Men Read Free Page B

not sure, a strong sense of self, a powerful torso, the neck a Greek pillar—a statue from antiquity, the human race, all in one.

    They head towards the cars. George takes the keys out of her hand: there is apparently no question of her driving. George’s limousine turns into a deluxe minibus. He is not far from her, two seats away, two bodies away. George speaks to the chauffeur before they set off and Ted, who works for George in his production company, settles in next to her. A joint does the rounds. The starlet is chatting with Steven (what on earth will Solange’s agent, Lloyd, say when hefinds out that she told Steven, the famous Steven, that she’d call him back). She should go to bed early. They’re driving along a boulevard; it’s been four years but she still gets them muddled, whatever, it must be Hollywood Boulevard. They’re outside the Chinese Theatre, the starlet knows a nightclub, the Montmartre Lounge—unbelievable, she pronounces Montt-martt-re with t s everywhere. Solange wants to keep passing the joint but no one is paying any attention, so she smokes it with Ted. George has left. And Steven. Next thing there are bright lights and lots of people and an old Queen hit single and Freddy Mercury’s razor-sharp voice: he’s a star leaping through the skies like a tiger defying the laws of gravity .
    Because of the joint each syllable is enunciated, the drums detach from the piano and the piano from the guitar and the guitar from the voice, all the trajectories divide and reunite: celestial harmony. She has never particularly liked Queen but she remembers an anecdote, well, an interesting fact, she starts shouting in his ear—he’s tall but she has very high heels—that Freddy Mercury was a Parsi, a what, a Parsi—how do you say Parsi in English, Parsi sounds just fine—in any case she’s off and running: a fascinating religion, sun worshippers, strict vegans, they don’t bury their dead but perform an extremely civilised ritual—he asks her to repeat, she shouts at the top of her voice: they lay them out on the top of towers, the Towers of Silence—she’s yelling—the vultures come and devour them; it takes twenty-odd vultures ten minutes to reduce the bodies to perfectly whitebones, which are then arranged in the tower, in circles, in a super-sophisticated system, gutters and drains for the bodily fluids, so clean, much more hygienic than burial when you think about it. The problem is that there are almost no vultures in Bombay anymore because of the pollution, so the neighbouring Hindus complain about the bodies.
    ‘Interesting,’ he says.
    It looks like he thinks it is. It’s perhaps not the ideal conversation but he’s looking her in the eye. They step aside at the same time to get clear of the music, which is everywhere, she can’t hear a word he’s saying, the image of the decomposing bodies is sort of floating between them—‘I’ve heard’—she scarcely changes the subject—‘that elephants are the only animals to have a ritual for their dead.’ She is full of hope. Hope that he might talk to her. The elephants are swaying from side to side, rocking the white bones of their comrades in their trunks. Hope that he might explain things to her, take her away, carry her off elephant-style. But his face is impassive again. Almost stony.
    ‘I know nothing about elephants,’ he replies dryly.
    ‘I know a lot about Parsis.’ She laughs feebly.
    He is still wearing his improbable Jedi coat and drops of sweat are pearling at the roots of his hair; it’s either the heat of the nightclub or a sort of annoyance that she can’t identify, exhaustion, a kind of impatience, pity for her. She wouldn’t have believed it, but perhaps he’s one of those men with whom you have to make the first move.
    There is a slippage in time and space, a plunge forward and she’s dancing with Ted. Donna Summer pants and moans and whispers ooooohhh I feel love I feel love I feel love. Ted is