about "androg\7iy" for the last seven years and even the dimmest suburban barbershop had hoped to improve its clientele by advertising in bold letters on a prominent placard, "Unisex." And yet the long, straightened hair, the necklaces and finery and the newly fashionable skinniness affected by straight guys had only been new window dressing for the same old actions and attitudes. Gay men who dated women struck me as even less innovative. My stepmother's best friend was married to a gay man who'd always been a tyrant with her and their three daughters, one of whom had repeatedly attempted suicide. Once a year he'd gone on a "hunting trip" with his "best friend," but the other fifrv* weeks a year he was an angry force locked up in his study at the top of their huge house (he'd married his wife for her money).
The only two choices, it appeared, were marriage, cruel to the wife, stifling to the husband, and gay promiscuity, by definition transitory, sexy and sad for the young, frustrating and sad for the old.
What haunted mc most now, however, was the idea of (junther, a straight man as tall and blond as Christa, according to the description I forced out of her She told me nothing of his character, but I fancied him too gruff to be pleasing during courtship but firm and loyal in wedlock. Christa was rejecting him because I was amusing, une ame sceur, but in the long run more soiur than soulful, perhaps, at least more than she bargained for. Of course I was sure Gunther could make her happy as I never could. Gunther was a real man, one I'd fashioned to be good enough for her.
I didn't want to be just a friend to my wife; she deserved love as much as I did. I certainly didn't want to be her rival, not even once for a fraction of a mental second; there were a few ways in which I wouldn't disgrace myself Nor would I enter a marriage with the idea I could always divorce if it didn't work out; for me marriage remained a sacred institution because until now I'd seldom thought about it. It remained a pure form contemplated from without rather than a familiar interior requiring radical modifications.
I knew I was going to ruin Christa's life. If I left her now she'd go back to Gunther and be happy forever after.
Our project at work came to an end. I stopped seeing her for two weeks. One day Jamie told me she'd gone to Italy for a month. I timed my vacation to start when hers ended. When I came back to New York I found a heavy, embossed cream envelope in my mailbox. An inner envelope contained a coroneted invitation announcing Christa's wedding.
I let a month go by, then invited the new couple to dinner. He was indeed tall and blond, but tortured, balding, with a rictus for a smile and hand-rubbing courdiness. He was stern with Christa, given to bouts of nervous irritation.
A year later they had a child. Christa found a better job with a different company. Maria ran into her from time to time over the years. She never lost her hushed, precise, sometimes pained way of speaking, of shyly biting into her words as though they were stale bread. Her husband was too ill to work—something indeterminate or at least unpronounceable, a malady of the nerves, or was it something like Crohn's disease, a slow rusting of the intestines. The daughter, Maria reported, was superb, less stately than Christa, more awakened. She must now be just three or four years younger than we were when we first met.
The Farewell Symphony
Just last year Maria told me that Gunther was now well and back at work. Christa seemed happier than Maria had ever seen hen
Rod had his monthly party, this time a vernissage for his latest tricks and light boxes. There I met Jimmy, a famous eighteen-year-old ballet dancer His fame, I suppose, was roughly equivalent to Christa's tide for me, a proof that these people (and my association with them) were esteemed by convention. Not that I thought in those terms. I was too intoxicated by their glamor since in the Midwest, where
The only two choices, it appeared, were marriage, cruel to the wife, stifling to the husband, and gay promiscuity, by definition transitory, sexy and sad for the young, frustrating and sad for the old.
What haunted mc most now, however, was the idea of (junther, a straight man as tall and blond as Christa, according to the description I forced out of her She told me nothing of his character, but I fancied him too gruff to be pleasing during courtship but firm and loyal in wedlock. Christa was rejecting him because I was amusing, une ame sceur, but in the long run more soiur than soulful, perhaps, at least more than she bargained for. Of course I was sure Gunther could make her happy as I never could. Gunther was a real man, one I'd fashioned to be good enough for her.
I didn't want to be just a friend to my wife; she deserved love as much as I did. I certainly didn't want to be her rival, not even once for a fraction of a mental second; there were a few ways in which I wouldn't disgrace myself Nor would I enter a marriage with the idea I could always divorce if it didn't work out; for me marriage remained a sacred institution because until now I'd seldom thought about it. It remained a pure form contemplated from without rather than a familiar interior requiring radical modifications.
I knew I was going to ruin Christa's life. If I left her now she'd go back to Gunther and be happy forever after.
Our project at work came to an end. I stopped seeing her for two weeks. One day Jamie told me she'd gone to Italy for a month. I timed my vacation to start when hers ended. When I came back to New York I found a heavy, embossed cream envelope in my mailbox. An inner envelope contained a coroneted invitation announcing Christa's wedding.
I let a month go by, then invited the new couple to dinner. He was indeed tall and blond, but tortured, balding, with a rictus for a smile and hand-rubbing courdiness. He was stern with Christa, given to bouts of nervous irritation.
A year later they had a child. Christa found a better job with a different company. Maria ran into her from time to time over the years. She never lost her hushed, precise, sometimes pained way of speaking, of shyly biting into her words as though they were stale bread. Her husband was too ill to work—something indeterminate or at least unpronounceable, a malady of the nerves, or was it something like Crohn's disease, a slow rusting of the intestines. The daughter, Maria reported, was superb, less stately than Christa, more awakened. She must now be just three or four years younger than we were when we first met.
The Farewell Symphony
Just last year Maria told me that Gunther was now well and back at work. Christa seemed happier than Maria had ever seen hen
Rod had his monthly party, this time a vernissage for his latest tricks and light boxes. There I met Jimmy, a famous eighteen-year-old ballet dancer His fame, I suppose, was roughly equivalent to Christa's tide for me, a proof that these people (and my association with them) were esteemed by convention. Not that I thought in those terms. I was too intoxicated by their glamor since in the Midwest, where
Similar Books
