Lenny began visiting the Sea Cliff mansion on a daily basis, after his working hours at the dental clinic. They told Larry and Doris and the household staff that Lenny was a nurse. Nobody asked anything further. Alma called a carpenter to fix the jammed door between the bedrooms and left the two men alone. She felt a huge sense of relief when her husband’s face lit up at seeing Lenny come in. As dusk fell, the three of them took tea and English muffins and, if Nathaniel was up to it, played cards. By then they had a diagnosis, the worst possible: it was AIDS. The illness had only been given a name a couple of years earlier, but by now everyone knew it was a death sentence; sufferers died sooner or later, it was merely a matter of time. Alma did not want to know why Nathaniel and not Lenny was infected, but even if she had asked, no one could have given her a clear answer. Cases were multiplying at such a rate that there was already talk of a worldwide epidemic and of God’s punishment on the infamy of homosexuality. AIDS was a word only mentioned in a whisper, not to be uttered in a family or community, as it was tantamount to declaring unforgivable perversions. The official explanation, even to the family, was that Nathaniel had cancer. As conventional medicine had nothing to offer, Lenny went to Mexico to look for mysterious drug treatments, which ended up having no effect, while Alma ran around seeking out whatever alternative therapies could offer, from oils, herbs, and acupuncture in Chinatown to mud baths with magical properties at Calistoga Spa. This led her to appreciate the crazy efforts Lillian had resorted to in her attempt to cure Isaac; she even regretted having thrown Baron Samedi’s statuette into the garbage.
Nine months later, Nathaniel’s body was wasted to a skeleton by the ravages of the illness, while air could scarcely enter the blocked labyrinths of his lungs. He suffered from insatiable thirst and skin ulcers, he had lost his voice, and his mind was wandering deliriously. And so one sleepy Sunday when they were alone in the house, Alma and Lenny took each other’s hand in the dark, airless room and begged Nathaniel to give up the struggle and go peacefully. They could no longer bear to witness his torment. In a miraculous moment of lucidity, Nathaniel opened eyes clouded by pain and his lips formed a thank-you. They took this for what it actually was: a command. Lenny kissed him on the lips before injecting him with a massive dose of morphine via the intravenous drip bag. On her knees on the far side of the bed, Alma softly reminded her husband how much she and Lenny loved him and how much he had given them and many others, that he would always be remembered, that nothing could ever separate them.
* * *
Over a cup of mango tea and reminiscences at Lark House, Alma and Lenny wondered how they could have let three decades go by without making any attempt to contact each other again. After closing Nathaniel’s eyes and helping Alma to lay out the body to present it to Larry and Doris, and to remove any telltale traces of what had happened, Lenny said good-bye to Alma and left. They had spent months in the total intimacy created by suffering and flickering hope. They had never seen each other in the light of day, only in a bedroom that smelled of menthol and of death well before it came to bear Nathaniel away. They had shared sleepless nights, drinking watered-down whisky or smoking marijuana to relieve the anguish, while they told each other the story of their lives, unearthed longings and secrets, and came to know each other intimately. In the face of such prolonged agony there was no room for any kind of pretense; they revealed what they truly were when they were alone with themselves, stripped naked. Despite or perhaps because of this, they had come to love one another with a transparent, desperate tenderness that called for a separation, as it would not have resisted the inevitable attrition of the everyday.
“We had a strange friendship,” said Alma.
“Nathaniel was so grateful that the two of us were with him that he once asked me to marry you when you were widowed. He didn’t want to leave you unprotected.”
“What a wonderful idea! Why didn’t you suggest it, Lenny? We’d have made a fine couple. We’d have been companions and watched each other’s backs, like Nathaniel and I did!”
“I’m gay, Alma.”
“So was Nathaniel. We would have had a sexless marriage, without a marital bed, you with your own love life, and me with Ichimei. Very convenient, given that we could neither of us show our love in public.”
“There’s still time. Will you marry me, Alma Belasco?”
“But didn’t you tell me you were going to die soon? I don’t want to be widowed a second time.”
At this they burst out laughing, and their laughter spurred them to go to the dining room and see if there was anything tempting on the menu. Lenny offered Alma his arm, and they walked along the glassed-in corridor to the main house, the chocolate magnate’s former mansion, feeling their age but contented, wondering why people talk so much about sadness and illness and not about happiness.
“What can we do with this happiness that appears for no obvious reason, the joy that needs no cause to exist?” asked Alma.
They took short, shaky steps, leaning on one another and feeling the late-autumn cold, dazed by the rush of stubborn memories that gripped them, memories of love, flooded by a mutual happiness. Alma pointed out to Lenny a fleeting glimpse of pink veils in the park, but it was growing dark, and possibly it wasn’t Emily heralding disaster, but a mirage like so many others at Lark House.
THE JAPANESE LOVER