I take over everything I can from him and can then imitate him. It’s a natural talent of mine. Like being ambidextrous or owning iridescent eyes of an indeterminate colour, capable of changing according to the light or the darkness.
I take the photograph and look at myself.
My face is no longer my face. There is no longer any trace of youthful fury, or unrestrained and improductive ambition.
There is no longer any evidence of passion.
All excesses have been polished away.
My eyes are not the colour of grey metal. Now, they are gems, limpid green emeralds, sharp and defined.
I meet Maxim at the Hotel Diplomatic. I have brought with me a copy of the Chet Baker biography, the present I had bought for him. It will keep him company when he takes the plane that will return him to London. Maxim always talks of London. He’s both in love with and a prisoner of that city. In his books, he writes with infinite subtlety and in excessive detail, chapter after chapter, of places, because he has been everywhere, and knows that nothing compares to home.
Maxim will travel again, I know. But he will always return home. He does this time after time because his dance with the cosmos is complete. Mine has barely begun.
“You have nothing to lose,” he says.
It’s true. I can pack my cases at any time, without leaving anything behind, neither a true friend, nor an unforgettable lover. My life is so pitiful, barely a speck in the sky. But today the sky is greyer than usual. The sky is a dark cloak that hides important things from view.
2
The young woman’s fingers were caressing his chest. The sort of caress that awakens you.
“You’re very pretty for your age,” he said.
Her name was Lisa.
In the darkness of the room, Trevor admired her white skin and the small, firm breasts peeping out of her lacy bra. Lisa allowed herself to be examined, displaying no embarrassment. She continued to brush his skin with a light touch. She seemed at ease, much more so than Trevor. She now began licking his chest and his stomach with the expertise of a professional. Trevor closed his eyes. Lisa’s face buried itself between his legs. The heat from her tongue penetrated his veins, warming his body and senses. Clinging to her, Trevor began moaning. He took hold of her head, pulling her sharply against his stomach. Trevor was excited, but also annoyed by the assurance Lisa displayed beneath the sheets.
Love. Sex. Lust.
What do you call a blow job on a first date?
“I’ll call you a cab.”
Trevor moved to the bathroom and began running the water. Once it was hot enough, he stirred it firmly with his extended fingers. Small bubbles of air remained stuck to the hair on his arms. Blame it on the chlorine, he thought.
“The taxi has arrived,” Lisa shouted out from where she was standing at the door.
“Do you want me to see you off?”
“It ain’t necessary. See you tomorrow.”
Trevor has hung a copy of the poster from his exhibition on the bathroom wall. A successful show, although it might be his last. With these paintings he has finally confronted the heart of his carnal, lascivious work. A landscape of imaginary bodies, men and women obscenely linked by love and death. Arms and legs, loose and akimbo, initially together and then parcelled off like pieces of meat in a mad and murderous sequence. Not bad for someone who for years has only displayed children’s book illustrations in public. With painting after painting, Trevor has given life to a snuff movie of his very own, a defiant answer to all those who had accused him of no longer being alternative and cool.
For the time being, Trevor is satisfied. Tomorrow, he will have to decide what to do about his art and his own life. Right now, all he wants is a coffee and a cold shower. But first he must shave.
That beard was definitely not a good idea, even from a purely aesthetic point of view.
Trevor takes the razor and applies an abundant quantity of foam to his cheeks. With the beard on, he betrays his forty-odd years and how much he has grown older.
Trevor hates growing older. Or wiser.
In Toronto, Trevor works for a large publishing house, and enjoys a good professional reputation. But he no longer wishes to be involved in children’s books. Designing book covers is just a job, and it doesn’t make him feel much like an artist. On the contrary, the money has changed him; it makes him feel cheap, like a character in a B movie. He no longer wears the rough woollen sweaters he once liked so much, but a suit and tie, as they fit so much better into his new life. A life full of weaknesses and compromises. And it is all those compromises that he has made that now make him feel so old inside. The young kid who pretended to be Superman, has turned into an adult like Clark Kent, a tired Clark Kent. But if Clark Kent is none other than Superman with a pair of glasses, Trevor simply remains Trevor. With or without a beard. Which is why, today, with the help of a cheap disposable plastic razor bought at the nearest supermarket, he begins to shave with fast, steady strokes. And his old face emerges through the thick white foam, just like in that short film he recalls watching some years back [10]. In which a man kept on shaving his face and never stopping until his whole features became a mask of blood. Trevor slides the blade up and down, covering every square inch of his skin, but by the time he has finished, there is not even a scratch. Just his smooth, shiny face. How banal!
I want Los Angeles. A city I have only ever seen in films, a city whose images are bathed in an incredible array of colours. Art and spectacle. Beaches and indolence. Rum and cocaine.
I don’t know that face of America, but I know I could learn to love it. Maxim, on the other hand, only loves New Orleans.
We both agree to meet in New York.
America is a territory that both dilates and shrinks at the same time. Maybe New York is the capital of the republic of dreams. Maybe New York is the territory and I am the map. Maxim is late. Maybe even he has managed to lose himself within the stretch marks of this country.
I wait, and the waiting appeases me. I kill the time, creating Chinese shadows with the light shining through the windows of the forty fourth floor of the skyscraper. Like in a novel where all the characters are beautiful, rich, famous and fly away into the sky.
Without ever falling back down to earth.
3
No one apologised to Mauro for the fire. Not his roommate who accidentally started it, or the British authorities who because of a series of legal mix-ups failed to initiate a proper enquiry.
As a matter of fact, Mauro reflected, the British bureaucracy turned out in the end to be no more efficient than the Italian one. A lot of talk, but there always appeared to be some obstacle when it came to move into action.
He’d gone to London in the hope of making it as a photographer and setting up his own studio, one with black and white walls, a magical space he could share with just his cat. But that pipe dream was now defunct.
“It’s because of the fire. It’s all because of that damn fire,” he kept on repeating between his clenched teeth.
At first, in London, Mauro had acted like a proper tourist: he’d visited the City, taken walks by the Thames and gotten drunk in almost every Covent Garden bar, effortlessly wasting his money. He had then decided to pack his bags and move outside the centre of town.