Episode 18-II | The lover had a lover

previous episode

nudity

Monsieur de Montbelle entered the office wearing a silk robe de chambre, indicating to Armand that he was not included in his father's official schedule for the day. The young man was more like a morning distraction, or a brief annoyance. But the perfectly combed silver white hair, and a sophisticated smell of musky eau de cologne about him discarded any notion that Monsieur might have just woken up, despite still having his pajamas pants on. 

 After a moment of hesitation,  Monsieur de Montbelle marched straight to his massive table, turning the exquisite art deco lamp on, to be himself in a pool of light like the works of art surrounding him. The charming secretary was immediately swept away by a storm of responsibilities and tasks, leaving father and son alone.

Wondering whether his father had, in a single glance, perceived the ongoing, secretive connection between his employee and son, Armand now feared for the secretary's position. But he found next the real reason of his father's discomfort, and why he hadn't approached to shake hands, simply motioning Armand to take a seat in front of his desk. Armand did notice the expensive damask before he sat, and knowing his father did not care about home decor, wondered if that was Celeste Mortinné's taste and influence. Armand was astonished to see a vase of fresh roses adorning his work table -- having always prohibited Madame de Montbelle to place them in whichever room he used, claiming to be allergic, Monsieur seemed to accept or at least stand them now, coming from his lover.

"What with that hair, now?" The elder man asked, in a tone that revealed ill disposition against his son's constant, ridiculous changes. No good morning, welcome, how are you son, nothing. "Lice?"

Armand had forgotten about his tresses, or lack of, until that moment when the secretary had first mentioned them. He should have at least then started expecting his father's reaction to be even stronger than the last time, when he had sported a ponytail. He should have braced himself, and thought in advance of a better answer.

"I'm becoming a monk." Armand mouthed, disastrously.

Monsieur de Montbelle fell silent, fixing his gaze on the old copy of  Machiavelli's 'The Prince', probably a most expensive rarity, that lay open on his desktop. More than any other room in the apartment, everything in that office -- from the endless rows of  leather cover books to the best liquor from most exclusive origins --, was carefully chosen to demonstrate wealth and boast power -- for it was where dignitaries, bankers, politicians and businessmen held private interviews, that could not ever make the newspapers, with Monsieur.

"In Thailand." Armand added shyly. Knowing no detail would repair the damage done by his first declaration, he now simply intended to take his father out of a stubborn mutism. "A buddhist monk. A forest monk."

"You are not joining any sect, I assure you." Monsieur hissed, raising a finger to advert and intimidate Armand, as if he was still a small boy. That finger used to signal Monsieur's explosions of anger, when he could use his belt to beat his son, well into Armand's adolescence. The silk band he used at that moment was not very intimidating, though, and Armand had to control himself not to laugh.

"Buddhism is not a sect, don't you worry." He replied, trying to placate his father.

"I am not worried." Monsieur tapped his fingers on the marble desktop. Not so much nervously, but as if rehearsing a tune on the piano. He was trying to control himself. "You are not joining. I forbid you." He sentenced, seriously.

Armand had already felt coffee in his father's breath, floating towards him across the table, but just now he identified another particular smell, that he had learned to attribute to Monsieur since childhood -- newspapers. Monsieur de Montbelle read newspapers in several languages, many of them along each day, from morning to evening, and his fingers were impregnated with that smell, that would spread when the man agitated his hands like now.

"Everything is set, already." Armand informed, most calmly. His decision to retreat from mundane life had nothing to do with his father, against whom, formerly, he had so strongly revolted. "I return to Asia in a couple of days. I know what I'm doing. I know this master."

As tiring as it usually felt, he was aware that everything between father and son essentially came down to a dispute of power. Each conversation was an intricate negotiation, and the son had to clearly mark his territory to leave his father's tyrannical rules at the borders.

"What do you mean by master? Someone you have to obey?"

"Oh yes. Not blindly, though." Monsieur must have been thinking of those mad religious leaders who led their credulous congregations into mass suicide; his incredulity heightened at the thought of his only son obeying another man, while disobeying his own father. "More like a teacher, a spiritual teacher. A guru.", he informed. Though the correct term was arahant, Armand sensed Monsieur de Montbelle might know the other word better.

But Monsieur had overheard everything.

"I shall disinherit you, Armand." He said sharply.

Armand's confusion at his father's unexpected remark was less just than his irritation. But as if he was before his spiritual master -- and he was, in fact! --, Armand observed his anger rise and manifest, and tried not to react or speak out of it. He answered rationally, in a language his father would certainly comprehend. 

"I believe the sum my mother left me is enough for..."

Monsieur de Montbelle cut him short. "Your sanity can be easily contested, in this case. I'll take you to court if you try to donate money for any sect..."

"Oh, so that's your concern, then!" Armand smiled condescendingly. "They don't ask for money. They don't need any money at all. It's not like a club where you pay a fee to join."

"How do they eat? Where do these people live? In a forest, you said?" Monsieur de Montbelle made everything sound exotic, improbable, or foolish, instead of simple and sensible as they really were.

"We do one alms round everyday, begging for food, and accepting whatever people give us. And believe me, a single meal suffices when..."

"You mean you'll beg for food?" The elder man sneered. "My son, you are out of your mind!" 

"Not yet. I need to meditate a lot, still, to go out of my mind..."

Falling silent again, Monsieur de Montbelle fixed his eyes on the Pre-Raphaelite preciosity across the room, a painting which he had contemplated more than a hundred times -- an ageing courtesan playing the mandolin, immersed in the shadows of a cavern or tavern, which did not quite disguise the woman's wrinkled neck and breasts. She had lost her beauty, but would not let go of her joys and pleasure, which she exercised in the form of music and a shameless smile. That melancholic painting had a soothing effect on Monsieur, making him ponder about his own fate in life,  a valuable aid in the negotiations he held in the office -- when behind him, and in full view to his visitors, he had placed another painting, from the same period, depicting a voluptuous nymph. Languidly reclined, a blue cloth so thin as to enhance more than hide her curves, letting her beautifully rigid breasts and nipples subtly show underneath, in one hand she held a purse, and the other rested between her soft thighs, where shadows both hid and let guess the tip of her fingers. More than one visitor had joked about the painting being an allegory to -- or an exertion to -- masturbation. Its observation usually troubled or excited his visitors -- and that was the reason why Monsieur had placed it behind him, facing them .

But he guessed the sensuous nymph would neither excite nor trouble his son, who was indifferent to her charms. 

"Is it a cure for your sickness you are seeking?" He asked Armand.

"Sickness?" Armand asked in return.

"Yes, your... personal sickness." reinforced Monsieur, stressing significantly the words he wanted his son to comprehend, without further explanations.

"I don't know what you are talking about, Gaston." Armand rarely called his father that. "I am not sick. Do I look sick?"

"You know, your... sick preferences." For a brief moment, Monsieur de Montbelle seemed embarrassed. 

"Oh..." Armand sighed. "That is no sickness."

"It most certainly is." His father insisted. "It's not simply a shameful sin. Homosexualism is a sickness. Just look it up on the dictionary." Monsieur de Montbelle couldn't hide his agitation. He was sweating, and particularly annoyed that he might have to take a bath before continuing with his schedule. "Have you considered the problems it will bring you? Professionally, socially. You'll be easily blackmailed, or passed over."

"As a monk?" Armand asked simply.

"Stay in France, Armand, I command you. They'll find a cure to it, sometime. I can offer you the best physicians, the best institutions, the best medicine..."

Like you did with my mother? Armand thought. Will you lock me in the castle, too?

"I don't need to be cured of anything, father." He retorted. "In fact, I'm not here to talk about myself."

"Well, I'm wondering." said Monsieur, momentarily abandoning the grounds of the battle against his son's sexuality, where he was soon venturing again, to try to win. "Why are you here, then, and not at that church already?"

There is no church in Buddhism, Armand wanted to explain. But he knew his father did not want to learn. "It's about my sister."

"Who?"

"My half-sister, Catherine."

"That inconsequential girl! The way she dropped the Sorbonne was outrageous! We still can't believe she went after you..."

"Weren't you aware of her trip?"

"No, we weren't."

"Well, I believe your..." How should he mention Celeste? Maybe in the meantime their status had changed. "...lover was."

"Celly?" Monsieur de Montbelle enjoyed calling her that, but just when Celeste was not listening. "No, she wasn't." He seemed to consider something, or make some sort of calculation. "But why that sudden interest in Catherine?"

"I tried to ignore my sister, but now I want to be just to her." Before I leave this world, Armand thought, but it sounded too melodramatic, threatening even, to be pronounced. "Can I beseech you to recognize her as your daughter?"

"She is not my daughter, Armand." Monsieur de Montbelle was taken aghast.

"Why do you deny it? Or am I not your son, as well?"

"Of course you are. But she isn't." Monsieur promptly dismissed it.

"I should probably have brought her along with me to this meeting. You have never had this conversation face to face with her, have you?" Armand insisted, feeling he owned it to the girl. "Do you know how she suffers with all this?"

"Brought her along?" Monsieur smiled somberly. "How?" 

Armand was very conscious of the way his father picked certain words, choosing elements of his son's sentences, to redirect the conversation towards grounds of his own preference.

"I believe she is in Paris." Armand proposed, carefully.

"No, Armand, she isn't." 

"I believe she is..." Armand had just decided to direct the conversation himself. "I saw Carlo today."

"Saw him as in met him?" Monsieur de Montbelle gasped. His eyes were fixed on his son, who unfortunately had chosen the chair farthest from the table lamp, to suspiciously remain partially in the shadows. Despite Celeste's exquisite taste for decoration, he had to order his secretary to buy a new and more functional lamp, or a brighter bulb, immediately, for Monsieur liked to observe his visitors, more than to be observed. "Are you doing drugs, Armand?"

"No, I did not meet him, but I saw him walking down a street today." Armand decided to sustain his lie, guessing his father actually knew and would reveal Carlo's true directions.

"Utterly impossible." Monsieur shook his head to vehemently discard such a possibility. "They are not in Paris. Not even in France."

"Where are they?" Armand pressed.

"Do you think I'd tell you where that doomed boy is, Armand?" Monsieur de Montbelle gave a half smile, to make his son understand he could not be so easily manipulated. He calculated farther ahead than most of his opponents.  And then he spoke softly, as if to himself. "I wonder what he has got to drive you both out of your minds..." Raising his voice again, loaded with contempt, he demanded, "Is he a dealer of some sort of ecstatic drug? Does he run a mad sect himself, who worship him? Please, tell me what sort of filthy pimp he is!"

The idea of Carlo dealing drugs made Armand smile. He had grown addicted indeed to his friends charms, to his honesty, his loyalty, his simplicity, to his naivety -- if those qualities could ever be called drugs, then mankind needed to be heavily addicted on a whole lot more of them. As to worship him, be it for his beauty, or for his kindness, that was perfectly understandable. Like a spring from the highest fields, Carlo used to be the purest, sweetest man Armand had ever known. But all that had collapsed, once Carlo chose Catherine over him. His ex-friend hadn't abruptly become a bad person, it was not that -- but now his loyalty belonged to Catherine. And they lived in each other's arms in some remote corner of the world that would remain unknown to Armand.

"Pimp? Do you believe I'd fall in love with a pimp, Gaston?" Armand laughed, and decided to tease his father. "No matter how endowed he is, I am sure..."

The bold mention of Carlo's physical attributes immediately disgusted and angered Monsieur. "This interview is over, Armand. We have wasted enough time, and I have a busy day ahead. Please excuse me." And the elder man started lifting himself off the chair.

"No, it is not over." Armand reclined against the back of  his chair, indicating he was going nowhere. "I came here to straighten things about Catherine, and I am not leaving until you commit to treating her fairly."

"But I do!" Monsieur cried. "I do! I always have! I've always treated her as if she were my own child -- though she isn't! I'm telling you, Catherine is not your half-sister, Armand." 

 "How can you be so positive about it?"

Monsieur fumbled in the lower drawer, taking out one of the compromising dossiers for which he was famous and feared. Threateningly accurate, Monsieur de Montbelle's dossiers were essential to the certainty with which he exuded authority, and to the extent of power he exerted on his peers -- men who might be socially, economically or politically more influential than him, even more wealthy, but not as well informed as Monsieur, who had in Celeste Mortinné a great ally.  

"Take a look at this." He said, handling it to Armand. "I give you five minutes, and if you still feel the need, you can pose your questions."

Grand Duke Felix Michael Pavlov Rostoff, Prince Albert Nikolai Stepan Rostoff, Prince Paul Sergei Boris Rostoff, Prince Vladimir Dmitri Rostoff, Prince Aleksander Nikolai Rostoff... The long list opening the dossier indicated that the Rostoffs were a persistent, fruitful lineage of male aristocrats. Originally from St. Petersburg, with branches in Riga and Moscow, informed the Almanacs. Armand flipped quickly through the boring newspapers cuts that followed, most of them in Russian, very few translated in French.  Gossip columns from a Cannes periodic covered the family members vacations on the French Riviera for the three decades preceding the First World War. Addresses, copies of birth certificates, letter and postcards, even telegrams composed the Rostoff dossier. Armand thought more fascinating and worth examining a series of yellowed black and white photographs, indicating sadness more than beauty was transmitted along with rather pure, heavy Slavic features in the Rostoff dynasty.  One boy, several young adults and older men -- but no women --, almost all of them clad in military attire, looking dull or stiff in their studio poses. Dumbfounded, Armand checked again the name on the cover of the dossier -- Prince Aleksander Nikolai Rostoff, the last name appearing in the long list, when the lineage seemed to have come to an end. Below his name was the date of his birth, in St. Petersburg -- but also of his passing, in Paris.

"I don't understand it. Who is he? Aleksander..."

"He was Catherine's father."

"A Russian prince?" Armand lowered his eyes to the dossier again, trying to find the one picture of the single man he had found truly attractive among the lot. Despite a dandiesque mustache, the youngster was the only Rostoff to spot a smile on his lips and eyes, and to sport a tuxedo instead of an uniform. Handsome indeed. For whatever reason, he hoped that was Prince Aleksander, but the name and date on the back of the photo had been erased. "Does she know it?"

"I believe she doesn't. And I am not the one supposed to tell her, when her mother denies the truth herself."

"I don't understand it."

"You blame me for having had a lover, don't you, Armand?" Monsieur smiled bitterly. "Well, my lover had a lover herself. This impoverished Russian prince."

"Can I make a copy of this dossier, Gaston?"

"No you can't. And why would you?"

"I want to read it with more attention."

"You have nothing to do with this story. Even less than I do. Simply forget it."

"But Catherine is entitled to know!" Armand protested. Would that new fact put an end to her vengeance, he wondered. If Armand would help Catherine so thoroughly as to find her a new aristocratic cradle -- she might, even, release Carlo?

Monsieur de Montbelle shook his head.

"This is not for us to decide." He shrugged.

*****

"A Russian prince... was Catherine's father?" I whistled.

"That's what my father believed in, though your grandmother denied it."

Blue blood ran in my veins! If not from the De Montbelle, from the Rostoff family. It felt like my ex-uncle Armand had momentarily taken one lollipop from my mouth to immediately present another, even tastier.

"I believe your mother is in Russia right now, isn't she? Probably researching her origins, don't you think?" Armand rejoined. 

Concomitantly to have been trying to fight her way into the De Montbelle family through French courts, Catherine had continually pursued her very personal obsession for Russia. From her early love for Russian writers, that had turned into that abandoned thesis of a Russian mystic, until her Masters studies that had enabled her to teach Russian literature, my mother must have been unconsciously following the thread of her origins, led by instincts running with her blood. 

She had mentioned something about researching our family origins indeed, in our last lengthy conversation over the phone, years ago, when I still dated Gabriel. But now the question was -- when had she shifted her interest from the De Montbelle to the Rostoff household, and why? Had she finally had access to that dossier Armand read in the 70s -- and why only now?

"Can I ask you a question, Armand?" I posed, carefully.

"Of course you can." Armand's eyes was again on my body, and after leaving my landscape of muscles, he closed them for a moment. They were full of sadness when he opened them again. "But I see you are cold, Laurent. Don't you want to change into something warmer?" His melancholy revealed to be a sort of nostalgia, when he next asked, "We could walk to the other side of the island to watch the sun set, how about that? It doesn't happen as an spectacle everyday, but today seems to be the case, we are lucky. And then we'll have dinner, while we talk."

And I felt I was finally on the Île du Blanchomme of my conception, where my father and Armand had done just that, every single day.

*****

next episode

The Rostoffs I refer to in this episode are supposedly a fictional dynasty from the short story "Love in the Night" by Scott Fitzgerald, that I have loved -- both the writer and the story -- from the first time I read it -- and ever since, always again upon re-reading it, like just before writing this episode of The Last Canvas.

You can read it online HERE.

For more background on the love triangle between Armand, Carlo and Catherine, and how he decided to become a monk and finally accept his half-sister, please see the links in the footnotes of the previous episode.

Thanks for reading!

episode 10-II | Ultimatum

previous episode

sensitive issues

I didn't realize Angelo was feeling so lonely, and isolated.

In my mind, I had done what he expected from me. I had decided to follow him to America, and I had communicated it to my mother. My own expectation was that he would then take over everything else. He had gathered information about the whole process of applying to the American universities. He had the addresses, the phone numbers -- but what he did not have was money to start and carry on with that bureaucracy.

When Edoardo refused to help him, Angelo wanted me to talk to my mother to help the two of us. Reluctant, I wanted to hear from Catherine first. I thought once she agreed to help me, she wouldn't mind helping my boyfriend, too.

But in the meantime, she and Edoardo arrived to a decision. They were going to care for their respective sons only, and not interfere in the other's decisions -- that settled, they never again fought.

Of course they knew what that meant. If Angelo couldn't go anywhere without getting his father's financial aid, it meant I wasn't going anywhere either, even if Catherine would help me. I was just accompanying him, and had no will of my own to move towards our future in America.

"You don't love me, do you, Laurent?"

"Of course I do!" I protested. 

"No. I'm just another toy for you. I get it now. You just like my body. You like my ass. You use me for sex, for fun."

"Don't be ridiculous, Angelo." I almost said 'melodramatic', but it would sound too much like Catherine.

"You don't understand me. You don't respect me. You don't care about my needs. My dreams."

"Of course I do." I repeated myself.

"No, you don't. And that's why you don't want to help me."

"Don't be unfair, Angelo. I've done everything I could..."

"No you haven't. And you know it."

Angelo had come up with another idea. He wanted me to ask for my grandmother Celeste's help.

He was aware that she sent me money every Christmas and birthday. With that, I had gathered a considerable amount in savings. That money could have helped us -- but Angelo himself had helped me to spend it all. We -- or I -- had bought a new music player, and plenty of long-plays, shirts, jeans, tennis shoes, and junk food. Actually, he was responsible for us having no money, having exchanged it for fun.

"Your grandmother is rich, Laurent. You could convince her to sell one of the paintings in her collection, or her jewelry. Then we would have the money we need."

But I knew Celeste did not have to sell anything to have money. That was Angelo's family history -- how they had sold all the artifacts from his archaeologist grandparents, even the furniture and finally the apartment in Rome, to go to the United States for his mother's treatments.

"I can't do that, Angelo." 

And I'm glad I never did, even if it led to tragedy in our household. But how could I? I hadn't seen Celeste again in eight years, though we every once in a while spoke over the phone. Catherine would sometimes visit her in Paris, on her trips to Belgium, but I was never again invited to her house.

"Of course you can. She has never denied you money, has she?"

"No. Simply because I have never asked her for money. Do you get it?"

It would have been funny to see what Celeste's reaction would be, had I asked her to sell one of her paintings. What would the painting be? Her Picasso? Her Renoir? Or the Monet? She could get rid of her Bonnard, or the Leger. She owned at least one painting from most French painters starting with the Impressionist period, and also of those foreigners that had made Paris their home for a while. Not that I knew any of that when I was eighteen. And I knew nothing about Monsieur de Montbelle either, who had bought her many of those paintings, and from whom she had inherited several others. 

*****

Seeing so much art at my grandmother's apartment had confused me, when I was ten years old.

"Maman, why does... grandma--" I recall whispering the word, afraid that Celeste would hear it, "live in a museum?"

"Oh, mon cher. This is not a museum. Though Celeste's apartment is just as full of preciosities."

But I had never been to major art museums before visiting Paris, and to me they were no different from my grandmother's apartment -- except, perhaps, in scale. 

Catherine tried to enlighten my ignorance. When I elected two paintings I had liked best, she proceeded to explain who had been their painters, Chagall and Matisse. At some point, she said they were very famous.

"Not more famous than my papa!" I declared in triumph.

"Oh, much more famous than Carlo, mon cher."

"Certainly not, maman. I had never heard of them before. And I have know my father is a painter since... forever!"

*****

"Besides," I continued my argument with Angelo, "we don't need so much money to go to the US, do we?" I was starting to doubt his intentions. Any of those paintings would have sold for millions of francs. (*)

"You will always need money in this life, Laurent. As much as you can have. Don't be silly."

"How can I ask her such a thing? Grandma," she would kill me at calling her that, "why do you need two Matisses? Why don't you sell one of them?"

"That would be perfectly fine. Because these paintings are yours already. Don't you see? You don't have to wait until she dies to sell them. Or are you going to keep all her old stuff?"

"You are out of your mind, Angelo!"

"Then don't sell anything. Just ask for her spare change. She is filthy rich, didn't you say so? She shall have enough francs to help us coming from her purse only. How much money do you think she keeps at home?"

"I can't do that, Angelo. And you're sounding like you want to rob my grandmother."

"It's not that you can't. The truth is you don't want to, Laurent."

"Let's wait."

"Wait for what, Laurent?"

"Your father might change his mind..."

"I can't wait, Laurent." Angelo had expected we would be studying in the US in the second semester of 1993 already, but we hadn't moved any closer to that. "Not in this hole." And then he threatened me again. "I am leaving, Laurent. No matter what, no matter how, I am leaving."

Angelo stormed out of the room.

We had discussed those issues several times, and I did not get that his threat was indeed an ultimatum.

Not until very late that evening did I start worrying. It must have been 3, maybe 4 AM. When we fought, both Angelo and I liked being alone, and we could spend hours not speaking to one another. But we hardly skipped sex, and the previous weeks, full of tension and expectations, we were doing it at least twice a day to dilute the stress.

I confess I was horny, more than worried, when I went looking for him. First, I checked the room in the back, where I had slept when we had guests, and where Carlo would seek refuge when he fought with Catherine. To keep the tradition, it was Angelo to occupy it now, when he wanted to get away from me.

I opened the door slightly, enough to peek into the room and check that he was not in there. I closed it again, and decided I would not go after him into the fields. Or could he have ran away? His words about leaving suddenly sounded more serious than usual to me. But he wouldn't have ran away without taking a backpack, would he? At least I wouldn't. But when I thought my father had disappeared just like that, to never ever send any news, I had icy goose bumps. I couldn't bear the perspective of being abandoned once again.

I opened the door again. The room was unusually stinky. In the dark, I saw the undone bed. Hoping Angelo had at least written a message, I walked towards the side table, where he had left a book open.

I screamed when I saw him lying in his own vomit. Incredibly pale, his body tense, fists clenched -- he was frozen with pain. Reminding me of one of those petrified inhabitants of Pompeii, his face was twisted in a clownesque grimace. I shouted again, and again, as I collapsed onto the floor, crawling next to him, to take him in my arms. His body was lifeless and covered in cold sweat. I shivered. I had never seen a corpse before, but as I held Angelo, I knew he was dead.

Catherine did not scream when she arrived in the room, taking in the scene of Angelo's suicide. To her, life was only a tragedy in books. She dealt rather coolly with reality, as if it were an experiment in a laboratory. There was always something she could use in a future book -- even her own son's misery at the death of his boyfriend.

But she did shout at me when I fought Edoardo, as he tried to fetch Angelo from me.

"Please let go of him , Laurent! We need to take him to the hospital!"

As Edoardo ran away with Angelo in his arms, Catherine stayed behind with me. Patting me on the shoulder, she tried to reason me out of my shock, but I don't recall her words. 

I did not cry, as I realized I was being abandoned again. It was useless, I knew. I had cried for Carlo, but my tears hadn't brought him back.

*****

For several months after the incident at the country club, that led to my decision of quitting the swim team, I had contemplated the practical problems of suicide. At fourteen years old, suicide was a thing from books, and that's where I researched my possibilities. 

Catherine was a very well organized writer, and she kept lists for everything -- from names for characters to a thorough table of colours. In her archives, I found under S a list of suicides in books, and that's where I learned that Romeo drank poison, Heathcliff starved to death, Othello and Juliet stabbed themselves, Werther shot himself, Mme Bovary ingested arsenic. As I went through my mother's list, I learned about those who had hanged themselves, and drowned. 

Some suicides seemed noble, like Plato's, and other were beautifully tragic, like Anna Karenina's, who stepped on the train track. And in the company of so many suicidal characters, my desperation eased and I realized how my own death would only seem pathetic. I also understood I was a coward, and inflicting death upon myself seemed harder than coping with my shame and guilt.

Unlike me, Angelo was brave, full of determination and will to live -- or to die. Whatever he chose, he would accomplish. If he couldn't leave France, he could leave this life. Whichever direction he favored, he would travel. 

Unlike me, he did not seem to fear death as his final destination.

next episode

(*) this in Laurent's memories is the year of 1993, and French franc was the currency then.

Interlogue

previous episode

Samsara Heights

2011

Have I loved -- no, not loved, just worshiped -- an impostor?

The most constant, solid presence throughout my adult life, during the past fifteen years, everything I have achieved was under his guidance.

To his suggestion I have moved to Samsara Heights, where I watch the sun set over the sea thinking it is headed to Punaouilo, the island of my birth. This nostalgic happiness -- or was it unhappiness? -- that softens my days in a city where I have practically no friends, I owe it to him.

That I now have the Pacific Ocean of my childhood at my feet -- that, too, I owe him. One just needs descend the hill, wandering through an enchanted garden trail, the final steps leading to the beach where I can relish bathing in the same waters of my early years. Melancholically poetical and marvelous as it is, it has been his idea, first of all, that I moved to the West Coast.

Once I bought the land, he indicated the best contemporary architects to build my dream house. Yet, it took him three years, since it has been completed, to accept the invitation to visit me.  Now, I am not just anxious with his visit -- I fear it. I fear how our relationship will evolve from there. The questions I am about to ask him won't necessarily lead to disaster -- but most possibly. 

My artistic career -- I owe it thoroughly to him. And to my talent, too, of course. Since the day he first visited my atelier, it has been under his sole guidance. I have entrusted him the power to determine my steps in the art world. Be it my solid prestige in the museums circuit, or my thundering commercial success, Dan Charmand has led me all along the controversies of my triumphant career.

That envious people call me Dan's boy, or Dan's toy, I couldn't care less. They are right -- to some extent. I am his creature. A happy creature have I been, so far -- living in ignorance of what, now, I think have been his ruthless intentions.

For love of my father, Dan will probably have to step out of my life. Like before, as I am led to believe, my father has gotten out of my life because of him.

Quite naturally, he occupied the place left vacant by my father. At twenty, when we first met, without being conscious of it, I was eager to find an adult masculine figure to replace Carlo. Angelo, then my boyfriend -- and through whom I met Dan -- was sure a strong enough manly presence in my days. But he was just as young and lost as I was, making me the more lost. Having been dumped, in the labyrinth of loss and hollowness that Angelo's absence ensued, Dan had taken the center of stage -- to never, ever again leave it.

Irascible to most, Dan took me into his liking. Because, like Catherine used to say, I was an obedient boy? Dan's advices were guidance to me,  his suggestions like marching orders. Books I should read, movies I should watch, exhibitions I should visit -- I was always up to date with his check lists. Jazz to Britt pop, Japanese food to hamburgers. He told me what I should prefer, if I were to be the 'citizen of the world' he wanted to turn me into -- and turned me into it he has. In ways I could not guess -- at least not until now --, he echoed my grandmother Celeste. 

"Do you think Charmand gets to choose D'Allegro's underwear color, or if he should put no underwear at all?" Jokes about us abounded. No matter how many lovers I was 'allowed' to have, I remained being Dan's boy. But I was no puppet of his. I was not just free in sex -- there was intelligent life for me outside Dan's perimeter. For instance, he wanted me to dress Boss, but I had insisted on Armani. I had kept my own style -- unless I was to accompany him to a dinner party, or a gala evening. Then I would need Dan's approval on how I dressed. I had to match his impeccable elegance to remain being his constant escort to ballets and operas and all other openings. 

He does not have a family -- not a single member. He once mentioned being raised by a grandmother in Tunisia -- or was it Algeria? --, who has already died. Once, when I was crying over Angelo, he implied to have suffered a great loss, due to a tragedy of some sort.  "Death only should be mourned, Laurent.", he had stated. To that, I dried my tears, and never let them flow again, not for my ex-boyfriend. Even his scolding was benevolent.

That is all I know about the story of his life. No details, nothing concrete. I have never had the occasion to ask any further. There is no space for personal matters in his days. The present only exists for him, dominated by impressive professional achievements -- 24/7, Dan is the almighty director of Vice City's acclaimed Contemporary Art Museum. 

I do not worry who will inherit his fortune, his precious art collection, his ultra elegant penthouse, his partnerships in several businesses -- such material matters concern the gossipers only. Why should I think about Dan's death, when he is the best thing to have happened in my life in all the years spent at Vice City? I already have the unique privilege of being his intellectual heir.

I have been family for him, and he has been family, for me. We do not try to disguise a rather compensatory father and son relationship -- that people mistake for a daddy and son fantasy. I couldn't care less.  

What I do care, though, is that he has lied to me. No, not perhaps lied -- just omitted. But omitted too great a deal, from our very start.

I had to go to Sweden to find out about Dan's passage through Paris. Nothing unusual, for someone who, in the sixties or seventies, wished to make a career in the arts. But I am left breathless, my heart racing, at the simple recollection of the nature of his connection to Monsieur de Montbelle -- my grandfather, if I am to still believe Catherine. 

I have heard it from the mouth of Armand de Montbelle himself . Plus many other facts that gets me wondering why I couldn't have a normal family like everybody else -- instead of that kaleidoscopical mess that leaves me gaping and panting and traveling from one corner of the planet to another, trying to gain some sense and perspective on my own origins. 

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