Clouds over Antibes

For my thirtieth birthday, now completely my own man and independently wealthy, I decided to sail the cabin cruiser back to the French Riviera and see what effect the war had had on Antibes. I wondered, of course, if Maurice, Tristian, and Père Bernard had survived the war and if Gunter and Louis had returned to take up the gay life in Antibes again. Did Antibes even tolerate the gay life anymore, I wondered. It had been so free and easy—not as much as Tangier had once been and had remained—but quite forgiving before the war.

I was able to berth the cabin cruiser in nearly the same slip I had had it in ten years previously. I could see from the marina that the war years had been pretty good to the waterfront area. The Germans had only been in full occupation for the two years—1942 into 1944—and little visible damage had been done. Unfortunately, what had disappeared, from what I could see, was Maurice’s inn. That was down and a higher building was being built in its stead.

As I climbed off the boat and onto the pier and walked in to the shore, I passed a fishing boat moored in the yacht basin, with a hunk of a dark-haired young man, just in athletic shorts and deck shoes, working on the boat. He was a beautiful, very muscular young man, obviously used to the demanding work of running a fishing boat, which is what the boat he was working on appeared to be. He gave me a smile as I passed by and I smiled back. It was a smile of mutual interest—sexual interests. Gay guys almost always could correctly gauge the smiles of other guys.

“English?” he called out?

“No, American,” I answered.

“You need a guide to Antibes?” he said in careful, but passable English. His English certainly was better than my French was. The Allies had won the war. Everyone who hadn’t spoken English before now wanted to be able to do so. English was the language of success and of the future.

“I’ve lived here before,” I answered, and, giving him another smile, I moved on.

“I’m Jacques,” he called out as I continued walking. “If there’s anything I can help you with . . .”

And a very fit and good-looking Jacques, I thought. I turned and called out, “Hi, Jacques. I’m Brent. Maybe I’ll see you around.” There was every reason to voice my interest.

I thought then that perhaps I should ask him about Maurice and company and whether there was still a gay community here, but I didn’t. His vibes were resonating as gay, but my mind was occupied by the absence of Maurice’s inn. I went to where the inn had been and asked the construction workers there if they knew what had happened to Maurice Gagnon, who had owned the small hotel and bar that had been here before, or the waiter Tristian Alarie or the priest, Père Bernard. But I drew a blank on that. These workers, at least, hadn’t caught the “learn English” bug. They were polite enough, just not informative—and whereas I got the vibe that the man at the marina hoped I was gay, that these construction workers would not be pleased to hear that I was.

I wondered if the war had killed the somewhat openness with which I’d heard the French Riviera greeted young gay men before the war, but as I came back out onto the street from the construction site, I saw two young men walking across the street with their arms around each other, each palming the buttocks of the other, and I decided that, despite everything that had happened to Antibes in the war—which was far less than most everywhere else in Europe—it had survived in this regard.

That’s when I saw that the young fisherman, Jacques, I’d seen down at the marina had followed me and was standing outside the construction site.

“I heard you ask about the building that was here before,” he said. “Is this where you came when you were in Antibes before?”

“Yes,” I answered. “It isn’t here, though, and the men I just talked to say they’ve never heard of the men I knew here.”

“Many of the people in Antibes want just to look at the future,” the young fisherman said. “They don’t want to think of the past here. A lot of people here don’t want to be reminded about what they had to do to survive the Vichy government and the German occupation.”

“I can understand that. There used to be a small bar here—on a porch above—named Oscar’s. It was run by Maurice Gagnon. Do you know him?”

“I have heard of him—and of Oscar’s—yes,” Jacques said, giving me an assessing look. “That man is no longer with us.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, not sure whether I should dredge up the war and ask what had happened to Maurice or any of the others. I was sure it would be sad news, though. They had all been sailing close to the edge—doubly so, since they also were gay. Well, maybe Père Barnard wasn’t gay. I’d never figured that one out—what his real relationship with Tristian was, whether uncle or lover—or, perhaps, both.

Thinking of Tristian, though, made it seem like Jacques had read my thoughts.

“There is a man named Tristian, though,” he said. “I heard you mention him. He has a club—someplace some us go to.”

That gave me pause. He’d said he went there. Was that a declaration of sexual preference? Not that I really needed one; I already was sure that Jacques was queer—and available, if we were a fit.

“It is called Oscar’s too,” Jacques continued, “like the place you mentioned was here. You went to the bar by that name here?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you were with the men who were here, who came regularly to this bar?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you would like to go to Tristian’s bar—to the one called Oscar’s now? A bar that men who like to be with men go to?”

“Yes, I would,” I said.

“I go to that bar,” Jacques said.

He’d repeated that so I didn’t miss it. “I’m very pleased to hear that,” I answered, thus completing the signaling between us—yes, we both are, and yes, I would with him.

Jacques smiled broadly and put an arm around me, turning me east toward the center of Antibes. I felt comfortable in his embrace and relaxed there. He smiled broadly.

“Do you wish for me take my arm away?” he asked.

“No, it’s fine there,” I answered.

“It means I dominate. I find few ways of getting that across without saying it right out.”

“That’s all fine with me,” I answered.

“Tristian’s place has rooms above his bar where men can meet in private.”

“Does he?” I asked. “I wouldn’t mind seeing one of those.”

“With me, yes?” Jacques asked as he guided me along the street.

“Yes, with you,” I answered, feeling his strong hands glide down to palm one of my butt cheeks and feeling, at the same time, relieved that, despite everything, Antibes had returned to its casual, welcoming nature.

I was in for a surprise when we reached the new inn, in many respects reminiscent of Maurice’s inn in that it was a four-story building, with a tavern downstairs; rooms above, including a second-story porch bar off the back reached by a staircase with a sign above the stairs saying “Oscar’s Club”; and very likely a flat at the top for the inn’s owner. The porch overlooked the Mediterranean, although not the busy Antibes yacht basin marina as Maurice’s inn had done.

On the porch I found a group of men drinking and engaging with each other in boisterous conversation. Tristian was there, overlooking it all, and, to my surprise, the transvestite Louis also was there, serving the drinks. They both looked about the same as they had ten years previously. Louis was still proudly displaying ruby-red fingernails and matching lipstick. The war had not knocked the attitude out of him.

Both were happy to see me. Vowing to catch up with him later, I released Jacques to socialize with the other men in the bar, which he comfortably did, showing that he, indeed, did belong here.

“Tristian,” I said, when the three of us were settled with drinks at a table on the porch railing, “I’m happy to see you alive and thriving. Tell me of the others—Maurice, and Père Bernard . . . and what happened with the artist Jean-Paul Jardienne and the Italian, Mateo Paoli?”

“Maurice and Père Bernard didn’t survive the German occupation,” Tristian said. “The snobbery of the Germans couldn’t quite accept a simple bar waiter would be involved in the Resistance, so I did survive. You remember the half French, half Englishwoman, Laura, who ran the wine shop and moved into Mark Standish’s villa when you left with him? Her English side and activities were uncovered by the Germans as well, and she did not survive their occupation either. Jean-Paul was an informer. His fate was sealed before you left. Paoli was an Italian spy. He eluded us and we never heard about him again. The Italians never reached this far, though.”

After I had given my commiserations on what had happened in the years immediately following my leaving for Morocco, Tristian said, “You were trying to get back to the States during the war. You didn’t make it, though, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “I pretty much went with the flow, and I’m well situated in Morocco now.”

He then asked me about Mark, the Englishman I’d left with.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I doubt his name was really Mark Standish. He changed it as soon as we reached Morocco, and after a time, he left for Gibraltar—still working for the English cause, I’m sure. Someday perhaps he will return to Tangier, and we can be less secretive than before.”

I wasn’t being completely honest about Mark. I did know who he was and what had become of him. I had been working so intimately with his novel that when it came out, in 1948, under the name Miles Simpson, I knew it instantly as his even though the title had been changed from the working title. Checking into the author’s biography on the novel jacket flap, I was able to surmise that this was, in fact, the same man I had known in Antibes and Tangier. Further checking had found him in a sanatorium outside Paris, where he was being maintained after suffering torture at the hands of the Germans in Paris that made him a virtual vegetable. That had come in the waning days of the German occupation of Paris and therefore was all that more tragic and unnecessary. He would not be returning to either Antibes or Tangier, but I didn’t think that either Tristian or Louis would be happier knowing that. The war had certainly taken its toll on all of us.

“But what about you, Louis?” I asked. “I thought you had escaped to Switzerland with the German actor, Gunter Achten.”

“We tried, and Gunter made it. He’s Swiss now and quite famous as a movie actor and director. He goes by the name Gerhard Heinz now. Before we reached the border, I was detained. Gunter slipped away and made it across. I escaped too, but came back here. After the war, Gunter and I reconnected and we’ve visited back and forth a couple of times. Which is rather coincidental, because—”

That’s when I got another surprise. “Coincidental?” I asked.

“Yes, because he’s here, in Antibes, now, having been at the Cannes film festival. And he should be showing up . . . yes, I hear him on the stairs now.”

“Brent!” I heard a voice shout out.

I turned. “Gunter!”

The years had melted away. It was as if the intervening, difficult ten years had never been.

* * * *

I lay there, chest and cheek to bed surface, arms flung out, gripping the sides of the bed on either side, panting hard, rocking my pelvis against his hand, as Gunter’s body covered mine, his face buried in the hollow of my throat, kissing and biting me there, his left hand gripping the left wrist of my outflung arms, his right hand working my channel open, his fingers working me deep as I rhythmically moved against his buried fingers. They had just moved from my cock and balls, where he had stroked me off and rolled my balls, relentlessly working me until I had come for him.

This was the Gunter I had remembered from ten years earlier.

Having taken care of me, it now was Gunter’s turn. He raised his chest off my back, put his cock head in position, grasped my waist between his hands, and, thrusting up inside me as I writhed, panted, and groaned under him, fucked me hard to his ejaculation. He was strong, thick, long inside me, stretching me, working me deep.

Later, as we lay stretched out beside each other in one of the rooms above Tristian’s tavern, he whispered, “You don’t know how often I’d dreamed of being able to do that with you again.”

“I worried about what had become of you,” I answered. “I’ve heard of Gerhard Heinz and your movie work, of course. I just never figured that that was you. Heinz is identified as Swiss. I never took a closer look. You acquired a beard.”

“The beard comes and goes according to whether I want to be identified or not. And I am Swiss. I was already half Swiss. They took me in and supported me during the war. So, I became fully Swiss. I’ve known what you were doing all this time, though. I’ve read your novels.”

“Have you?”

“Despite Everything has a familiar ring to it,” he said, punctuating that with a low laugh. “You treated me well in that book.”

“You treated me well in Antibes in that period,” I answered.

“And did I treat you well just now?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been looking for you. I’m glad I’ve found you here.”

“I’m glad you did too. You haven’t lost your sexual power.”

“I wanted to find you more than for sex,” he said. “Have you written any screen plays?”

“A few, yes,” I answered. “None that have been optioned.”

“I want you to write a screen play for Despite Everything. I want to do a movie of it. I don’t want that period to be forgotten—and I don’t want to lose you entirely. Nothing permanent, of course, but we must meet here in Antibes every year.”

“That suits me,” I said. And we left it at that. The only thing I had learned in all these years was to go with the flow, to not lose my way, despite anything—to not count on anything as permanent.

Thus, when we returned to the group at Oscar’s, I let Gunter drift off to renew friendships and memories with Tristian and Louis and I tracked down Jacques.

“I thought you had forgotten me,” he said. “You became absorbed with old friends here and went off with that German.”

“He’s Swiss,” I said. “And we have history. I don’t forget anything or anyone, though. Despite everything—everything that has happened, I remember and savor. Now, I would like to be with you.”

“You’ve just been with the German, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Should I be afraid that I can’t measure up to him.”

I reached down and gave him a good feel. “No, I don’t think so. I think you’ll do very nicely.”

“They do have several rooms upstairs,” Jacques said. “I don’t want to fuck you in the same room where the German had you.”

“Then I don’t think we’ll go upstairs at all,” I responded. “I think I’d like us to go to sea for a while.” We went out on my cabin cruiser, dropping anchor off the night lights of Antibes, and there Jacques covered me and fucked the hell out of me, creating new memories.

- FINI -