Then, again, there was just the two of them continuing to walk silently on a stretch of vacant sidewalk cleansed of the litter of dogs, each under separate umbrella aegis, each in his own direct or askance manner watching the energy of the pellets of rain reverberate in oblique and diminished circular ripples in puddles near their feet. Still independent, he had ample opportunities to say that he had changed his mind and that upon consideration he had decided that he should not forfeit his travels for the laborious task of painting rural life, which had not been part of his agenda but that which he, the Laotian, had imposed upon him and he himself had accepted to seem amiable to him and less anti-social to himself. That was a cluster of words that if spoken would have made the contract of earlier utterances void, allowing immediate freedom from obligation. The words came to his mouth and languished there until death. He could not open the prison gates and release them. No, he yearned for him too much.
He was not part of the four legged monstrosity under a sole umbrella, nor hand in hand at this early stage of their acquaintance (not that with a male he would have found that acceptable at any stage, for to be seen to be free to be queer would allow the public to pigeonhole him, exacerbating that which was in him as it had before to the painter of prostitute studies) and yet he was wishing for the implausible nonetheless. If holding hands belied the existence of two separate entities, belief in such a fusion, a more plausible delusion in heterosexual relationships where one might have proof of a merger on a sheet of paper and a baby byproduct as the burden of bouncing on bedroom mattresses, was vastly less credible than one of naked sportsmen at a bit of wrestling.
For in this plain of existence where all was an illusion, one could only use logic to maneuver himself into the most plausible of situations. He did not know what he was thinking as he walked beside him past the morning market and the Paris Laos hotel which he had passed before. They would not become nude sportsman at a bit of wrestling for the victory of pleasure rather than the pleasure of victory, which was the norm for the clothed players. As far as he knew, this was a brother and sister whom he met on a train and whose only interest in him was platonic. They just wanted to earn a little money by becoming models. That was a rather innocuous wish, which he was in part fulfilling because he was not absolutely sure that doing nothing all the years of his life was any more constructive than the motions of birds in flight, tires of vehicles rolling, and sorry herds (even outdoor custodian sweepers pulling plastic trash barrels on wheels toward a destination) consumed in roles and agenda which gave artificial meaning to their lives.
No, he wanted him. He wanted to be in the Laos Paris hotel with him. There were so many irrepressible whims that came over a man blinding him within a blizzard of heat and titillation. Overhead the sky seemed to be clearing. Various lower clouds which seemed to have the outline of vultures within them were eager to move ahead of the dissipating mass. Like individuals shoving through the crowds to swoop in the descent of agenda, so were the lower clouds and so it seemed to him now was the Laotian. He seemed eager to take him someplace.
"Is your home very far out there?"
"Rather. No. I don't know. It depends on what you mean. We'll try to get there before darkness overtakes us." But what if darkness and rusticity was what he wanted. Surely murders happened in communist countries, and if so, it seemed to him that they would occur most frequently in rural desolation when military police or some such comrades were not watching. His gold should have come off neck and wrist before he crossed the border. It should have come off his earlobe before he got on the train. For a man to turn forty and yet to continue to try to appear half that age was absurd. An earring in a young man was a symbol of rebellion against the world, and an expression of latent homosexual impulses yearning for an opportunity to exude; it was somewhat acceptable in one who was experimental and lacking self-knowledge yet bold in his attempts to gain it—one who, dissatisfied with the world, had not yet made his own world.
"And what would you get from it: a painting or money?"
"Why not both?"
"Why not the moon. Life doesn't work that way."
"If you think the painting is good and you can sell it, pay the models. If not, don't. Draw a little something for my mother to make her happy—it being her birthday and all. Besides, for cooking and washing your dirty underwear that seems like the decent thing to do."