David Francis - Stray Dog Winter

He pointed up to a second-floor room with a filmy curtain. That’s the room where I stay, he said and ushered Darcy up wooden ice-capped steps. Through an upstairs door they entered a small bedroom, but proceeded on to a small, beamed bathroom. The water’s very hot here, said Aurelio. He turned on the taps to cover the sound of the retarded girl slamming her wooden spoon and wailing, and eased unselfconsciously from his coat and jeans, his coppery dancer’s legs, his chest. He got in the shower and held his head up for a long time, let the water run over him like he was drinking from the sky. His skin slightly matt until the water hit it, then it glistened darkly. His body so smooth Darcy wondered if it had been shaven. He felt awkward, not certain if he was supposed to join in, but he found himself undressing, gingerly stepping into the steam.

Darcy hugged himself shyly as Aurelio turned and held him close, the pebbles of water on Darcy’s back as he buried his head in Aurelio’s chest, sensed the beat of his own heart. Aurelio soaped him and their bodies lathered and softened into each other like animals nesting, not as libidinal and eager as Darcy’d imagined. He felt Aurelio’s big hands about him, the contrast in their skins and the flow of the water, and everything silent now save for Aurelio’s breath in his ear, the softness of his touch. Darcy felt a surrender, a closeness that wasn’t familiar, in this privacy, and a peaceful shuddery feeling rippled through him as it dawned on him that this was what he’d always wanted. He kept his eyes closed, to sense if it could be real. He thought of his time in the school showers with Benton in fifth form, how they’d meet behind the handball courts and make out in the late afternoons, but then Benton got a girlfriend and Darcy went down behind the courts alone. He kissed Aurelio’s neck, and as the water washed over his mouth and eyes, he knew how afraid he was of this feeling, how Aurelio didn’t seem to want more.

As they drove back into the city, Darcy clasped the roof strap tightly, feeling slightly dissatisfied, the water no longer pouring, the world no longer green through the sunglasses that lay on the dash like another set of eyes. Do you take men there often? he asked.

Not men like you, said Aurelio. Something unabashed about him that Darcy wasn’t used to. He wanted to give him the benefit of his misgivings, but he realised they hadn’t yet kissed, not really, just been intimate in a way that made Darcy now feel disquieted.

Aurelio pulled into the slush at the approach of a siren. A bulging limousine with tinted windows splashed by, a motorbike escort in front and behind. A ZIL, said Aurelio, for Politburo. Other cars moved further to the side.

A classless society, said Darcy, and he thought of Chernenko’s daughter and mentioned how he’d seen her at the Bolshoi, the night he’d first seen Aurelio.

Her name is Anyetta. Aurelio smiled. She is beautiful, no? Her mother is coming from Balkans. He said it as if the Balkans meant pretty, and it was true, she’d not inherited her father’s bready features. My mother is coming from Spain, said Aurelio.

It made sense—the light in Aurelio’s hair. Were you up in the box with Anyetta Chernenko? asked Darcy but Aurelio just looked vague and smiled, didn’t answer.

Were you?

Aurelio turned off the road where a track opened onto a snowcovered mound and there was a view of the Museum of Science and Achievement. She’s a friend of the general’s, he said. A tone in his voice that sounded sad made Darcy wish he hadn’t asked. He looked out at the distant obelisk, the crescent shape from Fodor’s.

The Monument to Space Flight, said Aurelio. It shone in the clouded distance and bent up like a moon to the sky, a rocket on top of it. Your friend Fin, she told me this is what you wanted to see. He searched Darcy for surprise.

Darcy thought of how little of this he understood, Fin’s flurry of Russian in the street. He stared out at an artificial lake slick with ice that housed the gilded fountain. I’m supposed to paint this, he said. He tried to imagine it in summer, the central marquee with its star-topped spire, columns like the Bolshoi, structures set against lawns, but all he could think about was why they hadn’t been more sexual.

Is best from this distance, said Aurelio. He opened the Lada’s window. The spread of pavilions, more theme park than museum. Darcy tried to sketch them in his mind, their angle and shape combinations, imagined their colours on a bright day, but the sun felt like a distant memory.

I wish we’d met in Havana, said Darcy.

You would be trouble there. He pointed out across the frozen landscape to a colonnade. That is the Serf Museum, he said, his breath a white river in the air in front of him. The only real colour now in the red flags that dotted the landscape like berries spilled in the snow. Aurelio showed Darcy the distant Atomic Energy Pavilion, as if hoping the structures might meet Darcy’s expectations. Has a model reactor inside, said Aurelio. The Soviets were the first to make harness for atomic energy in peaceful purposes.

I hope it works better than their toasters.

For a moment Aurelio was offended but then he laughed. He moved in closer, his shoulder almost touching Darcy’s. If it were summer we could lie in the grass, said Darcy, then jolted as a large squawking bird left a nearby tree. He watched ice shaking from the branches. Aurelio put a large comforting arm around him. Don’t be afraid, he said. If your friend is only an artist, there is no worry for you here.

A sudden thread of fear coiled up in Darcy’s throat like a tendril as Aurelio leaned across to kiss him, cold lips on his, soft but dry, barely open, and Darcy tried to meet them evenly, the cool stale taste of Aurelio’s smoky breath and the insinuation, no worry for you here . Still, Darcy opened his mouth to share all he had, but Aurelio drew away slightly and Darcy sensed he’d been too keen, too ready. Aurelio nuzzled him gently about his cheek, then held Darcy’s head against him, a cold bronze button of his coat against Darcy’s eye. I have not often kissed with men before, Aurelio whispered.

Darcy’s mother on the deck in her folding chair. Darcy crouched in the shade behind the engine room, too pale for this part of the world. He read Lolita , tried not to be seasick. The trip his father promised for a year wasn’t what Darcy had expected—this rickety boat out from Rabaul, the motor smoking like a bush fire, out on the rough island waters, a native captain drunk and swearing in pidgin English. His mother silent since the plane left Brisbane—Qantas to Port Moresby, Air Nuigini to Rabaul— when all Darcy could think of was Fin and Jostler up in Surfers or Maroochydore, how his father wasn’t taking them up there like normal people.

The sway of the boat and a sweet sickening smell like compost made Darcy nauseous. It was the scent of the tropics. His shirt sticking to his back and the salt spray from the water, his arms already burning even in the shade. The biting lips of the sun. Darcy’s father in a safari jacket surveying the sea, as if he knew how to swim or might decide to buy an island. Darcy buried himself back in Lolita, let the pages get smattered by droplets, the faraway world of Humbert Humbert.

He tried not to stare at Orpheus, the young local guide, who now leaned against the cabled boat railing, the blue wrap around his waist against his mahogany calves. Darcy took out his Staedtler pencil and began to sketch him, a blank page at the end of the book. The shape of the boy, blue and black against the high infernal sky, the white glare of the pitiless sun. Darcy wanted to remember this for a canvas when he got home. He pencilled the dark Melanesian face, the smooth jaw and watery eyes, unruly twists of frizz. Orpheus noticed and smiled but Darcy just shaded his eyes, drew the dry lips and tawny teeth. He wondered how old Orpheus was; fourteen maybe, fifteen, about his age. He’d noticed earlier how the skin connected between Orpheus’ toes in a pinkish membrane that almost looked webbed. Darcy’s father had said it was because he came from a tribe of watermen, spending their lives fishing.