Eclogues, p.19
Eclogues, page 19
LVIII
Lie back, Michel said, his left hand straying to his own categorical scrotum, we’re going to make it feel like a million francs in the bank. If Tullio could see us now! He does blush, doesn’t he, and edge the subject around to some bizarrerie sexuelle or another, bless him.
It’s his Renaissance mind. Italian, you mean. I don’t know whether he comes to the house so much to see Maman as Victor running around with nothing on. Why? Victor said. Never mind. Merde. You think I’m too little to know anything at all. That’s super, Miche, a real buzz.
There’s a cabin boy on the Jean Parmentier, pretty as a peach, who has jacked himself cross-eyed and on one occasion, when the crew laid bets on how many times he could come, raised a blister on his dick. It’s that smarmy Antoine with his talk about Gide who should see us.
He’d drool himself dry. Sensible he says everybody should be. I’m sure he never farts. A jog, an easy jaunt, throttle. Victor tucked his nether lip under his buckhare’s incisors, rimpled his nose, and pummeled the ground with his fists. Michel ungrasped and wet his thumb.
Engaging frenum and pollex in a sweet slide, he took up his grip. Victor bared in surprise the whole blue discs of his eyes, skeeted high, throbbed, skeeted, throbbed, skeeted. Something like, Michel said with approval. Goodness gracious! Lots and lots, some in my eye.
LVIX
It’s still not real sperm, I said inpoliticly. Sticky, but clear as water, with no population. But Victor, Michel said, is a real boy. In about half an hour, no less, Michel said, you will see a liter of the real article in a spectacular geyser, with or without cooperation.
I’m your man, I said. I want to! Victor crowed. Let me, please. I’ve never even done it for Jolivet. Ring some rocks instead, little comrade, so’s we can have a fire by nightfall, and gather some wood. You can take over in good time. I’ve got to see you start, Victor said.
I uncowled Michels’ pert stand, twenty centimeters of veined rib’s curve and stout underridge, its drupelobed slant damson head welled with beading sap. Slick all that mucilage about for slide. Michel grunted with pleasure, and squeezed my cock to promise favors returned.
Since age ten? I remembered. Well before that. My mother, qui exerce, as she once told the old nanny goat next door, la profession de prostituée, used to fiddle with it to keep me quiet, probably from my first howl onwards, until I found it for myself and took over.
I must have toddled about with my hand in my diapers and a silly grin on my face for years and years. Papa thought it disgusting, I can barely remember. There was a nice sailor, friend of Maman’s, who showed me, at nine or ten, what diligence and single-mindedness can do.
LX
Out one window the uncombed crown of a slatted and slit-leaved palm, out the other a perspective of roofs and houses yellow, pink, and grey. Michel’s Peugeot tenspeed hung from a ceiling hook by its handlebars, its chrome spokes and pedals bright against a map of France on the wall.
And against the prancing tarpan of Lascaux and a tall poster of a girl as fresh and healthy as a horse, naked on a pebble beach. I’d pulled on my jersey when he snapped a towel and popped me on the butt. I tackled him around the waist and we whomped the bed in our fall.
He hasped me under the ribs in an armlock. A scramble of grunts and elbow digs, heel jabs, and body arching, and we had each other in a knot of arms and legs that slowly came apart, exploded, and sprung. We circled poised on our toes, open-mouthed, feinting with forearms.
Quick as fish we closed, grappled, tripped, and went down with a thump. A knee nudged into my groin and a shoulder into my thropple stilled me and I cried quarter. Pouf! Con! You win. Michel gravely inspected his balls, off guard trice enough for me to flick the nib of his cock.
Pig! Camel! Shitabed! Balkan! I broke his throttle with a heave, hooking a heel, pounced howling, and pinned him. D’accord? D’accord. What are you two doing up there? his mother called from below. We’re getting in shape for the Revolution, Michel shouted, when it comes.
LXI
Manfredo Tafuri’s Progetto e Utopia open on a Sud-Ouest among cups of chocolate on our table at the Régent, Papa, Tullio, and I were talking about the Bordeaux Board of Renovation, the lost bronze horses of the Quinconces, football, and Corbusier’s sugar cubes at Pessac.
There gathered on the traffic island opposite us a group of plainly dressed folk among whom Tullio noticed even as they were crossing from the Intendance Marc Aurel and Trombone wheeling him. Who in the world, he said, are those people our young friend is with, Jolivet?
The Culte Baptiste, I answered. They arranged themselves, the Culte Baptiste, along the traffic island, facing the Régent, and at a signal on a pitchpipe from their pastor, began to sing, their voices carrying fitfully across the line of passing cars and gabble of the tables.
I waved to Marc Aurel, who waved back gaily with both arms. He is a Baptiste, this poor boy? Papa asked. He is not Catholic? O yes, I enjoyed saying, both. Goes to mass every morning, and to the Baptistes on Sundays and Wednesdays. They’re good to him with clothes and food.
They are cautioning us, Papa asked, against this fleshpot, the Régent? O yes, I said, holding up my cup to show Marc Aurel that it was chocolate we were drinking. He nodded in understanding. Monsieur Trombone raised his hat respectfully. Uncle Jacques would be scandalized.
LXII
Up at six to begin our regimen for the summer of running daily in the Parc Bordelais, I trotted in the bright dawn past St.-Seurin to the rue Ormière and whistled under the window, once, twice. Michel in a white gilet only, vented at the hips, let me in, a finger to his lips.
We tiptoed up to his mansarde. I imitated his sprack step, toes in, back straight, knees jaunty. By the crumpled sheets of his severe cot, shelf of soccer balls, hockey sticks, records, rocks, Michel stretched and yawned, kneading his prosperous balls, waggling his big noddle.
I stink like a billy, he laughed, sniffing his armpits and fingers. The thing about putting yourself to sleep every night with your hand is that you smell like lobster and garlic in the morning. Do you stay raunchy all the time, Miche? Since age ten, never a moment’s peace.
Through the park we ran in little white pants and sneakers, hair scrumpled, past deer and swans, chittering squirrels and long-haired shambling sheep, along paths dark with shade, bright walks lined with roses and laurel. At 7:30 we jogged to the rue Roquelaure, sweetly unwinded.
A gasped greeting to Maman and Papa having coffee on the terrace, up to my room to scoop Victor out of bed squawking, and stripped to shower. You didn’t take me! We will when you can run for an hour. I can now. Your legs aren’t long enough. Fuck, said Victor. We want our butt beat.
LXIII
Joli? Yes, love? Victor whispered through cupped hands that we couldn’t go see Uncle Jacques with Michel here. I whispered back, rolling his pudgy scrotum with the flat of my hand, that I didn’t give a damn. Now who wants his butt beat? he said aloud. A brotherly exchange of whacks.
I asked Maman from the window if we could come down and have breakfast with them in our underpants. No. Come on down, Papa called up. Make your beds, straighten your room, Maman said, and I’ll bring your coffee up there. Les durs! Victor set to, smoothing sheets.
Michel plumped bolsters, I hung up towels, hid socks, chucked magazines and books onto shelves. Maman wanted a word with me in private when she came with rolls, butter, jam, and coffee. I went into my act about not having a cat or dog because Uncle Jacques was terrified of them.
I have to lie about everything to him or he’ll throw a fit. And now I have to sneak out to him when I have Michel to breakfast. Don’t you want me to run and be healthy? Jolivet sweet, she said, I haven’t said any of that. Jacques doesn’t deserve having you visit every morning.
What I meant, she said, is that if you go, don’t let Michel know. I couldn’t bear it. We’re having breakfast, Victor sang, like in the Dordogne, naked and piggy. I’m off to Suzanne’s, Maman said. One crumb on that rug! Who, Michel asked, is Uncle Jacques? Victor drank the cream.
LXIV
I sit here, Uncle Jacques said, the better part of the night sometimes, thinking. There was the war, the Germans, the Jews, the communists, and who’s to say who was right? I personally saw nothing wrong with the Germans. They are an orderly self-respecting people.
They took no backtalk from Jews and communists. Every war the government in Paris has to come here to Bordeaux. Do you know why? I can tell you why. Because the Bordelais are somebody. Down through history. Ask your teachers if I’m not right. To Bordeaux they come.
Our old families are of the best stock in France. People look up to us. We are quality. Your mother has never understood that. She married well enough. I’m not going to knock your father to your face. Honor thy father and thy mother, it says in Scripture, that thy days be long.
The Bonnats are somebody, Toulouse people, it’s true, but they’ve been in Bordeaux for several generations now. They are not, however, Sassards. Never forget that. I can see Sassard in your face. Victor, now, looks more like a Bonnat. But damned if you act like a Sassard.
I’m told, don’t deny it, you have a sweetheart, young as you are, that Delahoussaye girl. Who are the Delahoussayes? School teachers! What does education do for anybody except make them think they’re somebody when everybody knows good and well that they’re nobody?
LXV
That wop Tullio who’s always coming here, I wouldn’t be surprised that he thinks he’s better than I am. What the world is coming to: that’s what I turn over in my mind here by my lamp the better part of the night. That Michel, your buddy, what’s he trying to get out of you?
His father left him and his mother to starve for all he cared. She works, I think you said. I imagine she would have to, or take to the streets. Both, for all I know. He has a bicycle like yours. Where, I’d like to know, did he get the money for that? If, of course, it’s bought.
He presumes to be your equal. He would. That’s the way the world is now. That’s what I brood about, worry about, can’t understand. The world is filling up with trash. People have no respect for anything anymore, none for family, for name, for manners, or for decency.
Postel had gone to an early sale, in search of bargains, and Uncle Jacques was still unshaved. He looked terrible, like the derelicts in the Jardin of the Hôtel de Ville. Nor had his chamberpot been taken away. I could smell it, but of course had to pretend that I didn’t.
In order for me to take it out and empty it, which I would gladly have done, wash it and air it, discreetly behind which bush I’ve known all my life, Uncle Jacques would have had to admit that it exists, and this he was never going to do. Never step on his pride, Papa says.
LXVI
I have my good days and my bad. Pray, Jolivet, that you never have a weak back. With a strong back I could have been a different man. I nodded sympathetically, knowing that Maman says there’s nothing whatever wrong with Uncle Jacques. You will never have to work.
You will be a true Sassard in that respect. You tell me that you are good at your lessons, but I worry about this English. Tell me again what they mean by English. Nothing could convince Uncle Jacques that there are languages other than French. I had failed in every attempt.
He used to hear Greeks and Spaniards at the docks. They had different words for certain things, but they still talked, like everybody else. Talked funny, but talked French. But, I said, if you speak to an American who doesn’t know French, he won’t understand a word you say.
He would have to, unless he’s deaf or an idiot. They like to act hateful, these foreigners. They know better. They think it’s something fine to be different. I began a poem, by Keats, in English, but he wouldn’t let me finish. It throws him into a rage to hear another tongue.
Have you not had your breakfast, Uncle Jacques? Postel, he said, will be here soon. I’ll get you some coffee and croissants, I said. No, no! You are not a menial. But, I protested, I’m your nephew, I like doing things for you. No, no, he said, it wouldn’t be right, not right at all.
LXVII
On the Eyre in the Landes. The Modulor of Le Corbusier, notebook, ballpoint, Papa’s flat English cap, towel, slip Hom micro, sun glasses, extra underpants and shirt, toothbrush and paste, comb, an outing kit without fuzz, and all neatly in one nylon haversack.
Victor half the room until Maman and I scaled it down, removing two stamp albums, his microscope, bathrobe, calico monkey, soccer ball and boots, skateboard. Jonquille, a big sack of stuff, Michel nothing at all except what he’s wearing, making me feel overloaded.
Thus we Robinson, featherlight except for a hamper of eats, lotions, and antimosquito gunk. In responsible freedom within the bounds, good old bounds, of taste and decency. We will follow Victor, Michel says, whose taste and decency are purest Early Magdalenian.
So you stood there, says Jonquille, gulping like a guppy, Madame Bonnat being her cool modern self. Joli, you’re wonderful, a prize calf. I asked what promises she made, if any, fingers crossed or uncrossed, to be asked, what news, citizen, do you have from Africa?
Pine forest in all directions, the shining river, the cabin, the two rooms of which face a screened porch half the whole area. We’ve claimed territories, made all shipshape. Our playhouse, says Victor. An elate brave holiday feeling, voices strange in the quiet.
LXVIII
Camp without the hassle, says Michel, or the wimps. There’s nobody within a kilometre. Let’s hit the river. Do we go savage beginning now? Victor asked, remembering Maman’s phrase at home for sunbathing in the altogether. And Jonquille too? Jonquille especially!
Jolivet loves Jonquille, says Victor gravely. Victor loves Michel, says Michel. I don’t, he pipes, I love Jolivet. Everybody loves his brother. But I love Victor, says Michel, hoisting him onto his lap and running his hand into his pants to make him squeal.
This, says Jonquille, is where the chaperon faints the first time. Let’s stash the billygoat curtain raiser and make for the landing. I begin to strip and remark that we are ridiculously asymmetrical for the life of the heart and its warm expression in affection.
Michel drummed his heels when Jonquille peeled down her panties and Victor blinkered himself with his hands, turning in stomping circles until Michel caught him and pulled off his pants and briefs while he squirmed and boxed and laughed, happy as a grig, hooting.
Victor, countering, tugging at Michel seated, cried, Stand up, cochon! Hunching his hips for Victor to slide off his caleçon, leaning forward for him to haul off his jersey, Michel hale, brown and trim, in briefs of cordial fit, humped in the pod, went limp.
LXIX
A game, this. Jonquille and I, towels around our necks, watched and waited. How, said Victor, can I take off your underpants if you don’t stand up, silly? Snatch ’em off, Victor, says Jonquille, I want to drool. Eyes dancing with mischief, Michel crossed his ankles.
He bunched his chest until his nipples were as tucked as his navel. Victor walked up his legs on all fours, had reached to pluck when he was lifted, held kicking, and ended upside down behind Michel’s chair, held by the waist, saying words I didn’t know he knew.
Something rather sweet is happening, Jonquille said, sitting and pulling me down beside her. The crop of Michel’s slip prodded out. He lifted Victor onto his chest, who reached backward, got his thumbs under the waistband and shoved. Foutre! You’re up!
C’est gentillette, Jonquille said. Michel pulled his briefs back on, blushing. Victor tugged them off again, this time all the way. Michel crossed his hands in his lap and gave his erection a disgusted look. Stubbornly it throbbed, arched, uncovering its head.
Nature has her own ideas about these things, Jonquille said, nuzzling her cheek to mine. It’s just us here, Miche. Victor leaned shyly against the door, looking out from under his jumbled shock of hair over his forehead. The river, said Jonquille getting up.
LXX
The river, the shining river. Mud and turpentine it smelled of, and whirls of gnats met us at the landing, Victor riding on Michel’s shoulders, Jonquille and I with a hand on each other’s outer hip, and the sky, radiantly blue, had the daytime moon in it.
Jonquille had given Michel’s cock a congenial squeeze as we set out from the cabin, and Victor’s an upward flip—hey!—and mine a pull and we were all feeling deliciously friendly by the time we swam, glistening in a river so rich in trash and mud.
We sat on the jetty, swatting mosquitoes, silvery brown in our summer tans, wet eyelashes crimped into serrations of fine brushpoints, soaked hair drying into thickets, knocking ears that had shipped riverwater. Cézanne, Jonquille said, these pines, the river.
She sat on her towel, legs spread, propped on arms straight behind her, pert breasts tilted out. I lay with my head on her thigh. Michel sat cross-legged beside us. Victor was afoot, inspecting things about the landing. I’m hungry, he said. I’m horny, I said.
The vulgarity of it would not dissolve into the air, and Michel said that if we two wanted to make out, not to mind him. Jonquille said she minded, and included me in my minding, and I added that Victor would describe it all graphically at the next meal at home.
LXXI
Don’t make me feel like an outsider, Jonquille said. What are you talking about? Victor called. Look at this snail shell, the fine grey line that goes around with the spiral, and these rocks as smooth as glass. Taste this rosin. It comes off the tree in beads.
Michel, Jonquille said, is giving Jolivet and me permission to be pigs. Fine by me, Victor said. Like you do in the sunroom, kissing and monkeying around? O God, Jonquille said, holding her head. I suggested that we make everything up as we go along.
