In the Country of the Great King Read online

  Only the poetry came. Luke Sevensons had encouraged her to write, and she, at long last, had fallen upon her work like a lover. She wrote endlessly about her sadness, for no one, she discovered, wanted to listen to her talk for very long. The poems, they read. Critical success, like critical mass, had been reached and her popularity exploded. Privately she felt her work was overworked. She could not write as simply, as directly, as Tennyson:

  My life is dreary,

  He cometh not, she said,

  She said, I am a weary, a weary,

  I would that I were dead.

  She was but an elaboration on those four lines. Even after Lester arrived as a kind of consolation prize.

  Lester would kill me, she thought, if he knew I was here, holding Nelson Little’s hand, feeling only damp, unresponsive flesh. No. Lester wouldn’t kill me. Arista would kill me. She dropped the hand.

  “Do you remember the first time we made love, Nelson? It was in Quentin’s other apartment.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Only ten years.”

  “I don’t like to think about it,” Nelson said. “I don’t like to think at all.”

  “But you’re a genius,” protested Katelyn, appalled.

  “Not anymore. I probably never was. The book I wrote was second-rate.”

  “You were wrestling with a difficult subject,” she argued, defending him against himself. “Your turns of thought were sublime.” In truth, his damnable book, a convoluted criticism of Edgar Allan Poe, had defeated her. “You were brilliant.” She said this on faith.

  “Brains aren’t everything.”

  “I idolized you, Nelson. Not without reason.”

  He sighed.

  “You still teach, don’t you?”

  “I still teach.”

  “There. You see. You must think in order to teach.”

  “But I don’t have to like it.”

  Surely this must be a pose, she thought. Nelson, who once thought to distinguish himself, now sought to extinguish himself. He was punishing her, trying to demonstrate the extent of his own devastation. Or else he was trying to drive her away again. It was Katelyn who had broken the smooth, unbelievable years of their silence. It had taken all of her nerve.

  “What do you like then?”

  “Allan, my new baby. But that may not last either. Affections change. Who can tell?”

  Now she knew she was being punished.

  They were sitting together in unknown space. Katelyn’s friend Quentin was away on vacation for two weeks, and he had asked her to come by to water the plants during his absence. Quentin had moved into this new apartment only a week before he left it. The empty unfamiliarity had driven him away. Now it provided Katelyn and Nelson with private, neutral ground on which to meet. Nelson, in response to Katelyn’s telephone call, had agreed to come without recognizable reluctance or enthusiasm. At five in the morning. He said it was his only free time. Not really free, for he would be sacrificing his morning jog, but his absence at that hour would not raise his wife’s suspicions. Katelyn had, of course, agreed.

  She had been shocked at the sight of him as, out of breath from the five flights of stairs, he had entered the apartment looking older and shorter and smaller and fatter. He was grayer, too, not just his hair, but his whole being, as if he had been covered with a fine layer of dust or ashes. His face, once handsome with happiness, was expressionless and dull. They had been talking, mostly not talking, for the hour between dawn and early morning, both of them so immobilized by the encounter that they had failed to turn on a lamp, and now sat side by side on Quentin’s low-slung leather couch in the dim, watery light, wishing for a return to the cover of darkness.

  They had been tentative when they first made love ten years ago, she mused. Ferocious, when they last had sex five years ago. She had made love to no one else during their decade. He had made two babies with his wife.

  The advent of Nelson’s first son, Edgar, had caused the breach between them. Now there was another son. News to Katelyn. She had, of course, known that Nelson would hurt her. Nelson always hurt her. She had thought she could handle the pain; that she was ready, that he couldn’t hurt her that much anymore. But, as usual, he had penetrated her defenses, and the announcement of little Allan’s existence punched her in the belly of her feelings with the force of a cannonball.

  She drew breath and fired back. “I’m getting married.”

  “Oh, really?” He was a picture of indifference. “Why?”

  She had been prepared for who, not why. “Love, I suppose.”

  “Ah. Yes. Love. One does suppose.”

  “And Lester wants to be married before we . . . well . . . before we have sex.”

  “How very modern,” Nelson said, and made a hateful sound somewhere between a snort and a guffaw.

  Unbeknownst to Katelyn the phantasm inside her psyche that called itself Nelson Little had begun to die.

  There was a sudden loud knock on the door, startling them both. Then the harsh sound of the doorbell.

  “Who could that be?”

  “Quentin, let me in. It’s Buff,” came the angry answer through the door.

  “Is it locked?” asked Nelson.

  “Of course it’s locked. But I’ll have to let him in. It’s Buff.”

  “Who’s Buff?”

  “Quentin’s lover. He’s been missing for months. Quentin finally gave up and moved out of their old place in despair.”

  “I didn’t come here to get involved in a gay soap opera.”

  “Neither did I, Nelson.”

  Katelyn got up awkwardly, bumping into Nelson’s outstretched legs. In an unwelcome flash of feeling she remembered their legs entwined under warm, heavy blankets in the snowy dawn of a long-ago winter. He had been so alive then. She flicked on the track lighting. One badly positioned bulb sent a savage shaft of light directly onto Nelson’s face. He flinched, then glared.

  “Don’t let him in. He might recognize me.”

  “No, he won’t. He’s blind.”

  She pulled open the front door and Buff lurched into the room, threw his arms around Katelyn, stumbled backward in surprised horror, and almost fell over a large German shepherd who was struggling forward and backward through the doorway, as confused as he.

  “Who are you?”

  “Buff, it’s okay. It’s me, Katelyn.”

  “Katelyn! How good. But where’s Quentin? He’s not sick, is he?”

  “No. He’s in Italy.”

  “Oh, hell! The minute I turn my back he flies off to screw beautiful Mediterranean boys.” He moved awkwardly past her into the apartment. “Oh, how am I to cope? Everything is new here. I don’t know where anything is.” And he slumped abruptly down onto the floor near Nelson’s feet and began to weep. The dog lodged his nose in Nelson’s lap.

  “Get away!” cried Nelson, pushing himself away down the couch. He was afraid of large animals.

  “Who’s that?” wailed Buff.

  “The dog won’t hurt you, luv,” Katelyn assured Nelson. “He’s a Seeing Eye.”

  “Who is here?” insisted Buff.

  “A friend of mine.”

  “It’s about time, Katelyn. Your nunlike habits haven’t been at all healthy. Quentin and I have been worried sick about you.”

  “Buff!”

  “Sorry.” He began to wipe his race on his sleeves.

  “And where have you been all these months? Talk about worry.”

  “Ohio.” He was crawling toward Nelson, who was struggling to extricate himself from the couch and the dog.

  “I have to go now, Katelyn,” declared Nelson. “I’ll be late for my first class, as it is. I’ll leave the two of you to catch up on old times.”

  “Please, don’t go,” pleaded Katelyn. She felt that nothing
had been accomplished by the meeting.

  “Oh, dear, I’ve upset everyone as usual,” cried Buff. “Come to me, Greta.” And he clutched at the dog, catching up one of Nelson’s legs, as well as the dog, into his arms. Nelson shook himself free, none too gently, and made for the door.

  “Another time, Katelyn.”

  She slammed the door shut and barred the way with her body. “No!”

  “Be sane, Katelyn!”

  “No! I’m tired of being sane. I’ve been sane and sensible for five years. I’ve never troubled you, never asked for your help, never blamed, never intruded.”

  “This is not the time for a confrontation.” He shot a meaningful glance in the direction of the blind man and the dog.

  But Katelyn felt a tightly cinched belt inside her psyche come suddenly unbuckled. She was undone. Her voice became low and full of menace. “I can’t believe you took what we had and made babies in your wife with it.”

  “Not now!”

  “Then and now.”

  Nelson, furious, seemed to be deciding whether or not to shove Katelyn aside. He thought better of it and stepped back, his face darkening with his anger. “And just what is it that you imagine we had?” Buff and Greta Garbo remained huddled together on the floor, all ears and eyes.

  “Love. More than love. Passion. All that people search for and almost never find. We had it. We had it all, and you jerked it all away.”

  “Love isn’t everything.”

  “It should be!” she protested. “Look what we have become without it, without each other.”

  “And just what do you imagine we’ve become?”

  “Old. Old and scarred and scared and sad.”

  “Everyone gets old. I’m not scarred, and I’m not scared or sad. My life is quiet and normal now, and I’m happy.”

  “You’re not happy.”

  “But I am, Katelyn. You don’t want to see my happiness. It interferes with all your puffed-up pretensions, all your romantic notions of me as an unsung genius, of yourself as my savior. Look closer, Katelyn, and you will see a contented man, a family man, a man who grows tomatoes in his window boxes, a homebody, a nobody whose wife has tolerated him—just as he is—for twenty-five years. It’s time to let your idealizations go. It’s time to let your memories fade. Its time to go save someone else.”

  “You are gloating . . . on your failure . . . on mine . . . on our failure . . . you wanted us to fail . . . you enjoy watching me writhe, watching you fail.”

  “You’re talking like you’ve gone crazy.”

  “You’re the one who is pridefully growing fucking tomatoes! Is that sane?”

  “It’s just life, Katelyn.” The anger had left his features, and he looked, suddenly, tired. He looked, and she could see it now, as if he didn’t care whether he grew tomatoes or children or malignant tumors.

  “You destroyed my life!”

  He took a deep breath, and like a teacher whose patience is tried, but intact, he informed her: “You did that all by yourself. You decided to leave your husband all on your own. You didn’t even ask my permission.”

  “Why, you pompous ass! He was my husband. I was the one who had to live with him. Victor deserved to be left.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Divorce was my decision to make.”

  “Then having made your bed alone, you can lie in it alone.”

  “I loved you. I still love you.”

  “Let it go.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You must.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And just what kind of marriage are you proposing to have, my dear Katelyn, for surely you have done all the proposing, to your new, dear . . . what is his name? . . . Lester, if you’re still whistling our old tune?”

  “Lester understands.”

  “Well, good for Lester. Does he know you arranged to meet me today?”

  “No.”

  He smirked, the smirk changing abruptly to a grimace. “Ouch! Hell! Get him off me.” Terror had taken hold of his features as Greta Garbo had taken hold of his ankle.

  “Greta, no!” Katelyn bent down and tried to loosen the dog’s jaws. “Let go.” The dog released Nelson reluctantly, and backed off sulkily. Nelson took advantage of his sudden freedom to lunge for the door. He pulled it open and she could hear his footsteps, ever faster, as he made his descent. Katelyn stayed on the floor with Greta and Buff.

  “What kind of a man is that, Katelyn?” asked Buff. Seeing Eye dogs don’t bite.”

  “That was Nelson.”

  “Ah. The legendary Nelson. How can you love him?”

  “You don’t get to choose who you love.”

  “He doesn’t know how lucky he is. Another minute and I would have bitten him myself.” He patted the dog. “Now, who’s Lester?”

  “You’ll like him. I’m going to marry him.”

  “So I heard. But who is he? Someone you met while I was away? Are you crying?”

  “Yes. There. I’m stopping. Maybe I’ll write to Nelson.”

  “A poison-pen letter?”

  “I need to make a statement.”

  “How about a letter bomb?”

  “Buff, be serious.”

  “Face it, Katelyn, Nelson is a germ.”

  “Lester is an angel.”

  “That doesn’t tell me a whole helluva lot.”

  “I met him at Luke Sevensons’s last gathering in New York, two months ago.”

  “Funny. Luke didn’t mention him to me.”

  “You’ve seen Luke?”

  “I’ve been with Luke, on his farm in Ohio.”

  “All these months?”

  “Yes. Except when he was off somewhere working. I needed Luke, and he just opened his door to me. ‘Mi casa es su casa,’ he said. I had to face something, Katelyn. Something very big and at first very terrible. I have AIDS.”

  “God, no, Buff.” She began to cry again.

  “It’s all right. I’m all right.” He found her hand and held it. “I know I caved in a bit when I first arrived here and realized that Quentin wasn’t home. I was so eager to see him and to know that he’s . . . healthy. It was the sudden disappointment. But, really, I’m all right. For now.”

  And the sureness of his voice, the strength of his grip told her that he was. Was she? she wondered. The thought of losing Buff, though not in the same league with losing Nelson, was appalling. She had worried during the months of Buff’s absence, but had harbored the consoling notion that he had eloped with someone, or gone away for reasons best known to himself, and that he would return to them all someday. As he had done. She observed him closely now, looking for signs of his illness. He looked a little thinner, and, as if it were possible, a little kinder.

  All those months with Luke Sevensons! It was an enormous thought. The most time she had ever spent with Luke was a weekend, at a two-day gathering. There had been several such weekends in the past few years. Each had held a blessing. The last gathering had held Lester. Katelyn hadn’t expected to meet anyone to love in the groups that collected around Luke’s ankles; she hadn’t expected to meet anyone to love ever again anywhere, and the groups drew a pretty borderline bunch. She and Arista had gone to Luke to work on their work—to move a little further, with his guidance, along their respective paths of poetry and prose. When Luke spoke to Katelyn, she answered in new voices.

  The last time Luke came to New York City he had worked in the paint-bedazzled loft that served as the home and studio of a friend of his, the artist Jamie Callahan. Callahan was away for the weekend, disappointing Arista, who had hoped to meet him.

  Katelyn and Arista had entered the studio together. Arista had seen Lester first and had nudged Katelyn. He was young and handsome. Lester had seen Katelyn first. He had looked directly into her ey
es, then bowed his head as if in homage. With his head still lowered, he had extended his right hand to Katelyn and she had moved hypnotically to take hold of it. No words were spoken or needed. Katelyn and Lester had then looked toward Luke and it felt, in those first silent moments, as if Luke had joined them—though Luke was unaware of his participation in the posting of the banns, for Luke had seen Arista first and had felt a flush of warmth suffusing his chest. With his eyes he had returned the warmth to Arista, then to Katelyn and Lester, and then to all the others.

  That gathering had been special, one that had nurtured Luke with its heat and light and movement. The present group was arranged before him in a semicircle on floor cushions in among the potted plants of his airy porch at the back of the farmhouse. The wide plank floorboards had, the night before, been scrubbed clean by Methuselah. The screens, recently reinstalled after the hard winter, admitted the breezes and bird song but kept all the tiny flying things outside, where they collected to watch the work. This was a small gathering, mostly townspeople that Luke had known for years.

  There was one new presence. Seth. An old soul in a youthful body by the look of him. Seth. A musician—young enough in this life and gifted enough from the past to soar. Luke could sense the boy’s music nearby, soft and sad and full of grace. At the beginning of the meeting Luke, as was his way, had asked each person in turn what it was they desired from the day’s work. Seth had asked for the courage to run away from home. But he was only a boy, thought Luke! A thin, worried-looking boy with pale, Midwestern features, armed with a flute. Where would he go? Luke felt like a worried grandfather for a moment as he pondered the youngster. He remembered a Presbyterian minister he had met not long ago on a train to New York City. That man, with more wisdom than one would expect for one of his calling, had told Luke what he knew about young people: “What they think they want they never want. What they want is not ever what they think.”