessons--but that was when he might have made a different, more definite choice: spoken to her, laid down rules. But Celestino had never been the one to lay down rules.

"We are the children of paradise, you from one paradise, I from another," she said the first time they took off their clothes together and found, with stunning ease, how to fit their young bodies together. "I will always think of us that way, no matter what happens.
Les enfants du paradis, c'est nous
."

The next month, he returned to his family. Summer passed like a long, rainy dream. He worked with his father, at a logging site and at the archaeologists' depot, cleaning artifacts. Raul teased Celestino that he would soon grow soft and scholarly, but he did so with pride.

Isabelle wrote him two long, passionate letters, yet when he flew north again in September, he felt more fear than excitement--until Isabelle, running ahead of her father at the airport, whispered in his ear,
"Salut, enfant."

Two Sundays before Christmas, he took an early train from Lothian to Cambridge and went to their church--the church where they had taken him when Dr. Lartigue was alive. A sign told him the first service would start at nine, the second at eleven.

At eight, someone pushed open the front doors. Celestino went in, choosing a pew near the back. Nothing had changed. The place was white as a newly frosted cake, the pews lined with limp velvet cushions the color of dried blood. The windows rose to the height of full-grown trees, each filled with dozens of panes, glass that was clear yet rumpled. Above the altar, the wooden cross was a blunt, declarative shape, no suffering Christ, no ornamental carving, not even a touch of color to suggest the extraordinary drama surrounding the crucifixion. Sitting there did not bring on the strong emotions Celestino had imagined. He was disappointed yet relieved.

An invisible musician began to play the organ. A young woman in a black robe carried a large vase of red and white carnations to the front of the church and placed it on a ledge beside the pulpit. She did not seem to notice Celestino. If anyone did approach, he would pretend to pray. Or perhaps he really would.

Supposing she still went to church--and there was a good chance she didn't; her attitude had never been one of devotion--would she go early or late? Would she go alone?

He paged through the prayer book, then the hymnal.

At eight-thirty, the organist began to play more loudly, as if he'd been practicing and now he was performing. A few worshipers walked in and took seats in the front pews. One woman looked at Celestino and smiled.

People were talking and laughing at the entrance of the church, through the wall at his back. But once inside, they fell silent or continued their conversations in a whisper. A woman entered holding a baby in a long dress, followed by a man and an older couple. A christening. Celestino smiled.

She walked in at five to nine, heading quickly toward the front. She wore her hair in the same way--curled in against the back of her head, tight and smooth, a graceful helmet--though it had grayed quite a bit. Right behind Senora Lartigue, though he was clearly her companion, walked a tall thin man who looked every bit as professorial as Dr. Lartigue had looked.

They seated themselves far forward, to the right, so that Celestino could see her almost in profile.

This was the logical encounter, he realized: the mother, not the daughter. But it wasn't the one he wanted, not at all. In fact, though he had felt nothing profound when he entered the church, he trembled when he saw Senora Lartigue. That visceral fear came over him like a heavy, suffocating hood.

As the minister took his place in the pulpit and held out his hands, asking everyone to rise and sing, Celestino fled the church.

He hurried toward the center of Harvard Square. How stupid was he? What had he expected? What, for God's sake, had he even planned?

He stopped at the news kiosk, where newspapers in every conceivable language were sold. He searched for something in Spanish; there was a Mexican paper with headlines about a political scandal that might as well have been unfolding in China.

He walked into a bakery and bought himself a bagel and a cup of coffee. He took them back outside and sat on a bench in the brick plaza. It was uncomfortably cold, but he needed to be outside, to breathe fresh air.

Why was he here: in this city, in this country, in this life? Was it all because a group of strange men had shown up in his village before he was born? Was his life being lived as a thread spooling out from that day? Could he cut that thread and begin a new spool--or tie a great knot in it, defy the silken, seductive unreeling over which he seemed to have little control?

The air was bitterly cold, yet the coffee was too hot to drink. He set it down on the bench beside him and ate the bagel. Seeds stuck to his lips and fell to his lap. Angrily, he brushed them away--and as he did so, he struck the cup of coffee, which spilled onto the bench against his pants. He stood abruptly, cursing. He reached into the pocket of his coat, hoping to find a stray bit of napkin. What he pulled out was a small sheet of paper, torn from a notepad, with the telephone number of Arturo, the half Guatemalan, the boy who honestly
missed
his home in the jungle. He was, right then, the closest thing to a friend in Celestino's life. And what did this say about that life?

13

The groom and the groom were cutting the cake. Raucous masculine cheers filled the room as Joe and Jonathan, playfully indelicate, pushed wedges of devil's food into each other's mouths. They wore tuxedos, Joe's shirt canary yellow, Jonathan's blue-chip blue. Anthony's cheer was so loud that Ira felt a ringing in his left ear after the clamor died down and the music rose to encourage dancing.

A Christmas Eve wedding was pretty cheeky, thought Ira, but some two hundred friends of the couple had been willing--had been thrilled--to forgo whatever traditions they normally pursued in order to be there. And of course, there were the Jews, including the lapsed Jews like Ira, those who celebrated Christmas as stowaways. (Anthony's Catholic parents lived in Ohio; only once had they gone out there to do the big-family thing.)

Joe was a partner at Anthony's firm. He'd been with Jonathan for four years. They'd registered at Shreve, Crump & Low, exchanged vows at the wealthiest liberal Episcopal church downtown, and here they were now, celebrating at Locke-Ober, their reception an elegant yet decidedly queer in-your-face jab at the straight, cigar-smoking WASP clientele of yore. Oysters Rockefeller, white asparagus, lobster bisque, filet mignon with scalloped potatoes. Ira couldn't believe they were now about to consume cake.

"Smile. You look like you're attending a
funeral,"
Anthony whispered as they carried their plates to an empty table. "I'd tickle you if I had a free hand."

"And I would burst," said Ira.

They sat down, facing the tiny makeshift dance floor. Joe and Jonathan were dancing, alone, to "They All Laughed." More cheers, though kinder and gentler this time. A small but conspicuous smear of chocolate frosting besmirched Joe's yellow shirt, but those two boys, arms entwined, moving gracefully to that jazzy, sexy trombone, were a modern icon of newlywed bliss.

Side by side, Ira and Anthony ate their cake in silence.

And now, Ira saw it coming. Associate Janine approached their table with that very specific smile. Before Ira could head her off at the pass, she leaned down and said, "Are you next, guys? Hm?"

Anthony had learned to behave as if this were more funny than awkward. He turned to Ira and cocked his head. "Now
how
many garters have we caught between us, darling? Those years with the Patriots trained you well."

"Okay, okay," said Janine. "I'll back off. It's just ... I mean, this was the most romantic wedding I've ever attended. Counting the I can't even
remember
how many where I was a bridesmaid."

Ira resisted the cruel urge to say,
And how 'bout you, Janine?
Janine was forty and had never been married. Ira knew, though Anthony had sworn him to secrecy, that she was in a longtime entanglement with a senior partner who, according to Anthony, would never leave his wife, if only because she was the one who owned the house on Nantucket.

He said, instead, "No one's ever asked
me
to be a bridesmaid."

Janine laughed, and Ira was grateful when she moved on toward another table. He was also grateful that the senior partner who'd stolen her heart (and her childbearing potential) had been unable to attend the wedding.

Anthony had finished his cake and was gazing at Ira, still smiling. "I love you in that jacket."

Ira blushed. "Pass muster in public, do I?"

"In private, too. As you know. You can pass me that muster anytime."

Ira looked reflexively away. Several guests were crushed together on the dance floor, curbing the extravagant movements inspired by "In the Mood."

"I think this is the one."

"This what is the one? The one what?" Ira tried to sound flip.

"The wedding that finally makes us talk about whether we're going to take that plunge ourselves."

"Anthony, this isn't the place."

Anthony leaned close. "Where
is
the place? Tell me, and I'll be there. On time, even." When Ira did not answer, he stood up. "Let's go outside. Let's walk through the Common."

"And get mugged? It is freezing out there. And consequently deserted." Without meeting Anthony's gaze, he could feel its accusation.

Anthony sat down. He put his hand on Ira's sleeve. "Can I just say that it's like you were paralyzed by what happened last spring? Like you were hit by a bus and you're still in the ICU, breathing tubes and all."

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm very happy in Matlock. Some things happen for the best. Crisis equals danger plus opportunity; isn't that what the Chinese say?"

Anthony groaned. "Why are you talking to me like this?"

"I could say the same to you." Ira started to cry. He took the linen napkin with which he'd wiped cake from his mouth and held it to his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry."

He felt Anthony's hand on his back. It moved up and down in a way that ought to have felt comforting. He realized what his apology might sound like, so he wiped his eyes quickly. "I am not breaking up with you. Please, not that."