“I don’t know,” Jesus replied, as though that were an explanation. He smoothed the back of her gown and dropped to one knee. Margery saw the top, front, and rear of his skinny body, and his awkward position seemed to give her access. She could have raised him like a doll in the palm of her hand with the power of a tenderness that was avid, predatory. She wanted to suck his bones.

“It’s a nice dress,” Jesus stated. He was surprised—who questioned him this way? He basted the hem, pins held between lips, face tipped back from the conflict. If Jesus considered what was fair, where could he stop? He was the world: whatever he did was accurate.

His certainty compelled Margery. “Am I over-reacting?”

Jesus said regretfully, “There’s nothing I can say.” His small features vanished. His gift-giving retreat was an invitation to pursue. That made sense to Margery because his straight back and supple body were beyond her means. She wondered what his words meant detached from the clarinet of his voice.

“Tears are the most secure gift. No one can take them from you.”

13

The thick drunken histamine ache of needing to shit; L. can’t find a toilet in time; his face convulses; it makes me feel awe. Jesus doesn’t have a conscience. Like L., whatever he does is normal.

•

I try to locate drama in L.’s face where drama is purposefully withdrawn. We look at art. We talk about neutral things. We visit old gardens where he identifies trees and flowers. We give each other rich objects produced for Edwardians which amplify my idea of him—extensions of desire and aspiration, like Mme. Arnoux’s furniture and Mme. Bovary’s clothes which Flaubert lovingly described.

My cousin says L. has an actor’s voice. I think beautiful, modulated, but perhaps he means L. projects intimacy. L. says “Bob” rather than “hello.” After a few moments with him, a friend whispers, “He’s a cloud. If you push, he’ll just disappear.” How does she see that? L. speaks on any subject. I’m proud but critical: the world is his. He might leave his house, city, or country without his wallet or passport, while I check money and I.D. every few minutes. L. is prevented from renting a car because he forgot his license; when the manager sees L.’s family name, he restores L.’s exalted mobility.

I see my own inertia—I haven’t budged for decades. L. snaps his fingers and we are standing on the terrace of a grand hotel, a blue view of mountains and ocean. It’s not even visual—I feel my way across the landscape, the hard heat of youth.