The Two Hotel Francforts

by David Leavitt

  “How sad.”

  “And then, after we moved to Paris, she started sending me these letters, insisting I should visit her in Cannes, repeating all that nonsense about how we were just alike, how I was the daughter she’d never had. Once she even showed up at our apartment, the way she used to show up at my mother’s.”

  “Really? When was this?”

  “Six, seven years ago. I didn’t want to tell you. I had the maid say I was out. But I could hear their conversation. Rosalie didn’t believe it for a second—she knew I was there. Which must have just sharpened her determination to find me. To show me up.”

  “But Julia, isn’t it possible she doesn’t want to show you up? That she’s just looking for—I don’t know—a kindred spirit?”

  “Oh, God!” Julia turned away. “Thank you for confirming my worst fears. Thank you for confirming that my own husband thinks what everyone else in my family does. That I’m just like her.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. Listen to me. I’m saying that when you look at it objectively, the circumstances of your lives do bear a certain surface similarity—”

  “And therefore we’re the same on the inside? Is that it? Two peas in a pod? And now we’re going to arrive in New York on the same ship. When we get off, she’ll be clinging to me … Oh, I can’t bear it.”

  “But Julia, none of this is going to happen. Please, darling, none of this is even real. That woman you saw in the dining room isn’t your aunt. Your aunt’s not here. Look, shall I take you downstairs and introduce you to her so that you can see for yourself?”

  “No! God, no … All these years I thought I was free, but it was a lie. Paris was only a reprieve, a stay of execution. I’ll never be free.”

  “Julia—”

  She held up her hand. “Please. Stop talking.”

  “But you don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

  “I don’t need to. Whatever you say will be wrong. It always is. Even when you think you’re saying the right thing. Especially when you think you’re saying the right thing.”

  Suddenly she was very quiet.

  “Lie down,” I said. “Maybe you should take a pill.”

  “I don’t want one.”

  “It’ll calm you.” I fetched the Seconals from the bathroom, shook one onto my palm, and handed it to her. She swallowed it. I closed the shutters and laid her atop the coverlet. “Just rest,” I said, removing the tiny shoes from her feet. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see about selling the car.”

  This wasn’t true. I was going to the Suiça. I was going to look for Edward.

  As I was crossing the lobby, Senhor Costa waved me over to his desk. He was holding the telephone, covering the mouthpiece with his hand. “Sir, for you. Madame Freleng.”

  “Madame Freleng?”

  He nodded. I took the phone.

  “Pete, is that you? It’s Iris. Look, are you alone? Is Julia there?”

  “No.”

  “Good, because I need to talk to you privately. First of all, how is she?”

  “How is she? How should she be?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. The way you were behaving last night—it was very … well, worrisome. Perhaps you don’t see it so clearly, just how close to the edge she is. Edward’s terribly upset about it.”

  “Edward is?”

  “He was up all night. And so I’m calling to ask you, please, to be gentler with her.”

  “I want to speak to Edward. Pass me to Edward.”

  “I can’t. He’s out. But it was he who asked me to call. I’m sure you don’t believe that. I’m sure you think this is some machination on my part, some scheme, but it isn’t. I am genuinely afraid for Julia’s life, Pete. We both are.”

  Right then Georgina came out of the dining room. Her cap was askew on her head. Halfway to the elevator, she stopped in her tracks and began rooting through her pocketbook. Perhaps she was looking for her key.

  “Anything Edward has to tell me, he can tell me himself,” I said to Iris and hung up the phone—at which Senhor Costa, in that time-honored manner of eavesdroppers, got very busy with his ledger.

  “Sir,” he called as I was heading for the door.

  “Yes?”

  “As you may know, the Manhattan is to sail in a few days.”

  “Yes.”

  “May I assume that you and your wife—”

  “Yes.”

  “Then perhaps we could speak of settling the bill—not right at this moment—”

  “Of course. If you get it ready, I’ll pick it up when I get back.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Whatever Georgina was trying to find in her pocketbook she still hadn’t found. I walked right past her, through the revolving door and into the bright morning. A few pigeons smudged the sky. Otherwise it was blamelessly blue. And I thought: She is afraid of me. Iris. She is more afraid of me than I am of her.

  Chapter 23

  Edward was not at the Suiça when I got there. However, he had left me a note with the maître d’. In it he proposed that instead of meeting at the British Bar, as we usually did, we meet at the entrance to the castle. This was clear on the other side of Lisbon from the British Bar—which made me wonder if he was trying deliberately to steer us clear of Señora Inés’s place. And why had he left the note at the Suiça, where there was the chance I might not get it, instead of the Francfort?

  Most of that day I walked. Every half hour or so, I would pass by the Suiça on the off chance that Edward might show up, but he never did. Then I would return to the Francfort to check on Julia, but she was still asleep. Then I would go out again. It occurred to me that since arriving in Lisbon I had hardly spent a minute by myself. I had always had one or the other of them to guide me. Now, in their absence, I found myself noticing things I hadn’t before. For instance, the cars. Along with the usual assortment of Citroëns and Fiats, their lawnmower engines sputtering, there were Studebakers, Chevrolets, Cadillacs. Most of them were new or newish. Doubtless some had been purchased—for a song, as they say—from refugees like me. And of course, I had told Julia that I would try to sell the car this morning, and of course I was not trying to sell the car … As I walked, I thrust my hands into my pockets. I fondled the keys. I squeezed them. They left red welts on my palm, an acrid metallic smell on my fingers. They had worn a hole in my pocket through which, now and then, centavo coins spilled. And still I could no more imagine not having them there than I could imagine not wearing a watch, not wearing a tie.

  An idea came to me. What if I didn’t sell the car? What if, instead, Edward and I got our wives aboard the Manhattan, settled them in their cabins, and snuck off? Then we could drive … anywhere. If it came to it, we could stay in Portugal. For somehow Portugal with Edward was not the dire and dismal prospect that it was with Julia. Instead it was an adventure. Why, if we wanted, we could offer our services to our government, become the spies for whom, I felt sure, we were already mistaken. And though it was true that Julia would suffer, at least for the duration of the crossing she would have Iris to console her. With any luck, she might even have a shipboard romance, arrive in New York engaged to a diplomat or a journalist … a better man than me. Now that I have had more experience of infidelity, I can identify the particular delusion into which, that afternoon, I was falling—the delusion that if the spouse you are betraying also has an affair, your own betrayal will somehow be canceled out in the exchange. And yes, such things do happen, especially among the French. Only we were not French. Nor was Julia the sort of wife to go off and find herself another man, either to make me jealous or to satisfy herself … None of which stopped me from spending the rest of that long day playing with my plan; tipping it up into the air and bouncing it off the end of my nose; clapping my flippers as an unseen audience applauded, an unseen circus master threw a fish for me to catch in my mouth and swallow whole …

  Then someth
ing happened.

  It was around two in the afternoon. I was returning to the Francfort to change clothes before meeting Edward. As I neared the Elevator, two boys ran past me. They might have been eight or nine. They were trailing lottery tickets like the tails of kites. That, however, was not what caught my attention. What caught my attention was that each boy was wearing one shoe. So far as I could see, the shoes belonged to the same pair. One boy was wearing the left, the other the right.

  They tumbled across the street in the direction of the line that had formed at the entrance to the Elevator. Probably they intended to try to sell their tickets to the men and women in the line, but before they could get there, they were stopped by two police officers. In those years, the Lisbon police wore helmets like those of London bobbies, which gave them a deceptively benign look. An argument ensued. At first I assumed that it was about the lottery tickets. Then I saw that the officers were pointing at the boys’ feet. They were shouting. Nearby, the elevator operator stood in his usual spot, smoking, presumably awaiting the exact minute when his schedule would permit him to open his doors. Suddenly one of the officers laughed and in the same instant slapped the boy wearing the left shoe hard across the face. The boy cried out. The officer slapped him again, harder. The boy fell to his knees. The other boy broke into a run, but the second officer caught him by the collar. He held him up in the air, as a mother dog does her puppy. The boy’s one shoe fell off. His legs were like sticks, his feet smaller than Julia’s. After a moment, the elevator operator looked at his watch, stubbed out his cigarette, and pulled open the gate. Silently the good citizens in the line filed through.

  A woman was standing next to me. She was about my age, with a no-nonsense look. “Terrible, this,” she said in a Midwestern accent. “You see, Salazar’s made it against the law not to wear shoes—part of his effort to bring the country up to snuff for the Exposition. But these people are poor. They can hardly afford to buy shoes for their children, much less themselves, so they split a pair between every two. And it’s not as if the boys know any better. They’ve gone shoeless all their lives.”

  “What will happen to them? Will they be arrested?”

  “Who knows? Anyway, it’s not the boys that matter. It’s the people who are watching. All this is for their benefit—a little reminder of what’s in store if they cause any sort of trouble. Remember this the next time some twit starts holding forth about what a wonderful thing Salazar is for Portugal. Well, good day.”

  She strode off. The boy who had been slapped had not risen. The other dangled like a corpse from a gibbet. Then I must have caught the eye of one of the policemen, for he yelled something at me and signaled me to cross the street. Immediately I started walking in the direction of the Hotel Francfort. I didn’t look back. If he put his hand on my shoulder, I decided, I would plead ignorance of the language. But he did not put his hand on my shoulder. I plunged through the Francfort’s revolving door, nearly knocking over the bellhop. “Excuse me,” I said, hurrying up the stairs—only to realize, when I got to my door, that I didn’t have a key.

  I knocked. No answer.

  “Julia, it’s me.”

  Had she gone out? Was she in the bathroom?

  There was nothing to do but return to the lobby. As usual, Messalina was standing in her doorway, smoking. She nodded to me, and I nodded back. Briefly I considered asking her if she would get the key for me, but she was in her dressing gown, and I had no idea if she spoke English, so I went on myself. In the lobby, the scene was tranquil. No police were waiting for me. No officer was interrogating Senhor Costa. I got the key, went back upstairs, and let myself in.

  Julia was in bed. She was still asleep.

  I looked at my watch. By my calculation, she had been sleeping for five hours.

  “Julia,” I said. Again, no answer. I lifted her by the shoulders. Her head lolled. “Julia, wake up.”

  But she didn’t wake up. I felt her wrist. She had a pulse. The bottle of pills was where I had left it, on the edge of the bathroom sink. Eight pills were left in it. How many had there been this morning? There couldn’t have been so few or I would have noticed. For it was my duty as a husband to make sure that the supply of pills never ran low, much less ran out. And so if there had been fewer than a dozen, I would have made a mental note to get some more before the Manhattan sailed.

  I went back into the bedroom. I opened the curtains, the window, the shutters. Sunlight fell on Julia’s face, exposing faint freckles that she usually covered with powder. She didn’t open her eyes.

  “Julia,” I said. “How many pills did you take?”

  She muttered something unintelligible.

  “Hold on,” I said. “I’ll get a doctor. Just hold on.”

  I hurried out into the corridor. From her doorway Messalina gazed at me in curiosity. “Doctor,” I said, tumbling back down the stairs to the lobby. “Doctor,” I said to Senhor Costa.

  “Sir?”

  “It’s my wife. She won’t wake up. I need a doctor.”

  From behind me a voice said, “I’m a doctor. How can I help?”

  I turned around. It was the woman in whose company I had just witnessed the harassment of the half-shod boys. She was sitting on one of the armchairs, a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits laid out before her.

  “Oh, hello, it’s you. I’m Dr. Cornelia Gray.” She stood, brushed crumbs from her skirt. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “My wife—I think she might have taken too many pills.”

  “What pills?”

  “Seconal.”

  “Barbiturates. I’d better see her.” She headed for the stairs. “Well, come on.”

  I looked at Senhor Costa. He shrugged. With her prim skirt and flat shoes and fair skin, Dr. Gray might have come out of Hollywood central casting—the small-town ingenue who loses her way amid sophisticated New Yorkers or Europeans and is inevitably upstaged by a more famous actress in a supporting role. In such a film, she would have been a nurse. Here she was a doctor. Nor had I any reason to doubt that she was a doctor. And so I followed her up the stairs, which she took two at a time. “Excuse me,” she said, elbowing past a couple on the landing. “Excuse me,” she said to Messalina, who got out of her way fast.

  I opened the door to our room. “Julia?”

  The bed was empty. Water was running in the bathroom.

  “Julia!”

  “What is it?” she asked, coming out.

  She had on her dressing gown. The tub was filling.

  Dr. Gray looked at Julia. Julia looked at Dr. Gray. They both looked at me.

  “Pete?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought—”

  I sat down on the bed.

  “Pete, are you all right?”

  “He’s fine,” Dr. Gray said. “He’s just had a bit of a shock. He thought you were dead.”

  “Dead! I was asleep.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you were,” Dr. Gray said, putting a hand on Julia’s forehead. “No fever. Look at me. Pupils not dilated.” She touched Julia’s wrist. As the seconds passed, I held my breath. Over her shoulder Julia gazed at me in confusion.

  “Sixty-two,” Dr. Gray said. “The low side of normal. You haven’t overdosed at all, have you?”

  “No,” Julia said.

  “Open your mouth. Say aah. Throat normal.” Dr. Gray took off her jacket. “Well, as long as I’m here, I might as well examine you. May I wash my hands? I’ll see you downstairs.”

  It took me a moment to realize that this last remark was addressed to me.

  “Downstairs?”

  “After I finish.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  I left. In the lobby, Senhor Costa trundled up to me. “Is everything well, sir?” he asked—and in his voice I heard a note of pleading, as if he was urging me to answer him in the affirmative.

  “It’s all right. The doctor’s examining her now.”

  “You mean she is not—”

  “No. She’s awake.”r />
  Senhor Costa’s waist expanded visibly. He went back to his desk.

  For lack of anything better to do, I sat in the chair opposite Dr. Gray’s. The tea was getting cold. Without thinking, I reached for one of the biscuits. Only as I was biting into it did I realize that I was committing a faux pas. For I hadn’t paid for those biscuits. They were Dr. Gray’s biscuits. Yet, having taken the bite, I could see no good in putting the biscuit back down. So I ate it. I ate all the biscuits. I licked the crumbs off my fingers. I didn’t touch the tea.

  Twenty minutes later, Dr. Gray emerged from the stairwell. I stood up again. “Your wife is fine,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “Well, fine. What I mean is she hasn’t tried to kill herself. She is dehydrated. Possibly anemic. If I were you, I’d get some fluids into her right away. And tell her to stay off the Seconal.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry for the false alarm.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble. The truth is, I’ve been itching to do a little doctoring since I got here. Those are awfully thick glasses you’re wearing. Myopia, is it? Astigmatism?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Glaucoma? Cataracts? Watch my hand. Move your eyes, not your head. How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Two.”

  “Good. Other than being blind, you seem to be in good health. Sit down, why don’t you?”

  “I think I should be getting back—”

  “Not yet. She’s having a bath. Give her a little time to collect herself … I take it you’re on your way back home?”

  I nodded. “We’re sailing on the Manhattan. How about you?”

  “Us? Oh, we’re coming, not going. My husband and I arrived a week ago. On the Clipper. We’re with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee—and if you’ve never heard of it, don’t worry, because it was only formed last month. We’re trying to organize something for the refugees who are stuck in France. To help them get to Lisbon, and from Lisbon to the States. If we can. Only it’s a bureaucratic hornet’s nest. Even worse than Prague, where we were last spring. Luckily Don, my husband, handles that side of things. Right now he’s meeting with the consul, trying to work out something in the way of visas. And in the meantime we’ve somehow been dragged into this entirely quixotic but most worthy effort to get a freight car’s worth of powdered milk to Marseille. There’s a terrible milk shortage in France. It’s not like here, where you can get everything. Speaking of which, would you like some tea? Oh, it’s steeped too long. Never mind, I’ll order another pot.”