The Prince's Boy (2 page)

‘Are you seeking employment?’

‘No.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-one,’ I lied.

‘Do you propose to be my youngest-ever client?’

‘I assume so.’

‘What do you call yourself?’

‘Jean-Pierre.’

‘Preposterous. Your French is good enough but it is not natural French. You hail from somewhere else in Europe. Permit me to make a guess. Hungary? Poland? Not, heaven forfend, Romania?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you of noble blood, my black-eyed boy?’

‘I have never been told so. My father is rich, however. He is a successful, a highly successful, lawyer. He has been employed by our king and queen.’

‘Why have you come here? What are you doing here?’

I was silent. I could not give expression to my inexpressible desire.

‘My expertise in all matters carnal informs me that a sensitive creature is invariably attracted to a brute. I have a brute on the premises, as it happens, and he is not engaged with a gentleman at this moment.’ He stared at me. ‘Is it a beast you require?’

I stared back. ‘Yes,’ I finally managed to reply. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘That will be a hundred francs, Monsieur. Your real name, if you care to disclose it, will be safe with me.’

Safe? ‘I am Silviu Golescu,’ I told him.

‘You will be enjoying the services of Honoré. He is a beast beyond compare. Allow me to lead you to him.’

I followed M. Albert up a flight of stairs. There was a corridor with three cubicles – nothing grander – on either side. In the second on the left sat Honoré, waiting for work. He was smoking a Turkish cigarette.

‘Honoré, my dear,’ said Albert. ‘This is Jean-Pierre. Treat him gently or brutally, according to his wishes. I entrust the rich young gentleman to you.’

Honoré grunted thanks to his employer and commanded me to sit beside him on the bed. Albert closed the door discreetly.

‘You are young,’ Honoré remarked. ‘Are you a virgin, Jean-Pierre?’

I said nothing.

‘That means yes.’

‘Yes.’

He took my hand and stroked it. I froze in terror.

‘You are very nervous, Jean-Pierre. You are very, very nervous.’

The more he spoke to his terrified customer, the more I became convinced that he wasn’t French.

‘Yes, Honoré. You must forgive me but I
am
frightened.’

‘There is no reason to be. Your eyes are as dark as mine.’

‘Are they?’

‘Yes. I will show you my body. I will remove my clothes for my frightened Jean-Pierre.’

Within seconds, he was naked. I marvelled at his hairy beauty. I gasped and gawped and was transfixed.

‘Now show me yours.’

‘I am too skinny, Honoré. I am ashamed to show myself.’

‘Then let me undress you.’

He did so, gently and swiftly. He held me to him and kissed my forehead. He squeezed me until I was breathless.

‘You are a child,’ he whispered, releasing me. ‘A naughty, naughty child. Does your mother know what you are doing?’

‘My mother’s dead.’

‘Did you love her?’

‘Yes, yes. I still love her. I will always worship her.’

‘That is good to hear, Jean-Pierre. That is very good to hear.’

I knew now, by listening to him, that he was a pretend Honoré, just as I was a pretend Jean-Pierre. We were impostors.

He embraced me again and ran his fingers along my spine. His hand finally rested where I wanted it to rest.

We kissed for the first of many times that summer. I was startled by what I was doing with such eagerness, such warmth, such abandon. I should have been kissing a girl of my own age, in a drawing-room, perhaps, or by a tennis court, but not in a cubicle in a male brothel under the guise of a bath house. What in God’s holy name was happening to me? And why was I allowing it to happen?

‘It is nice to have a sweet young man beside me instead of an old lecher.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes, yes. Let me explore my pale little peach.’

He explored me. That is all I am compelled to say as I set down my Parisian adventures in the spring of 1967, in the days or weeks or months that are left to me. He explored Jean-Pierre. That is all, and that is everything I care to remember for the present.

Spovedanie
– that is the word we Orthodox Romanians use for ‘confession’. The morning after my meeting with the ‘beast beyond compare’, I found a heavily incensed church in a side street near the Bastille where I sought out a priest who would be willing to listen to and, perhaps, comfort me. He was bearded, of course, as all Orthodox priests are, and before he listened to me he remarked on my youth and the impossibility of my having anything serious to confess.

What did I crave his, and the Lord’s, forgiveness for? I made no mention of the pretend Honoré and the place where we met. I muttered something about being in the possession of overpowering lust. I was in thrall to it, I told him. I was enslaved to it. I wanted to be released from its tenacious grip.

I recall that he was silent for some minutes after I had finished speaking. His reply, when it came, was measured.

‘You are young. The feelings you have described to me are normal, alas, for a man of your age. You must attempt to resist them. Resisting the irresistible will be a great challenge for you. I entreat you to face that challenge.’

I assured him I would. I would suppress the feelings until I met the woman I would marry and love and cherish. Would, would, would – how easily I employed the word; how cavalierly.

I told the truth to my mother that evening before I went to sleep. I told her everything about Jean-Pierre’s meeting with Honoré. I told her, in a whisper, how he had explored me and how strangely wonderful that exploration was.

In bed, between the starched and lavender-scented sheets, I began to weep. God, in His infinite wisdom, knows why I did, for I had no knowledge myself. I surrendered to the insistent tears. I gave in to a grief it was impossible to comprehend.

I was awoken by birdsong at dawn. I said my morning prayers and heard myself apologizing to my irreplaceable mother for my brazenness. As I washed and dressed, I vowed that Honoré, whoever he was, was out of my life now. Let him continue his sordid activities without me. Let him be the plaything of rich, elderly lechers. Let him be out of my sight and out of my thoughts. Let him be gone.

I went to my writing table and stared about me, waiting for inspiration, my pen in my eager hand, until Mlle Simone knocked on the door and startled me out of my reverie.

‘There is a letter for you, M. Dinu.’

It was from my cousin Eduard. He had booked tickets for
Les
Folies Bergères
. The phenomenal Josephine Baker, who was the toast of Paris, was on the bill that very evening. I was to dress smartly and be ready on the dot of eight. He promised to do his cousinly duty and take me to dinner after the show.

The phenomenal Miss Baker was a Negro, as were all the musicians who accompanied her. She was the star in a piece called The Plantation. She and her troupe were all happy slaves, for I have never seen, before or since, so many pure white smiles on any stage. Josephine rolled her eyes, wriggled her bottom and tap-danced whenever the mood suited her. She wore the tiniest of shorts, displaying long and agile legs. I enjoyed the performance, even as I was mystified by it.

‘Why is she considered phenomenal?’ I asked my cousin when we were seated at a banquette in Café Larivière.

‘She is such a free spirit,’ he answered. ‘She has made her home here because the enlightened Parisians are indifferent to a person’s colour. You cannot imagine her singing and dancing in Bucharest, can you?’

No, I couldn’t, I replied.

‘What has the young genius been writing?’

‘Who is that?’

‘You, of course. How many pages have you filled?’

‘A few. Just a few. Only a few.’

‘Cezar is expecting nothing less than a masterpiece, Dinu. You must try not to disappoint him.’

‘I shan’t,’ I said, and added ‘I hope.’

‘My dear, dear cousin, he is expecting nothing of the kind. He simply wants you to see the world and enjoy life while you can. I recommend the
boeuf bourguignon
.’

Towards the end of the meal – after oysters and champagne, and the beef, and an entrancing blood-orange sorbet – I was tempted to tell Eduard about my encounter with the swarthy Honoré. I knew it would be insane to mention him even, but at that moment there was a madness in me that needed to find expression, in however indirect or opaque a form.

‘You are your mother’s boy, aren’t you, Dinu?’

‘I love my father, too,’ I assured him, without much conviction.

‘There is another mother’s boy who is a great writer, I am reliably informed. His name is Marcel Proust.’

‘I have been meaning to read him.’

‘I think you should. Perhaps it might encourage you to write about Elena. I hear that Proust’s mother was sparing with her affection, unlike the woman who stroked and petted and worshipped her one and only Dinu. She is foremost in your thoughts, as we both know, and I don’t believe you will be a novelist or poet, or whatever it is you want to be, until you have discovered a way of coping with her loss. That is my considered, cousinly advice.’

This story that is the strangest of my life really began that evening in Café Larivière. My adventure with Honoré was a prelude, an overture, to the drama that would soon take place. I heeded my cousin and went out the following morning and bought the first two volumes of Proust’s labyrinthine novel. Reading of the narrator lying alert in his bed, unable to sleep until his mother blessed him with her soothing presence, I accounted myself fortunate in being the son of Elena. Marcel – I assumed it was Marcel – had no such good fortune. He had to wait for his conciliatory goodnight kiss, whereas I received as many kisses as Mam
ã
felt like bestowing upon me, and sometimes there were many. My grief in 1927 was that of a young man who had known maternal love; his unhappiness, I began to understand, was made more poignant because of the terrifying element of doubt. He had wanted her to demonstrate her abiding affection, not to say devotion, for him, but her demonstrations were brief and inadequate. There were guests to entertain downstairs and it was important that she joined them. A single quick kiss, little more than a peck, would have to be sufficient. It was never, ever enough for him. It would constitute a lasting absence in his life.

I purchased three more volumes. I read them in my ivory tower, in cafés, in parks. I had discovered a complicated – oh, how complicated – soul mate. I wrote to my father that Proust was the writer, above all other writers, I wished to emulate. He replied on a postcard that he hoped I was well and happy and enjoying the unique pleasures of Paris.

There was one unique pleasure I wished to enjoy once more, despite my vow not to see or think of him again. The exploratory talents of the man I knew could not be called Honoré were beckoning me back to the house on rue d’Arcade. On two occasions I walked to the corner of the street and found myself incapable of venturing further. I heard the priest chiding me; I fancied I caught my mother sighing; I listened to what I thought might be my conscience warning me of the dangers ahead. The voices caused me to retreat, to retrace my steps to rue des Trois-Frères and the comfort and privacy of my attic and yet more chapters of Marcel Proust.

‘Welcome to my Temple of Immodesty,’ said M. Albert. ‘I was certain you would make a return visit. I know that Honoré, my irreplaceable Honoré, will be pleased to see you.’ He flashed his faded teeth in a smile as he added: ‘It is Honoré you want, is it not?’

‘It is.’

‘I shall wake him presently. If he has a failing, it is that he sometimes indulges in wine and other alcoholic beverages to excess. He arrived for work this morning in a most dishevelled and unhappy state. I was so perturbed by him that I nearly disposed of his services. I was on the point of slamming the door in his face when I instantly thought of you, my dear young rich Romanian, and the disappointment you would feel if he wasn’t here on the premises to satisfy your every delightful and wayward desire. Your appearance today is, I declare, something akin to a miracle.’

‘How long must I wait?’

‘Be patient. Try and cool your ardour. Make yourself comfortable on Mme Proust’s chaise longue while I conduct an investigation into Honoré’s physical and mental condition. I shall tell him you have arrived and are anxious – I think ‘‘anxious’’ is the right word – to see him.’

He had darted out of sight before I could ask him if the chaise longue on which I was seated had really belonged to a Mme Proust. It was covered in a light green material that had seen better days a forbiddingly long time ago. Was ‘Proust’ a fairly common name in France, I wondered.

‘He is washing and shaving and preparing himself for his sweet Jean-Pierre, alias Silviu Golescu. You are Silviu Golescu, are you not?’