“American nonsense. Americans can be so ridiculous. I don’t miss my home country. Not in the least.”
It felt nice to have a glass of wine at an outdoor café. Everyone was so alive. “Adult” was the word. “How did you wind up in Paris, Gerald?”
“I retired very early. I came from a well-to-do family. I’ve had my share of suffering—but I always suffered in comfort.” He laughed at himself. “I’d come to Paris and stayed for several months. I met a man. He became my lover. And then he jilted me for another man. Another American, as it happens. To add insult to injury, he was nearly as old as I was. Not that I was all that broken up about it. I don’t think I loved him all that much. He wasn’t remotely my intellectual equal. And that, by the way, has nothing to do with age.
“So, after my affair ended, I stayed. My real love was this city. It’s my home now. Somehow it felt like home from the minute I got here.”
“Do you ever miss America?”
“No. Sometimes I miss teaching. I miss engaging with young, ambitious, and brilliant minds. Like Sam’s. I directed his thesis. He had a passion for poetry. Oh, and he was kind. The kindest man I ever met. He and his marvelous wife, Soledad. They were so alive, and I think half of their professors envied them. Sam was one of my favorite students. I know we’re not supposed to play favorites, but we’re only human. I met Dante when he first arrived in Paris. He’s so like the both of them. Gifted.”
I nodded.
“I understand you’re on a mission.”
“I am.”
“Love at your age is rare. You’re too young to know what you’re feeling. And too young to know what you’re doing. But that’s all to the good. Love at any age is rare. It doesn’t get any easier when you’re older. No one knows what they’re doing when it comes to love.”
That made me want to smile. He asked me about my parents. I told him I’d just lost my father. We talked for a long time. I liked Gerald very much. He was interesting, and he knew how to have a conversation and how to listen, and there was something very genuine about him. We took a walk afterward. And I could see why Gerald loved Paris. It had broad boulevards lined with trees and sidewalks that overflowed with people sitting, drinking coffee and talking with each other or just thinking alone.
The city of love. “Love” was such a strange word. You really wouldn’t find the definition for it in any dictionary.
“Is there anywhere you’d like to go? I’m sure there are many things you’d like to see. There’s no shame in behaving like a tourist the first time you come to Paris.”
“The first time might be the last time.”
“Nonsense. You’ll come back someday.”
“I’m here now—that’s what matters.”
Gerald patted me on the back. “It’s an admirable thing, to travel so far. He must…” He stopped himself. “I was going to say that Dante must be a very admirable young man. But perhaps it’s you who’s admirable.”
“Maybe we’re both admirable, but I think that I was born with an idiot heart.”
“What a lovely and endearing thing to say.”
That embarrassed me. He noticed and changed the subject. “We can just walk. Paris is a city you get to know by walking its streets.”
“I’d like to see the Eiffel Tower. Is that possible?”
“Of course. It’s this way.”
Walking through the streets of an unfamiliar city made me feel like a cartographer.
* * *
When we got off the Metro and headed for the Eiffel Tower, I pointed up ahead.
I saw a sea of people in a park—and most of them were carrying signs. I could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. I’d never seen anything like it before. “What’s going on, Gerald?”
“Oh yes, I forgot. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to have come here today. It’s a die-in. They’re calling attention to the fact that so many people are dying—and the government doesn’t seem to give a damn. I hope this doesn’t upset you.”
“No, no, it doesn’t. It’s amazing. Incredible. It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.”
I looked out at the sea of people as we got closer and closer. Thousands of people. Thousands. I thought of Cassandra and Susie and Gina. If they were here, they’d be joining the protest. I had never seen, never dreamed of seeing anything like this. “They’re so beautiful. God, they are so very beautiful.”
Gerald put his arm around me. “You remind me of me when I was young. You haven’t lost your innocence.”
“There’s nothing all that innocent about me.”
Gerald just shook his head. “You couldn’t be more wrong. Try to hang on to that innocence for as long as you can. As we age, we get cynical. The world wears us down. We stop fighting.”
“You haven’t really stopped fighting, have you?”
“I fight up here.” He tapped his temple. “It’s your turn now, to fight for yourself. To fight for those who can’t. To fight for all of us.”
“Why do we always have to fight?”
“Because we cling to ways of thinking that don’t even qualify as thinking. We don’t know how to be free because we don’t know how to free those we enslave. We don’t even know we’re doing anything of the sort. Maybe we think that the value of our own freedom is worth less if everybody else has it. And we’re afraid. We’re afraid that, if someone wants what we have, they’re taking something away that belongs to us—and only to us. But who does a country belong to? Tell me. Who does the earth belong to? I’d like to think that someday we’ll realize that the earth belongs to us all. But I won’t live to see that day.”
There was a sadness in his voice. It was more than just sadness—a kind of weariness, a kind of hurt, the voice of a man whose dreams were slowly, slowly taken from him. I wondered if that would happen to me, too. Would the world conspire to take away my hope—to rip it from me? My dreams were just being born. God, I hoped I would be able to hang on to my hope, my dreams.
I looked at all those people speaking out, trying to make their voices heard among all the noise. To rage against the dying of the light. That was one of Dante’s favorite poems. Dante.
“What do the signs say?”
“ ‘Sida La France doit payer.’ ACT UP Paris. Do you know ACT UP?”
“Yes.”
“The words say: ‘AIDS France must pay.’ ”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“If we ignore something, then we’ll pay the price. Governments love to ignore things that are not convenient. No one gains anything by pretending it isn’t there. We all suffer for it. The AIDS pandemic asks our leaders to help, to invest in a cure. It takes compassion to lead. Some of our politicians do care. Most of them don’t. And some of them don’t even pretend to care.”
I nodded. I liked Gerald. He seemed to know who he was. “That man over there. He’s holding a sign. What does it say?”
“ ‘AIDS took away my lover. France knows him as a number. I knew him as the man who was the center of my world.’ ”