Forth into Light (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (42 page)

“That’s what Peter wants. He’s working on it in Athens.”

“He’s in Athens? Yes, I guess Sid told me. Christ, I’m not a very inspiring example. Everybody doing something while I sit here getting drunk.” He ran his fingers through his hair and felt the muscles of his face stiffening as he phrased his next question. “Listen Jeff, yesterday there would’ve been lots of things I couldn’t talk to you about. That’s changed. You’ve had a look at the adult world. It isn’t always pretty. There’s something I’ve got to know. You
were
telling the truth the other day, weren’t you? About seeing your mother?”

Jeff drew back and dropped his eyes. “I don’t know what made me say it, but I’m not a liar. Dimitri’s house is up near there.” He paused and lifted his eyes again. They were full of fierce ardent reproach. “Does it matter? If you love someone, you love them, no matter what they do.”

George sighed and propped his head on his hand again, thinking of the impossible confrontation with Sarah that lay ahead. Nothing could come of it, but his will would remain paralyzed until he had forced himself through it. “Yes, well, I wonder how long you’ll be able to hang onto that thought. It takes an awful lot of generosity to live by it. I’m glad you said it, though. It sounds simple, but there may be something in it.”

“What’s fidelity and jealousy and all the rest of it? It’s just being selfish with somebody else’s body. I’d never expect anybody to be faithful to me.”

George marshaled his thoughts; if he couldn’t make Jeff understand, what could he say to Sarah? “That may be an insight into your particular tastes,” he said, “but you’ll have to take my word for it that it doesn’t work that way for ordinary couples. Because of the way we’re built, maybe a man feels more possessive toward a woman than he would toward another man. He doesn’t want used goods. Could it be as dismal as that? It doesn’t have to be a question of morals. Any valid morality is primarily based on self-interest anyway, so let’s say it’s self-interest. It’s to the interest of the man
and
the woman, if they love each other, to keep themselves whole for each other in order to create a relationship that’s always alive and growing and always moving toward completion. You can’t do this if you’re giving something so essential as physical passion to others. Being forgiving and unselfish doesn’t replace the loss. This is pretty old stuff, but it’s not something that changes from year to year.”

“Why do you talk old stuff?” Jeff burst out. He made a quick swipe at the hair on his forehead and his eyes grew brooding and faltered and he bowed his head over the table. “Maybe it’s all wrong. Maybe it’s impossible to make the kind of relationship you’re talking about. What about the people who give something to everybody who comes along? Like Dimitri, even. I don’t know. You’re a great man. You can tell people what life is all about. You should hear the way Mike talks about you. You’re worth a thousand of him—all he knows about is destruction and hate—why do you do things that make him look right? Why are you here unless you know that we can find something better than anywhere else? Mike says it’s because you can’t face reality. Reality to him is hitting somebody when he’s down. You, Charlie, and Peter—you see beauty and meaning in life. Are you kidding yourselves? Can’t you spell it out so the rest of us can understand? I want to see beauty, but all I see is the beauty of a male body. Is that enough?” His breath caught on a shudder that shook him. “Life is impossible,” he ended with deep pained melancholy.

“It’s a bit soon for you to be coming to that conclusion.” George reached out and ran a hand down his arm and gripped his elbow. “You’ve asked some important questions and made me feel fairly ashamed of myself, but that’s nothing new. Life
is
impossible without a lot of strength and patience and discipline. I’ve let it become impossible recently but that must be my fault, although I haven’t quite figured out what it is. I’m still trying. Does your mother know you’re back?”

“No. Just Charlie. He came with me. I’d never have made it without him.”

“They’re being very good to you. You’ve given us a lot to talk about, but there’s nothing I can say yet except that if I can’t answer your questions by tomorrow I might as well throw in the sponge. Let’s clear the decks. For whatever it’s worth, I’ll take your statement to the police. I’d appreciate it if you’d go home and tell your mother I’ll be along in a little while.”

“Am I supposed to tell her about—well, about me and Mike and so forth?”

“I’d soft-pedal the sex angle until I’ve had a talk with her. There’s no point her getting worked up for nothing. She’s inclined to take the natural woman’s view that it’s a great loss not to have a wife and children and all that goes with it. I think so too, of course, but I can see there might be compensations. If it’s not too much to ask, it might be a good idea for you to go out for a couple of hours. Have something to eat on the port. Needless to say, your mother and I aren’t on the best of terms at the moment. If I’m going to try to hammer out some hope for the future, I’ll want privacy.”

“Of course. I want to see Dimitri anyway. Don’t be surprised if I stay out all night.”

“With Dimitri? Sorry. Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”

“That’s all right. Not Dimitri. I’d rather not say more. I’m not feeling very cheerful. If I’m going to make sense, I’ll need all the help I can get. I won’t hang around the bar, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

George had almost forgotten having forbidden the bar. It seemed like weeks ago and no longer had any relevance to the young man he was talking to now. “Don’t bother about that. I doubt if anybody will be fooling around with dope for a while. That’s all I was worried about. You’re turning into a very handsome guy, Jeff. Lots of people will be after you. Discriminate, for God’s sake. At your age, sex just for the hell of it never did anybody any harm. If you find beauty in a male body, make the most of it. That is, respect your emotions as well as your desires. You feel things deeply, but it’s not condescending to say that you’re bound to be immature still in some ways. Don’t pour yourself out for anybody who isn’t worthy of you. That’s all. I don’t expect you to pay attention to anything I say. It’s the sort of thing a father feels he has to say to his son. Shall we go?”

“Don’t you have to say good-bye?”

“They won’t even notice I’m gone. I’ll thank Joe for his hospitality when I see him.” He pocketed the envelope and rose. Jeff followed suit and they walked together to the gate where Jeff stopped to pick up his bag. “I suppose the police might want you to come in and tell your story in person, but I’ll try to stall them off. The sooner we forget this the better.”

“I’ll go if they want me. I want to do whatever’s necessary.”

“Good. You’re going to be all right.” They left the courtyard. George gave him a little slap on the back and a push in the direction of home.

Jeff took a step and turned back. “I believe in you.” His Adam’s apple worked and his great eyes brooded at George. “This may sound sort of fresh for a son to say to his father, but I know
you’re
going to be all right. That matters a lot more than my silly little problems. I have sense enough to know that.” He swung away and set off with a new grace in his step.

George stood speechless, staring after him. He became aware of a lump in his throat and swallowed. Was this the turning of the tide? Was he recovering his touch? Had he handled himself that well with Jeff? He was beginning to feel quite sober as he turned down toward town.

What was a man supposed to do when his son announced he was queer? Beat him up? Shoot himself? Mike stuck in the craw, but Mike was gone, thank God, before the atavistic repugnance Mike touched off in him threw him completely off the track. He could think of his son in the arms of some other male lover without horror and even with approval if the guy were decent. He devoutly hoped that Jeff would soon find somebody to love him. His unbalanced intensity was frightening at moments. He needed somebody desperately who could hold him steady. He would offer him all the support he could, but no parent was ever enough.

At least, affection and understanding had had an inning, with promising results. He had little left for Sarah. Jeff had been telling him things that still lingered unresolved in his mind. A vote of confidence. They had much to give each other. Was that enough to have salvaged from the ruin? He had leaned on Sarah long enough, demanding loyalty, unable to offer what she needed. A living, growing relationship? Mutilated. Murdered. Discard it in a clean and manly way. He must go to her with the strength to cope with life alone.

As he neared the police station, he bridled at the atmosphere of blind complacent authority he would encounter there. The captain had glared at his money this morning as if willing it to disappear. It interfered with his routine and was therefore offensive. Coached by George, Joe had followed him to say that his money had been returned by a foreigner who had borrowed it without mentioning it. What foreigner? He had left on the morning boat. The case against Costa had evaporated. Did the captain’s threats still hold good? The fact that Peter was pulling strings in Athens was reassuring. Perhaps he would blunt the captain’s wrath. He didn’t care, no matter how it turned out. Alone, without the support of place or person.

He wasn’t sorry to find the captain absent. He displayed Jeff’s statement and countersigned the signature and turned it in. He left word for the captain that he and Jeff were at his disposal to answer any questions and made his getaway.

Once home, he was so intent on finding Sarah that he was halfway across the courtyard before he noticed the rent in the wall. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared. He blinked and stared again. Why hadn’t anybody said anything about this? What in the world had happened? If he weren’t feeling quite sober now, he would suspect his eyes of inventing it.

It started up near the roof and continued down below the bedroom floor, above and alongside and under one of the bedroom windows, so that the windowframe was standing almost free and furniture was visible within. After stupefaction, his first reaction was outrage. Who was responsible? How could it have happened? He remembered vaguely some talk about a structural weakness when they had bought the house. Something about earthquakes and the builder airily pointing out that there hadn’t been an earthquake of consequence in—he couldn’t remember how many years.

The earthquake. It had been like this since night before last and nobody had told him. Briefly and unreasonably, he felt it as an additional grievance against Sarah. All of his pride in the house gathered in a knot of protest. The house was his single creation about which there could be no question. It was, in a way that had nothing to do with architecture or esthetics, perfect. It had been there to assure the beholder that there was something unique and beneficent about life here. It had even shut Mike Cochran up. Their ruined lives? The symbolism was so neat as to make it absurd. If the house was ruined, their lives must be flourishing. Total ruin was visited on a man only to illustrate divine retribution. Was he Job?

He noticed that some effort had been made to gather the rubble of the wall into neat piles, but one whole bank of their finest saffron geraniums had been destroyed. He laughed softly, a strange sound that caught in his throat with dismay. What could he do but laugh? And rebuild it, he thought with instant decision. He wasn’t as impervious to the police chief’s threats as he had thought. He wouldn’t go until the house was repaired. He would pull strings, go to the press, fight back. This was where he lived. He was going to stay. He was pleased to find that there was so much left in him.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and realized that Sarah had appeared in the door. He turned slowly and looked at her. He felt so at odds with her, so deeply estranged that for a moment he wondered why he had thought he had something important to say to her.

“Is Jeff here?” he asked without a word of gesture of greeting.

“He came a little while ago. I was so relieved to see him that I was careful not to fuss over him. He just put down his bag and left.”

As he had asked him to do, but George was sorry he wasn’t here. He wanted to talk to him about the wall. Wanting him to be here was like thinking of a beloved friend. Curiously, his liking men brought him closer, quickened George’s protective feelings toward him, broadened his responses to him. Without having given it much thought, he found that his acceptance of it had already grown more positive; he would like to help him prove to the world that it wasn’t a misfortune.

Sarah emerged from the house and approached him cautiously. “You hadn’t heard about that?” she asked, facing the wall. “It’s one of the major casualties of the earthquake.”

He admired her for making no reference to his absence. “Is there any other damage?”

“Just what you see. It’s hard to say how far it goes. We’ll have to get Pano here and see about fixing it. Sid told me you have the money back. I don’t care if it takes all of it. It has to be fixed.”

George looked at her with a spark of interest. “I’m glad we agree about that.” This much agreement reestablished some semblance of normal contact between them. He supposed they could go on from here and pretend that the last three days hadn’t existed. They could, but he was determined not to do so.

Sarah turned and took a few aimless steps toward the grouping of outdoor furniture. “How odd of Jeff to have wanted to lend it to Dimitri. I mean, Dimitri is—do you think there’s anything—well, anything unhealthy about their friendship?”

It was just what he had been waiting for. He had plenty to say to her. “I think they’ve been to bed together, if that’s what you mean,” he said bluntly. “That sounds healthy enough to me. Some of our best friends prefer their own sex. It’s not surprising if Jeff does too. I want you to get that through your head right from the start.”

Sarah turned back to him with an anguished look. “But darling, you can’t just accept it and condemn him for life. He’s extricated himself from Mike, but I knew he would if there was anything of that sort involved in it. He needs help. There must be something we can do. Couldn’t you arrange for him to have a girl? Men sometimes do that for their sons.”