My girl they will snatch
From the car by the nape
And I will then watch
The men commit rape
Men with pates jutting
With cigarettes vile
Will run like dogs rutting
Round the scam of your thighs…
It is funny and sad to read these lines, written by a sixteen-year-old, but I am forced to confess to myself that they strike an unpleasantly prophetic note. The world has fucked my love, and the men with jutting pates – the businessmen and merchants – are the ones who now fuck her, my little Elena…
I was devoted to Sanya, body and soul. Had he wished it, I probably would have slept with him. But evidently he didn't know he could use me in this way, or had no inclination to, or wasn't sophisticated enough. Russia's mass culture didn't serve this to him on a platter the way American culture does.
Such is my history. A love for strong men. I confess, and I see it now. Sanya the Red was so strong that he used to break the bars in the fence around the outdoor dance pavilion, the bars were as thick as a big man's arm. True, he did this only when we didn't have the fifty kopecks for admission.
Gena was tall, well built, and looked like a young Nazi. Dark blue eyes. I never met a more handsome man.
My friendships are intelligible to me now. Those were but two, the most memorable; there were others, but for many years I lived as if in a fog, and only when my tragedy opened my eyes did I suddenly see my life from a new perspective.
Well, I somehow convinced Kirill, who was listening with awe, that my desire was sincere. He listens that way to the stories of all his companions, not just to mine, with a great show of interest, as if this were his main business in life; but it's only show. He's a young man who promises much but does little. In this case, thank God, I knew he wasn't stretching the truth to make himself look good, he really was living temporarily in the apartment of some homosexual who was out of town. I had visited him there and seen the special magazines for men, and all the rest of it. What the hell, maybe Kirill really would introduce me. I was forced to grasp at anything, I had nothing, we were alien to this world. Ignorance of the language, especially conversation; prostration after my tragedy; prolonged isolation from society – for all these reasons I was unutterably lonely. All I was doing was bumming around New York on foot, sometimes walking two hundred and fifty blocks a day, bumming around in neighborhoods both dangerous and safe, sitting, lying, smoking, drinking from a bottle in a paper bag, sleeping in the street. I would go two or three weeks without talking to anyone.
Time passed. I called Kirill once or twice and asked how were things, when would he keep his promise and introduce me to this fellow. He muttered something incomprehensible, justifying himself and obviously inventing excuses. I had completely given up hope in him, when suddenly he called me and said in an unnaturally theatrical voice, "Listen, remember our conversation? I'm here with a friend, he's French, his name is Raymond, he'd like to see you. Come on over, we'll have a drink and talk awhile – it's next door to your hotel."
I said, "Kirill, is it that fellow, the pederast?"
"Yes," he said, "but not that one."
I said, "All right, I'll be there in an hour."
"Make it quick," he said.
I am not going to lie and say that I rushed over there with flaming eyes and fire in my loins. No. I vacillated and was somewhat scared. For perhaps a minute or two I didn't even want to go. Then I spent a long time wondering what to wear. In the end I dressed very strangely, in torn French blue jeans and a fine new Italian denim blazer; I put on a yellow Italian shirt, a vest, multicolored Italian boots, wrapped my neck in a black scarf, and started off, nervous – of course I was nervous. Live all those years with women, and then try and switch to men. You'll be nervous.
He lived at – but I don't want to hurt the man. On the whole he's a nice old fellow. An apartment "done in antique-shop," as we used to say in Russia. On the wall, a Chagall with a dedicatory inscription; knickknacks; paintings depicting, as I later learned, our host himself in a tutu; photographs and portraits of male and female dancers, including Nureyev and Baryshnikov. An elegant, well-regulated bachelor life. Three, perhaps four rooms, with a nice smell, something that always distinguishes the apartments of society people and bohemians from the quarters of philistines and bourgeois families. The latter always stink of either food or cigarette smoke or something moldy. I am very sensitive to smells. Good perfume is a joy to me, a fact that my plebeian schoolmates used to laugh at. I liked the apartment for its smell.
Now our host wrenched himself from his armchair to meet me. Fairly long red hair; heavyset, not very tall; a little bit free-and-easy, like an artist; well-dressed even around the house. On his neck, a dense mass of beads and nice little chains. On his fingers, diamond rings. How old he was I didn't know, he looked to be more than fifty. In fact, he must have been over sixty.
Kirill and he were on friendly footing. They were squabbling in a friendly way. The conversation began. About this, about that, or, as Kuzmin wrote, "Now Heinrich Mann, now Thomas Mann, and into your pocket with his hand." Not really, no hands in the pocket for the time being, it was all very proper, three artistic individuals conversing, an ex-dancer, a poet, and an aristocratic young rakehell. The conversation was interrupted by the proposal that we have some cold vodka with caviar and cucumbers. Our host went to the kitchen, took Kirill with him. "I'll use him to cut the cucumbers." He wouldn't let me help. "You're a guest."
Lord in heaven, what bliss! The last time I had eaten caviar must have been in Vienna – I had brought several cans out of Russia. Elena was still with me…
How nice that he didn't start in by flinging himself on me…, I thought. After I've had some vodka I'll feel a little bolder, and while it's taking effect I'll be getting my bearings.
How very nice, vodka and caviar. I was so out of the habit of normal life that it all seemed a marvelous dream. We drank from elegant silver-rimmed crystal, not from crappy plastic, and although we were only having hors d'oeuvres, a delicate nice plate lay before each of us. This place was so spacious after my hotel prison cell, I could stand up, walk around, examine things. The bread was spread with real butter, on top was real caviar, the vodka was ice-cold, and the cucumbers were cut in strips, I noticed, glancing over the table again.
He still hadn't fallen upon me. In a peaceful and sympathetic way he inquired about my relationship with my wife, not to reopen my wounds, he just asked, as if in passing. He said that he too had had a wife, before he knew that women were so horrible. She had fled to Mexico ages ago with a policeman, or a fireman, I don't remember exactly; she was very rich, and she had two children by him. One son had died tragically.
When we finished the bottle, and we did so rather quickly – we all drank easily and were experts, men who drank constantly, every day and heavily – he shook himself off, went into the bathroom, and started getting ready for the ballet.
He put on very elegant clothes, a black velvet jacket from Yves Saint Laurent with a chic handkerchief in the pocket. When he came out he asked if we liked what he was wearing, and was very pleased to receive an affirmative from me and "Raymond, you're a charmer" from Kirill.
At this point the bell rang. Raymond was being called for by a certain Luis (his lover, Kirill whispered to me), but Raymond called him Sebastian, after the well-known saint who was executed by arrows. Sebastian was Mexican. He did not strike me as interesting, he was dressed very conservatively, the same height as Raymond, had a pleasant face but no outstanding features. He owned an art gallery. He was thirty-five or forty, and Raymond considered him young.