Eastwood. I drop the book in shock. Habit was broken. Diana had put a photograph of Clint Eastwood on my side of the bed, a photograph dedicated, with love, to Diana.
Those unmistakable laconic eyes, blue and icy, as intense as a bullet. His slow, spare way of speaking, as if parsimony in dialogue were a lubricant for the speed of the shot. A thin unlit cigar between tightly shut lips. It was the photo of a warrior whoâd been at Troy, an Achilles of leather and stone, now transplanted far from Homerâs wine-dark sea to an epic without water, coastlines, or sails, an epic of thirst, the desert, and an absence of poets to sing the deeds of the hero. That was his sadness: no one sang of him. Clint Eastwood. From under sandy eyebrows, a bitter hero stared at me between blond eyelashes. The established habit had been broken. I should have foreseen it. I always should have known that no habit would last very long around Diana. Her tears that night were only the memory of the times she should have cried and didnât.
I wanted to ask her about it someday: âListen, do you only cry in the name of the times you didnât when you should have?â
Clint Eastwoodâs eyes kept me from waking her up right then and there to ask her the question whose answer I already knew. She was crying today because she didnât cry when she should have before. She had just made a movie in Oregon with Clint Eastwood. It was a long shoot. Lasted months. They were lovers. But it wasnât my place to ask anything, find out anything. It wasnât hers either. That was really an unwritten law, a tacit agreement between lovers. Modern lovers, which is to say liberated ones. Not to go around investigating what happened before, with whom, when, for how long. The civilized rule was not to ask. If she wanted to tell me something, fine. I wasnât going to show curiosity, jealousy, even good humor. I was going to maintain an absolute serenity staring day and night at the eyes of the warrior of the West as if heâd been the Sacred Heart of Jesus, placed next to me on a night table to bless and protect us.
I wasnât going to give her the satisfaction of asking about anything. If she wanted to say something about Clint Eastwood and his picture, which had suddenly appeared like a votive offering of gratitude by the headboard of our erotic bed, it was her problem. Passion and jealousy were telling me, Raise the roof, make a scene, tell this gringo whore to go to hell. My intelligence told me, Donât give her the satisfaction. Sheâd be delighted. Then what? Then sheâd get mad at me and break up with me, Iâd leave, and then? Then everything.
That was the problem: that real passion, what I was feeling for her then, kept me from doing anything to endanger my being next to her, thatâs all. I wasnât fooling myself. There was plenty of indignity, of an almost bitchy kind, in that. She was sticking the photo of her previous flame right down my throat and I was putting up with it. I was putting up with it because I didnât want to break up with her. I didnât want anything to break the charm of our love. But she did. That photo was a provocation. Or was it her way of telling me that both of us would have other loves after ours? I didnât want to anticipate a breakup in all that. I couldnât admit it. It would negate the intensity of my own passion, which was to be with her, screw with her, always, always â¦
Between jealousy and separation lay the road of serenity, sophistication, the civilized reaction. Pay no attention. Take it all sans façon. Did she want to hang photos of Clint Eastwood all over the house? Fine. I would see her as a kind of provocative sixteen-year-old, a tease, alienated, whose measles would be cured by my patient, civilized maturity. I was ten years older. Did Diana want to stick her tongue out at me? I would suck it.
But the fact is, I didnât sleep
Those unmistakable laconic eyes, blue and icy, as intense as a bullet. His slow, spare way of speaking, as if parsimony in dialogue were a lubricant for the speed of the shot. A thin unlit cigar between tightly shut lips. It was the photo of a warrior whoâd been at Troy, an Achilles of leather and stone, now transplanted far from Homerâs wine-dark sea to an epic without water, coastlines, or sails, an epic of thirst, the desert, and an absence of poets to sing the deeds of the hero. That was his sadness: no one sang of him. Clint Eastwood. From under sandy eyebrows, a bitter hero stared at me between blond eyelashes. The established habit had been broken. I should have foreseen it. I always should have known that no habit would last very long around Diana. Her tears that night were only the memory of the times she should have cried and didnât.
I wanted to ask her about it someday: âListen, do you only cry in the name of the times you didnât when you should have?â
Clint Eastwoodâs eyes kept me from waking her up right then and there to ask her the question whose answer I already knew. She was crying today because she didnât cry when she should have before. She had just made a movie in Oregon with Clint Eastwood. It was a long shoot. Lasted months. They were lovers. But it wasnât my place to ask anything, find out anything. It wasnât hers either. That was really an unwritten law, a tacit agreement between lovers. Modern lovers, which is to say liberated ones. Not to go around investigating what happened before, with whom, when, for how long. The civilized rule was not to ask. If she wanted to tell me something, fine. I wasnât going to show curiosity, jealousy, even good humor. I was going to maintain an absolute serenity staring day and night at the eyes of the warrior of the West as if heâd been the Sacred Heart of Jesus, placed next to me on a night table to bless and protect us.
I wasnât going to give her the satisfaction of asking about anything. If she wanted to say something about Clint Eastwood and his picture, which had suddenly appeared like a votive offering of gratitude by the headboard of our erotic bed, it was her problem. Passion and jealousy were telling me, Raise the roof, make a scene, tell this gringo whore to go to hell. My intelligence told me, Donât give her the satisfaction. Sheâd be delighted. Then what? Then sheâd get mad at me and break up with me, Iâd leave, and then? Then everything.
That was the problem: that real passion, what I was feeling for her then, kept me from doing anything to endanger my being next to her, thatâs all. I wasnât fooling myself. There was plenty of indignity, of an almost bitchy kind, in that. She was sticking the photo of her previous flame right down my throat and I was putting up with it. I was putting up with it because I didnât want to break up with her. I didnât want anything to break the charm of our love. But she did. That photo was a provocation. Or was it her way of telling me that both of us would have other loves after ours? I didnât want to anticipate a breakup in all that. I couldnât admit it. It would negate the intensity of my own passion, which was to be with her, screw with her, always, always â¦
Between jealousy and separation lay the road of serenity, sophistication, the civilized reaction. Pay no attention. Take it all sans façon. Did she want to hang photos of Clint Eastwood all over the house? Fine. I would see her as a kind of provocative sixteen-year-old, a tease, alienated, whose measles would be cured by my patient, civilized maturity. I was ten years older. Did Diana want to stick her tongue out at me? I would suck it.
But the fact is, I didnât sleep
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