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January 1, 1901
Dear Jane,
I thought love was only true in fairy tales. It seemed the more I gave the less I got. But that has changed now. This day, the first day of the year, feels like the real beginning of the century. Do you believe in magic?
I do.
Now.
First, I should apologise for taking so long to write. It has been a time of great change; I should have informed you of the move back to England weeks ago, but until yesterday I was without my typewriter, hence unable to correspond.
Do not fret – I did not pawn my typewriter again. There have been no such desperate measures required. My belongings were temporarily lost during shipping, and only arrived this morning. So much has happened since then; I hardly know where to begin. I should begin, as always, by thanking you.
I could have written you a letter with pen and paper, and indeed I did. Many, in fact – I could fill a satchel with the letters I began, halted, attempted to finish, and, ultimately, abandoned. The pen, it seems, only does me good when I want to pour my emotions out bluntly on the page in a stream of consciousness. It’s effective, but not elegant, and not fit to be read by anyone else. Perhaps some day that sort of writing will be considered acceptable, just as some day my modern poetry will be what everyone sings. But that is neither here nor there.
I have thought of you every day, thought of your advice, and your affection for Orlando, your fondness for Toulouse, and your concern that their love for each other not be tainted.
Of any of us, I am the one who should be left out of this. I do not deserve your kindness. We know each other as acquaintances only, despite my rather too personal letters of the past. There is no reason for you to care about my desires and emotions, except as they affect Orlando and his memory of Toulouse. But you do. You do, because you are a kind soul and a true romantic. Your encouragement has meant everything to me. I cried a tear, you wiped it dry. I was confused, you cleared my mind.
And you have always been absolutely correct; the only thing that matters is Orlando’s happiness.
But would that happiness include me? For what seemed like such a long time, that was the question. A question among so many questions.
In the days following that first, disastrous attempt at lovemaking, I feared I had lost him.
I should amend that immediately - the lovemaking was not disastrous. It was sweet and passionate and satisfying in a most visceral manner, and everything one could desire from lovemaking, until the very end when our pasts intruded and brought so much pain to the surface.
The next morning, before I wrote in my last letter to you, went as well as could be hoped. But the evening after that… that was disastrous. We could not look each other in the eye, let alone touch. I retreated to my couch in the corner; he seemed almost relieved.
And that, it seemed, was that.
I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I lay awake, restless, knowing I should get up, knowing I should say something, not knowing what to say. I still wanted him but I was terrified of making things even worst. So I left things unsaid.
It went on like that for some time – we seemed to be living in some sort of limbo. We worked, we ate, we slept, we lived in the same space, beside but not with each other.
Our estrangement did not stop us from caring. We watched over each other – I cooked food for him, he would drape a sweater over my shoulders on cold nights. I encouraged him in his work.
He tried to encourage me in mine, but I got precious little written after I lost the gift of my song. There were flashes, hints, one line at a time. Orlando was unceasingly encouraging, as if he somehow needed my poetry to return. But I was left in the dark. I muddled on, pretending to write. The show was a mild success at Le Chat Noir, but I could not muster the energy to care about it. With my pen empty, my fingers stilled, I spent my days wandering around the rooms, watching Orlando, yearning for more, afraid to ask for it.
Of course, we couldn’t keep up the physical distance forever. The rooms were spacious, but not cavernous. He would brush past my arm, or settle his long, elegant fingers on my shoulder. We sat together in the evenings and read the paper or looked out at the city. Always without words. We were both too afraid to say something, so something, to hurt the other. You could see it in the two of us. Strangers, in a way. Slowly moving closer, but sometimes when we touched, the honesty was too much, and I had to close my eyes and hide. We were too frightened to take things any further.
Then your letter arrived. Not a letter. No date, no salutation, only a poem written in your beautiful hand. Poetry so simple, so spare.
I know something about love. You've got to want it bad
If that guy's got into your blood, go out and get him
If you want him to be the very part of you
That makes you want to breathe, here's the thing to do...
Tell him that you’re never going to leave him
Tell him that you’re always going to love him.
Tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him right now.
It was like something I might have written. (I think you may be a genius.)
And, you will be pleased to know, it did the trick.
Orlando was out when your missive arrived. I didn’t want to leave, in case he came home. I couldn’t sit still; I was restless with need. I read your poem over and over. I looked at his paintings, including a portrait of me he’d been working on. Blue and moody and not the way I want him to see me, although the painting itself is beautiful. I couldn’t look at it anymore, so I crossed the room to the bed. Bed. Our bed. I knelt on the floor and laid my cheek against the covers and could smell him on the sheets. I sat on the bed and pressed my face against his nightshirt, which hung on a hook on the wall. He filled up my senses.
By the time he got home, I was frantic. I needed to see him, to touch him, to talk to him.
Tell him.
I grabbed him as soon as he came in the door. The groceries went flying – cabbage on the floor, baguette on a tray of paints, eggs broken. I grasped his arms and pulled him close and looked into his eyes. His beautiful eyes. They were full of concern. What had got into me? they asked. But full of excitement as well. He’d been waiting for this.
“Orlando,” I said, realising that it was the first time I’d said his name aloud since that night. “You came and you gave without taking, but I sent you away.”
My poetry was back!
“No, you didn’t,” he said, with a confused look on his face. “I’m here.”
Ah. So, my poetry was back, but it was not perfect.
I tried again. “What have I got to do to make you love me? What do I have to do to be heard?”
Orlando answered me with a small, almost indulgent smile.
I didn’t want his pity. I wanted his love. But if I couldn’t have that, his presence would be enough. “You don’t have to say you love me. Just be close at hand. You don’t have to stay forever. I will understand.”
Orlando shook his head. I was filled with dread. He didn’t want me?
I was desperate to make him understand. Poetry was not enough. Obviously. Poetry alone was the wrong approach. After all, it wasn’t poetry that I needed. I needed Orlando, in my arms where he belongs. But every time I tried to tell him the words just came out wrong. So I had to say ‘I love you’ in a song.
I needed music.
So I sang. “Have I ever told you how good it feels to hold you? It isn’t easy to explain.”
Orlando stopped shaking his head and looked at me. Surprised. So like Satine had looked at me, so long ago, but I did not think of her. Mind and heart, I was fixed on Orlando.
“Oh, I’m so glad I found you. I want my arms around you. I long to hear you call my name. Tell me that you feel, tell me that you feel, tell me that you feel the same.”
Did he? There was only one way to find out. I kept singing. “Baby, I love you.”
He smiled.
“Baby, I love you,” I pressed on.
His smile broke into a grin.
“Baby, I love,” I sang, “I love only you.”
His smiles were like oxygen. I needed more. “I cherish the thought of always having you here by my side, baby I cherish the joy you keep bringing into my life.”
A laugh. And full-throated, joyous laugh. And then Orlando’s arms around me. His lips on my cheek. His body pressed against mine. His eyes shining.
Everything I ever wanted.
“I don’t know what it is that makes me love you so,” I half-whispered. “I only know I never want to let you go.”
Orlando hummed tunelessly in my ear.
“You’ve started something. Can’t you see? That ever since we met you’ve had a hold on me,” I sang. “It happens to be true.”
And then he sang back to me. “I only want to be with you.”
And that was that.
Not quite. We spend the evening looking at each other. Holding hands. Kissing. You don’t need to know the details of the rest.
Don’t need to know them because there aren’t any. We still couldn’t bring ourselves to take the final leap. Not when it wasn’t necessary. We were deliriously happy just to sit side by side, hold hands, and be together. But we did want more, eventually.
First, we had to be honest with more than just our touches. I told him everything, about everything that happened between Satine and me, about all the times Toulouse had ever spoken of him. I even admitted to the words I may have borrowed from Toulouse for the show.
In turn, he told me in detail about his separations from Toulouse, about his mad jealousy of me – me, can you imagine? – and how he’d been there that night in the theatre, when Satine died in my arms.
Oh, we’d both known all this before, known in a vague, assumed way. But we’d never looked each other in the eye and confessed the minutiae, revealed our deepest emotions. His eyes, filled with all the life they ever possessed and more, denied me nothing. This openness, this truth beyond truth, is at the heart of beauty. The root of all freedom.
But we were not entirely free. Yet.
We could see now that Paris held too many memories for us both. It was long past the time to start a new life together. It took us a few weeks to prepare for our departure. Orlando turned over all of Toulouse’s remaining paintings to his agent, except for some sketches and a few small canvases, but they are all highly personal works, and Orlando will never permit their sale, even though, by default, they technically belong to the estate. I doubt Toulouse ever hinted of their existence to his family or his agent, so we will keep them secret and safe.
(I will admit that I like to look at them. Often. He is stunning from head to toe, and Toulouse was no slouch in the painting and sketching department… I will do everything in my power to keep these painting and sketches private.)
But we could not take everything in the flat. We needed to travel light. So, on the night before out departure, we threw a party. A party like the ones Toulouse used to hold – wild, debauched and bohemian. We gave away everything we did not want to carry. The carpets, the kitchen utensils, the Japanese screen, even the headboard of the bed – everything was distributed among Toulouse’s friends. What better way to share Toulouse’s life with his friends, who meant more to him than his family, than to share the accoutrements and symbols of his life amongst them?
It was difficult for Orlando at first, but then he realised that Toulouse never got a proper wake. We had a portrait of Toulouse that Orlando painted set up in a place of honour, and everyone toasted him and sang his praises. The absinthe flowed, and the wine disappeared at an alarming rate. Not to mention how the sickly sweet smoke of the opium pipe shrouded the corner where my old couch stood.
 Everyone was there – Toulouse’s cousin Gabriel, Satie, the Argentinean, Nini, the Doctor, even Zidler came by. Someone brought one of Toulouse’s posters – one of the ones featuring you, dear Jane, and we all wished you could have been there.
But you are living in the country now, away from all this. And now Orlando and I are gone as well. The times are changing. We must change with them.
In the morning, we were on the road. Our journey to England was uneventful. Orlando was understandably nervous when we reached the channel. After all, when he left England he was a fugitive from the law. But that was years ago, and much has changed since then. Oscar Wilde has left us, and no one wants to dredge up nasty business from the past.
Orlando spent much of the voyage on deck, as freezing as the air and spray were, unwilling to be trapped indoors, it seemed. I tried to persuade him to seek shelter in the lounge, and managed to convince him to come in for a while, at least long enough to remove the frost from his beard before it was time to disembark.
We stayed at an inn, in separate rooms, and made our way to London in the morning.
Oh, how long it seems since I left. It’s been much longer for Orlando. Neither of us feels as if we fit here anymore. I’m a stranger here.
I never spent much time in the core of London, but I can understand how Orlando finds the contrast with Paris disturbing. The streets are no more crowded, but it is a different sort of crowd. More aggressive. More anonymous. More exhilarating. He says he finds it quite alarming, but I could see the excitement in his eyes as soon as we entered the city. The lights are much brighter there. You can forget all your troubles. Forget all your cares.
Orlando took us to the Vale. As a writer, it was thrilling enough for me to read about Toulouse visiting there and being friends with Mr. Ricketts and Mr. Shannon, but to be there, to meet the writers and artists who frequent those hallowed rooms, is beyond belief. I have, of course, asked Orlando for any and all details he’s willing to share about Oscar. He has indulged me with a great many stories. I’m sure Oscar would have been surprised to know how closely Orlando paid attention to the conversation at his parties.
Charles and Charles were most welcoming to Orlando. They remember him well from days long past. They knew all about Orlando and Toulouse, and were quite accepting of my presence. In fact, one of them (and I’m a bit ashamed to admit I’m not sure which one, but I’m still a bit giddy from all that has happened, although I’m positive it was one of the Charles) took me aside and thanked me for being a comfort to dear, sweet Orlando. He noted how much older Orlando looks, but that I am taking good care of him, and also that we seem to be very much in love, and happy together.
We stayed with the two Charles for a few weeks, until we heard of a coach house for rent nearby. It’s small, draughty, but close enough to downtown that Orlando will be able to seek some commissions, and it will not be too difficult for me to try to sell some of my writing. So we have set up house together. Our trunk of art supplies and a few little things, including my typewriter, arrived this morning. Other than that, we came remarkably unencumbered.
It is comfortable enough, although we spent the first few nights huddled by the fire, wrapped in whatever musty old furs and rugs we could find, until we got the broken windows patched and the place cleaned out a bit. We managed to weatherproof the place somewhat and set up a passable kitchen. Then we got the bed in order.
Of course, we are expected to sleep in separate beds, in the two separate bedrooms. And we have gone to some pains to make it look as if that is so. But the largest, most comfortable bed we have chosen to share, and we moved it to the room with the most reliable fireplace, and the most private view.
And last night…
Ah, Jane. You know how wonderful he is. To hold him in my arms, feel his heart beating under my cheek, touch that glorious skin and hold him inside me, it was more than magic. It was sublime. And we’ve only just begun.
The past is finally behind us. My poetry is back. Good times never seemed so good.
By the light of the moon, after our rather ardent lovemaking, Orlando rose last night and searched through his belongings. I begged him to return to bed. It wasn’t that I disliked seeing him like that, naked and seeming to glow in the velvet darkness, but I worried he would catch his death. He returned to the bed and, after I’d rubbed his chilled limbs and kissed him enough to chase away the cold, he opened his hand and showed me a most magical brooch.
A huge, radiant green stone in the shape of a scarab.
“The jewel Oscar gave you,” I gasped.
Orlando nodded solemnly. “It’s for you,” he said. “I want you to hold onto it, keep it safe for me.”
I could not accept such a precious gift, I protested. Orlando laughed, that musical, marvellous laugh that had captivated Toulouse, charmed half of Montmartre, beguiled me from the start.
“You mean to say that this trinket is worth more than my heart?” he asked.
Never!
“Well, since you already hold my heart, this should be no additional burden at all.”
He was right. I hold the jewel, his heart, and that is everything valuable to me.
So now you know it all. And you can be satisfied that all your scheming, your kind deeds and gentle shoves in the right direction and hints and romantic plots have come to fruition. We will always feel sorrow for our lost loves, always think of the past, but we have found something in the present, and we’ve found a home.
Home. And I feel freer here than I’ve ever felt before. Before I went to Paris, England had been a cage, a repressive trap. Or perhaps that was my father’s influence. But now that I’ve experienced Montmartre, I can better understand the demands of the bohemian revolution, the pressure to be something I’ve never been sure I was. Coming back to England has been more liberating than leaving it ever was.
I believed fervently in the ideals of the revolution when I first arrived in Paris. I rushed to soak up the atmosphere, threw myself into it with abandon, tried to live up to it all, but always felt I fell short.
I believed in Truth, but there were so many things I didn’t want to admit, even to myself.
Beauty, of course, I believed in Beauty, but was I able to see true beauty, or only what was on the surface?
Freedom, certainly, I believed in Freedom. But I was not able to achieve it, was I? I always seem to tangle myself in whatever comes my way, becoming enslaved to the very notion that are meant to free me.
And Love. I believed in Love above all else, but did I believe in life after love? I’d sought to lock myself away, either by hiding in my room or in absinthe, by ignoring the world around me, all for what I thought was fidelity to the ideal of Love. But I was drowning in a sea of love, not realising that Love is nothing if it is not shared.
I said it to Toulouse the first time we met, and it has not changed – I’m not even sure if I am a true bohemian revolutionary. You say you want a revolution, well you know, we all want to change the world.
Now, away from all that, I could finally understand. As much as I believe in the bohemian ideals, I have learned that Truth and Beauty and Freedom and Love are ideals, concepts. Most admirable concepts indeed, but you cannot touch a concept. You cannot hold a concept in your arms, drink of it and savour its essence in the back of your mouth until sleep finally claims you. You cannot wake up at the dawn with a concept pressed against you, keeping you warm. You cannot open your body to a concept, feel it pierce you, fill you to completion, and shudder inside you as you become one.
You cannot look at a concept and see the light in its eyes, know that light belongs to you, and cherish it forever.
I can only do all that with Orlando. As soon as I wake up, every night, every day, I know that it’s him I need to take the blues away. In him, those concepts come to life.
I’m giving him a longing look. Everyday, everyday, everyday. Everyday I write the book.
With much love,
Christian
Finis
Thank you to any readers who have had enough faith in me to give this somewhat drastic departure from my usual style of writing, and the tumultuous experimentation of Christian’s pop-music-inspired musing, a fair try. Here is a special treat - Les Lettres Risque
Comment on this fic, or anything related to it, here.
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