Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

He enjoyed his movements, and because his limbs were long and slim— long arms, long fingers, long thighs in rather tight slacks — his movements were not ungainly; he touched objects with a sensual, even voluptuous pleasure, as if in coming into contact with them even these routine gestures caused him a kind of elemental joy, yet in making this subtle, over-subtle play for objects, suggesting cozy intimacy, he seemed to have me in mind as well, as if he had to prove something not only to himself but to me, trying to demonstrate — surely the game was not without purpose— how one could and should live pleasurably in this place, what rhythms were required by these surroundings, to show me in minute detail that this rhythm was as much his own as were the objects themselves; but for all the openness and genuine amiability his moves implied, I sensed a certain tense anxiety, and not only because the less-than-perfect ease of this shameless exhibitionism had a hint of obtrusive familiarity in it, but also because behind the exhibitionist's easy self-assurance, superior air, and secret delight, I couldn't help noticing a certain touchy tentativeness, as if he were watching me from the protected forward position of his superiority, trying to see whether I was really interested in the intimate tokens of trust he was offering me, whether he mightn't have made a mistake.

And because I felt this avid, persistent, selfish curiosity in every move he made, however harmonious and confident, however much offered as a revealing confession, his unspoken question was not unjustified, because I did act like someone who couldn't care less about his elaborate show, who'd rather remain within the reliable boundaries of conventional etiquette and did not even note the secret meaning of his gestures; I was so uninterested in him that I would have liked just to close my eyes so as not to see him open up like this and lay himself bare in hopes of a like response, but he, accurately gauging the nature and extent of my fears, was willing to neutralize the signals with other gestures — in short, was ready to retreat.

But by then we were too far gone, to say nothing of what had led up to this meeting, and an actual retreat was clearly out of the question, for my original mistake was to come up here in the first place and let him stand before me and smile his infinitely trustworthy smile, steady and untroubled, not begging for but offering trust and confidence, its fluttery surface made more sensitively responsive by hidden tentativeness, an all-pervasive smile; it was there in the vertical creases of his lips, in his eyes, but truly inside them somehow, on his smooth forehead, as a shadow in the corner of his mouth, and of course in the ingratiating dimples of his cheeks; so I could not close my eyes, if only because I felt acutely that if I were to do so, or even allow my lashes to droop the least little bit, I'd betray the feeling I'd harbored almost from the very first moment we met, and that would certainly contradict the stiffish posture, a result of my feigned indifference, with which I tried to hide, neutralize, force into the accepted moral order my unequivocal and rapturous attraction to his mouth, his eyes, his smile, the soft depth of his voice, his playfully buoyant walk — he walked as though he were flaunting it: Look, this is how I walk! he seemed to be saying — how was I to curb and discipline my senses, and thereby keep his movements, too, within bounds? no doubt it was foolish, absurd, to hope that in this situation, in this repellently rather than attractively interesting room, the coy game between sense and sensuality might be checked by some inner discipline; I tried desperately to steer my attention out of the trap of his smile to other things, to focus on the room, hoped to divert my attention by looking for other reference points and, by understanding the connection between them, perhaps I could rescue my mind, now very much at the mercy of my body; but meanwhile, I made the unpleasant discovery that my mouth and eyes had involuntarily borrowed his smile; I was smiling back at him with his own smile, his own eyes; I hadn't closed my eyes, yet I became one with him; minutes went by like this, and no matter what I did or tried to do, I was being carried in the direction he chose to steer us; and I knew that if I allowed this to continue and let his smile freeze on my lips, if I couldn't get it unstuck somehow, I'd soon lose what we call the right to self-determination — if only his all-too-knowing, accommodating, yet indecently high-handed determination hadn't bothered me so much! — my only means of escape would have been to find a clever excuse, say goodbye and get out of there, just leave, but then why was I so willing to come up in the first place? or maybe I should just walk out the door without saying a word? but there was no clever excuse for parting, simply couldn't have been, since we both took care to keep the smooth veneer of conventional social intercourse in this perfectly ordinary situation: two young men facing each other, after one of them had invited the other up for a drink; who could find anything objectionable in that? their mutual attraction, stronger than their bashfulness, was slightly embarrassing, but during the course of a serious conversation, when they'd let the power of their instincts manifest itself as abstract thought, the embarrassment would surely disappear, if only this smooth veneer weren't so transparent! as it was, attempts at distraction only enhanced the sense of intimacy, which I both welcomed and tried to avoid and which our mutual tactfulness — I wouldn't offend him and he wouldn't go too far — also strengthened, everything did, and in the end, however ill at ease I may have felt, all my eager concessions and self-deceptions, my glossing over things, my embarrassment, conspicuous stiffness, and forbearance simply boomeranged.

And on top of it all, he kept on talking, rapidly and more loudly than necessary, always following my eyes with his words; to the exclusion of all other possible topics, he held forth on whatever he thought my eyes were curious about; we might say more cynically that he was running off at the mouth, trying to relieve my embarrassment and at the same time keep my forced, trembling smile — his smile on my lips — from somehow reinfecting him; he went on jabbering, buzzing and flirting in a way that made his high-handed, obnoxious complacency unbearable and unacceptable precisely because it was so very masculine, or at least what's usually considered masculine: a mildly aggressive, enticing, instinctively obtrusive, ingratiating, audacious mirror image — what a caricature mirror image! — of the sort of behavior I had never had a chance to observe from the outside, for without giving it a thought, I had indulged in it myself; a disagreeable pose is what it was, a pose one masters sometime in adolescence, considering it very manly; the trick is to talk, talk a blue streak, without saying anything, so that only the form itself, the style, the razzle-dazzle of words can clue one in on the speaker's secret designs: I was surprised, wasn't I, he asked, that he'd painted the floor all white — but he wanted no reply, only to catch my eyes again with his and not let go— he knew, of course, that this sort of thing was usually not done, he said, but that had never stopped him before, and didn't I find it attractive, though? he did, when he'd finished painting it, and was pleased that he wouldn't have to scrub it anymore; the place used to look like a dump, a pigsty really, some old geezer had lived here before — he often tried to picture his old age and feared it, actually, considering that given his aberrant inclinations it would surely be the most critical period of his life, a horrid wreck of a body with still youthful urges lusting after young bodies — anyway, the neighbors told him the old man had died on a urine-soaked mattress in that little room where the sofa was now standing; he hoped fate wouldn't deal him such an old age; in fact, he didn't want any kind of old age; and I couldn't imagine the dreadful state of the apartment when he moved in, filthy beyond belief and so foul-smelling he had to keep the windows open even in winter, and it was still in the air, sometimes he could smell it even now, four years later; anyway, why shouldn't a floor be all white, who said it must always be brown or an ugly yellow? wasn't it a great idea to spread the color of pristine purity over all that smut? and wasn't this, after all, perfectly in tune with the taste of our upright Germans, and he was, if not fully, at least half German.