by Amor Towles
Tentatively, Tinker suggested to Mr. Ross that if Eve intended to convalesce in New York, she could do so in his apartment where there was an elevator, kitchen service, doormen, and an extra bedroom. Eve accepted Tinker’s offer without a smile. If Mr. Ross thought the setup unacceptable, he didn’t say so. He was beginning to understand that he no longer had a voice in his daughter’s affairs.
The day before Eve was released, Mr. Ross went home to his wife empty-handed; but after kissing his daughter good-bye he signaled that he wanted to speak with me. I walked him to the elevator and there he thrust an envelope in my hand. He said it was something for me, to cover Eve’s half of the rent for the rest of the year. I could tell from the thickness of the envelope that it was a lot of money. I tried to give it back to him, explaining that the boardinghouse was just going to stick me with another roommate. But Mr. Ross insisted. And then he disappeared behind the elevator doors. I watched the needle mark his descent to the lobby. Then I opened the envelope. It was fifty ten-dollar bills. It was probably the very same tens that Eve had sent back to him two years before, ensuring once and for all that these particular bills would never have to be spent by either of them.
I took the developments as a sign it was time to strike out on my own—especially since Mrs. Martingale had already warned me twice that if I didn’t get all those boxes out of her basement, she was going to throw me out. So I used half of Mr. Ross’s money to front six months’ rent on a five-hundred-square-foot studio. The other half I stowed in the bottom of my uncle Roscoe’s footlocker.
Eve intended to go straight from the hospital to Tinker’s apartment, so it was my job to move her things. I packed them as best I could, folding the shirts and sweaters into perfect squares the way that she would. At Tinker’s direction, I unpacked her bags in the master bedroom where I found the drawers and closets empty. Tinker had already moved his clothes to the maid’s room at the other end of the hall.
The first week that Eve was in residence at the Beresford, I joined the two of them for dinner every night. We would sit in the little dining room off the kitchen and eat three-course meals that were prepared in the building’s basement and served by jacketed staff. Seafood bisque followed by tenderloin and Brussels sprouts capped off with coffee and chocolate mousse.
When dinner was over, Eve was usually exhausted and I would help her to her room.
She would sit at the end of the bed and I would undress her. I would take off her right shoe and stocking. I would unzip her dress and pull it over her head being careful not to graze the little black stitches that tracked the side of her face. She would stare straight ahead, submissively. It took me three nights to realize that what she was staring at was the large mirror over the vanity. It was a stupid oversight. I apologized and said that I’d have Tinker remove the mirror. But she wouldn’t let us touch it.
Once I had tucked her in, given her a kiss, and turned out the light, I would quietly close the door and return to the living room where Tinker anxiously awaited. We didn’t have a drink. We didn’t even sit down. In the few minutes before I went home, the two of us would whisper like parents about her progress: She seems to be regaining her appetite. . . . Her color’s coming back. . . . Her leg doesn’t seem to be giving her so much discomfort.... Self-soothing phrases pattering like raindrops on a tent.
But on the seventh night after Eve’s release, when I tucked her in and gave her a kiss, she stopped me.
—Katey, she said. You know I’ll love you till doomsday.
I sat on the bed beside her.
—The feeling’s mutual.
—I know, she said.
I took her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back.
—I think it would be better if you didn’t come for a while.
—All right.
—You understand, don’t you?
—Sure, I said.
Because I did understand. At least, I understood enough.
It wasn’t about who had dibs now or who was sitting next to whom in the cinema. The game had changed; or rather, it wasn’t a game at all anymore. It was a matter of making it through the night, which is often harder than it sounds, and always a very individual business.
By the time the cab came to a stop on Central Park West, the sleet had turned to freezing rain. Pete, the night doorman, was there at the curb to meet me with an umbrella. He paid the cabbie two dollars for a onedollar fare and gave me cover for the five feet between the cab and the canopy. Hamilton, the youngest of the elevator attendants, was on duty. From ’Lanta, Georgia, he brought a taste of plantation civility to New York that was either going to carry him far or get him in a world of trouble.
—Have you been travelin, Miss Katherin? he asked as we began our ascent.
—Only to the grocery store, Hamilton.
He gave a sweet little laugh to show that he knew better.
I liked his illusions too much to dispel them.
—Give my regards to Miss Evelyn and Mistah Tinkah, he said, as we slowed to a stop.
The door opened on a private foyer—a perfect example of Greek revival elegance with a parquet floor and white moldings and a preimpressionist still life hanging on the wall. Tinker was sitting on a side chair with his arms on his knees and his head lowered. He looked like he was back outside the emergency room. When I stepped off the elevator he was visibly relieved, as if he had begun to worry that I wasn’t going to show.
He took both my hands in his. The features of his face had softened, as if he had put on the ten pounds that Eve had lost in the hospital.
—Katey! Thanks for coming. It’s good to see you.
He was talking a little under his breath. It raised my antennae.
—Tinker. Does Eve know that I’m here?
—Yes, yes. Of course, he whispered. She’s excited to see you. I just wanted to explain. She’s been having a tough go of it lately. Especially at night. So I try to stay in as much as I can. She’s just better when she . . . has company.
I took off my coat and laid it on the other side chair. It should have told me something about Tinker’s state of mind that he hadn’t asked me for it.
—I’m not sure how late I’m going to be. Can you stay until eleven?
—Sure.
—Twelve?
—I can stay as late as you need me to, Tinker.
He took my hands again and then let them go.
—Come on in. Eve! Katey’s here!
We walked through the door into the living room.
If Tinker’s foyer was classically decorated, it was something of a sleight of hand—because it was the only room in the apartment with furnishings from before the sinking of the Titanic. The living room—a grand square with terrace windows overlooking Central Park—looked like it had been airlifted right out of the Barcelona exposition at the 1929 World’s Fair. It had three white couches and two black Mies van der Rohe chairs in tight formation around a glass-topped cocktail table, which was artfully arranged with a stack of novels, a brass ashtray and a deco-era miniature of an airplane. There was no satin, no velvet, no paisley—no rough textures or rounded edges. Just interlocking rectangles that reinforced a general sense of abstraction.
The machine for living, I think the French called it, and there was Eve lounging in the middle of the works. In a new white dress, she was reclining on one of the couches with one arm behind her head and the other at her side. It was a been-here-all-my-life sort of pose. With the lights of the city draped behind her and the martini glass on the carpet, she looked like an advertisement for being in a car wreck.
It was only when you got closer that you could see the damage. On the left side of her face there were two converging scars that cut all the way from her temple to her chin. What symmetry remained was spoiled by the slight droop at the edge of her mouth, as if she was the victim of a stroke. In the manner she was sitting, her left leg looked only slightly twisted, but peeking from under the hem of her dress you could see where the grafts h
ad left her with the skin of a plucked chicken.
—Hey Evey.
—Hey Kate.
I leaned over to give her a kiss. Without hesitation she offered her right cheek, her reflexes having already adapted to her new condition. I sat on the opposite couch.
—How’re you feeling? I asked.
—Better. How’ve you been?
—Same.
—Good for you. Would you like a drink? Tinker, sweetie, could you?
Tinker hadn’t sat down. He was behind the empty couch leaning on its back with both arms.
—Of course, he said standing upright. What would you like, Katey? We were just having martinis. I’m happy to make you a fresh one.
—I’ll take what’s in the shaker.
—Are you sure?
—Why not.
Tinker came around the couch with a glass and reached for the plane that was on the cocktail table. The fuselage came up out of the wings—a witty piece of deco, teetering on the edge of fashion. Tinker plucked off the nose of the plane and filled my glass. He hesitated before putting the shaker back.
—Do you want some more, Eve?
—I’m all right. But why don’t you stay and have one with Katey.
Tinker looked pained at the suggestion.
—I don’t mind drinking alone, I said.
Tinker put the shaker back.
—I’ll try not to be too late.
—Capital, said Eve.
Tinker gave Evey a kiss on the cheek. As he walked to the door she looked out over the city. The door closed. She didn’t look back.
I took a sip of my martini. It was well diluted with the melted ice. You could barely taste the gin. It wasn’t going to be much help.
—You look good, I said finally.
Eve eyed me patiently.
—Katey. You know I can’t stand that sort of crap. Especially from you.
—I’m just saying that you look better than when I saw you last.
—It’s the boys in the basement. Every day it’s bacon with breakfast and soup with lunch. Canapés with cocktails and cake with coffee.
—I’m jealous.
—Sure. The Prodigal Son and all that. But pretty soon you feel like you’re the fatted calf.
With some difficulty she sat upright. She reached out two fingers and picked up a small white pill that was almost invisible on the surface of the table.
—I’m gonna find me Jesus one of these days, she said, then she washed the medicine down with her tepid gin.
—Would you like another? she asked.
—If you’re having one.
She leaned on the table to push herself up.
—I can get it, I said.
She gave a wry smile.
—The doctor encourages me to exercise.
Plucking the shaker off of its stand, she worked her way toward the bar. She dragged her left foot behind her the way a kid drags a suitcase down the street.
She picked up ice cubes with a set of tongs one by one and dropped them in the fuselage. She glugged out the gin inexactly and then measured the vermouth to the drop. There was a mirror over the bar and as she stirred the drink she studied her face with a certain grim satisfaction.
They say that vampires cast no reflection. Maybe the accident had made Eve some sort of haunting spirit with the opposite property: She was invisible to herself now except for on the surface of a mirror.
She capped the shaker and gave it a lazy toggle as she limped back to her seat. After filling her glass she shoved the shaker across the table toward me.
—How are you and Tinker getting along, I asked after filling my glass.
—I’m not up for small talk, Katey.
—Is that small talk?
—Small enough.
I gestured vaguely to the apartment.
—At least, it looks like he’s taking good care of you.
—You break it, you’ve bought it. Right?
She took a fullmouthed swallow and then looked at me more directly.
—I don’t suppose you’d just go home? I’m perfectly fine. And in fifteen minutes I’ll be sound asleep.
By way of illustration, she waggled her glass.
—I’ve got nothing better to do, I said. I’ll stick around long enough to help you to your room.
She waved a hand in the air as if to say: Stay if you stay, go if you go. She took another belt and lay back on the couch. I looked down into my glass.
—Why don’t you read me something, she said. That’s what Tinker would do.
—Would you like that?
—At first it drove me crazy. It was like he didn’t have the courage to converse. But it’s grown on me.
—All right. What do you want me to read?
—It doesn’t matter.
There were eight books stacked on the cocktail table in descending order of size. With dust jackets designed in glossy evocative colors, they looked like a stack of neatly wrapped Christmas presents.
I picked up the book on top. None of the pages were dog-eared, so I started at the beginning.
“Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,” said Mrs. Ramsay.
“But you’ll have to be up with the lark,” she added.
To her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were settled, the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which he had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night’s darkness and a day’s sail
—Oh stop, Eve said. It’s dreadful. What is it?
—Virginia Woolf.
—Ugh. Tinker brought home all these novels by women as if that’s what I needed to get me back on my feet. He’s surrounded my bed with them. It’s as if he’s planning to brick me in. Isn’t there anything else?
I tilted the stack and pulled a volume from the middle.
—Hemingway?
—Thank God. But skip ahead this time, would you Katey?
—How far?
—Anywhere but the beginning.
I turned randomly to page 104:
The fourth man, the big one, came out of the bank door as he watched, holding a Thomson gun in front of him, and as he backed out of the door the siren in the bank rose in a long breath-holding shriek and Harry saw the gun muzzle jump-jump-jump-jump and heard the bop-bop-bop-bop
—That’s more like it, Eve said.
She arranged the pillow behind her head, lay back and closed her eyes.
I read twenty-five pages out loud. Eve fell asleep after ten. I suppose I could have stopped, but I was enjoying the book. Starting on page 104 made Hemingway’s prose even more energetic than usual. Without the early chapters, all the incidents became sketches and all the dialogue innuendo. Bit characters stood on equal footing with the central subjects and positively bludgeoned them with disinterested common sense. The protagonists didn’t fight back. They seemed relieved to be freed from the tyranny of their tale. It made me want to read all of Hemingway’s books this way.
I emptied my drink and carefully set it down so as not to clink the stem against the glass of the table.
There was a white throw on the back of Eve’s couch. I draped it over her as she breathed evenly. She didn’t need to find Jesus anymore, I thought to myself; he had already come looking for her.
Over the bar hung four studies of gas stations by Stuart Davis. The only art in the room, they were painted in primary colors that contrasted nicely with the furniture. In front of the liquor bottles was another silver deco piece. This one had a little window and a dial you could turn that flipped ivory cards one over the other in the fashion of a railway station timetable. Each card had the recipe for a cocktail: Martini, Manhattan, Metropolitan—flit, flit, flit. Bamboo, Bennett, Between the Sheets—flit, flit, flit, flit. Behind the bottle of gin there were four different kinds of scotch, not one of which I could afford. I poured a glass of the oldest and wandered down the back hall.
The first room on the right was the small dining room where
we used to eat. Behind that was the kitchen, well outfitted and rarely used. There were untarnished copper pots on the stove and earthenware jars for FLOUR, SUGAR, COFFEE and TEA, all filled to the brim.
Beyond the kitchen was the maid’s room. By all appearances, Tinker was still sleeping there. A sleeveless undershirt was on a chair and his razor was in the bathroom propped in a glass. Hanging over a small bookcase there was a rather primitive social realist painting. The image looked down on a freight dock where longshoremen were assembling for a protest. Two police cars had pulled up to the edge of the crowd. At the end of the dock you could just make out the words OPEN ALL NIGHT in blue neon. The painting was not without its virtues, but in the context of the apartment, I could see why it had been relegated to the maid’s room. Victims of a similar exile, the bookcase was filled with hard-boiled detective novels.
I doubled back past the kitchen, past Eve’s sleeping figure and went down the opposite hall. The first room on the left was a paneled study with a fireplace. It was half the size of my apartment.
On the desk there was another fanciful deco piece: a cigarette caddy in the shape of a race car. Each of these silver objects—the shaker, the cocktail catalog, the race car—fit nicely into the international style of the apartment. They were finely crafted like pieces of jewelry, but unmistakably masculine in purpose. And none of them were the sort of item a Tinker would buy for himself. They suggested the work of a hidden hand.
Between two bookends, there was a small selection of reference books: a thesaurus, a Latin grammar, a soon to be extremely outdated atlas. But there was also a slender volume without a title on the spine. It turned out to be a book of Washingtonia. The inscription on the first page indicated it was a present to Tinker from his mother on the occasion of his fourteenth birthday. The volume had all the famous speeches and letters arranged in chronological order, but it led off with an aspirational list composed by the founder in his teenage years: