Page 65 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
merry−go−round. Since we were looking at him, he smiled and said, “That's a real work−out.”
“It must make you thirsty,” said Stilitano. And turning to me he added, “You going to treat us to a drink?”
Robert went with us to a cafe. The joyousness of this event and its simplicity set my head spinning. I was no longer at Robert's side, nor even at Stilitano's. I was scattering myself to all the corners of the world and I was registering a hundred details which burst into light stars, I no longer know which. But when I accompanied Lucien for the first time, I experienced the same absence. I was listening to a housewife bargaining over a geranium.
“I'd like to have a plant in the house...,” she was saying, “a nice plant...”
This need for possession, which made her want to have a plant of her own, chosen, with its roots and earth from among the infinity of plants, did not surprise me'. The woman's remark acquainted me with the sense of ownership.
“She'll water her plant,” I said to myself. “She'll buy it a majolica flowerpot. She'll put it out in the sun. She'll cherish it...”
Lucien was walking at my side. The only live things I had ever owned were lovely pricks, their roots buried in black moss. I cherished several such, and I wanted them in all the flower of their strength. These plants were my pride. Such was my fervor that their bearers themselves were amazed at their unwonted beauty. Nevertheless, each remained fastened, by a mysterious and solid base, to the male whose chief branch it was; he owned it more than I did. It was his. Some flies were buzzing around Lucien. My hand mentally made the gesture of chasing them away. This plant was going to belong to me.
“Where could such a marvelous result (the flower crowning it is a lump of thistle) have been transplanted from? It must have been chosen from a child−patch... I will cherish it...”
Not only his prick, but all of Lucien was mine. Before him, Robert. At night, rolled up in a blanket, he slept under the canvas covers of the merry−go−round. I invited him to share my room. He came to sleep there the second night. As he was late, I went looking for him. Without his being aware, I saw him in a bar near the docks talking to a man who had the manners of a queer. I said nothing to him, but I let Stilitano know about it. The next morning, before Robert went off to work, Stilitano came to see us. Still encumbered with his unbelievable modesty, he found it embarrassing to say what he wanted to say. He finally managed:
“We'll work together. You'll lure them into a pissoir or a room and then Jeannot and I'll come around. We'll say we're your brothers and we'll make the guy pay up.”
I almost said, “What about Armand? What'll he do?” I kept my mouth shut.
Robert was sitting up in bed with the covers over his legs. I was careful not to brush against him so as not to embarrass him. He explained to Stilitano that this was a risky business, but I realized that he himself regarded these risks as something vague and remote, as if in a heavy fog. Finally he said yes. Stilitano's charm had just acted upon him. It made me feel ashamed. I loved Robert and I would not have succeeded in getting him to consent, but what was particularly cruel for me was the repetition and use of the same details of our intimacy in Spain which only Stilitano and I knew of. When Stilitano had gone, Robert slid under the covers and snuggled up to me.
“He's your guy, huh?”
The Thief's Journal 63