Under the Skin

About the only thing I saw that was his was the framed photograph on the nightstand. It was of two young men, obviously in love, embracing and smiling at the camera. One, the smaller one—one who for a moment I fancied was me—was white. A willowy blond of androgynous features. The other was a younger Alfred.

"The photograph, the men in that picture . . ." I murmured.

Then he told me. And then I understood. Then I understood more than I'd ever understood before—not just about Alfred, but also about Apartheid, about why he was in this play, about why he had so much anger to galvanize for the play.

"That's Jan Martans," he said. "We found each other in Cape Town. His family found out about us. They sent Jan to Amsterdam. They sent me to prison."

There was much more, of course, but that was the essential core of it all. Alfred spoke for over an hour, telling me how it was—Apartheid. How it really was. And how it was to love someone of a different race under Apartheid. What the loss and consequences were of being discovered.

And after an hour, I understood so much more than I ever had before. And I understood that I couldn't leave it like this.

"Fuck me. Take me again. Take me like you took Jan. Make love to me like I am Jan," I whispered. "Let me be Jan for you for tonight."

And he did. He rolled over on top of me, coaxed my legs open to him, shoved a pillow under the small of my back to turn my pelvis up to him. And he entered, entered, entered, me as I groaned and worked hard to open to the invading shaft moving deep up inside me, reaching deeper, feeling thicker, than he had when he was fucking me in anger—even than he had when he was fucking me to show he cared. I palmed his buttocks, holding him inside me. We kissed. And he fucked me and fucked me and fucked me.

He made love to me every night through the short run of Brothers All and for the week after that until we both had moved on. He fucked me in the dark, and when he was most tender, moving the deepest and thickest inside me, I would hear him murmur the name Jan. I wasn't jealous; I knew what we had was temporary and a substitute. But I understood, and for that time, to the extent I could be, I was Jan for him.

The play fell apart after that. Alfred had lost the edge of his anger that had fed what little vital there was about the play. The director couldn't figure out what the problem was. But I knew, and I'm sure Alfred knew too. We closed during the second week.

Alfred went on to better parts in better plays. Taking his suggestion, I enrolled at NYU in journalism, endured the lean years of catching part-time work here and there during the day and attending college in the evening, and eventually landed a job at the New York Times.

My first celebrated feature was for a series in 1995 on the effect of Apartheid on individual lives. The crowning piece was the result of having gone to Amsterdam while Alfred Sobhuza was on stage as Othello to thunderous applause in London, finding Jan Martans in Lelystad, and taking him to London to meet up with Alfred in his dressing room. I'm not sure they even noticed when I slipped out of the room.

After that, life became very busy for me and I moved on to being an international correspondent, keeping a touch on my bent to activism and idealism, and immersing myself in life to the extent of letting my contact with Alfred slip out of my hands—until I read of his illness and going into seclusion. It took me weeks to find out that he was in Lelystad. When I knew that, I knew who he was with. I didn't know, however, just how ill they both were.

* * * *

I talked so long with Alfred, all about how my life had changed by having encountered him and then as it spun out from his suggestion that journalism might be more appropriate for me in life than acting, that I didn't realize that it was dark until the overhead light in the bedroom switched on. I had had no idea how major had been the impact of the black giant on my life, based just on a few short weeks of a failed play and of moving under him on his bed in that fleabag hotel. He'd opened a greater understanding and a whole different world to me.

During the years I had roamed the world as a correspondent, I had lain under men of different colors and religions. None quite measured up to what Alfred had given me, but several were satiating and quite satisfying in what they had to share with me, and I would not have lain with some of these men if Alfred hadn't taught me the important lesson that all men are the same under the skin. All men could penetrate and possess me and could move with me to our mutual satisfaction—if only for that coupling and if I was willing to give as much as I took. The men I would not have given a second look at without the "under the skin" wisdom Alfred had imparted to me invariably turned out to be the most satisfying lovers—black men, in particular.

I felt blinded by the light at first, unaware of how it had come on. I looked over at Jan. He'd been quiet the whole time, but even in the dark his eyes had been directed to the bed where Alfred lay in his coma. There was a little smile on Jan's face.

Then I turned and looked at the door from the corridor. The elderly woman was standing there, her hand on the light switch.

"I'm sorry," I said to her. "I lost track of the time."

"I heard you talking, but I couldn't hear what you were saying," she said. "I'm sure they enjoyed your visit."

"I'm just sorry that I came too late for the three of us to talk of old times."

"They were quiet. Usually on an afternoon like this, they will stir and I will have to come in and do something for them. Mr. Sobhuza has seizures now and then, even though he's in a coma. And they set Mr. Martans off. He can't take having Mr. Sobhuza jerking and possibly in pain. It's almost like they were listening to you—like they were thinking on all of the things you had to talk over with them. It's been good having you here today. They've both been calm. I wouldn't have interrupted you, but it's time they were put to bed. If you'd just step out of the room, I'll take care of that—and I have a bit for you to eat in the other room before you leave for the airport."

"Can I . . . do you need help putting them to bed?"

"Well, I don't know . . . I don't think—" the elderly woman said. She seemed a bit disconcerted, and it suddenly occurred to me why.

"If it's about knowing them . . . knowing what they were to each other. I know about that. They sleep in the same bed, don't they . . . still?"

"Yes sir, they do. And, yes, if you wouldn't mind that, I could use the help." She seemed relieved to know that I was aware that the men were a couple.

When we'd gotten Jan over to the bed and put him under the covers, he emitted an audible sigh, turned on his side toward Alfred, and put an arm over him. I almost could have thought that I heard a sigh from Alfred too.

When we'd left the room, the woman said, "I don't know how much longer Mr. Sobhuza will hang on. The doctors are amazed that he's lived this long."

I didn't tell her, but I knew why. Alfred was the strongest-willed man I'd ever known. My opinion was that he was waiting so that he and Jan could go together.

I hadn't taken any notes. I'd have to come up with some article that would justify the expense the Times had gone to to bring me here, but it wasn't going to be about Alfred and Jan specifically. They had earned their privacy. I would protect their dignity. Maybe I could get something worthwhile—maybe something about all men being the same under the skin—that I could write from what I'd let pour out of me in talking with Alfred and Jan this afternoon. Maybe I could step up to taking my own stand publicly on the interracial gay lovers issue.

I'd write this story—Alfred and Jan's story—but to protect them, I decided I'd write it as a short story. And to a bit of an extent, it would be my story too.