Ne suis pas
By Isaac López
I remember that gray, melancholic afternoon of a winter in London, where it rarely snows. The streets around Leicester Square were busy and the boulevards showcased figurines of people, fully clothed in black. The Picadilly Area surrounded by buildings gave the impression the center was no more than a small universe recreated in a crystal ball. My place in this cosmos was meant to be inside one of these red cafés, leaning forward the figurine in front of me while supported by my forearms on the table. The other person who was opposite to me sat so still and so immutable that it might as well had been a Greek statue. What did I know about him other than he had the cutest face in the world and that I was obsessed with the depth of his blue eyes? There I had him in front of me, speaking in the often regarded as the most romantic language of the world; the scene would have been perfect for a love movie if he hadn’t been telling me the dreariest words that could came out of his mouth. He couldn’t. He couldn’t – he insisted. His life would be simply ruined if his mom found out he was dating me.
“What’s so bad about us?” I inquired with a stern look. I was back to my senses, but still struggling not to get lost in the fine line of his cheek. I loved when he didn’t shave for around three days, the velvet brown shadow outlining his features.
“She finds out, and my life as I know it is over! They will stop sending me money. I’ll be forced to go back and face shame. I’m not ready.”
The way he made it sound—I tried not to picture myself as a horrible monster that wouldn’t ever fit in the family. I reminded myself, not without some degree of difficulty, that it was not personal; I had been there too and understood the situation. Not for that, I approved. I couldn’t believe my ears.
I had met him not long ago, somewhere in Soho, still part of that bubble we lived in. I hadn’t had the chance of seeing his demons come out or to see the holes in his perfectly kept appearance; I was far away from using those phrases stable partners use like “I know you”! It had been some months since I felt bold enough to come to him at the bar and ask him for his number; still his motivations and fears remained a mystery to me. All but one he was voicing with distress: he couldn’t let anybody find out he was gay.
I took it as a joke first. We had spent around two months like hopelessly enamored teenagers. On our first date I had stopped him before we walked any further on Old Compton Street, the brezee making us shiver, the perfection of his body hidden underneath his black cloack and the elegance of his neck disguised under the thick woolen scarf. I stared directly at his bright blue eyes and gained the courage to refuse to move any further without having tasted the moist of his lips. He looked down and stood still. He smiled shyly and said “why not.” Then we kissed for the first time, and in the touch of my freezing hands to the cotton covering his hip I knew I had found something special. We danced all night, kissed on the dancefloor and promised to do it again. We walked holding hands all the way to Trafalgar Square, looked for the highest point and climbed it, kissing with the yellow eye of the Big Ben in witnessing our adventure. We received the only snowy days of the season with joy, fought with snowballs in Green Park at midnight, and fell on the sidewalk the time we drunkenly danced on the icy pedestrian paths. Cold struck us together on Christmas, and though we celebrated new year’s apart when his family came, we texted each other around midnight wishing the new year would help us adding new chapters to this happy novel we were writing. Once we met randomly in the center, went out for drinks and we ended up piggybacking from Soho to Picadilly at three in the morning, that part of the London warmer because of the lights. While he was riding on my back, he locked his arms around my neck and asked me “Can we stay like this forever?” I didn’t say anything then, but that same night I got home and told myself that I had been the silliest man on earth for not even whispering “yes” when I wanted to scream that I loved him on top of my lungs.
That’s when I decided I had to ask him to start a life together. That’s when he replied, in a grave, dry tone “I can’t.”
I still had a hard time following his logic. In here, you could climb the Victoria Monument in front of Buckingham Palace and shout from the rooftops that you liked cocks. Somebody might reply “good for you” and that’s about it. It wasn’t like in Uganda, that they publish your name on a list of faggots and next thing you knew someone came to your house at night and fired a bullet in your skull. Nor were we living in the Nazi Germany, doomed to wear a stripped uniform with a pink triangle and to die gassed, discarded as scum, our names forgotten in the echo of all the voices screaming in terror before facing death. We had it really simple. We just had to stand our ground before our families and embrace who we were. I saw no complexity in achieving such goal in the western society to which we belonged. Besides, we were still protected by the London bubble. What could hurt us over here?
Still, he shook his head in terror. His image froze as he hid his face from my gaze.
The sun went down before the clock hit six in the afternoon. The gray bubble acquired the contrast of the darkness of the alleys and the lights from the garlands hanging in the air from one side of the streets to the other. Inside the red café, however, the scene lacked light. Whatever illusion had been painted in my face before was gone with the last trace of the bleak day light in winter. I asked him what the problem really was. Was it me, not worthy enough of him? He asked me not to be ridiculous. What was it then? Hadn’t he meant what he whispered to me that night of January? He promised me the words had come from his heart, but would they be enough to shield us from the world? Unlikely. The problem was not what we felt. The problem was who we were.
My mind, disturbed, tried to find the wrong in what we had lived. I was trying my best to find the mistake in the picture of his body lying next to mine in my bed while through the open window the light of the closest lamppost flickered because of the falling snowflakes; there was no flaw in such harmony. How could he not want to fight for that? The repetition of his voice saying “he couldn’t” pounded in my head like hammers hitting iron. What good was being ready to open your heart to somebody when this person couldn’t even stand for who he was?
“Let’s say your mom confronts you. She doesn’t go around the bushes and asks you ‘Are you gay, Mathieu?’ What do you reply to that”? I asked angrily, every word impregnated with consternation.
“Ne suis pas” he uttered, gesticulating as if he needed to convince me. That hurt. The deep wrinkle in my forehead might have given him a hint of what was crossing my mind.
I tried to see the boundaries, to follow the crystal dome that enclosed him –us, in such oppressive confinement. I failed to notice them; actually, I failed to see any association of the city with the crystal ball. London was now a curve that expanded and expanded to other lands. He broke the fantasy. We were exposed to all the voices condemning our feelings.
“If you can’t be yourself in London, you may not be able to be free anywhere else in the world” – I said bitterly as I pulled out a ten pound bill to pay for my Americano and his barely-sipped espresso. I left the table and walked to the entrance, waiting for him to call me in his mother tongue or in his English with the marked French accent, but none of that happened. I was waiting for his arm to reach out for mine as I passed and not let me go, but instead I found my way out with a distressful lack of difficulty.
I left the café when the picture was in black and white. I was turning my back on my lover, but it meant little now that he had turned his back on us --more importantly, on himself. He didn’t move for a while, his espresso less frozen that him. Broken hearted and all, I left, in apparent slow motion, to proudly be me. He stayed, “not being.” The picture faded away.
