by Nigel Dennis
Her face was grave and mortified again, but when she saw how bewildered he still was, she began to laugh. “Come and sit down,” she said; “look at what I’ve done to you; how stupid I am; come and sit with me on the couch; I want to feel you close to me; I feel I’ve been so silly, and I’ll feel better if you give me back my confidence. But tell me first: do you think I’m stupid? Tell me frankly; I’m really asking you and want you to say exactly what you think.”
He was still more astonished. “I couldn’t think you stupid,” he said, with alarm and horror; “how ever could you think I’d have such a notion.”
“Why not? I’m clumsy and witless …”
“Please don’t. You make me ashamed.”
She was pleased, and began to smile again. He sat beside her, his whole body in a tremble, on the Recamier couch that jutted from the side of the ornamental fireplace.
At that moment, a series of sharp reports and whistling noises came to them from the square, and Mrs. Streeter started to laugh.
“Do you really want to see …? No, nor do I, right now. Let’s forget about everything and be happy. If it’s not one thing it’s another; if it’s not a question of where we’re going to live next, it’s what’s going to happen to the world, and where Larry’s going to work and if there’ll be any work … I feel all those things and I don’t like what’s happening, so terribly, to poor people everywhere any more than anyone else does, but it doesn’t mean everything has to be miserable all the time. I am really glad I met you, Jimmy; I felt so low today; and quarrels with Larry; you’ve made everything much warmer and nicer.”
“Let me kiss you,” he said, drawing her against him.
“What do you think of me, Jimmy? Have I behaved stupidly all evening; what do you think about me? How gentle you are; when we were at dinner I didn’t guess you were like you are now.”
“That’s long ago; all over,” he said, holding her in his arms.
“You still haven’t told me what you think of me.”
“I think you are really what I came all this way for,” he said, and was delighted at the thought that in paying her this compliment he had never been more honest. At the same time, his innocence began to press on his conscience like a sin that must be confessed; the bolder and warmer he became in caressing and kissing her, the more he was ashamed by the thought of his final ignorance; and this shame, in turn, he sought to push out of sight by increasing the eagerness of his love-making.
Her responses to his ardour seemed small and inadequate; she breathed a little faster, but moved her lips on his in such gentle nibbles that he felt sure that he was failing her in some essential practice of which he knew nothing. In the next moment, she ceased entirely to move her lips or otherwise to respond; she lay on his arm with total passivity, her eyes closed, hardly seeming to breathe—and it was through sudden fear of her completely escaping from him simply by ceasing to be alive, that he found courage nervously to start pulling at the bands and fastenings of her clothes.
At this, she opened her eyes, sighed, and moved one hand to restrain his fingers—so feebly that she was soon merely resting her hand on them. She looked at him sadly, and turned her face away; then, immediately, she looked sadly at him again: but before he had time to think that perhaps it was his duty to spare her, she seemed to decide that his strength was irresistible and her escape impossible; and sighing again she sat up and kissed him ruefully, saying in a low, reproachful voice: “Oh, Jimmy,” and adding, in a tone so low that it might after all have been spoken by the wind: “Not here …” Vaguely, almost imperceptibly, she nodded her head toward the distant bedroom door, and rose out of his clutch. He rose too, and kissed her lips with rapturous gratitude; but she only disengaged herself again, and murmured as though sadly mortified: “You go ahead.”
He crossed the floor without another word and found himself alone in her and her husband’s bedroom. Here, were three of the usual deep-black, carved doors, and a bed with posts of the same wood—a bed as broad as the floor of the little clearing in which he had sat down that morning to reflect upon his life, and so high-set that a woman as small as Harriet Streeter would need to climb into it. A heavy canopy stretched over it, and the whole of the tall bedhead was tapestried, showing a naked cherub, his fat lips pressed to a trumpet, descending at a swooping angle on the inevitable shepherd and shepherdess, who reclined on a bank among their sheep. The drawing-room’s deep red was everywhere; the carpet erupted fat nosegays. From door to bedside was a long walk, and Morgan made it on tiptoe, peeking around the huge, impressive chamber like a mouse.
He took off his evening clothes and arranged them very neatly over the back of a gilt chair. Naked, still on tiptoe, he returned to the bedside, pushed the spread aside and climbed down between the cold sheets until only his nose and eyes showed. On the nearby bedside table he could see the small belongings of the absent husband. There was a big, old-fashioned alarm-clock, an opened pack of American cigarettes, a silver pencil, a pad marked Mes Appointments, a pair of cuff-links, and a Tauchnitz novel by Joseph Hergesheimer. A slip of paper protruded from the pages of the novel, and on it was scribbled the typical night-note: “Remember drill-bits to fit type Werner-Heering.” He began to shiver, and edged into the centre of the bed. Outside the room, he could hear the banging of the fireworks and the cries of the audience; inside, the alarm-clock beat with a loud, hard tick, and the assorted objects on the table sat as stiff and still as a grand jury.
At last, one of the tall black doors opened quietly, out of the bathroom, and he saw a white hand and arm curve in and snap off the bedroom light. His redeemer’s figure came into the room: he couldn’t tell whether she wore a nightgown or a slip; he could only see her shape moving slowly about the room. She opened the third black door, which gave on to the passage, and in the crack of light he saw her face, wary and serious, as she listened suspiciously, and then locked the door and tested the handle once or twice. Then she came to the bed and bent far over it, in a most tender gesture, so that he could hear the exciting sound of her breathing: he threw out his arms to her; but she was only tidily folding back the bedspread. Still without looking at him or speaking, she turned her back, sat down on her husband’s side of the bed and slowly removed her stockings: he would not have been surprised if she had remembered to wind the clock. He reflected, with annoyance, that in his haughty dreams of such romantic moments, he had been the one who approached the bed with masculine composure, while his loved one lay burning and trembling in wait. He began to fear for his pride again; and all at once he thought spontaneously: Thank God this is only happening in Poland. His courage came back, and when at last she stretched herself out beside him, he pulled her against him and started to kiss her eagerly, inspired by her close, marvellous nakedness, encouraged by the three or four thousand miles that would soon separate them.
“Those two liqueurs have made me quite drunk,” she said faintly.
“Is that possible?” he asked crossly.
“You don’t know me, Jimmy. It takes only the tiniest sip of alcohol—and I scarcely know where I am or what I’m doing.” With a rueful sigh, she laid her arms around his neck, so feebly that he could barely feel them, and edged a soft part of her upper leg out from under his bony knee-cap.
At that, he was spurred on by fear that if he delayed she would quickly fade off into a trance. Ignoring her long, lugubrious sighs, he brought his suit to a successful conclusion; after which, pleased and proud by his triumph over fear and childishness, he kissed and caressed her with enthusiasm, murmuring happy, complimentary words into her ear.
Suddenly he went sound asleep.
He woke up, and found, with a great bound of spirited pride, that he was eager to start all over again; but no sooner had Harriet discovered his intention than she pushed him away, and twisted her head toward the bedside table.
“No, Jimmy; really no. Oh, look at the time!”
He too turned his head and saw the yellow circle on the face
of her husband’s alarm clock, the hands pointing to one o’clock. He felt a sudden spasm of guilt: a row of faces belonging to his mother, his guardians, his doctors flashed across his mind’s eye, and he indignantly pushed them out of sight with a burst of self-satisfaction. He seized Harriet’s face between his hands and kissed her with new and confident savagery, saying, “I want to stay. Just a little longer. Come on now.”
“Jimmy, don’t,” she said. “I’m scared; truly, I’m scared.”
She sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. In a blinking daze of light he saw her naked from the waist up, looking at him with her hair falling over her shoulders and her brown eyes shifty and unhappy. He said promptly, “O.K., I’ll go,” and again clasped her round the shoulders and kissed her as hard as he could, saying, “Jesus, I’m so glad I ran into you. When can I come again?”
She was opening her mouth to answer when suddenly her eyes opened wide, her face became horrified, and she turned her ear sharply toward the drawing-room. With a sharpness and alacrity that astonished him, she caught his wrist and snapped, “Get out!” As he obeyed, he saw the bedclothes fly into the air and her bare legs flash on to the carpet; next moment she was pulling him to the passage door.
When it failed to open she did not pause to recollect where she had put the key. In two steps she was in front of the huge black closet; she opened the door swiftly and pointed inside. He sprang in, his clothes over his arm. She seized his evening shoes from the floor, threw them in after him and closed the closet door. He heard the big hinges squeak, then the sound of her bare feet scampering over the carpet. A moment later he heard the toilet flush, then her steps returning through the bedroom. He heard her open the door into the drawing-room and say with quiet surprise: “Hullo! Did you decide to come back? Did anything go wrong?” A man’s deep voice said rather angrily: “What! Are you still up?” then the door closed and Morgan was left alone. All he could hear was the trickling of water as the toilet reservoir filled up.
He had not been locked in a closet since he was a child. A suffocating fear made him tremble like a jelly. Terrified words raced through his head: awful, awful, trapped, found, of course, no excuse, dreadful, oh, my God, unforgivable sin, oh, the fix, the jam, no avenue to explore, cut off completely, helpless, the door opens any minute, this very minute; the iron, brutal face looking in: “Well, young man?”—oh, what a mess, and not the least chance to get out; oh for my own quiet room, my chair, my dear window, the soles of my own simple feet walking on my own firm carpet, the homey placards of my own world: “Visitors are warned that all accounts are payable a week in advance….” I want to become a monk, this instant.
He found he was standing at a precarious angle; under his tottering feet he could feel what seemed like dozens of pairs of high-heeled shoes, creaking and tacking under his weight. From there up he was quite enveloped in female garments; when he gingerly raised his free hand it was smothered at once in folds of satin and tweed, which coiled all over his wrist and forearm; he couldn’t even turn his face without his nose becoming lost in the soft shoulder of a dress, and there was something like sequins rustling against the whole length of his bare back. By God, he thought, through a mouthful of clothing, how ridiculous, how shocking, me, a man—because that is what I am now, goddammit—to be trapped so. He puffed his cheeks and blew furiously—and at once the whole contents of the closet appeared to swing about him like dressy pendulums and the smell of feminine perfume billowed around him. He lost his balance, the shoes slid away under his feet, and he fell with a thump against the side of the closet.
Now it’s all over—and let’s hope it’s over fast. Shall I run, or shall I fight to the death? Run, for God’s sake. Bang! Stench of burnt gunpowder. Crack! Broken nose. “O.K. Out you come, you little bastard!”
The drawing-room door opened. He heard Harriet say in a clear voice: “Wait, Larry, while I put on my robe.”
He heard her moving about the bedroom.
Suddenly the closet door opened. The bedroom was in darkness; she was invisible behind the closet door. But he saw that she also had opened wide the door into the passage. Scraping together his clothes and shoes, he sprang out into the room, and on into the passage without a pause. As he ran he heard the bedroom door close quietly behind him.
He ran past the little gold elevator, under the great chandelier. As he ran he was seized by a sense of the familiar: This has been done before: I am now in history. The prancing, wigged, ruffled figures of Casanova, Don Giovanni, and generations of European closet-jumpers ran beside him; and he thought breathlessly: This is what is meant by the continuity of Western culture, the historical unity of Christendom: what Petty and his predecessors failed to make me understand in years, I have grasped singlehanded in a night.
He was through the baize door and at the head of his own corridor before he remembered that he was naked. No time to stop; stake all, he told himself, and raced on towards his door, a demon sprinter, pressing his bundle of clothes to his stomach. Part way along a shoe dropped; he bent and snatched it up; the rest of the bundle tumbled to the floor; he hauled it all up again, and sped on with gleaming eyes, his black tie streaming out behind him like a devil’s tail.
Somewhere ahead, he heard a woman cry out like a bird. Too bad, but nothing to be done, he said to himself, not even looking toward the cry. The shaded lights flew away behind him; he was at his door: 118B, the most beautiful number in the world…. Oh, my God, my God, I have no key! What now?
He found that he had no need for a key. As he stood, blowing and heaving, he saw that the next door, Divver’s, was open. Half inside stood a a figure in shapely evening dress. It was the manager of the Hotel Poland. He was talking to someone when he turned and saw Morgan.
Years of experience had hardened the manager to the sordid behaviour of guests. Now, his face merely became cold, as a head-waiter’s does when someone enters his dining-room incorrectly dressed. The manager stepped aside and gently waved Morgan through the door.
“Monsieur …” he said.
“Thank you,” said Morgan, entering.
Divver was standing at a slant, his ankles crossed, one arm supporting him against the open door. His face was deep red, except around the left eye, where there was a bluish, flushed swelling. His vest and jacket were open; he appeared to have been struck at the moment of stripping for action. He was breathing as heavily as Morgan, blowing out hot gusts of alcohol. On seeing Morgan, he tottered sharply and clutched the door frame with his free hand. It was some seconds before he was able to believe that the focus of his eyes were dependable.
“O.K.,” he said. “Explain.”
“I was at a party.”
“Oh, you were?” Divver gave an awful smile. He shook his head and turned it aside in the weary, disgusted, exaggerated gesture of the tipsy ironist. He began to titter feebly. “And so I find myself with the world in flames—or certainly about to be,” he said faintly, “landed with a little so-and-so like you.”
“May I come in, please?” asked Morgan.
“Why, sure!” said Divver with dreadful heartiness, pushing himself away from the door. “And stay right here, if you please!” he added with a bellow.
“Pardon me, Mr. Divver,” said the manager, pronouncing the word as if Divver were a soprano.
“Put on your goddamed drawers,” said Divver.
Morgan did so. Wild horses won’t drag her name from me, he said to himself, squaring his bare shoulders.
“And take that damn fool, high-hat look off your stinking little pan,” said Divver, grinding his teeth ravenously.
He then turned to the manager, hoisting himself into a weaving equipoise. “I assume total responsibility for this incidence—particular occurrence,” he said with difficulty.
“I regret the affair more than can I express,” replied the manager calmly. “But I must repeat, Mr. Divver, that you cannot remain in this hotel.”
“I will also refund to the Hotel Poland any cost of s
mashed glasses, breakages….”
“This second incident,” replied the manager, running his eyes composedly over Morgan’s bareness, “must mean only that your accompanist will have to leave with you, sir. I must ask both you gentlemen to depart promptly.”
“Do nothing of the sort. The man was sheer Fascism. The quarrel arose when …”
“He is one of our oldest habitues, Mr. Divver. Twenty years of summer residency beneath the chimneys of the Hotel Poland. Now, he offers a broken nose.”
“Broken ha-ha!”
“No ha-ha, sir; a grave injury. However, sir, I have no more to say. One week, which you have paid, I am compelled, sadly, to extend you; a most adequate notice; to both you and your accomplice.”
The manager bowed and retreated into the passage. There was a tell-tale rustling as a little group of rubbernecks sped away. Divver slammed the door.
“So,” he said. He walked to the centre of the room and surveyed Morgan with rich contempt. “You heard?”
“Yes, Max.”
“Then don’t stand here. Get into your own room and start packing.”
“Now?”
“What do you mean, now?”
“Can’t I start in the morning?”
“Do you want to sleep in a Nazi hotel?”
“Of course not.”
“If you insist, O.K.”
“I don’t.”
“Where were you?”
“I went to see the fireworks.”
“What did they do? Burn you at the stake?”
Morgan thought he noticed a trace of curiosity, even of respect, in Divver’s voice, but it vanished promptly. “Get to bed,” said Divver, furiously swinging open the adjoining door.
Morgan obeyed.
*
He slept as peacefully as a child, lying quietly on his back with his arms and ankles crossed in the manner of the Crusader who has seen Jerusalem. But as soon as he woke up in the morning he was overcome with excitement, and the principal events of the previous day raced through his mind, causing enthusiasm and fear. He made no recollection of Harriet’s dispassionate behaviour, his own blunders, their combined awkwardness, the unromantic consummation. He simply envisaged her with the bedside lamp shining on her face and breasts, and himself taking her in his arms. He recalled a few of the bold, amorous phrases he had whispered into her ear, and recreated for himself a faultless, thundering ride to victory. If I can get that far in just one day of independence, he thought proudly, what may I not achieve in a lifetime?