Poor Gigolo

The South didn’t work for us. How about overseas? A few hot weeks in Greece should do the business. No class, no angst, no horror-show. We meet up with a sweet American. He seems nice, such a gentle man. But. I’m not too sure of his friend…. Francis King, The Man on the Rock. Prostitution is never simple. 

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How does a gigolo justify himself? Pretend one’s lovers are suckers, who exist to be screwed by the likes of you. Such idiots deserve what they get. Born to be victims, they are destined to suffer; and you, Spiro, are their fate. Too weak to be an adult, a man, a simple hero, always they need someone - someone like you - to ponce off. No matter how bad the master, better to live chained to a monster than be free. And you’re no monster, just a poor gigolo. That’s right. They’re lucky to have you! For sure you live off them, but you don’t steal, you don’t roar and rage, you don’t beat them up. In fact you’re too good for this lot! On your best days you even believe this fairy tale, as you imagine the walk-out scene, they pleading for you to stay. It’s one way a gigolo justifies himself. He is the king. Who pays the bills the servant.

Or you admit no responsibility at all. Blame it on national characteristics; “we Greeks” always behave like this; a favourite refrain of Spiro Polymerides. Too simple. Our ideas never as complicated as our feelings.

I have rarely felt guilt in life, but I feel it now whenever I think of Irvine. We modern Greeks differ in that from the ancient Greeks; they were so tormented by guilt, and for us guilt hardly exists. We only suffer shame: the shame of being found out, of being shown up, of losing caste and face. But truly I feel guilt, as I remember what he did for me and what I did to him in return. But for him, I suppose I’d be a pimp hanging about Constitution square, the Zappeion Gardens or the docks; or a seller of hashish; or a thief. Who knows?

Life has become complicated for this man. Irvine fell in love with him, and Spiro is not immune to his affection. There are many reasons for this; one, they’ve never had sex, Irvine’s Catholicism placing a confession box between desire and its fulfilment. They are less lovers than friends. Also, Spiro is civilised now; Irvine’s wealth rubbing off his mercenary edges. This Greek no longer needs to grab every drachma on the street. He doesn’t have the time. Too busy chasing women.

He was a gigolo. He is no longer, though it's still his self-image (it justifies the relationship: he’s stays for money not love). Nor is Spiro gay, for “we Greeks” consider it OK to sleep with men, providing we remain on top. Nevertheless, to live with such an obvious “pansy”, creates problems for his self-image: why does he stay with this man?

The expatriate community are not fooled, they believe these two are lovers. They also think Spiro a villain. They are mistaken. The relationship is no simple robbery; Irvine needs Spiro, like a weak wife needs a strong husband; while Spiro has come to feel for his friend. His sense of guilt tells its own truth. Love? Certainly liking.

In a relationship it is hard to treat the other person as a cash machine. Some do, of course, but they are psychopaths, lacking all human sympathy. Spiro is an ordinary man, forced to trade on his good looks because of hard times: his family’s farm was destroyed during the civil war. Imbued with the normal range of feelings, it is natural, and inevitable, that when he lives with someone for a long time he will feel affection, however “we Greeks” wish to deny it.

So with Irvine. It is an asymmetric relationship; his “protector” is in love, but Spiro is not; his feelings those of an old man for a sexless wife. Then he has so much freedom! Sex with as many women whose clothes he can remove. The sex, though, never to replace the financial bond and the feelings that have grown with it; ivy around an old bank. Behind the cocky words and the self-consciously adamantine commentary we see a close friendship, where emotional and financial dependence intertwine. Like marriage in the old days before women’s lib.

This creates its own problems. Because Irvine is not loved he is insecure, increasing his emotional need for Spiro, who becomes even more self-consciousness about their relations.

This tension breaks his comfortable world apart. Irvine is attracted to a young Greek, who, being innocent, accepts a gift without realising its implications. And Dino is to stay uncorrupted, unaware of the sexual undertow. This drives Spiro insane! Dino must be a gigolo like himself! That men can be friendly without the whole emotional/sex thing - impossible!…This would destroy his own image as a man. He needs Dino corrupt. He is also jealous of Irvine’s affection (is he scared he might lose it?) A lava of feeling explodes into a vicious rage and he acts stupidly: he tries to frame Dino as a thief. He doesn’t know his man. Irvine’s sense of justice, and his sentimentality for a poor Greek boy, outweighs his love for Spiro. It’s over. Spiro has wrecked his life because jealous of another’s innocence.

Kiki believes Spiro is a pure soul.  

Alone, without her… Yet, now , as I see her, watching her as she sleeps, it seems inconceivable. If only, like Helen, she distrusted me and feared to lose me! That faith in my kindness and goodness and love is what keeps me nailed to the rock; somehow, against that, I have no power. She looks extraordinarily beautiful, calm and fragile as she lies there, her thin hands crossed over her swollen stomach, and one flushed cheek resting on her shoulder. These months her skin seems to have grown paler and more transparent, so that the blue veins show at her temples, on her neck and on her wrists. If only she were less defenceless; if only someone else loved her; if only, just for once, she would see me as I really am!

A complicated passage, which is revealing: “if only someone else loved her”. So hard to live with those who have a false idea about you. No longer real even to one’s self. Poor gigolo: never to be authentic again. Spiro, for all his denials, loves Kiki; although the reason he seduced her was simple utility: her father one of the richest men in Greece. Ironically they are now poor: the father won’t give them any cash. That they are still together is a sign of his love - the money no longer matters. But with love comes guilt and shame: I am so corrupt. Spiro is a conflicted man. Gigolo and lover; mercenary and sympathetic friend. Poor sod, he cannot resolve these tensions. In fact they cannot be resolved, too far apart and too much in conflict for that. Who can he tell? He is alone! He loves Kiki and would like her to know the truth. Alas, it is impossible. A description of his character would be too stark; it would not convey the nuances of his thoughts and feelings. Imagine it. “Yes Kiki, I am a gigolo. Yes, Kiki, I married you for money. Yes, I am unhappy that we are poor. Yes Kiki, I want to run away. But…but Kiki, I…I love you….” Seeing Spiro from the inside we are sympathetic to his predicament, understand how his cynical designs are undercut by his strong feelings, which grow with time and familiarity. Few could grasp such subtleties from the outside. And Kiki? She is too innocent to comprehend such complex truths. She’d also be corrupted by them. That will not do. Spiro needs her simple-hearted belief in him. A hot shower after a dirty day’s work.

Is he a bad man? We know that Spiro has made three people very happy; while numerous women have enjoyed a few hours in his bed. A stranger has a different view: he lives off others, and is responsible for three tragedies, two of them fatal…. What! Our hero is a murderer. No no my friend, not quite.

Living illegally in England Spiro can’t get a job. This forces Kiki, who has grown up in idle privilege, to work while pregnant. There are complications, the baby dies and she quickly follows. Tragedy one. The next: fearful of losing him, Helen Bristow commits suicide. The final act: Irvine loses his post and his wealth when the authorities find out that he is a homosexual.

If Spiro had never existed these events would not have happened. He is the prime cause of the two deaths, although not directly responsible, as even Kiki’s father acknowledges. Helen, in love and insecure about her age – she is six years older than Spiro - can’t handle the heightened tension of this affair; a lack of trust overwhelms her; and she is scared, believing he’ll leave her at any time (given all those women he beds, she is surely right). Poor Helen. She was wrong. She never understood Spiro, who is more than a handsome man and a sexual predator. He reciprocated her feelings, he's just sexually and self-consciously detached. Spiro is not a simple man. We can’t blame him for Helen’s death, though he was its cause.

With Irvine it is different. After their argument Spiro leaves the house in a rage, and ends up in a bar where he confesses to an old friend (whom he now dislikes). Christo lets on about Spiro’s “protector” to some Americans drinking there; later, they cajole and bribe Spiro into revealing Irvine’s sexuality. It is done without thought, Spiro having momentarily lost himself. When sober he regrets what he has done. Not for the money, or the loss of a rich patron, but because it was a shabby thing to do; he also feels sorry for Irvine, who is to lead a miserable existence in the Mid West. An honourable man feels shame. He has acted like a barbarian. Like a gigolo.

Spiro Polymerides is not evil. He is not even a bad person. The book jacket says he’s amoral – a nod to Camus’s Outsider - and although partly true it misses the thick texture of his personality. Spiro’s feelings are too strong (and too ordinary) to produce the kind of distance amoralism requires; while the instrumentality that initially involves him with lovers and ‘clients’ is subsumed by his emotions, which grow naturally with intimacy and time. A typical husband or wife, he has all the usual affection, sentimentality, and pity for those close to him. 

Yet he causes bad things to happen. It is not Spiro’s intention. They occur as a by-product of his actions. He brings an unstable element into the lives of these people, who are used to the stability a prosperous background brings. Life is arranged for them; comfortable and in control they expect only minor problems, which they pay others to fix. Major accidents? Catastrophes? An existential collapse? These don’t even sail on the horizon. Nothing can go seriously wrong in such a world.

Spiro comes from a completely different place.

An entire way of life was wrecked by a bandit raid in the civil war. In a long episode he describes a journey through the Greek hills with these men, the murderers of his family. It is an account of what happens when a secure home is replaced by the unknown, its death and danger. All stability gone, the boy is invaded by doubt and risk and fear, a conquering army never to leave his territory. Order had become chaos. The peasants at the mercy of events, and they knew it. Those who stood up for their rights (who attempted to maintain that sense of order) died through abuse or neglect. Anything to stay alive. This makes you weak, cunning and morally ugly. Moreover, you do it willingly; a beautiful girl freely choosing to sleep with the leader to prevent his men raping her.

Spiro brings this world, this civil war history, into the lives of these rich people, who cannot handle it, the reason they lose everything. Poor gigolo. You didn’t want to be a bandit. But you couldn’t help it. Once upon a time some bad men came and stole you away.

Review: The Man on the Rock