English. He likes me because I am in love; he admires love. I
am in love in a language I don’t know. He likes this love
because it is a rare kind to see. It has the fascination o f fire; you
can’t stop looking. We’re so much joined in the flesh that
strangers feel the pain if we stop touching. Andreus is a failed
old sensualist now but he is excited by passion, the life-and-
death kind, the passion you have to have to wage a guerrilla
war from the sea on an island occupied by Nazis; being near
us, you feel the sea. I’m the sea for him now and he’s waiting to
see if his friend will drown. M venerates him for his role in the
resistance. Andreus is maybe sixty, an old sixty, gritty, oiled,
lined. M is thirty, old to me, an older man if I force m yself to
think o f it but I never think, no category means anything, I
can’t think exactly or the thought gets cut short by the
immense excitement o f his presence or a m emory o f anything
about him, any second o f remembering him and I’m flushed
and fevered; in delirium there’s no thought. At night the bars
are cool after the heat o f the African sun; the men are young
and hungry, lithe, they dance together frenetically, their arms
stretched across each other’s bodies as they make virile chorus
lines or drunken circles. M is the bartender. I sit in a dark
corner, a cool and pampered observer, drinking vermouth on
ice, red vermouth, and watching; watching M , watching the
men dance. Then sometimes he dances and they all leave the
floor to watch because he is the great dancer o f Crete, the
magnificent dancer, a legend o f grace and balance and speed.
Usually the young men sing in Greek along with the records
and dance showing off; before I was in love they sent over
drinks but now no one would dare. A great tension falls over
the room when sometimes one o f them tries. There have been
fist fights but I haven’t understood until after what they were
about. There was a tall blond boy, younger than M. M is short
and dark. I couldn’t keep my eyes o ff him and he took my
breath away. I feel what I feel and I do what I want and
everything shows in the heat coming o ff m y skin. There are no
lies in me; no language to be accountable in and also no lies. I
am always in action being alive even if I am sitting quietly in a
dark corner watching men dance. This room is not where I
live but it is my home at night. We usually leave a few hours
before dawn. The nightclub is a dark, square room. There is a
bar, some tables, records; almost never any women, occasional
tourists only. It is called The Dionysus. It is o ff a
small, square-like park in the center o f the city. The park is
overwhelm ingly green in the parched city and the vegetation
casts shadows even in the night so that if I come here alone it is
very dark and once a boy came up behind me and put his hand
between m y legs so fast that I barely understood what he had
