Read Online Allan Stein by Matthew Stadler - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Matthew Stadler
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little." This from a boy who had always complained that wine stank like vomit, beer was urine, and liquor poison.
Louise laughed and turned back to her magazine. "What a ridiculous boy." Her rebuke surprised me but did nothing to diminish the elegant vision I had conjured. The story in my head was not a lie but a kind of reality-in-progress. I had all the guileless relativism of a child. Louise's rebuke didn't mean I was mistaken; rather, reality had not yet caught up to my imagination. (And of course at this point, in the guise of memory, my childhood has become exactly this kind of mutable, irrefutable thing.)
We made it to Spain but never Morocco. Morocco required a visa we didn't have, and now it was too late. Louise wrote most of my report in a wonderful cheap hotel in Barcelona where we stayed for four weeks, a long, elaborate fiction about our adventures in the market culture of Fez. The report was encyclopedic and stunning, with photos taken from a reference book and drawings, by me, of a Fez based largely on Barcelona's old quarter. Afternoons were spent in cafes on the Ramblas drinking colorful sodas and playing solitaire (or rummy with Louise, when she wasn't busy scripting seventh grade paragraphs). The nights went on and on into hours I thought even adults could not inhabit, and I was a great hit in my clip-on tie, dancing with Louise at a club called El Sol, where the waiters gave me free snacks and admired my cards.
I was pleased that my second passport would not include Max. When Herbert finally agreed to my plan (against his better judgment, he said), it was a Friday and I had three days to get ready for my trip to Paris. Among the felicities that finally swayed him was the availability of a place to stay deep, deep in the Thirteenth arrondissement with a family that had nothing to do with art or museums. The Dupaignes offered a "suite of rooms" on the ground floor of their house to foreign scholars visiting the Cite Univer sitaire, just a few blocks away. Herbert had a friend in the university's history department (another fruit) arrange everything on his behalf, and the rooms were secured for two weeks. Herbert Widener was expected in Paris April fifteenth.
Outside, the afternoons had become legendary and warm. I rescued my tired and neglected leather datebook from its place on the dusty window ledge. Traversing its many barren pages, its vast white field of empty days and weeks, I penned in this single appointment, Arrive Paris April 15 , punctuated with a swift underline.
"I'm only doing this to rescue you from the scandal you're courting here in town."
"Courting? I'm not courting anyone."
"You can't go inviting twelve-year-old ex-students to sleep with you and expect nothing to come of it."
"Oh, everything came of it. He's fifteen, by the way."
"Exactly my point. You could be arrested."
"I've already been punished for it by the school. It's the least I can do, you know, to make the charges valid."
"That's certainly selfless—and stupid."
"I wish Dogan could go with me."
"It's out of the question. I'm the one who's going to Paris."
"I'm sure I'll keep to myself."
"Maybe you'll get this Turk out of your system, or at least develop the good sense not to sleep with him anymore."
"Hmm."
The bright blue days became crowded. I hadn't packed bags like this since my second trip with Louise (France at age sixteen), and it was relaxing to lift them in two hands and feel anchored by their weight. The neglected datebook got filled with errands and addresses, lists, phone numbers, and the pleasing finality of sharp check marks stabbed beside those tasks I managed to complete. Herbert was disappearing to a vast ranch near Petaluma to take pharmaceuticals, drink chilled fume blanc, and lie in the sun with an architect friend of ours who had everything one could ever want in life except company. The "rest cure," Herbert called it.
"Jimmy asked if you were free too."
"What did you tell him?"
"That you
Louise laughed and turned back to her magazine. "What a ridiculous boy." Her rebuke surprised me but did nothing to diminish the elegant vision I had conjured. The story in my head was not a lie but a kind of reality-in-progress. I had all the guileless relativism of a child. Louise's rebuke didn't mean I was mistaken; rather, reality had not yet caught up to my imagination. (And of course at this point, in the guise of memory, my childhood has become exactly this kind of mutable, irrefutable thing.)
We made it to Spain but never Morocco. Morocco required a visa we didn't have, and now it was too late. Louise wrote most of my report in a wonderful cheap hotel in Barcelona where we stayed for four weeks, a long, elaborate fiction about our adventures in the market culture of Fez. The report was encyclopedic and stunning, with photos taken from a reference book and drawings, by me, of a Fez based largely on Barcelona's old quarter. Afternoons were spent in cafes on the Ramblas drinking colorful sodas and playing solitaire (or rummy with Louise, when she wasn't busy scripting seventh grade paragraphs). The nights went on and on into hours I thought even adults could not inhabit, and I was a great hit in my clip-on tie, dancing with Louise at a club called El Sol, where the waiters gave me free snacks and admired my cards.
I was pleased that my second passport would not include Max. When Herbert finally agreed to my plan (against his better judgment, he said), it was a Friday and I had three days to get ready for my trip to Paris. Among the felicities that finally swayed him was the availability of a place to stay deep, deep in the Thirteenth arrondissement with a family that had nothing to do with art or museums. The Dupaignes offered a "suite of rooms" on the ground floor of their house to foreign scholars visiting the Cite Univer sitaire, just a few blocks away. Herbert had a friend in the university's history department (another fruit) arrange everything on his behalf, and the rooms were secured for two weeks. Herbert Widener was expected in Paris April fifteenth.
Outside, the afternoons had become legendary and warm. I rescued my tired and neglected leather datebook from its place on the dusty window ledge. Traversing its many barren pages, its vast white field of empty days and weeks, I penned in this single appointment, Arrive Paris April 15 , punctuated with a swift underline.
"I'm only doing this to rescue you from the scandal you're courting here in town."
"Courting? I'm not courting anyone."
"You can't go inviting twelve-year-old ex-students to sleep with you and expect nothing to come of it."
"Oh, everything came of it. He's fifteen, by the way."
"Exactly my point. You could be arrested."
"I've already been punished for it by the school. It's the least I can do, you know, to make the charges valid."
"That's certainly selfless—and stupid."
"I wish Dogan could go with me."
"It's out of the question. I'm the one who's going to Paris."
"I'm sure I'll keep to myself."
"Maybe you'll get this Turk out of your system, or at least develop the good sense not to sleep with him anymore."
"Hmm."
The bright blue days became crowded. I hadn't packed bags like this since my second trip with Louise (France at age sixteen), and it was relaxing to lift them in two hands and feel anchored by their weight. The neglected datebook got filled with errands and addresses, lists, phone numbers, and the pleasing finality of sharp check marks stabbed beside those tasks I managed to complete. Herbert was disappearing to a vast ranch near Petaluma to take pharmaceuticals, drink chilled fume blanc, and lie in the sun with an architect friend of ours who had everything one could ever want in life except company. The "rest cure," Herbert called it.
"Jimmy asked if you were free too."
"What did you tell him?"
"That you
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