Paris, Good Friday, 2007, 11h45
Ennis' phone began vibrating in the pocket of his coveralls as he knelt in the dirt. He sat back on his heels and eased it out, glancing toward Jack, who kept talking, his eyes on the flowers he was settling into the soft, black earth.
"Ennis, you and Jack keep on until one and then pack up. It's his last day anyway. You know, I don't understand you, Delamer. You had a month to make a move. This afternoon is your last chance. It's the day of the Passion, after all!"
As Ennis listened to Aguirre, his stomach knotted up. After his boss barked his last words, Ennis closed the phone slowly, careful not to let it snap, but when he looked up, Jack was staring at him.
"That was Monsieur Aguirre?"
"Yeah," he mumbled, trying to keep his face neutral. "Said we have the afternoon off."
"Soupurr, a long weekend." Jack said, his tone oddly flat. "Your boss is nice."
Ennis couldn't help wincing, though this time it was not on account of Jack's accent.
"But why do we stop?"
Ennis shrugged. "Probably for accumulated overtime." Jack still couldn't seem to grasp how the thirty-five hour week worked. But now, it didn't matter.
IT WAS in the middle of frozen February that Aguirre informed Ennis that he was going to hire a temporary worker to help him with the spring park maintenance. They'd won a few more contracts from the city and some of the green spaces needed a great deal of clearing out after the hard winter. Ennis told him he didn't need anyone.
"Yes you do. You are alone too much."
Ennis glanced down at the palm-sized binoculars on Aguirre's desk.
"You're in charge," he said flatly. But Ennis didn't intend to give him any satisfaction.
On a brisk morning in March, Ennis walked at his usual quick pace from the Convention metro station to the Parc Georges-Brassens in the fifteenth arrondissement. He looked forward to working in this park each year, even though all he did was plant annuals, because it had some unusual features for a city park, such as beehives and a vineyard. He liked the fact that it had opened to the public the year that he was born, and that the park had replaced slaughterhouses.
When he reached the main entrance, with its two great pillars each supporting the statue of a bull, he saw that Aguirre was not alone.
That bastard, Ennis thought.
He knew what the other guy was the instant he laid eyes on him. Aguirre had no idea how Ennis felt about Americans so he knew his boss had not hired this man to deliberately torment his employee. But he saw right away that Aguirre felt he was doing Ennis a big favor.
Aguirre grinned at Ennis as he walked up to them, then turned to Jack and said, "I present to you Ennis Delamer, whom you'll be working under. Ennis, this is Jack Twist."
"Enchanted," said Jack, putting out his hand.
Ennis puffed out a breath, and Aguirre glared at him. He shook Jack's hand politely and mumbled a greeting. Jack looked about his own age and was similarly tall and lean but any resemblance ended there. While Ennis' thin lips, wary brown eyes and blunt nose coexisted uneasily on his angular face under unkempt, light brown curls, Jack's features were individually pleasing and collectively harmonious, his thick, dark hair clean and cut well. His blue eyes were clear, with that wide open, friendly gaze worn by certain tourists Ennis saw in the biggest parks. Jack might as well have stepped out of Ennis' TV screen, no matter that he was wearing a shapeless blue gardener's coverall like his own. Unlike Ennis' own uniform, it fit him perfectly, setting off his eyes and hair as if designed for him.
For the rest of that morning, Jack did not shut up. Ennis silently cursed Aguirre as they knelt in the cool, early spring dirt, troweling out holes and settling flowers into them. He listened to Jack recount in his fractured French the story of his life: the English father who'd walked out but left Jack with the gift of a British passport that allowed him to work in the European Union; the born-again Christian mother who raised him in a flat place deep inside America, and his escape at 18 to a city Ennis had only vaguely heard of, then later to New York; the Parisian friends of friends who were trying life in the countryside of the southwest, running a campground, but were afraid to give up their cheap apartment, just in case it didn't work out; how Jack had jumped at the chance to move to another country and make a clean break. A break with what he didn't say.
"But the apartment is so small," Jack said. "Like New York. Three small rooms. The kitchen is like a... a slice of space. How can they live there with two children?"
"Where is it?"
"Not far from here. Across the river, next to the pont de Garigliano."
Inside the Périphérique then. No wonder they were afraid to give it up.
"That's standard," Ennis shrugged, and continued poking at the earth. He wasn't going to tell Jack about his own slot of a bedroom.
"Since I come in January I try to learn French better," Jack said carefully, after a minute. "You are the only French person I have met who doesn't like to talk. Or interrupt me."
Ennis kept his eyes on the frowning pansies by his knees, feeling the muscles in his shoulders and back tense. He didn't need to be reminded that he was different in that way as well. When Jack didn't resume his flow of words, he raised his head.
Ennis shrank from Jack's compassionate gaze as another might from a raised fist. Instantly, that day came back to him — 30 pairs of eyes turned toward him, as he froze in the classroom doorway the day he'd returned to school, all wearing the same pitying expression.
Seconds passed, and Ennis realised he'd looked for too long. Like the surface of a pond ruffled by a breeze, understanding flickered in the American's eyes.
"Tell me your life," Jack said, gently. "You come from where?"
Ennis noticed he used tu, because it was it was Jack's first sentence without je.
"From the suburbs." He could tell Jack was imagining trees and neat houses, like in America.
"You have brothers and sisters?"
"One of each, older than me. Different fathers."
"Your parents are together?"
"My... I lost them when I was fourteen. It was a... car accident."
"Oh. I... um, regret about that very much. Where do you live?"
"In Fontenay-sous-Bois. With my sister."
"And your brother?"
"He's in Marseilles."
"Ennis is not a French name."
"It's Irish, I think."
"A person in your family is Irish?"
"No, Ireland was all the rage in 1984."
Ennis continued working the earth as he answered the questions, digging and refilling the same hole. He looked past Jack, nervously scanning the gardens for Aguirre.
There were three people in his life: his half-siblings and his boss. When he was 19 he realised that they had never asked him about girls. Not one had ever ventured, "Are you...?" but it seemed they had guessed, somehow. When his brother had told him that he and his girlfriend had just gotten a civil union, he'd sounded apologetic, saying he knew the PACS wasn't originally meant for straight couples.
Joseph Aguirre was Ennis' first and only employer. After he lost his parents, he bounced from one foster family to another while he worked as an apprentice instead of going on to lycée. He chose landscaping to get away from pavement. Aguirre had known his mother and offered to train him. When Ennis turned 18, the final foster family presented him with a brand new suitcase: he was on his own. By then his sister had finally cleaned up her act and had a one-bedroom apartment that included an alcove with space for a single bed, so he moved in with her. Aguirre hired him properly then, but after five years he still only had a temporary work contact. Aguirre did renew it each year, but Ennis was afraid to ask for a permanent contract, even though it would make getting his own place thinkable. Or maybe, because it would.
He wouldn't say Aguirre was kind to him, exactly, but he seemed overly concerned about his solitariness. Ennis was the only full-time employee who wasn't one of Aguirre's boisterous Basque in-laws. He sometimes took on a temporary worker when they were juggling many contracts. Then he would spy on the two of them with his binoculars. Ennis eventually realised that Aguirre was not just checking to see if they were slacking off.
Yet he didn't understand how Aguirre knew.
Jack must have sensed that Ennis had reached his limit of personal questions, because he turned to a work subject. He asked the French names of the annuals they were planting.
Ennis pointed to the side of the tray, marked Pensées.
Jack studied the lettering. "A centime for your pansies, then?" he said in a teasing voice and grinned at Ennis, who was pleased to have gotten the joke. He was also impressed that Jack that knew the word also meant "thoughts."
Seconds later, sunlight broke through the clouds, as though ready to face off with a rival. Ennis witnessed friendly smiles daily, but they were never directed at him. It felt as though something warm and sweet had been dashed in his face. He stared at Jack, and was dismayed to see his smile fade.
"Ex... excuse me," Jack stammered, reverting to vous in his embarrassment. "It was a bad joke."
Ennis felt seldom-used muscles in his face twitch into life and was startled to see Jack's light up in response. As the stroking hand is encouraged by a purring cat, his mouth stretched wider into a proper smile and a chuckle bubbled in his throat. Jack laughed out loud, and Ennis felt a corner of his heart unwind a tick.
But something in Jack's expression told him he had missed part of the joke.
ENNIS HESITATED when he came out of the train station in Fontenay. When he got like this, he automatically headed for the nearest entrance to the Bois de Vincennes. But the last few days working with Jack had mixed up something. He felt both enervated and exhausted from so much talking and listening.
Still, he needed to go into the woods, even though it wasn't quite dark yet. At the end of the month the clocks would go forward and it would be too light after work.
He went to the right, then turned right again and walked quickly down the avenue de Fontenay, crossed the avenue de Nogent and set off along the circular path around the Lac des Minimes. The leafless trees were like gray lace fans against the inky sky.
There were more people in this park lately, and he knew many of them were homeless. Once the winter was over and the usual wave of March evictions had begun, more homemade shelters appeared in the woods. The last time he'd come here, someone had almost seen him and the man… together. Ennis had stayed away ever since. He remembered the man had had a very sour smell that evening.
As soon as he could, he ducked into the woods and left the path behind. Maybe he would only take a walk this evening, because Prison Break was on later, and he knew Jack would be watching it, too. It was a season behind in France, so Jack already knew what would happen. He'd said watching the dubbed version helped him improve his French. Jack had been impressed when Ennis told him his sister was a tattoo artist, and they'd discussed at length the meanings behind Michael Scofield's tattoo. Jack had said he thought about getting one, but wasn't sure what or where. Ennis had ignored the hint.
Every fifty or so meters he spotted a little shack of some kind. One was even surrounded by a tall plywood fence with a locked gate, but most were ramshackle affairs of scrap wood and tarps. Three men had frozen to death that winter.
Twilight was deepening and he still hadn't seen a familiar figure so he veered off to his right to find the walkway. That's when he noticed the blue dome tent, the kind you could just flip into the air and it popped open. There was nothing else strewn around it so it must have been set up very recently. He stood still and watched for the flicker of candlelight or a flashlight beam, but it was dark. He approached the tent quietly. It was a fancy model, with a kind of vestibule before the main entrance. Bending down, he peeked inside and his nose was assaulted by the familiar, sour odor of unwashed clothes.
He straightened up quickly and glanced around, his stomach churning and his heart pounding. He'd never suspected. Unless...
How did a man arrive at the tipping point? A job lost, divorce, bad luck?
They had never spoken of anything beyond the essentials. Harder. Suck. Like that. The man's clothes had always been clean, normal. Ennis had never really seen his face, but under his fingertips he could feel that the man was much older, and always freshly shaven. Except for last time, when his face had been scratchy with stubble. Had he lost everything, been pitched out... because of this?
A tide of guilt pursued him as he crashed through the woods and then jogged back along the path to the avenue and on for another kilometer until, panting, he reached his concrete cocoon.
…
"Where do we eat today?" asked Jack, right on schedule at eleven forty-five.
There had been a cheap café opposite the Parc Georges Brassens but this morning they were working in the tiny riverside Jardin de Tino Rossi in the fifth arrondissement. Ennis knew there was nothing affordable nearby in this chic neighborhood. They could finish the plantings if they worked through until two o'clock and then bought a sandwich or slice of pizza when they left. But when Ennis glanced at Jack, he could tell his workmate wouldn't be satisfied with that. He remembered the indignant way Jack had informed him once that, believe it or not, one hour was generally the maximum amount of time Americans took for lunch.
Ennis didn't look away from the rhododendron bush he was pruning, trying to hide his small smile. For the past couple of days it had been Americans this and Americans that, as though thousands of kilometres and Jack's British passport had purged him of all his compatriots' attitudes.
"Oh, maybe get a baguette and some cheese and bring it back here," Ennis replied, shrugging. "It would only take us 20 minutes and we could get right back to work."
"Whaaat? You are not really French, Ennis," Jack sputtered. "You can't live like that, just working all the time and not having pleasure in life! You're a very strange guy. How can you... Oh."
Ennis was grinning.
They had to walk nearly to the 7th before they found a bistrot whose prices they could stomach. It was nearly full, an oasis for working men in that expensive district. The low, rumbling voices and scrape of cutlery was soothing to Ennis. He had steak-frites but Jack ordered the plat du jour, lamb stew, and insisted they share half a carafe of red wine. Ennis tried to remember the last time he'd had wine, or a meal in a restaurant. When he thought back, it was like disappearing into a tunnel, it had been so long. Whenever he drank now, it was to forget.
Dessert was a choice between île flottante and gâteau basque and they ordered one of each. While they were waiting for them to arrive, Jack fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and laid it on the table, then pressed buttons on his phone. Ennis felt his own phone vibrate against his chest and he plucked it from his pocket, wondering what Aguirre wanted. He didn't recognize the number, and when he opened the phone the caller rang off.
"There, now you have my number," Jack grinned. "I told Aguirre I should have yours in case... in case I was going to be late for work. "
Ennis looked down and rubbed his thumb over the smooth casing of his phone, which now contained a string of numbers that could connect him to Jack at any time, like a line cast into the waters around his island.
Before he could respond, their desserts arrived. Ennis dipped his spoon into the island of caramel and meringue and dragged it through the sea of vanilla cream.
A few days later they started work in the Parc Kellermann in the 13th, far from the tourist areas. The mild weather was holding but there were few people in the park that morning. Ennis had spent a week planting trees here with Aguirre when he was still an apprentice and hadn't been back since. He felt proud to see them grown so tall.
After a few minutes, Ennis realised Jack had moved away from him. When he looked around, he saw him about fifteen meters away, holding up a small digital camera and photographing Ennis' trees. The sight of Jack with his arms up and open filled him with a strange feeling.
"What're you doing?" Ennis called out after Jack had lowered the camera.
Jack strolled back over to him and stood close, showing him the screen. He clicked through a dozen or so images, some of flowers they had planted, others close ups of tree branches or wide shots of the lawn.
"They are for my blog. To show my friends what I do for work. Friends in America," he added.
Ennis knew what blogs were, but didn't spend any time reading them. He wondered what else Jack put on it besides pictures of the parks.
"What do you do after work?" he asked.
"I watch television, to hear French," Jack replied. "Since I don't hear much at work," he added, teasingly. "I joined a gym and go there sometimes. But often I just go for a walk, go onto the bridge and look at the lights and wait for a phone call."
Ennis thought about calling Jack that night, while he was watching a DVD of Six Feet Under. The series had coincided with his years with the foster families; watching old episodes served to remind him that his life was better now. But his sister came home unexpectedly; lately she spent most nights at her boyfriend's place. She waved at him to leave it on when he moved to switch off the DVD player, and held up a whiskey bottle. He nodded.
While she was pouring two shots, he switched the audio from dubbed French to English with subtitles so she could follow. He wondered what Jack sounded like speaking his own language, whether he talked even more when he had free rein. Ennis had picked up only a few signs in the five years he'd been living with Delphine. She read lips well, and they didn't spend much time together anyway. But when he saw her with her friends, her hands flying, he understood there was a part of her he couldn't know.
She slipped onto the sofa and handed him a whiskey, swinging her bare feet up onto the coffee table next to his. During one of the scenes where the dead person he's about to embalm talks to Nate, Delphine tapped Ennis' arm. He looked at her. She raised her eyebrows, pointed at him and mouthed, Maman? He shook his head. She touched her breastbone, then mimed sleep with her palm and cheek and pointed to her ear. That hurt. Delphine couldn't have saved their mother even if she'd been there; his sister would have heard nothing. She crossed her ankles, away from him, covering the rose tattoo.
"Have you ever thought of starting your own landscaping business? Maybe somewhere else in France? Because you don't seem to enjoy living in Paris."
That was the thing about Americans: they were always blithely talking about change. Jack seemed to think it was simple to start a business. And they were all so quick to move somewhere else, like Jack had done. At night he watched them on those shows, mesmerized by their confidence. Before knowing Jack, he'd feared and hated them for it.
"It's expensive to start a business," Ennis muttered. "Lot of rules and taxes. And I like Paris alright."
They were in the Parc Sainte Périne today, which happened to be a ten-minute stroll from Jack's apartment. Aguirre had set them to dead-heading the hydrangeas at the edge of the playground, which either the city crew or the previous sub-contractor had failed to do in the fall. A few tulips and jonquils were in bloom on this unseasonably warm day, but most of the color in that section of the park came from the vibrantly multi-colored shifts of the African nannies lining the benches. They reminded Ennis of tropical birds as they chatted, always one or two darting out to trap the wandering toddler in her charge, then returning to alight next to her friends.
"Really? Have you been up the Eiffel Tower?"
Ennis swallowed hard and shook his head.
"Look, it's just there, across the river," Jack said, waving in the general direction. "We could go there during lunch."
Ennis knew Jack was well aware it would take longer than two hours to walk over there, wait in line, go up, come down and walk back.
"Someday, not today," Ennis mumbled.
"What did you do over the weekend?" Jack persisted.
"Not much," Ennis shrugged. "Went to the Jardin des Plantes."
Jack smiled at him. "Like an artist visiting the Louvre?"
Ennis ducked his head, embarrassed, and Jack laughed. He'd described these botanical gardens to Jack, explaining that you had to pass a tough exam to even be considered for a position as a gardener there.
"I spent the weekend in the marsh," Jack said after a moment, when Ennis didn't respond.
Ennis frowned in confusion; you had to go far outside of Paris to find wetlands.
"Me, I prefer the woods," he muttered.
"What, the Bois de Boulogne? You're handsome, you don't have pay for a girl," Jack smirked.
Like the first day, Ennis felt he'd been doused, but this time with something cold and flammable. Le Marais. Ennis had been there one time, a few years before. It was during his first summer with Aguirre, in the middle of that brutal heat wave. They had started work in the Place des Vosges late in the day, to avoid the searing sun, and on the way to the Metro station after work he'd come around a corner and seen scores of men milling around outside a bar, a roiling mass of sweaty, bare torsos glistening under the lights, like a scrum of fish near the surface of a moonlit pond. Understanding had hit him like a wave, when he got hard. Nausea swept in close behind and bent him double. He'd never gone there again, but the memory invaded his dreams and sometimes even managed to overwhelm his usual nightmare. Now, he imagined Jack among them, in a tight, white tank top, laughing and drinking wine and being touched.
"What is it, Ennis?" Jack murmured, stepping close to him. Ennis felt paralyzed. He'd gotten used to being with Jack every day, and had found himself thinking of him quite naturally while he was in the Jardin des Plantes, seeing things he wanted to point out to him. But Jack had other ways to spend his time; he wouldn't waste a day off walking around looking at flowers.
"Guess you have a lot of friends now," Ennis muttered. He was confused by this emotion rising up in him. It was as though he'd been slowly marking a label for Jack in his mind - FRIEND - and had just learned he was mistaken about his species, which required different growing conditions.
Jack turned back to his pruning, snapping at a stem. The globe of dry, brown petals rustled as it dropped to the ground. "Not many," he said evenly. "I'm more careful now."
…..
JACK HAD BEEN surprised when they arrived at the Square de la Roquette in the eleventh arrondissement that morning. It was much bigger than he'd imagined — bigger than Washington Square Park in New York, he said. Did Ennis know that 25% of Paris was green space? He'd looked up, he said. Ennis hadn't known.
At noon, Jack went out on his own to find a bakery so Ennis could guard the equipment. Aguirre had left with the truck and there was no storage shed available to them. He returned with two baguette sandwiches and a patisserie box, which he opened to show Ennis.
"Here's your lemon tart, and I got this," he said, pointing to a confection of puff pastry glazed with chocolate and white frosting. "In the shop they said it's a 'religious woman.'"
Ennis chuckled and, after a minute of explanation accompanied by miming, managed to make Jack understand that une réligieuse meant a nun.
"It's supposed to look like a nun wearing a brown habit and a white apron."
"Oh. Well, I don't like to think of my mother when I'm eating pastry."
Ennis frowned. "Your mother is a nun?"
"No, but she's very religious."
"Like the ones we see on TV? You know..." Ennis closed his eyes, raised his hands in the air and swayed back and forth.
"In the beginning she was a happy-clappy. You know what happy means, right? I mean the word. Clap is..." Jack clapped his hands hard, elbows flying, like gospel singers Ennis had seen. He opened his eyes wide, stretched his mouth in a big smile and sang a few lines of a song in English, wagging his head and clapping in time. The only word Ennis recognized was "Jesus".
"I was twelve when that started and I had to go to church with her," Jack went on. "Then she went to a church where they did that," Jack swayed his arms the way Ennis just had. "When I was 17 she found one where they do like this..." He flopped back in the grass and began to twitch and jerk and babble in what Ennis could tell was no normal language.
"That's some entertainment," Ennis snickered, shaking his head. "Is that what drove your father away?"
He regretted his words immediately. Jack lay still.
"Excuse me. That was a stupid thing to say," Ennis mumbled.
"It's alright," Jack sighed. He sat up slowly. "No, I think she ran to the church because of him. Anyway he was a...a..."
"Bully?" Ennis supplied helpfully. "Tyrant?"
"Both of those things, and more" Jack said ruefully. "You have experience of that?"
Ennis busied himself with unwrapping his sandwich. "My father was mainly crazy," he muttered, then took a large bite and chewed extravagantly, warding off questions.
Jack followed his lead and tucked into his own food.
"Now my mother is very worried about my soul," Jack continued once he'd finished his sandwich. "She wants me to return and have a cure."
"A cure? You mean, like at a thermal station? Hot baths and all that?"
Jack gaped at Ennis for a second, then burst out laughing. "Baths! Oh, that's perfect! Ha ha!"
Ennis felt foolish, conscious of invisible currents that Jack knew about but were beyond his own experience. Seeming to sense his unease, Jack changed the subject.
"I see Easter chocolate in the shop windows now," he said. "But I don't understand something."
"What?"
"Why chocolate bells? I understand the chocolate eggs, and the chickens and the rabbits and the fish. But bells?"
"Because the bells bring the eggs."
Jack stared at him. Ennis was getting used to this stare. In fact, sometimes he deliberately said odd things just to receive that long look from Jack so that he could recall it at night.
"On Thursday before Easter, all the church bells in France fly to Rome to see the Pope and get the chocolate eggs," Ennis explained, watching Jack's expression. "Then they fly back on Sunday and drop the eggs in gardens for kids to find. That's why you don't hear any church bells ring between Thursday and Easter."
"Now, that is a really crazy story," Jack said, rolling his eyes. "Children believe that?"
"The young ones do. When I was little, my mother would hide chocolate eggs in the apartment while I was still asleep. When I heard the bells ring in the morning I'd jump out of bed and run around looking for them. Afterwards, she would... l'd lie on the sofa with my head in her lap and she... she fed me the chocolates while we watched the Easter mass broadcast from some cathedral."
Ennis drank from his bottle of water, pretending a dry throat was the cause of his faltering voice. Those moments of peace and security had been rare for him in that household.
"What happens in America?" he asked, grateful that Jack had not taken advantage of the pause to ask him anything personal, yet keenly aware that he'd wanted to.
"A rabbit brings eggs in a..." Jack licked his lower lip, which Ennis knew meant he was searching for a word. "Well, it's called a basket - I don't know how you say it in French - and jumps around in the garden to hide them."
Now it was Ennis' turn to stare. "Oh. That makes much more sense, a rabbit delivering them in a shoe," he said, nodding at Jack's Converses.
Jack looked confusedly between his sneakers and Ennis. "These are called 'baskets'"? he asked dubiously, pointing to his feet.
"Basketball players wear them, right?"
"They also wear shorts and tee shirts here, I've noticed," Jack shot back, grinning.
"Anyway they're not chocolate eggs," he went on. "They're real eggs with paintings on them. And the children receive an Easter...basket with grass and frozen beans."
"What?"
"Errr, gelled beans?"
"Americans eat beans in gelatin?"
"No! They're candy."
"Chocolate-covered beans?"
"No, no, no! Not real beans! Many colors. Sugar!" Jack's voice rose in frustration as his limited vocabulary failed him.
Ennis felt as though his chest was expanding and filling with something airy and sweet, like cotton candy, as he wound Jack up. He could almost taste it. Had he never teased anyone before this?
"So you say they're multi-colored candies in the shape of beans?" Ennis said slowly, rubbing his chin.
"Exactly."
"Oohh, you mean jellybeans," Ennis said, using the English word. "Why didn't you say so?"
"You...you... hole in the ass," Jack laughed, and lunged at him, but he scrambled away. Jack crawled toward him but Ennis jumped to his feet and ran toward the trees. Soon he was being chased around an oak, and it was fun — nothing like being chased around a table. He dashed out onto the lawn, Jack close behind. But almost immediately Ennis noticed Aguirre in the distance, pausing at the entrance to the park and watching them. He stopped abruptly and Jack ran into him. Jack's hands pressed against his shoulders, steadying himself, his body close enough that Ennis could feel the warmth of him down the length of his back. Ennis took a quick step forward, nervous about what Aguirre could see, while sensing Jack's reluctance to break the contact. He felt one hand linger, grazing his back with just enough pressure that Ennis recognized it as a caress. He pretended not to notice, even though that patch of skin tingled for the rest of the day.
….
AS ENNIS rode to work with in the truck with Aguirre the morning of the first day of April, he repeatedly fingered the folded paper in his shirt pocket. The previous night, he'd used Delphine's computer while she was out in order to download pictures of trout. When he'd found a good clear one, he printed it, cut the fish out and attached a piece of double-sided tape to the back.
Aguirre kept him and Jack busy all morning and afternoon, clearing up debris from the rainstorm that had hit Paris over the weekend and which had downed many small dead branches. It was still gray and chilly. For lunch, he and Jack went to a café.
"What did you do this weekend?" Ennis asked, before Jack could pose the same question.
"I joined a sports association. I want to play water polo. They play at a pool in the 18th on Wednesday evenings."
"That's a long trek from your place. Isn't there a closer one?"
"Maybe. But, well... I think... I think this group would suit me. They do more than swimming. They have handball, too. The members are...ummm..."
"Athletic? Rich?" It had become a game for Ennis to fill in the holes in Jack's vocabulary. "Bizarre? Versatile?"
Jack was chuckling now. "No, no, no, um, maybe... I suppose you could say they are welcoming.'"
Ennis cut a piece from his steak and chewed on it, absorbing this. Was Jack casting another line? He didn't want to disappoint him again, though he was nervous about wading in too far.
"I liked to swim when I was a kid," Ennis volunteered.
"It's a fun sport," Jack agreed. But to Ennis' surprise, he didn't try to convince him to come along on Wednesday, or talk up the association. Not that Ennis would have gone with him.
When Aguirre showed up with the truck at the end of the day to collect the tools, he told Ennis he would drop him in Fontenay as he had to make a delivery out that way.
"I can give you a lift, too, Jack," Aguirre said.
"No thank you sir. I live in the other direction," Jack replied. "I'll take the metro."
"See you tomorrow, then," Ennis said, and clapped Jack on the back. He pressed with his palm to make sure the tape was stuck firmly to the cloth.
Jack gave him a startled, searching look. "Yes. Tomorrow," he smiled, and then tapped Ennis gently on the bicep. As he turned to leave, he cast a backward glance at him.
Ennis felt a pang at the sight of the trout on his back as Jack walked away. Jack's reaction to his touch had surprised him. Should he run after him and pull the fish off? But that would require an explanation and... Jack disappeared around the corner. Merde. He'd just stood there frozen, as usual, and now it was too late.
Aguirre looked at Ennis. "Doesn't he know about the April First fish?"
Ennis stared at his toes. "I think they do something else in America."
"You are an idiot," his boss said disgustedly, shaking his head.
When Jack arrived for work the next morning, he smiled at Ennis, but weakly.
"Very funny. I kept hearing people laughing behind me until I arrived home. A woman using the cash machine at the bank next door told me. She explained everything, about sticking paper fish on the backs of people."
"Sorry. I... it was hard to resist."
"Unlike me," Jack muttered. Or that's what Ennis thought he said.
For the rest of the week, nothing was the same between them. That is, Jack was different. He stopped shaving, stubble rapidly giving way to scruff. He laughed at Ennis' little jokes, but not hard enough to whip up that frothy feeling in his chest. Each morning Ennis hoped Jack would be his old self, but as the day went on he had less to say, and Ennis knew it wasn't because his vocabulary was lacking.
One evening, drunk and feeling desperate, he walked to the rail station and called Jack's number from a pay phone. He wasn't sure he'd have the courage to speak to him if he answered, and he didn't want Jack to be able to tell that he'd called if he hung up. But Jack's phone went straight to voice mail.
Good Friday, 5 April 2007, 11h50
His last day. For the first time ever, Ennis felt rage at Aguirre. Everything good in his life had been jerked away from him for as long as he could remember. Toys his father hated to see him playing with, stray kittens, his family... Did his boss believe Jack was a gift he was generously bestowing on a poor lonely gardener, one that Ennis should unwrap immediately and then demonstrate to him his pleasure and gratitude? Ennis slowly pulled off his gloves, tugging at each finger, his eyes on his hands, swallowing over and over. He'd thought he was being given time to tend to this fragile bud of friendship over more than one season. But there was never enough time.
Jack was sitting back on his heels, holding his little camera, watching him with a serious expression.
"I want to take your photo," he murmured. "Alright? For a souvenir. Since I won't be back on Monday."
"How... Did you always know?" Ennis stammered, struggling to keep his voice steady.
"Of course. Aguirre told me at the start that I'm only working until Easter," Jack said evenly. "In any case, you have my number, right?"
Jack pointed the camera at him and pressed the button once, then switched it off without looking at the screen.
….
WHILE ENNIS was putting the tools in the van, Jack crossed the street and stood in front a patisserie, staring at the display of Easter chocolates in the window.
"Do you prefer black or milk chocolate?" he asked, when Ennis came up beside him.
"Milk." He didn't tell Jack that he hadn't tasted chocolate in a long time.
"Those are the eggs that the bells bring?" Jack asked, pointing to cellophane packets of small, gold foil-wrapped eggs.
"Yes. Those were the ones." Now was the moment he should propose lunch, and then doing something together in the afternoon. But he couldn't find the words, and at the sight of the chocolate eggs his throat had begun to close up.
Jack shifted his weight and now their shoulders were touching. Ennis regarded their reflection in the bakery window; Jack was staring down at the chocolates. He looked past his own form and saw the counter woman watching them. Their eyes met and he swore hers said, Well, do something! But, as in his nightmares, he did nothing.
"We have chocolates in paper like that," Jack murmured. They are like... little mountains. They're called kisses. In French that means—"
"I know what it means," Ennis whispered. Longing was coursing through him but he felt frozen in place.
They just stood there, Jack's gaze fixed on the chocolates that Ennis couldn't bear to remember.
"You think Aguirre can hire me again if you are busy?"
"Maybe." I hope so.
"Then I'll keep this," Jack murmured, plucking at the blue fabric of the coveralls. "Goodbye, Ennis."
Jack stepped away from him and pulled something from his shirt pocket. Ennis felt Jack's fingers brush against his chest. Then Jack leaned toward him, kissed him lightly on each cheek, turned and walked quickly away.
When he got home, he found a note from Delphine on the refrigerator.
Ennis,
Gone for the weekend.
Gaël is going to move in with me in June.
He'll need the alcove for his office.
I will help you find a new place.
It's time little brother, don't you think?
xx D.
He stared at the note for a long time, waiting to feel the floor move under his feet. One month ago, he would have been gasping for breath, panicking at the prospect of having to leave. But somehow, knowing someone — a friend — who had moved so far from home to remake his life was almost reassuring. He put his hand to his chest to check that his heart was in fact beating at a normal rate and heard something crackle in his shirt pocket. His fingers fished out a scrap of paper with an address scrawled in pencil:
Jack Twist
173, av de Versailles
4ème étage
75015 Paris
20 A 145
20 B 135
He recognized the last numbers as the code to the outer doors of an apartment building. Now he had Jack's phone number and his address, but it was little consolation. For a month he had looked forward to each work morning, because Jack would be waiting for him at the entrance to the park that Aguirre had assigned them to tend. They worked and ate together, then parted at the end of the day knowing they would see each other again in 14 hours. Now, if he wanted to see Jack, he had to make the first move — Jack had made that clear. But he couldn't pretend he didn't know where Jack wanted things to go with them. It wasn't his email address he had given him.
He stood fingering the paper for a minute, then walked back into the living room and sat down at Delphine's computer. He booted it up and Googled "Jack Twist". The dozen or so results were in English but none were blogs and even with his limited English Ennis could tell none of them were about his Jack. He tried again in Google Images.
On the third page of results, he found a photo of Jack from someone's Flickr account. He was smiling for the camera next to two other men and holding a beer. The photo was captioned with each man's full name and looked as though it had been taken at a party in someone's apartment, one on the high floor of a building in Manhattan, judging by the view from the window behind them.
Ennis clicked on the link to the album it was from, labeled "TNYA Christmas party". There were only a few women among the crowd. In one picture, eight men sprawled on a large L-shaped couch, their limbs draped over one another. Three of them wore orange t-shirts with TNYA in big letters.
Jack was in the background of several other pictures. In one of them, he was listening to three other men who were talking and gesturing. Jack's distracted half-smile reminded him of the one he'd given Ennis on the second morning of April. In the others, a thirtyish bearded man was standing close to him, sometimes leaning in as though what he had to say was for Jack's ears only. In those photos, Jack looked blankly into the distance, his body canting away from the man.
Ennis gripped the mouse and the arm of the chair as he leaned close to the screen and stared into it, angry at the bearded man for imposing himself on Jack, yet wondering why Jack didn't move away even though it was clear he didn't care for the words he was hearing.
He opened a new window and googled TNYA. He clicked on the first site in the results, for Team New York Aquatics. Even though he couldn't grasp all the English, instantly he understood more about Jack and what he needed and what Ennis couldn't seem to provide. At first he wondered why gay men and lesbians would want to have their own swimming club. For ten minutes he followed links and, especially, looked at the pictures, trying to find Jack among the men slicing through the water. Eventually, the parade of sleek, male bodies began to make him shift uncomfortably in the chair. That was why. He envisioned the circle of friends Jack would eventually make in Paris. It gradually dawned on Ennis that Jack had given up on him becoming part of it.
Suddenly, the absurdity of his spying into his friend's past hit him and he slumped back in the chair. Jack had talked all the time when they were working together, but what had Ennis learned about the life he'd left, or why he'd left it? Why hadn't he asked Jack about any of it? He'd behaved as if Jack were a TV character presenting a story, each day a new episode. He had simply received the information without giving anything back.
He remained motionless in the chair for several minutes until the screensaver flashed on — a photo Delphine had taken in the Bois de Vincennes in autumn when the leaves had turned. The sight of it led his thoughts to someone else.
He changed out of his gardening clothes, then brewed a pot of coffee. Delphine had left behind most of a baguette, which he made into three sandwiches from whatever he could find in the refrigerator. He poured the coffee into his old thermos, wrapped the sandwiches and put them in a plastic grocery sack, then set out towards the station.
Ennis walked past the entrance and followed the route he'd taken the previous month. The night was mild but he saw no one on the path around the lake. He veered off into the dark woods at the same spot, using the tiny flashlight on his keychain to pick his way through the underbrush. Here and there, between the trees in the distance, he could see the occasional point of light, probably coming from an encampment. When he passed the plywood enclosure he slowed down, searching for the tent. But the spot he remembered showed only a circle of flattened weeds as he swept his small beam along the ground. His disappointment was mixed with relief.
He retraced his steps until he reached the tall, plywood fence and rapped hard on the gate.
"Leave me alone!" a rough, male voice ordered from the other side. "I won't go to a shelter."
"I'm not here for that."
He heard shuffling on the other side and then a flashlight beamed down at him from the top of the fence.
"What happened to the guy who was in the blue tent over there," Ennis asked.
"Why, what's it to you?"
"He... was a friend of mine."
"No idea. Didn't pay any attention," came the gruff reply. "It's every man for himself, here."
"Well, you might as well have this food then," Ennis said, holding up the bag and the thermos.
A filthy, scabbed hand reached over the side and took the sandwiches and then the coffee.
"Thanks. Thank you very much."
…
IT WAS after ten o'clock when Ennis awoke the next morning, sprawled on the couch in his clothes. He'd come home after giving away the food and watched The Prisoner, then more episodes of Six Feet Under while finishing the rest of the whiskey. His head was pounding.
After a quick shower, he shaved, put on clean jeans, a t-shirt and a long-sleeved shirt, drank two glasses of water, then quickly made a cup of instant coffee and downed it. It was a sunny day, and mild, but he put on a light jacket anyway. He didn't know if... well, how late he would be back.
The Jardin des Plantes was full of people enjoying the first really warm day of spring. He visited his usual haunts, but after twenty minutes he felt restless and left through the Museum of Natural History and kept walking. Twenty minutes later he reached the entrance to the Jardin du Luxembourg and joined the Parisians and tourists streaming into the park.
Ennis meandered through the play areas, stopping at the snack bar to buy a crêpe sprinkled with lemon juice and powdered sugar. He wound up at the Grand Bassin where tourist families rented little sailboats for their children. He watched the boats slowly ply their way toward the fountain in the middle and then veer away from it when they hit the ripples the falling water sent out. A man with his young son, who hadn't put his boat in the water yet, said to Ennis "Photo nous s'il vous plaît?" He had the same accent as Jack and Ennis couldn't help smiling as he nodded yes. Just before he pushed the button, the boy lifted the boat up and it hid his face.
After an hour in the garden, he left and walked out onto the boulevard Saint Michel, heading toward the Seine. When he reached the Place Saint Michel he waited to cross the Quai among crowds of people. Notre Dame glowed brilliant white in the afternoon sun.
See, Jack, I enjoy Paris.
He knew there was a famous English bookshop somewhere nearby. All he remembered was that it had Shakespeare in the name. After twenty minutes of searching, he broke down and asked directions from a woman on the street and discovered it was right around the corner. The shop was crowded and he had no idea what Jack liked to read. He noticed a book on a table with the name of an American state that sounded familiar, like Jack might have mentioned it, but Jack had had few good things to say about anywhere he'd lived, so Ennis left empty-handed.
He walked over the bridge and went straight across the Ile de la Cité, crossed to the Right Bank and carried on along the boulevard de Sébastopol for a few streets then followed signs to the right for the Centre Georges Pompidou. By that time his feet were tired. He sat in the plaza outside and watched a clown tie balloons into shapes and a few other street performers, including a man who juggled clubs to music while balancing on his head a fishbowl containing water and two goldfish. As he watched the fish sloshing around Ennis wondered if they had any idea of the danger they were in, that their world could go crashing down at any moment. Were they aware of the people watching them? He felt himself tensing up, ready to leap into action should disaster occur. On the ground near the man's CD player was a pan of water, which was reassuring — at least he was prepared.
Ennis tossed some coins in to the man's hat and moved off. The afternoon was wearing on and shadows would be lengthening soon. Knots were gradually forming in his stomach, because he knew where he should be heading. But Jack would surely be out on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Ennis touched his phone in his pocket, but didn't bring it out. The thought of calling him made the knots tighter, so he put it out of his mind. There was still time.
As he wandered east from the Centre Pompidou, he began to realize where he was. It looked different during daylight; while he did see men walking together and sitting in cafés, there were ordinary people, too. He walked down the rue des Archives and when he passed other men, he pretended to be looking in shop windows.
The crêpe from earlier was a distant memory; he was famished despite his jangled nerves. When he saw a newspaper poking up out of a trash bin, he plucked it out, then screwed up his courage and stopped at the next café, taking a seat outside. He unfolded the paper he'd found. L'Equipe. Perfect, even though he hadn't the slightest interest in sports. A waiter came out and he started to order a beer but then realized he'd eaten so little it would go right to his head so he asked for a Coke instead. Could he have a croque-monsieur? The waiter smiled broadly, winked and replied, "Of course."
Ennis survived eating at a café alone, despite the too-attentive waiter. He wandered the streets of the Marais and found the Place des Vosges, where he'd worked during the heat wave, and sat on a bench to rest his feet. The sky was clouding up and the air cooling, making him glad he'd brought his jacket. It also meant evening was falling. He should call Jack. On the other hand, he could send him a text message. But he had a feeling Jack wouldn't appreciate that. Best to just go there. No need to take the metro or a bus, he could walk along the river. It should only take an hour.
It took two hours. He'd forgotten that the Garigliano was the last bridge before the Périphérique, and he was very tired. It was drizzling by the time he found himself standing before Jack's building on the avenue de Versailles. His shins ached. Right next to it was the bank with the cash machine where someone had informed Jack he had a paper fish on his back. Ennis winced when he imagined his embarrassment. No wonder he'd barely spoken to Ennis all week. He looked up and could see a faint blue glow coming from the window on the third floor.
Surely Jack wasn't alone on a Saturday night. While walking in the Marais, Ennis had imagined him there. He wouldn't be wearing a baggy blue gardening outfit, no. He would be turning heads even if he were; Ennis had seen that it didn't take much to attract attention. Jack was a social person, not like Ennis. He would only hold him back. The memory of Jack's hand lingering on his back, and his expression when Ennis touched his, surfaced but then a wave of weariness swamped it. It was best to let him be.
He trudged over the bridge with his head down and his shoulders hunched against the chill and the rain. On the other side, the glass box of the France 2/3 TV studios was ablaze with light. When he was halfway across the bridge, something red looming just ahead on the pavement caught his attention and he raised his head. There was a large sculpture made of red, yellow and orange curving metal panels, like an abstract flower, backed against the rail. When he came abreast of it, he stopped and saw that in the center was black telephone receiver on a red box. A plaque on the box read in French and English:
My name is Sophie Calle
You are in my phone booth
I am the only one who knows its number
I will dial it every now and then, at my leisure,
hoping to reach someone at the end
He vaguely recalled seeing a report on this on the evening news in December. A new streetcar line had been built that started at the foot of the France 2/3 building and to inaugurate it, the city had installed a special phone booth in the middle of this bridge, a collaboration between a famous American architect and a French artist. Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the interior side of one of the panels and he leaned into the structure to read it.
Suddenly, the phone rang shrilly. He was so startled by the sound that he banged his head on the panel. Rubbing his temple, he snatched the receiver in the middle of the second ring just to silence it, and heard a voice buzzing from it as he held it in his hand. He brought it to his ear.
"Hello? Hello? Who is this?"
He gasped and his heart turned over. He hadn't heard her voice in nine years.
"Maman!"
"Sorry, no. This is Sophie Calle. Who are you?"
He waited a few seconds for the adrenalin surge to abate.
"It's... I'm Ennis."
The silence went on so long he almost hung up.
"That's an unusual name."
"Mm."
"You picked up very quickly. You must have been standing right by the phone. Were you walking by, or just hanging around the sculpture waiting for the phone to ring?"
"I was... I was going to see a... friend... who lives near here. But now I'm going home."
"So you didn't see him?"
"I... changed my mind."
"Was your friend expecting you?"
"No."
"Would he be happy to see you?"
"I think... probably."
"Then why did you change your mind?"
"I can't explain."
"Ennis, is your friend American?"
I go onto the bridge and look at the lights and wait for a phone call.
"Yes," he whispered.
"Are you homosexual, too?"
He gripped the receiver tightly and let his gaze travel round and round the looping graffiti on the orange metal. In recent years, he wondered if his mother had known. Some things he'd heard shouted on the other side of the bedroom wall made more sense to him now.
"I... I'm not sure," he lied, because he didn't want to hear himself say yes.
"Well, have you ever kissed a man?"
The light at the top of the Eiffel Tower made one revolution.
"Not... really. I've... I've..."
"Fucked men but never loved one?"
"No... yes... no..." He was having trouble drawing a breath.
There was a long silence, during which he watched a solitary figure walk the length of the fourth floor of the glowing glass box at the end of the bridge. He held his hand over the mouthpiece as he sucked air into his lungs and tried to stop trembling. He knew he should hang up, but instead pressed the receiver even harder to his ear.
"Tell me, did you hate your father?"
The word was like a sledgehammer blow on the stone inside him.
"I still do."
"He's alive?"
"He's in prison."
"Why?"
"He..." Ennis turned to look down the Seine; all the lights wore wavering halos. He couldn't move, just as he hadn't that day. He heard the shrieking and the crashing plates; through the living room doorway saw his father's naked back, with it's bulging, flexing muscles, as he held his mother in his arms, her bare legs scissoring, wild eyes meeting her son's and then her ankles in the air.
"He threw my mother from the balcony of our apartment."
The neighbors said they heard him howling, but he didn't remember that. Only running to his bedroom window and looking down at his mother, a red bloom on the concrete far below.
A tiny sound came from the receiver. He held on, listening to her breathing in his ear. The lights were one big blur now, but the stone in his chest had cracked. The seconds ticked by. He continued to stare at the city, feeling cold rain drip from his hair and trickle down his cheek, until he heard her clear her throat.
"Ennis. I want you to hang up and go see your friend. I will call here again tomorrow at exactly this time — eleven o'clock — and I want you to answer and tell me that you spent Easter with Jack.
"Go to him now."
There was click and then silence, not even a dial tone. Ennis put the receiver slowly back in its cradle.
He turned toward the other end of the bridge — Jack's end — and walked quickly away. It was a relief to follow an order from a voice he didn't know, telling him to do something he dreaded yet craved.
By the time he reached the door to Jack's building his hair was soaked. He heaved a breath, pulled the card from his pocket and punched in the code to the outer door, entered and then repeated them for the inner door. His stomach was churning and his mouth dry, but his feet moved forward and he fumbled for the light on the stairs. He shook his head, sending droplets splattering onto the wall of the stairwell, and unzipped his jacket so he could wipe his face on his shirt. The old wooden steps each had a dip in the middle, like his mattress.
When he reached Jack's door, he stood still and listened. He could hear music playing softly. His heart was pounding and he couldn't raise his hand to knock on the door. He put his hands in his pocket to try to still his trembling, and felt his fingers touch smooth plastic. Relief flooded through him as he pulled out his phone. Two clicks later, he heard another layer of completely different music inside Jack's apartment, then both stopped abruptly.
"Ennis?" Jack's voice rose in happy surprise, in Ennis' ear and on the other side of the door.
"It's me."
"You're where?"
"Are you alone?"
"Yes. Yes."
"Can I see you right now?"
Suddenly the door opened, and there he was, wearing the white t-shirt Ennis had mentally dressed him in, and pajama bottoms. The scruffy beard was gone, though there was stubble. He didn't smile, his face an open book.
"Come in," Jack said softly, opening the door wider and stepping back. The entryway was short and narrow. To the left was the door to the living room and to the right, Ennis presumed, the bedroom.
He hadn't thought about what to expect at this moment. Jack stood close, looking into his eyes but he must have seen Ennis flinch, because he turned away and walked into the living room.
"I bought you a present, in case I saw you again," Jack said lightly. "Come in here."
Ennis shrugged off his wet jacket and left it on a hook on the wall, next to Jack's. He paused in the doorway and scanned the small room. The windows faced the avenue, which was noisy with traffic. There was little furniture, mainly a couch and a small table and two chairs. Besides the glow of streetlights below, the only other illumination came from two sources: the laptop on the table and the digital picture frame on the wall shuttling dreamily through nature scenes. There was a long, wide shadow on the wall below the frame.
Suddenly Jack was before him, holding out a long, narrow package. Ennis took the box and opened it. It was a milk chocolate fish, almost as long as his hand.
"There's something inside but I don't know what," Jack said.
Ennis didn't need to shake it. "Little fish," he murmured. Exhaustion washed over him and must have shown in his face, because Jack put his hand on his arm and pulled him the three steps to the couch, which took up the whole length of the wall, then sat down on one end.
"Sit yourself," Jack whispered.
Ennis lowered himself onto the middle, still holding the fish, which was beginning to smear his fingers as the chocolate warmed in his hand.
Jack pulled Ennis towards him. "Take off your shoes and lay yourself down," he whispered.
Ennis toed off his sneakers, then twisted around and lowered his head onto Jack's thighs, and stretched out his legs. Jack shifted so that Ennis' head nestled into the curve in his lap. The heat of Jack's body, the smell of sweat and the flex of his muscles under Ennis' sneck were all sending ripples of desire through him. Ennis felt Jack's fingers wind through his damp hair, just grazing his scalp, and a let out a sigh.
Jack took the chocolate fish from his hands, brought it to his mouth and bit off the end of the tail. This piece he put to Ennis' lips. Ennis parted them and Jack slipped the morsel of chocolate onto his tongue, caressing his cheek while his right hand continued to comb languidly through his wet, tangled hair. The never-forgotten taste and feel of the melting chocolate, the gentleness of the hands stroking his head... he couldn't hold back the little choking sobs that shook his chest. He covered his face with his hands, trapping Jack's fingers, and began to keen softly.
…
ENNIS AWOKE slowly, unable to open his eyes, which felt glued shut. He was curled on his side, the pillow beneath his cheek warm and firm. Faint, intermittent traffic noise told him it was the middle of the night and he was not at home. He could hear soft snores coming from above his head and a warm, light weight on his waist.
When he managed to lift his sleep-encrusted eyelids, the first thing he saw was Jack's open laptop on the table, also asleep, undulating colors wandering over the screen. On the wall above it, the photos of trees and greenery dissolved and reappeared in the picture frame. After a minute, he realized they were taken in the parks that he and Jack had worked in.
He sat up carefully, trying not to wake Jack, whose head was tipped onto the couch back, his jaw slack. Jack's right hand lay loosely on the cushion next to him, the tail-less chocolate fish in his palm. His left hand slipped away from Ennis and flopped onto the other cushion but he didn't stir.
Ennis stood up and walked stiffly over to the table to look at the pictures. Many of them were wide-angle shots of the parks. All at once he noticed his own figure in the distance in one of them, wielding a rake. In the next shot he was kneeling at the foot of a bush in the left side of the frame. He could tell the pictures were in chronological order by the state of the foliage: bare branches at first, then buds, and finally the hint of blooms or leaves. There were no other people in the photos, just his solitary figure which grew progressively more prominent in the pictures, though at different angles, as if shot from a sailboat that was tacking back and forth as it approached an island.
He'd been unaware of Jack photographing him, even when it looked as though Jack had been just a few meters away. In the last few pictures he recognized the park they'd been working in that week, when he thought Jack was withdrawing from him. In fact he had been drawing physically closer to Ennis, taking what he could. Then he saw an image that shot right through him — a close-up of his own shoulders and the back of his neck, his head bowed. The yearning behind the shot was so palpable it made him turn around.
"Ennis."
Jack was awake, sitting upright on the sofa with the chocolate fish forgotten in his hand, even in shadow his expression clear. Jack set the fish aside but it had half melted and chocolate coated his palm and fingers. He brought his hand to his face while looking into Ennis' eyes and licked the chocolate, like a cat cleaning its paw. Ennis was hard, and got harder, watching Jack's tongue swipe over his fingers, and especially when he saw the pajama bottoms tenting over Jack's crotch.
Ennis reached out with his hands, as if they could make the short journey to Jack without him. At the same moment Jack rose from the couch, took two steps into his outstretched arms and then there was nothing between them, only thin cotton under Ennis' hands as one smoothed down Jack's warm back and the other cupped one muscled buttock, pulling him against his own body. Jack's sticky hands were cradling Ennis' face as he backed him away from the table and pushed him against the wall. He would never forget that first embrace, ever, even if Jack was only his first and not his last love and they each grew old with someone else. All he had to do was recall the chocolate-coated tongue pushing past his lips and swirling dark bliss into his mouth, Jack grinding urgently against Ennis' trapped erection, to feel his blood surge north and south. He sucked frantically on Jack's tongue, moaning and soon whimpering as he flailed at his zipper with one hand, gasping along with Jack when the back of his groping fingers brushed against Jack's stiff, leaking penis, which was jutting through the vent in his pajamas.
Jack was nipping and kissing his lips now, the chocolate long swallowed, and trying to help him open his jeans to free him. Ennis was so far gone, brimming, and the sensation of Jack's hand sliding along his slick shaft was all it took to propel him over the edge, crying out Jack!, as his spunk geysered between them. He came in crashing waves, so hard he could hardly stay on his feet, his legs rubbery and his heart pounding as he slumped against the wall. But Jack was still vibrating in his arms, sucking his jaw, biting his neck, groaning and rubbing against him in a frenzy. Ennis backed Jack up until his calves banged into the couch, pulling away as he fell back onto the cushions. Ennis collapsed to his knees and bent his neck to apply his tongue to the glistening head, then his lips; Jack yelled something in English and thrust his hips upward, shoving his penis against Ennis' tonsils and making him gag; his hands seized Ennis' damp locks and yanked hard. Seconds later Jack was babbling nonsense as hot viscous fluid pulsed into Ennis' throat.
Jack continued to murmur in English between heaved breaths as Ennis rested his head on his rising and falling stomach. He understood nothing, but the idea that Jack had let go so completely that he couldn't even speak properly excited him. His knees were suffering, though, so he raised up and eased onto the couch, then shoved off his jeans. Jack stretched out and pulled Ennis to him. He sank onto Jack and before he kissed him Ennis heard him whisper in French, "Finally, you said my name."
…
WHEN ENNIS awoke for the second time that Easter Sunday, the room was still dim but he could tell from the light in the air-shaft that it was late morning. After a long session of writhing and contorting on the couch they had eventually staggered into the bedroom to continue their lovemaking on the mattress. Jack was asleep on his stomach, his faced turned away from him, arms crossed above his head on the pillow, the sheet pushed down to his waist.
Ennis watched the rise and fall of his back, which covered with dark streaks. After a minute he carefully slipped out of bed and took one step toward the window. He lifted it a few centimetres to let some air through. Then he stepped quietly around the bed, through the bedroom door, across the tiny hallway and into the living room. He gathered his clothes from the floor and the couch. They were unwearable.
There was chocolate smeared everywhere. They'd forgotten about the fish when they'd collapsed onto the couch and the streaks on the upholstery, the wall and the floor showed a map of their passion.
Above the traffic noise he heard another sound; he went to the window and opened it all the way. Church bells rang out from several directions.
On the wall, the park pictures swelled and faded in the picture frame. Suddenly, he realized that the dark shadow on the wall beneath it was Jack's gardener's uniform on a wire hanger, its hook sharing the nail that held up the frame. Where a head would be were images of himself in the middle of greenery, alone, until the last photo of the sequence. It was the one Jack had taken of him on Friday, close up and looking at the camera, at the moment he believed he there would be no Jack in his future.
Jack was awake when he re-entered the bedroom, lying on his side facing the doorway, and the relief in his eyes cut Ennis to the core. This power to hurt was a weapon he didn't want. He lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress, then stretched out on it facing Jack, who shifted closer, letting his fingers drift down Ennis' chest. The memory of the night and what he'd done and felt with Jack sent a current of joy through him.
"Alright?"
"Yes," Ennis answered in English, watching for Jack's smile. It didn't disappoint.
"Sorry I didn't speak French while we..."
"I understood some words."
"Like what?"
"God. Jesus."
"That would not please my mother. Only that?"
Ennis touched a fingertip to Jack's lips.
"You... Me... Kiss. Happy."
….
23h (11pm), Easter Sunday 2008
Ennis lifted the receiver at the first ring.
"Hello? This is Sophie Calle. Who is this?"
"Ennis."
"Happy Easter, Ennis."
"Same to you, Sophie."
"How was your year?"
"Really good."
"I can tell you're just bubbling over with news," she laughed. "Are you still with Jack?"
"Yes. But we're leaving Paris, so we won't be able to talk to you next Easter."
"I'm glad. About you being together and leaving Paris, I mean."
"Jack is right here. He can tell you about it."
Ennis handed the receiver to Jack, who was standing close to him, his hand a comforting pressure on his shoulder. Then he stepped away and looked out over the dark Seine and reflected lights toward the Eiffel Tower, letting Jack's babble of English flow past him.
Ennis had been thrown into a panic when Jack received an email from Philippe telling him they were all returning to Paris; the campground project had not worked out. But Jack had proposed a swap: the two of them would run the campground and set up a landscaping business at the same time. So in two weeks they would be leaving for the Gers.
He heard Jack saying goodbye to Sophie and turned back to him. Jack handed the receiver over and he put it to his ear.
"I guess this is it, then, Sophie. Thanks for... well, for being there. Being here, I mean."
"Good bye, Ennis. I wish you well."
Afterwards, they held each other and kissed, leaning against the sculpture. Two women their age clicked by in high heels, arms linked. "Happy Easter, guys!" one of them called out and her friend laughed.
Eauze, le Gers, Sunday, 12 April 2009
Ennis awoke to a mild breeze drifting through the partially open window of the trailer, bringing with it both the earthy and the floral scents of spring. He craned his neck and glimpsed a patch of yellow through the pane, the forsythia in bloom at the end of the drive. Above the bird song he could hear the church bell ringing in the village down the road. He was alone in bed, and when he slid his hand over the empty side, the sheet was cool.
He listened closely, and after a minute heard the whirring of a bicycle coasting over the asphalt and then bumping over the flagstones leading to the trailer. Thumping on the other side of the wall told him Jack was leaning the bike there instead of wheeling it into the workshop, a sign of his eagerness to return to bed that never failed to thrill Ennis. He kept his eyes glued to the door, already smiling.
Jack burst through it, clutching a bakery sack, and dropped down onto the edge of the mattress. He set the bag on Ennis' stomach, then pulled off his own t-shirt in one smooth movement. Ennis lifted his hand and brushed it across Jack's back. It was damp with sweat.
"What took so long?" he asked.
"There was a line at the boulangerie. The mayor's wife was behind me and she's invited us to Easter dinner."
"What? That's never done! How did you manage to extract that invitation?" Ennis was sometimes embarrassed at Jack's forwardness.
"She asked what we were having and I told her just chocolate because we're terrible cooks," Jack smirked. "OK, OK sorry, I know it's a lie... well, half a lie. Anyway, look at your Easter treat."
Ennis opened the bag and pulled out a large milk chocolate bell. It was so big he could only just circle the base of it with both hands.
"This must have cost a fortune!" he exclaimed.
Jack took it from him and bit off the top knob. He set that piece aside and eyed the hole, then began breaking off bits of the edge with his fingers to widen it.
"What are you doing?"
"It's for the big ummm... clapper," Jack replied, grinning.
Ennis frowned; he vaguely remembered learning what clap meant. But clapper?
Jack set the bell back on Ennis' stomach, then stood and shucked off his sweat pants. He slid back onto the bed and stretched out next to Ennis, propping himself up on his elbow. He kissed Ennis lightly on the lips.
"I was late also because the pay phone in the square was ringing," he said, gliding his hand down Ennis' chest and then skirting around the bell. He kissed him again, their tongues meeting this time. Ennis gasped when Jack's hand reached its goal. It suddenly occurred to him what a clapper was.
Jack pulled back and smiled. "I answered it."
"Who was it?" Ennis said distractedly. He was fumbling with the bell, trying to get it in position before the hole was too small.
"Guess."
…
All my Brokeback stories, with pictures and videos, can be found at soulan dot livejournal dot com.