Page 12 of Exquisite Things
The mysterious somebodies disappear into the bareness of the winter branches. Take all their energy with them. Leave me weak. Depleted.
“Go get dressed. And look sharp. I don’t care if this is the last you’ll see of this country for the time being. You’re still my son and you’ll act the part.” The way my dad lays claim on me—my son—chills me. But perhaps not as much as the fact that he is commanding me to play a part. I must perform the role of the perfect son once more. Forever, if he has his way. Make-believe might be fun onstage or in the pages of a novel. In life it’s a curse.
“Everything looks better from above.” My eyes are glued to the park below.
“That’s what the king’s cousin told me once.”
“I know. I was there, don’t you remember?” There’s accusation in my voice. I hate him for not remembering my childhood. For rarely being there. For never filling my stories in for me. My first words. Favorite toys. Childhood likes and dislikes. All a void. “I was standing by your side. She said that when you’re up high, you don’t see any of the conflict and sadness of the world, only its beauty. She said that from above, one realizes each individual life is but a dot in the grand Impressionist painting of life, which even then I found a strange thing to say. That a single life was meaningless, when what is more important than each living thing?”
My father turns to me in shock. “You were just... How old were you when she said that? You must have been four or five....”
“I was six.”
“It’s incredible you remember.” There’s a glimmer of respect in his voice. “You’ve always had a sharp mind. It cannot be wasted.”
“I’m not planning on wasting it. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps I have something to teach you, just as you’ve taught me?”
“No, it has not. When I was seventeen, I had a plan for my life. All you have is silly fantasies.”
“My plan...” I take a breath. “Is to be free.”
“Freedom has a price.” Rage flashes across my father’s face. There’s violence in his eyes. He punches the wall. His frustration bubbles into a boil. Numbers are his domain. Not people. He always saw me as an equation. Plug in the right variables. Get the right answer. He got me instead. A wrong answer of a son.
The headmaster does not argue when my father announces he’s pulling me out of school early and why. The headmaster shares my father’s concern. He’s equally disgusted by Wilde. By the details he’s read of London’s filthy homosexual underworld. He assures my father that the problems will disappear when Wilde is found guilty and put away. He calls it a cult of personality. As if our love for other men—which began long before the late nineteenth century—is due to one modern man. He speaks of Wilde as Dionysus. Putting others under some Bacchian spell. Not once in that meeting does the headmaster address me. It’s my father paying the bills, after all. My education is simply a transaction. I its miserable product.
I pack my bags. Realize how little I own. Nothing belongs to me. Not even myself. Boys I’ve hardly spoken a word to say their goodbyes. There’s a pang of sadness when I contemplate never seeing them again. Perhaps we’ve never been friends. But we shared spaces: Classrooms. Dormitory hallways. Cricket fields. Skating rinks. I go to James’s room when my bag is packed. He’s alone. Asleep. A book of Keats poems by his side.
I place a hand on the page that lulled him to sleep—“Four seasons in the mind of a man: He has his lusty Spring”—and the other hand on his hot cheek. “James.”
His eyes flutter open. “What are you doing here?” Hazy panic in his voice. He pushes my hand off his cheek.
“I’m leaving.” I keep my eyes on the poem: “He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature.”
“Good.” He rubs his eyes. Closes the Keats book. “I hope nobody saw you come in. I told you to—”
“James. Listen. I’m leaving. Forever. Tomorrow morning. My father is taking me back home. To Persia.” I watch as he tries to decide if this news makes him happy. Sad. Perhaps both. “You were reading poetry.”
“So, this is goodbye?” He flips the pages of the book anxiously. Words glide by.
“I’m afraid it is. I hope... that you find someone else you can speak honestly to someday. As we did.”
His eyes soften. “If you’re leaving, then what’s the harm in one last night together. I’m due for dinner at my parents’ tonight. Join us.”
“My father—”
“Bring him. It’s one night. One meal. What’s the worst that could happen?”
My final night in London. We’re seated at a long dining table in Mayfair. Eating an endless barrage of rich food: Soup. A roast. Stew. Sticky pudding. Cheeses. Tea. All served on ornate porcelain. The game was hunted by James’s father only a few days earlier. He speaks of killing an animal and turning it into stew as a source of great pride. It sickens me to chew the meat.
James’s parents offer my father a tour of their private gardensafter tea and cheese has been consumed. They leave me and James mercifully alone.
“Come, I want to show you something.” James leads me to his room. It looks untouched from when he was a much younger child. Perhaps since he’s been living at school for years. Hand-painted underwater scenes on the walls. Fish. Octopi. Reefs. A world of magnificent colors. Where everyone and everything floats.
He closes the door behind us. “Look!” He pulls a manuscript from under his mattress. “I stole it from my father’s office years ago.”
I read some of the pages. Handwritten pages about Dorian Gray. “Is this...”
“It’s Oscar Wilde’s very first, unedited draft ofThe Picture of Dorian Gray. Well, not the entire draft, of course. I couldn’t very well steal the whole book. And of course, by the time I took them, edits were made, subsequent drafts were created.”
