“It couldn’t be more personal, Indiana,” Gary blurted out, flushed with embarrassment, looking heartbroken. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how I feel about you.”
“But we hardly know each other, Gary.”
“If you want to know more, you only have to ask, Indiana—I’m an open book. I’m single, I have no kids, I’m organized, hardworking, a good citizen, and a decent guy. Maybe it’s a bit premature to tell you about my finances, but I can say they’re in pretty good shape. A lot of people lost everything they had in the crisis, but I’ve managed to stay afloat, I’ve even made a profit because I understand the stock market. I’ve been trading for years, and—”
“None of this is any of my business, Gary.”
“I just want you to think about what I’ve said, Indiana. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. In fact, I think you should look for another healer—I can’t go on treating you. It’s not simply because of what you’ve just said, it’s because the treatments haven’t done much good.”
“Don’t do this to me! You’re the only one who can heal me, Indiana, I’ve been much better thanks to you. I promise I’ll never mention my feelings for you again.”
He looked so desolate that Indiana could not bring herself to insist, and when Gary saw her hesitate, he made the most of it. Pretending he hadn’t registered anything she had told him, he said he would see her next Tuesday, and hurried off.
Indiana closed the door and turned the key in the lock, feeling she had been manipulated like a little girl. She washed her face and hands, hoping to wash away her anger, nostalgically thinking about the jacuzzi at the Fairmont Hotel. Ah, the perfumed water, the vast cotton towels, the perfectly chilled wine, the exquisite food, the loving caresses, Alan Keller’s wit and affection. Once, after they had watched Cleopatra on television—three hours of Egyptian decadence, heavily made-up eyes and boorish Romans with wonderful legs—she mentioned that the best thing in the movie was Cleopatra bathing in milk. Alan had leaped out of bed, left the room without a word, and reappeared half an hour later, just as she was about to doze off, carrying three boxes of powdered milk that he emptied into the jacuzzi so that she could bathe like a Hollywood pharaoh. The memory made her laugh, and she felt an ache in her chest as she wondered whether she could live without this man who had given her so much pleasure, and whether she would ever come to love Ryan as she had loved Alan.
The physical attraction she felt for the ex-soldier was so intense that it reminded her of what she had felt for Bob Martín back in high school. It was like a fever, a smoldering heat. She wondered how she had managed to ignore it, to resist this overwhelming desire that had surely been welling in her for some time. The only possible answer was that her love for Alan had been stronger. She knew her own temperament; she knew that when she was truly in love, she couldn’t casually sleep with someone else; but now, after that first night spent with Ryan in that little room lashed by the storm, she felt she understood anyone who surrendered to the madness of desire.
Twelve days had passed since then, and she had spent every night with Ryan, except for Saturday and Sunday, which she spent with Amanda. At this very moment, though she still had one patient left to see, she was already longing to take him in her arms, to be with him in his loft, where Attila, resigned, no longer howled miserably. She thought with pleasure about the pared-back simplicity of the apartment, the rough towels, the bitter cold that forced them to make love wearing sweaters and thick woolen socks. She loved his powerful masculinity, the strength he exuded, the warrior air about him, which in her arms changed to helplessness. In a way, she liked the fact that he made love like a bewildered boy, something she put down to the fact that Ryan had never really had a serious lover, someone who had taken the trouble to teach him how to pleasure a woman. This, she decided, would change once the thrill of being newly in love passed, and they had time to slowly explore each other. It was a pleasant thought. Ryan was a surprising man, gentler and more sentimental than she had imagined, but they had no shared history, and all relationships need some. There would be ample time for them to get to know each other, and for her to forget about Alan.
She tidied up the massage room, gathered away the sheets and towels, and got ready for her last session of the week: the poodle, her favorite patient and the most affectionate, an old, crippled, coffee-colored little dog that submitted to her treatments with obvious gratitude. Since she had a few minutes to spare, she looked up Gary Brunswick’s file, which did not give his exact time of birth, unfortunately, since that would have been useful for preparing an astrological chart. Then she called Celeste Roko to ask her for the number of the Tibetan who cleared negative karma.
Saturday, 18
At 8:30 p.m. sharp on Saturday, Pedro Alarcón and Ryan Miller, with Attila at his heels, rang Indiana’s doorbell. They were quickly followed by Matheus Pereira, Yumiko Sato, and her life partner Nana Sasaki. Indiana, having invited them on behalf of Danny D’Angelo, greeted her guests wearing a slim black silk dress and heels—gifts from Alan Keller back when he had been trying to turn her into a lady—which drew wolf whistles from the men. They had never seen her look so elegant—in fact they’d never seen her wear black, a color she believed attracted negative energy and hence avoided. Attila delightedly sniffed the combination of essential oils that pervaded the apartment. The dog hated artificial smells but was a sucker for natural aromas, which explained his fondness for Indiana, whom he cherished among human beings. Ryan grabbed Indiana and kissed her full on the lips, while the other guests pretended not to notice. Then the hostess uncorked a bottle of Primus, a delicate blend of carménère and cabernet grapes—another gift from Alan, who knew that Indiana could not afford to buy a bottle of wine that cost more than her winter coat—and poured Ryan a glass of his favorite soda. There had been a time when the Navy SEAL prided himself on being a wine buff, but after he gave up alcohol he became a connoisseur of Coca-Cola: he preferred it served in small bottles, never cans, and liked his Coke imported from Mexico—where they added more sugar—and always without ice.
The day before, Danny had invited Indiana to his Saturday performance. It was a special occasion, since it was his birthday, and the owner of the club, as a tribute to his years on the stage, had given him a starring role that Danny had carefully rehearsed. “What’s the point of being the star of the show if no one cares? Come watch me, Indi, and bring your friends—I could do with an ovation.” Since Danny hadn’t given her much notice, Indiana didn’t have time to rally the sort of crowd he would have liked and had to make do with these five loyal friends. They all dressed up for the occasion—even Matheus, who, over his usual paint-splattered jeans, was wearing a striped, neatly pressed shirt and a bandanna around his neck. There was a general consensus in North Beach that Matheus Pereira was the most handsome man in the area, and he knew it. Tall and slim, his face chiseled with deep lines, he had the yellow-green eyes of a cat, full, sensual lips, and wore his hair in dreadlocks. He was so striking that people would often stop to have their picture taken with him, as though he were a tourist attraction.
Yumiko and Nana had known each other as children in the Iwate Prefecture back in Japan, and emigrated together to the United States; they lived together, worked together, even dressed alike. That evening, they were wearing their going-out uniform: black pantsuits with white silk Mao-collar blouses. They had married on June 16, 2008—the day same-sex marriage was legalized in California—and that night held a wedding reception of sushi and sake at the Hairy Caterpillar gallery, with all the therapists from the Holistic Clinic in attendance.
Matheus helped Indiana with dinner—takeout ordered from the local Thai restaurant, served on paper plates with chopsticks. The friends sat on the floor to eat, since Indiana used the only table in the apartment as an aromatherapy lab. The conversation drifted back and forth—as all conversations did at that time—between whether Obama would lose the election and whether Midn
ight in Paris would win an Oscar. They finished the wine, and for dessert they had green tea ice cream that Yumiko and Nana had brought. Then everyone piled into Yumiko’s car and Ryan’s van—with Attila riding shotgun, since no one dared commandeer his seat.
They parked on Castro Street and, leaving Attila in Ryan’s truck, where, with Buddhist patience, the dog would wait for hours, walked two blocks to the Narcissus Club. At that time of night the neighborhood was teeming with young people, a few insomniac tourists, and the gay men who crammed the bars and the cabarets. Outside, the place where Danny was performing was simply a doorway and a blue neon sign; it would have gone unnoticed but for the people waiting in line to go in, and the groups of men smoking and chatting. Pedro and Ryan made a couple of ironic remarks about the kind of club it was but meekly followed Indiana, who greeted the burly bouncer working the door and introduced her friends as Danny D’Angelo’s special guests. Inside, the club was much bigger than they had expected. The air was stifling, the place crowded, and the audience almost entirely male. In dark corners shadowy figures were making out or slow-dancing, oblivious to everyone else, but the rest of the audience moved around, talking at the tops of their voices or crowding around the bar for beer and Mexican tacos.
Beneath the flickering lights of the dance floor—which also served as a stage—four go-go dancers gyrated to the pulsing rhythm of the music, wearing only bikinis and crowned with plumes of white feathers. They might have been mistaken for quadruplets: all four were the same height and wearing identical wigs, jewelry, and makeup. They had shapely legs, toned buttocks, arms sheathed in long satin evening gloves, and breasts that spilled out of their bejeweled bras. Only close up and in bright daylight would it have been possible to tell that they were not women.
Danny’s friends elbowed their way through the noisy crowd, and a busboy led them to a ringside table reserved in Indiana’s name. Pedro, Yumiko, and Nana headed for the bar to get drinks and a Coke for Ryan, who, oblivious to the fact that he and Matheus were attracting attention, assumed that the regulars were all staring at Indiana.
Shortly afterward the plumed go-go dancers finished their routine and the houselights went down, the club plunged into a darkness greeted by catcalls and whistles. A whole minute passed, and then, when the hecklers had calmed down, the crystal-clear voice of Whitney Houston filled the room with a slow, mournful lament that sent shivers down the spine of everyone present. Suddenly the beam of a yellow spotlight picked out the ghost of the singer, who had died a week before, standing in the center of the stage, her head bowed, one hand clutching a microphone, the other pressed to her heart. Her hair was short, her eyes closed, and she was wearing a long backless dress that emphasized her breasts. This sudden apparition took the audience’s breath away. Slowly, Whitney Houston raised her head, brought the microphone to her face, and from somewhere in the depths of the earth came the haunting phrase “I Will Always Love You.” The crowd erupted in a spontaneous ovation, followed by an awed silence as the voice sang its farewell, a torrent of affection, of promises and regrets. That unmistakable face, those tremulous hands, the gestures, the passion, the grace: it was her. Five minutes later, the last notes of the song quivered in the air amid a thunder of applause. The illusion was so perfect that it didn’t occur to Indiana and her friends that this diva, returned to life by some magical spell, might be Danny D’Angelo, the scruffy waiter from Café Rossini—until the lights went up, and Whitney Houston bowed and pulled off her wig.
Ryan had been to places like the Narcissus Club in other countries with his comrades in arms, who made tasteless jokes to disguise the fact that they enjoyed drag shows. Ryan found drag queens entertaining: to him they were outlandish, innocuous creatures from some different species. He considered himself the sort of broad-minded man who has seen the world and can no longer be shocked by anything, tolerant of other people’s sexual preferences so long as they do not involve children or animals. He did not approve of gays in the armed forces, fearing that, like women, they would be a distraction and generate hostility. Not that he doubted their bravery, he insisted, but battle is a test of manliness and loyalty, war is fought with testosterone; every soldier has to depend on his comrades, and he would not feel comfortable putting his life in the hands of a gay man or a woman. That night in the Narcissus Club, without the support of his fellow Navy SEALs, his tolerance was put to the test.
The confined space, the atmosphere of sex and seduction, the crowd of men’s bodies brushing past him, the smell of sweat and beer and aftershave: all of it made him tense and uneasy. He wondered how his father would have reacted in these circumstances, and—as always happened when he thought about his father—he saw the man standing to attention next to him, his uniform immaculate, a row of medals pinned to his chest, his jaw clenched, glowering in disapproval at everything Ryan was, at everything he’d done. What is a son of mine doing in this sordid dive with a gaggle of preening faggots? his father, in that way he had always had, snarled through clenched teeth without moving his lips.
Ryan barely noticed Danny’s performance; by then he had realized that the meaningful stares were intended not for Indiana but for him. He felt violated by this throbbing masculine energy, at once fascinating, dangerous, and seductive—it both attracted and repulsed him. Without thinking, he grabbed Pedro’s glass of whiskey and drained it. He had not touched alcohol in years, and the liquid burned his throat, coursing through his veins in a wave of heat and energy that obliterated all thoughts, all memories and qualms. There was nothing in the world like this magical liquid, this wonderful, smoldering, molten gold, this nectar of the gods that thrilled through him, invigorated and inflamed him. There was nothing in the world like whiskey—he couldn’t understand how or why he had given it up, what a fool he had been. The image of his father retreated, and was swallowed up by the crowd. Ryan turned back to Indiana, leaning in to find her lips, but the kiss died in midair, and instead he grabbed her beer. Indiana, mesmerized by the vision of Whitney Houston, didn’t notice a thing.
Ryan never knew at what point he got up from the table and angrily elbowed his way to the bar; he never knew how the show ended or how many drinks he’d had when he completely lost control. He never knew where the blinding, incandescent fury came from when a young man put a hand on his shoulder and whispered something, his lips brushing against Ryan’s ear; he never knew at precisely what point reality began to blur and he felt himself swell, his body straining inside his skin, about to explode. He never knew how the scuffle started, nor how many people he lashed out at, fists flailing; he never knew why Indiana and Pedro were screaming at him, or how he came to end up handcuffed in the back of a police car with swollen knuckles and blood on his shirt.
Pedro picked Ryan’s jacket up off the floor, found the keys to the van, and followed the car that was ferrying his friend to the police station. He parked nearby and went inside, where he had to wait for an hour and a half before an officer could speak to him. He explained what had happened, playing down Ryan’s role in the events while the officer listened distractedly, staring at his computer.
“He’ll have time enough to argue his case in front of a judge on Monday,” the cop said in a friendly tone. “In the meantime, there’s a cell here where he can sober up and calm down.”
Pedro explained to the officer that Ryan was not drunk but medicated, having suffered brain damage during the Iraq War, in which he had also lost a leg; that he suffered from bouts of erratic behavior but was not dangerous.
“Not dangerous? Try telling that to the three guys he put in the emergency room!”
“What happened in the Narcissus Club was a one-off—he’s never done anything like that before. He was provoked.”
“How do you mean, provoked?”
“Some guy tried to touch him up.”
“You don’t say,” the officer said sarcastically. “In a club like that? You learn something new every day.”
At this point, Pedro played the trump
card he used only as a last resort: he told the officer that Ryan worked with the government and was currently on a confidential mission. If the officer didn’t believe him, he added, he had only to check the prisoner’s wallet, and he would find the relevant ID, and if that was not enough, Pedro would give him a code so he could check directly with CIA headquarters in Washington, DC.
“As I’m sure you can understand,” Pedro stressed, “we can’t afford a scandal.”
The policeman, who by now had shut down the computer and was listening skeptically, told him to go back to his seat and wait.
It was another hour before they could get Washington to corroborate Pedro’s story, and yet another before they released Ryan, after getting him to sign a statement. During this time, Ryan had sobered up a little, though he still stumbled as he walked. They finally left the police station at about five in the morning, Pedro desperate for his first maté of the day, Ryan with a pounding headache—and the unfortunate Attila, who had spent the whole night in the van, desperate to cock his leg at the nearest available tree.
“Attaboy, Miller, you ruined Whitney Houston’s comeback,” said Pedro back in the loft apartment as he helped his friend out of his clothes, not before giving the dog some water and letting him out to pee.
“I feel like my brain’s about to explode.”
“Serves you right. I’ll make some coffee.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, his face buried in his hands with Attila nuzzling his knee, Ryan tried in vain to reconstruct the events of the night. He felt a crippling shame; his head seemed to be full of sand; his lip was split, his knuckles and his eyelids swollen, and his ribs so bruised it hurt to breathe. This was the only time he’d fallen off the wagon; he had managed three years and one month of total abstinence, with no alcohol and no drugs except the odd toke on a joint from time to time. He had gone cold turkey, without any of the psychiatric help he was entitled to as a navy vet, nothing but antidepressants. Given that in battle he was capable of coping with more pressure and more pain than any other human being—that was how he had been trained—he wasn’t about to be beaten by a glass of beer. He could not work out what had happened, did not even remember when he had taken that first sip of alcohol. He felt himself tumbling into the abyss.