Steve returns, in pale jeans, sandals and a cheesecloth smock-shirt he brought back from his last trip to Morocco. He pours wine for everyone. Steve is a New Zealander, somewhat older than the rest of us — late twenties, possibly even thirty. He is very clean, almost obsessive about his cleanliness, always showering, always attending to the edges of his body — the calluses on his toes, his teeth, his cuticles. He has a mustache, a neat blond General Custer affair that curls up at the ends. It’s a similarity — to General Custer — which is amplified by his wavy shoulder-length brown hair. He has spent several years traveling the Mediterranean — Rhodes, Turkey, Ibiza, Hammamet. It’s quite likely that he sells drugs to support himself. He’s not rich, but he’s not poor either. None of us knows where he gets his money. On his return from his last Moroccan trip he had also purchased a mid-calf, butter-colored Afghan coat that I covet. I’ve known him vaguely since I arrived in Nice, but lately, because of his interest in Anneliese, I tend to see him rather more often than I would wish. Whenever I get the chance I criticize Steve for Anneliese’s benefit, but subtly, as if my reservations were merely the result of a disinterested study of human nature. Just before we arrived at the flat I managed to get Anneliese to admit that there was something unappealingly sinister about Steve. Now, when he’s out of earshot, we exchange remarks about his nudism. I don’t believe the girls find it as offensive as I do.
“I think it’s the height of selfishness,” I say. “I didn’t ask to see his penis.”
The girls and Bent laugh.
“I think he’s strange,” Anneliese says, with a curious expression on her face. I can’t tell if she finds this alluring or not.
Ulricke and I continued to see each other. Soon I learned about the existence of Anneliese, duly met her and realized my mistake. But by then I was “associated” with Ulricke. To switch attention to Anneliese would have hurt and offended her sister, and with Ulricke hurt and offended, Anneliese would be bound to take her side. I found myself trapped; both irked and tantalized. I came to see Anneliese almost as often as I saw Ulricke. She appeared to like me — to my deep chagrin we became “friends.”
I forced myself to concentrate on Ulricke — to whom I was genuinely attracted — but she was only the shadow on the cave wall, so to speak. Of course I was discreet and tactfuclass="underline" Ulricke — and Anneliese at first — knew nothing of my real desires. But as the bonds between the three of us developed I came to think of other solutions. I realized I could never “possess” Anneliese in the way I did her twin; I could never colonize or settle my real affections in her person with her approval … And so I resolved to make her instead a sphere of influence — unilaterally, and without permission, to extend my stewardship and protection over her. If I couldn’t have her, then no one else should.
“When ought we to go to Cherry’s, do you think?” Bent asks in his precise grammar. We discuss the matter. Cherry is an American girl of iridescent, unreal — and therefore perfectly inert — beauty. She lives in a villa high above the coast at Villefranche which she shares with some other girl students from a college in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They stick closely and rather chastely together, these American girls, as their guileless amiability landed them in trouble when they first arrived in Nice. The Tunisian boys at the Centre would ask them back to their rooms for a cup of coffee, and the girls, being friendly, intrigued to meet foreigners and welcoming the opportunity to practice their execrable French, happily accepted. And then when the Tunisian boys tried to fuck them they were outraged. The baffled Tunisians couldn’t understand the tears, the slaps, the threats. Surely, they reasoned, if a girl agrees to have a cup of coffee in your room there is only one thing on her mind? As a result, the girls moved out of Nice to their high villa in Villefranche, where — apart from their classes at the Centre — they spent most of their time, and their French deteriorated beyond redemption. Soon they could only associate with Anglophones and all yearned to return to the USA. They were strange gloomy exiles, these girls, like passengers permanently in transit. The present moment — always the most important — held nothing for them. Their tenses were either past or future; their moods nostalgia or anticipation. And now one of their number — Cherry — was breaking out, her experiences in Nice having confirmed her in her desire to be a wife. She was returning to marry her bemused beau, and tonight was her farewell party.
We decided to go along, to make our way to Villefranche. Mild Bent has a car — a VW — but he says he has to detour to pick up his girlfriend. Ulricke announces that she and I will hitchhike. Steve and Anneliese can go with Bent, she says. I want to protest, but say nothing.
Ulricke and Anneliese live in a large converted villa, prewar, up by the Fac de Lettres at Magnan. They rent a large room in a ground-floor flat that belongs to an Uruguayan poet (he teaches Spanish literature at the university) called César.
One night — not long after our first meetings — I’m walking Ulricke home. It’s quite late. I promise myself that if we get to the villa after midnight I’ll ask if I can stay, as it’s a long walk back to my room in the rue Dante down in the city. Dependable Ulricke invites me in for a cup of coffee. At the back of the flat the windows are at ground level and overlook a garden. Ulricke and Anneliese use them as doors to avoid passing through the communal hall. We clamber through the window and into the room. It is big, bare and clean. There are two beds, a bright divan and some wooden chairs that have recently been painted a shiny new red. A few cute drawings have been pinned on the wall and there is a single houseplant, flourishing almost indecently from all the attention it receives — the leaves always dark green and glossy, the earth in the pot moist and leveled. The rest of the flat is composed of César’s bedroom, his study, a kitchen and bathroom.
We drink our coffee, we talk — idly, amicably. Anneliese is late, out at the cinema with friends. I look at my watch: it is after midnight. I make my request and Ulricke offers me the divan. There is a moment, after we have stripped off the coverlet and tucked in an extra blanket, when we both stand quite close to each other. I lean in her direction, a hand weakly touches her shoulder, we kiss. We sit down on the bed. It is all pleasantly uncomplicated and straightforward.
When Anneliese returns she seems pleased to see me. After more coffee and conversation, the girls change discreetly into their pajamas in the bathroom. While they’re gone I undress to my underpants and socks and slide into bed. The girls come back, the lights go out and we exchange cheery bonsoirs.
On the hard small divan I lie awake in the dark, Ulricke and Anneliese sleeping in their beds a few feet away. I feel warm, content, secure — like a member of a close and happy family, as if Ulricke and Anneliese were my sisters and beyond the door in the quiet house lay our tender parents …
In the morning I meet César. He is thin and febrile, with tousled dry hair. He speaks fast but badly flawed English. We talk about London, where he lived for two years before coming to Nice. Ulricke tells me that as a poet he is really quite famous in Uruguay. Also she tells me that he had an affair with Anneliese when the girls first moved in — but now they’re just friends. Unfortunately, this forces a change in my attitude toward César: I like him, but resentment will always distance us now. Whenever he and Anneliese talk I find myself searching for vestiges of their former intimacy — but there seems nothing there anymore.