Exiles in America(8)

around and slammed the bottom end against the concrete floor. The taut can-

vas trembled like the skin of a bass drum.

He stood beside it, staring at the faces staring at his painting.

Ross clapped his hands and laughed. “God, I love this picture!”

It was a self-portrait, rougher than the landscapes, the brushstrokes looser,

the colors gaudier. Daniel’s bald head and bare shoulders filled the bottom

half of the picture, with a stomach in the upper half, not his own naked belly

but another man’s alluvial plain of muscular abdomen. Daniel’s pink face

sheepishly looked up from between the man’s nude legs, his eyes cartoonishly

big, his full mouth rounded in a happy “Oh!”

“Oh,” went Elena and jerked her head away.

Abbas didn’t even blink. He studied the picture, pursing his mouth again,

solemnly nodding. “This too is from a photo? Did you take it?” he asked Zack.

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Zack frowned at Daniel, letting him know that he would say nothing and

Daniel could answer however he pleased.

Daniel could have lied—Abbas wouldn’t know that Zack’s stomach could

never look like that, not after a thousand sit-ups. But Daniel said, “No, a

friend took the picture. A young friend.” He smiled. “The sacrifices we make

in the name of art.”

Elena stole another look over her shoulder, then glared at her husband.

“Smut,” she said. “Schoolboy smut.” She turned to Daniel and laughed. “Ha

ha ha.” She actually spoke the syllables. “You are a silly man and this is silly

smut.” She lowered her head and charged from the room. They heard her

shoes clatter up the stairs.

Daniel had been so determined to shock the husband that he’d forgotten

he might shock the wife as well. Her reaction threw him.

Abbas frowned at Daniel, disapproving of the painting or his wife or

Daniel, it was hard to tell. He shook his head. “Excuse me,” he murmured

and followed Elena upstairs.

“Anyone want coffee?” Zack called after them. “I’ll be right up and make

coffee.” He gave Daniel a hurt, weary, chiding look.

Daniel smiled and shrugged and prettily batted his eyes, an ironic pose of

innocence that he’d learned from Charlie Chaplin.

“You guys,” said Ross, still studying the painting and grinning. “There are

no secrets in this household.”

5

They found Elena and Abbas upstairs, out on the terrace, whisper-

ing in French while Elena finished a cigarette.

“Coffee? No thank you,” she said. “This is lovely but we must go. We must

relieve the sitter.” She was smiling sweetly, pretending nothing was wrong.

“Oh, Abbas?” She opened her purse and began to rummage inside. “You

should show them our children.”

She gave him a handful of pictures, and he proudly passed them around,

color photos of a pretty girl and boy whose eyelashes were so dark that both

seemed to be wearing mascara.

When they said good night, Elena gave each of the men double air

kisses—Daniel wetly kissed one cheek before he understood—and Abbas

shook their hands. The Rohanis strode off into the darkness, the wife’s shoes

clopping down the street like petulant hooves.

Ross stayed behind for a last glass of wine while Daniel and Zack cleaned

up. “So she’s Russian,” he said. “Not Iranian but Russian. From Uzbekistan?”

He shook his head in wonder. “So beautiful. Like an Uzbek Anouk Aimée. If

you guys get the husband, I get the wife.”

“The husband?” said Daniel. “What makes you think we want the hus-

band?”

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“I assumed you found him attractive.”

“He has a certain sultry quality,” Zack admitted.

“He has a certain asshole quality,” said Daniel. “Just another holier-than-

thou straight male genius.”

“And that’s why you showed him your Portrait of the Artist Giving a Blow

Job?” said Zack. “To slap him in his holiness?”

“I love that picture,” Ross repeated. “It’s like dirty Escher. Male or female,

the viewer gets their dick sucked by you, Daniel. Too bad you can’t show it at

school. What happened to John Wilson anyway?” Who was the blowee, a

bleached-blond assistant gardener for Colonial Williamsburg with whom

Daniel had had a fling three years ago.

“He went off to L.A. to seek fame and fortune,” said Daniel.

“He still sends us Christmas cards,” said Zack.

Ross knew all about their open marriage. He was intrigued, even envi-

ous—“Silly me, I think I have to marry them”—although he had also learned