Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [71]
Together they found their professions. Guy Furlong opened an art gallery on Calle de Praga to give a space to painters who used an easel and to prove that murals were not the only art in Mexico. José Luis established a law office on Avenida Juárez that soon specialized in discreet divorce negotiations, division of property, awarding of custody, and other troublesome matters in the life of a family that ought to be kept away from public opinion.
“To be who we are, we need money,” José Luis said judiciously, and of course Guy agreed.
In order not to worry about money, they had to make money. Without ostentation. The important thing was to keep alive desire, the capacity for wonder, to share time, to create a common background of memories and an evanescent oasis of desires. If love was divided among several unreachable models, affection was concentrated on a single intimate model. Themselves.
The two boys established certain rules for their life in common. Guy said it one night:
“The first time you made love to me, you accepted me once and for all, without any need to test me or constantly reaffirm the ties that bind us. Between us, there are more than enough complications.”
It really wasn’t necessary to reaffirm a love given as spontaneously as the flow of a fountain, though with constant references to everything in the life of the world that pleased them and identified them. Their intimacy was the thing that was sacred, untouchable, the impalpable diamond that, handled too much, could change into coal. In the secret chamber of their intimacy, Guy and José Luis established a relationship as close to itself as water is to its continent. “Death Without End,” the great poem by José Gorostiza, was one of the couple’s vital bibles. Form was content and content form with no more motive than the patterns of delight in touch begun that increasingly distant afternoon in the movies. The joy of mutual contemplation. The knowledge of the respect owed to each one and to the couple.
As for the world . . . they weren’t naive. They knew they were in society, and society tests us, it demands periodic examinations, especially of homosexual lovers who dare to be happy. José Luis and Guy prepared good-naturedly to endure the world’s tests, aware that they wanted to have contact with the group but avoid (as if it were mange) promiscuity.
“You’re not a flirt,” José Luis said to Guy. “You just display yourself. You like to show yourself off. You’re right. You’re handsome, and you ought to let yourself be admired. I’m happy you’re like this. I’m happy people admire you.”
“Don’t fool yourself,” Guy responded. “People need to know me to love me. If a person doesn’t know me, he probably won’t like me.”
They laughed at these topics and admitted:
“There can always be somebody who seduces us.”
Until now, no one had come between them. The serious, amiable behavior of the boys, their stability as a couple, made them likable. They dressed well, they spoke well, they were doing well in their respective careers. They saved criticism of other people for private moments. They weren’t gossipmongers.
“Did you see the faces Villarino was making? He was putting moves on you.”
“You like people to admire me, didn’t you say that?”
“Show yourself off now that you’re young. Take a good look at Villarino so you never become a flirt when you’re old. How awful!”
“No. How ridiculous!”
Both had been educated in English schools, but they never referred to what is called “the English vice.” They did accept, however, a rule of conduct learned by means of educational blows with a cane to the gluteals:
Never complain. Never explain.