The boy pushed the moped off its kickstand and began walking away with it.
The moped didn’t work. It had broken down. That was all. A breakdown, in the middle of the night, on Diepenbrockstraat.
While Xavier was thinking about the boy, he saw Awromele in his mind’s eye, undressing, doing things with the manager that he should do only with Xavier. He heard him saying to the manager: “I have to do this because no one comforts me. Because I can’t say no. Because loneliness is nothing to be ashamed of.”
Xavier got up, brushed the dust and sand off his hands. He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t want to go home, Awromele’s absence would only hurt him more. If he lay in bed, he would see Awromele in the arms of the manager, he would see Awromele kissing mouths that should never have been kissed, he would see a blissful look glide across Awromele’s face, a look he hadn’t seen in real life for a long time. Awromele’s absence, that was hell.
The boy was about twenty yards away from him now. He couldn’t walk very quickly, pushing a moped like that. Maybe it was stolen; maybe that was the problem. Xavier could see how heavy the moped was, how hard it was to push along. “Hey,” he shouted.
The boy turned off into Beatrixpark. There were two fences forming a stile at the entrance, to keep bicyclists from riding through.
Xavier followed the boy. It wouldn’t have been hard to catch up with him, but he kept walking behind him at a proper distance. He didn’t want to be pushy, he just wanted to be there, in case.
Occasionally the boy turned around to look, and Xavier waved. One time he shouted, “No need to worry.”
The boy was close to one of the ponds now. Xavier knew this park; he had come here to paint a few times: King David with trees in the background, benches, a trash can. King David in the grass. King David and the roses.
The boy was no longer walking — he was running, insofar as one can run while pushing a moped.
Then the boy stopped. Xavier stopped as well. He waited to see what would happen. He wondered whether Awromele had ever followed boys with mopeds into the park at night. He was sure he hadn’t; he was the only one who would do that, for Awromele. Everything he did, he did for Awromele; after all, what did he amount to on his own?
The boy was holding his moped upright with one hand now. He turned to face Xavier, waiting for him.
“What do you want?’ the boy shouted. “Fuck off.”
Xavier didn’t know what to say to that. The boy spoke with an accent, too, but it wasn’t a German accent. Xavier couldn’t place it. Even though it was nighttime, even though he was standing close to a pond, he felt sure of himself. He knew what he was doing here; he knew why he had come here. He had to convince the boy and help him, in that order; he was good at that, at convincing people. Back at school, he had always won the class debates. Rhetoric had been his favorite subject.
“You need help,” Xavier called out. He began walking towards the boy.
The boy said nothing. He didn’t run, either; he just looked at Xavier, sizing him up.
Then Xavier stopped in his tracks. Something had occurred to him. “Are you Palestinian?”
There was no reply. The boy stood there, his head slightly bowed, holding his moped with one hand. He was wearing a pendant; something glistened there, just beneath his Adam’s apple.
“Come on,” Xavier said, “tell me the truth. Are you Palestinian?”
Xavier had never met one before, but sometimes he thought he recognized one, in the subway, in front of a department store, on the beach on a Sunday afternoon. The enemies of the people he must comfort.
The boy turned around, took a few steps with his moped. On the back of his jogging suit was a number: 78.
Xavier caught up with the boy. He couldn’t move very fast. There was gravel here, which made it even harder to push the moped. The gravel had just been laid. The moped looked like it was sinking up to its wheels. Like in quicksand.
The boy stopped again, panting.
Xavier walked around and stopped in front of him. He held out his hand to him. This was how Awromele did it, making contact, kissing, not too much talking. There was nothing to say. Not in language the way people had known it until now. The old, accursed, impotent language that pointed only to death, every paragraph, every word, every comma, death.
“My name’s Xavier.” He placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. The same shoulder he had touched before.
The boy didn’t move. He simply looked at Xavier. Tense, threatening, but curious as well.
This world was a world of eternal struggle, You-Know-Who had seen that quite clearly.
He wants me, Xavier thought. He wants me, the way I want him. He desires me. That’s what we were made for, to long for each other, only for that, again and again, without end, till the end of time, till it doesn’t matter anymore.
“You’re pretty,” Xavier said. “You’re a pretty Palestinian.”
He waited for a reaction, still with his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Only now did he notice that the boy was trembling.
“Or are you something different? You can tell me what you are. Or are you just pretty? That’s okay, too. Just being pretty is the best.”
The boy pushed him away. With both hands. His moped fell against Xavier.
Xavier cursed. His right leg hurt — his ankle. The moped was lying on his foot like a corpse.
Xavier rubbed the painful places.
The boy started backing away, leaving his moped, leaving Xavier, backing towards the pond. Dignified, like an actor who doesn’t want to turn his back on his beloved audience, who keeps waving and bowing until the final applause has died out.
“Come on,” Xavier shouted, and went after him. When he started walking, he noticed how badly his leg hurt, but he kept walking faster. As though he was in a hurry, as though every minute mattered, as though he couldn’t wait a moment longer.
When you were made for each other, it was wrong to walk right past each other. It was wrong to let each other go when you desired each other the way the boy and Xavier did.
Then the boy could go no farther. He was standing in the grass at the edge of the pond. In the distance, on the gravel, lay the moped.
The rain had turned the ground to mush.
Xavier suddenly thought about his grandfather, his mother. He should call her again soon; he should paint her again sometime as well. But she was in Basel, and he was in Amsterdam. He thought about Mr. Schwartz, and then about Awromele. And the whole time he was thinking about all this, he was walking towards the boy, who stood with his back to the fence beside the pond.
Mothers came here with their baby carriages. They would stop for a few minutes at the pond, to feed the ducks. With a moldy piece of cake. Wasted minutes. Xavier had watched them, had compared them with the mother in Basel. He grabbed the boy by his upper arm, the way you might grab a schoolboy, strict but with the best of intentions. The boy didn’t seem to be resisting, as though he couldn’t, or didn’t dare to, or didn’t want to.
Xavier pushed the boy onto the ground, in the mud. He lay down on top of him. As if he were an air mattress. “Do you long for me?” he asked quietly. “Do you long for me the way I long for you? You can tell me, you can tell me anything now. It doesn’t matter who you are; it doesn’t matter, do you hear me? To me you’re just the prettiest Palestinian, and that’s what you’ll always be.”
Once more there was only the look in the boy’s eyes, a questioning, suspicious look. Xavier moved his face closer to him — he wanted to whisper something in his ear.
“Hey, fuck off!” the boy shouted. He pushed Xavier’s head away, poked him in the right eye with his fingers.
The pain enraged Xavier. He seized the boy’s head and started kissing him.