The Traymore Rooms: A Novel in Five Parts

by Norm Sibum

  Eggy: Right you are.

  Eggy, mock-gavelling the café into silence: I suppose the jury is just chomping at the bit to do its bit. Will one of you rise and pronounce the verdict?

  Mrs Petrova kicks Blind Musician who elbows the Whistler who whistles at Too Tall Poet who looks at Eleanor.

  Eleanor, snarly: Kick me and I’ll snap you like a twig.

  Too Tall Poet, rattled and rising: Your honour, we the jury find the defendant, Randall Q Calhoun, culpable and compromised. Of being a human being he is most certainly guilty. On all other counts he’s up to his eyeballs in shame. As for his verse practice, God hasn’t given us words to express the enormity of his crime. In this, too, he’s blameworthy, guilty of fraud.

  Eggy, hoo hooing: That’s rich, one poet condemning another. Live and learn. It remains for me to sentence Mr Calhoun. Well, you know, it’s been stuff and nonsense, what we’ve been about here. Farcical. Still, it’s what goes on every minute of every 24-hour news cycle all around us. (Murmurings of outrage. Eggy mock-gavels.) Order. You know, the bottomless pit, the newshounds, the court of public opinion. That’s what I meant to reference. And here’s my ruling. Since one can’t possibly be guilty of being a human being, hoo hoo (one doesn’t ask to be born), and since, Mr Calhoun, you are guilty of something, God knows, and because there must be some point to this charade, and because I have a thirst and I feel a great sleep coming on, I sentence you, oh, what can I sentence you to, what’s the severest penalty I can conjure up? Well then, sir, I sentence you to six months hard drinking subject to parole, that is, if you behave. I am not a wise man. I never claimed any such distinction. I am, if anything, so Moonface tells me and every other woman, a very silly man, but it seems to me, Randall, you ought to have more patience with humankind. Stop beating me about my person with your baseball cap. The court doesn’t expect you to write paeans to the masses. Yes, spare us that. Everyone’s alone; everyone’s terrified. We just pretend we’re not. We help one another pretend. So pretend, Calhoun. Oh yes, I’m the Great Pretender, pretending that I’m doing well. My need is such, I pretend too much. I’m lonely, but no one can tell. Come on, repeat after me. Oh well, suit yourself. Court’s adjourned. Cassandra, where’s that wine? Bloody hell.

  §

  Book V—Whirligigs

  Anti-Follies V

  —The whirligigs are falling, spinning through the air. ‘Little helicopters,’ Dubois said, as if stating one of life’s well-established facts. We had been in the Blue Danube, Moonface working, Eggy absent. He was angry with everyone, Moonface, in particular. ‘They’re like a married couple,’ Dubois explained, speaking of them paired. ‘They push one another’s buttons and it’s fun and games until, one thoughtless slip, and someone crosses the line. I don’t know who started it. I think he was giving her the gears. She got snippy. He took it badly.’ Moonface overheard these words and came to the table, appropriately alarmed. Moonface: ‘I was only half-serious.’ ‘Half-serious,’ said Dubois, ‘is serious enough.’ ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Moonface almost wailed. ‘You could apologize,’ Dubois suggested, ‘irrespective of whether or not you were in the wrong. Of course, he could apologize, too, but he won’t. But I think he’s looking for a way out.’ Dubois loved being the man who could make a difference. It was then we saw through the window Eggy tottering by on his cane, shoulders stooped, his head sunk between them, his progress determined, his anger having given way to sadness and martyrdom. ‘Where’s he been?’ I asked. ‘The bar down the street,’ answered Dubois, ‘he’s boycotting this place.’ Dubois laughed. He was the oldest of eleven siblings, familial politics water off a duck’s back. ‘Well, Eleanor thinks,’ I said, ‘that, at age 901, Eggy’s no different than he was at age six. Mean, selfish, spoiled. Because he’s kind of cute, he gets away with much.’ ‘Will the real Eggy,’ laughed Dubois, ‘please stand up?’ Moonface frowned. Her frowns are something else as they suggest her world is fragile and easily upset. I had always thought she was born for love, a silly thing to avow, I admit, but she did have in her a capacity for diplomacy, or that which is not love, exactly, but is not something to be sneezed at. Then Dubois, figuring Eggy was in his rooms by now, called the old geezer. He produced a cell phone from his venerable and worn attaché case. The cell phone was news. He saw my look and said, ‘I need it sometimes for business. And this is business.’ The upshot? Eggy was not going to have anything to do with that ungrateful wench even if it had been her birthday recently, and so what if he had been mean to his wives? He had not asked them for favours; they should not have expected any from him. His kids were rotters. They were going to do well and survive because they were bloody hypocrites and, underneath it all, as mean as lawyers. The apple does not fall far from the tree. But what had this to do with Moonface? Why, nothing. Why should it have anything to do with Moonface? She was a strumpet who was getting a free pass because she had everyone thinking she had an intellect and was interested in intellectual matters. (This meant, by inference, that I was an effing fool for taking her seriously.) ‘Yes, but,’ said Dubois, ‘her father’s a minister, a theologian sort of, and for all he’s a goof, he has scholarly tendencies. It’s how she was raised.’ Eggy shot back, ‘He’s shorter than his daughter by a full head.’ ‘I’ll check on you, later,’ said Dubois, and he rang off to Eggy’s ‘don’t bother’. He said to me, Moonface standing there, ‘He’s really committed himself to this course of action.’ ‘Oh dear,’ sighed Moonface, the guilt of a two-timing Eve written all over her visage. We had been by now treated to a glimpse of her father, who dropped by the Blue Danube one evening. The relationship between father and daughter was more like one between sister and older brother. The father, boyish, bore a vague resemblance to Robert F Kennedy, and he had a minister’s air of accepting one and all. The Stanley Cup finals were at game number three. I began speaking to Dubois of linear time; he just waved his arms about and said, ‘Back off.’

  —Here is Eggy, stone-faced. His face is as stony as the marble-dark countenance of a long, dead imperator, the bust of which one might come across in a museum basement. He pokes by me on the terrasse with his cane; he would enter the café. So this is what it is to be Traymorean Zeus bringing fire and brimstone to Moonface, the party who has done him injury. But suddenly, the winter, the long winter we had had is a distant memory, as distant a memory as the Social Wars. It would seem that Eggy, inside now, has just spooked himself, thundering at Moonface, ‘To hell with you.’ Moonface the waitress awkwardly laughs. In any case, it sounds serious. I am shamelessly bemused. Shall I wait until all the pleasure has gone out of the balloon, oh, not my balloon, but that of Eggy in his dudgeon? Then shall I attempt some peacemaking? Cynic, I opt for the pleasure I am at the moment receiving: street life of stunners, of warm breezes and whirligigs. In respect to Eggy, will the boy of six pull down the man of 901 years to his grave at last? Moonface’s excuse is to come out and see if I require anything. She rolls her eyes up and to the side. Eggy, of course, takes a dim view of this maneuvre, considers it treachery, betrayal and all the rest of it. One does not necessarily betray poetry by writing prose; one betrays poetry, in any case, by betraying something in one’s soul. I ought to confront Eggy, saying, ‘Come on, enough is enough.’ You scrawny old lecher, haven’t you cocked up things enough? I do so. I am thundered at: Eff off. Fine then. I shrug at Moonface. From her I get the commiseration meant for herself. Yes, a man can blow it as easily at 81 (or 901) as he did when he was in his prime, full of piss and vinegar, the consequences be damned, the wives but wives, variables in a grander scheme of things. Moonface, who had been wading through some investigation of the Roman mind, now switches on the TV to a movie. Squealing tires. Explosions. Serge, with apparently nothing to do in the galley, takes a seat in the dining area, arms folded across his chest. He seems almost to have a professional interest in the proceedings, as if once he had been intimate with such goings-on. Eggy’s chin has raised his chest. Shadows play. The long hair of a woman stre
ams in the wind. Truly, terrasse season is official. Two lovers at the corner kiss briefly and say nothing, each alone in their separate universes.

  —A friend of a friend of Dubois invites him to a vernissage. He presses me into service. But could he not go on his own with Eleanor who, for an hour or so, would love to be squired? In any event, he treats us to a taxi, Eleanor, I am certain, overdressed. It will prove to be a dreary affair. How do I know? It is Dubois who wonders how I know, irked by my negativity. I plead a rich experience of ‘art happenings’. The three of us squeezed together in the taxi’s back seat, Eleanor presses a hand to each of our knees and says, ‘Boys.’ Downtown, the evening shadows are rich and long. Summer settles onto my unspoken sighs, the sky a benign blue, the trees lush. For a moment I believe I shall be introduced to Manet or Degas at some bistro on the banks of the Seine, to the last time that the seriosity of art and the pursuit of pleasure combined in civilized entities. We are deposited on Crescent St, the party crowds in full force at all the bars and cafés. Up a flight of stairs. We hear a gathering of people above us as we climb. We hove into view; we are checked out, dismissed. We circulate. Precious bits of bone on precious bits of linen set within precious frames. Ah, art. Swells from the professional classes. Even Eleanor has the sense to realize that what holds sway here over anything truly serious and truly joyous is pretension. Arsdell, one of academe’s finest, wears a suit and tie such as one of Wyatt Earp’s buddies might have worn to a shoot-out, but his art palaver is all thumbs. I extricate myself only to bounce off Gaetan Szabo who leers. He is smug with his various superiorities, ideological and otherwise, at the assemblage of connoisseurs. I bounce far. To Eleanor I say, ‘One more glass of wine quickly quaffed and I’m out of here.’ ‘Likewise,’ she says, a few shrinking violet males noting the regal grandeur of her bosom. There is a doctor in the house whom Dubois recognizes from his old days; they catch up on gossip. Eleanor signals her restlessness. How so? Eleanor, heavy-hipped, clumps about on her high heels among chinless sylphs and civic-minded biddies. Dubois recognizes mounting pique, disaster in the offing. Dubois steers us to neutral territory. At a bar now where we snagged a table on its terrasse. Lumpen packs of hosers of all genders throng by. Our conversation concerns itself with Eggy: what to do with him? Eleanor has few kind words to offer on the subject. Dubois believes the old bugger will come to his senses, eventually; he will realize what a pain he has been. ‘Not possible,’ says Eleanor, ‘he could never believe he’d ever been a pain to anyone.’ ‘I have faith in him,’ announces Dubois, merriment in his glittering blue eyes. I suggest that 901 years of amour propre is a lot of amour propre to of a sudden suspend. ‘I’m with you on that,’ says Eleanor. ‘You wait and see,’ affirms Dubois, ‘he’ll come around.’ And then, like two men in love with the same woman who loves her men in turn, we form a human shape on the street and walk among the thrill-seekers. We are insulated from all debacles. Dubois hails a taxi. Back in our neighbourhood, at the Blue Danube, we see Eggy sitting alone. He is forlorn. Moonface grimly brings plates of food to a table of revellers. Eleanor, however, has had enough. ‘See you upstairs,’ she says to Dubois, who informs her he will not be long, and he and I sit down with a tiny sparrow of a man. Dubois waves Moonface over. She approaches like a dumb creature vaguely aware that her end may be imminent. ‘Wine,’ says Dubois, and then adds, ‘and by the way, I’ve had just about enough of this. The Chairman of the Board now issues a directive. It’s this. You two shake hands.’ Risky strategy. Eggy flinches. Moonface has her doubts. Then, like a nymph who has some blackmailer’s edge on Zeus, she bends and implants on an hoary old cheek a kiss that the god does not deserve. Eggy is much too old and desiccated for tears, but it is a tear that very nearly puts an end to the Eggy countenance. He is cherubic. He is back in the fold, returned to the holy of holies which is his august peerage among Traymoreans. He had been frightened out of his wits. He had been subjected to the worst of punishments. He had been banished, turned out, exiled.

  A Proper Narrative, Resumed

  Of Values and Things

  From now on Eleanor was going to play it by the book. No more dalliance outside the nest. I was both disappointed and relieved. Perhaps this in and of itself bespoke the weak and callow creature I was. But surely, she could toss the odd freshly baked biscuit my way, and in doing so, not compromise her standing with Dubois. In any case, it was not that Dubois had lowered the boom on her; that was not his style. It was entirely her own idea to truck now with fealty, abstinence, true devotion. I did not think it would last; she had not the patience, too vain a woman to remain unaware of her talent for trouble. It is to say she was perverse. I made the appropriate noises.

  ‘So,’ I said, with what were admittedly uninspired noises there in her kitchen, ‘you’re turning over a new leaf.’

  ‘You’re mocking me.’

  I rolled us a couple of cigarettes. And I wondered if she would break out the amaretto. The stuff always put a purr on her tongue. It always made her randy.

  I have always thought it a mistake in life to turn over more than one leaf at a time. Then again, the counter-argument, that of effecting a clean sweep of things, was a compelling one. But I supposed what worried me most was that Eleanor might lose herself in her makeover. It was not to suggest she should sleep around, far from it, but that sackcloth and ashes would only aggravate her intensely sexual nature as was an inseparable part of her intelligence, difficult to live with for any partner she might have on a string. I supposed that Dubois’s own vanity was what preserved him from the agonies of jealousy; it was not a bad theory as theories go. For some reason or another he was able to take Eleanor’s flirtatiousness in stride (for all that Gambetti had been another matter); it was just that this new Eleanor might cause him to break stride and put him off balance. What was more, Eleanor losing herself could possibly cost me a source of conversation. Occasionally, she was truly interested in what made man, woman and child and presidents tick, and it did not hurt that she, from time to time, enjoyed me holding forth. I did not mind being addressed with her best bourbon voice as ‘sir’ or ‘Mr Calhoun’. I did not even mind her relishing a witticism at my expense. I would mind phony virtue. I supposed it was simple-minded of me to believe that love and affection had nothing to do with virtue; they were gifts to be freely given, without strings attached. Even this notion was suspect. Who could say why one person loved another? Who could say why some persons loved well and others badly? I believed Dubois would always be more comfortable with Eleanor, as she had always been bawdy, volatile and hopelessly vain. It was her sincerity. On the other hand, if there was anything genuine in Eleanor’s desire to play the faithful concubine at the cost of her old habits, Dubois was going to have fancy shifting of his own to do, should he wish to hang in with her.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘are you? Are you laughing at me?’

  ‘To be honest, I prefer the old you.’

  ‘And who was the old me?’

  ‘The girl who smoked my cigarettes and plied me with drink.’

  ‘I still smoke your cigarettes. As for drink, well, you know what that stuff does to me. Even you found it a bit much.’

  ‘Yes, I did. But even so—’

  ‘We should’ve done it at least once.’

  ‘Good God, that’s what Moonface said.’

  ‘Did she now? I wouldn’t have thought she had it in her.’

  There it was again—the bourbon in her tone. Whether or not she had ever touched the swill was of no importance.

  ‘Did you make up for the shortfall?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘Don’t know, really. My age. Her inner confusions.’

  ‘Yes, it would’ve been messy, no question. But how else is she going to learn?’

  ‘The way I learned. The way any of us have learned. The way you learned.’

  ‘And what way was that?’

  ‘Lurching from one catastrophe to the n
ext.’

  ‘It was as bad as that?’

  ‘No, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘Do I? I enjoyed my conquests, Mr Calhoun. I didn’t mind being conquered now and then. You seemed to have suffered unduly. Why?’

  ‘Because I guess I’m the suffering type.’

  ‘Come now, sir, you take to pleasure like a duck to water.’

  ‘True, I like my pleasures.’

  ‘You’re a romantic, Mr Calhoun. That’s your trouble. You’re a romantic in a troubled world. And Hollywood has made such cheap currency out of your affliction.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I wish you well.

  ‘Is this a brush-off?’

  ‘No, sir, it’s not.’

  She blew me a kiss, the good woman did, from across the table. It was accompanied with a smirk. It was a statement of sorts, a new wrinkle in some Traymorean game, the rules of which I had yet to grasp.

  Eggy got around: assignations, interviews. He was still having too much fun to die. I sat in the Blue Danube, looking out at the street, nothing much registering. Plain old, garden variety, down-to-earth self-preoccupation had me by the short hairs. There it was—the one inalienable right no coup d’etat could make disappear. Moonface, whom I had barely acknowledged, spoke at me: ‘Earth to Calhoun. Earth to Calhoun.’

  What was this miserable attempt at levity? Her voice was a slightly musical moan.

  I saw in my mentations RFK’s funeral train, mourners saluting the passage. Flags on hand-held poles, brandished horizontally, were pointed at the train. Perhaps an eagle capped one of those poles, a Roman battle standard. I entered Canada the day after the man was shot, wondering if the whole of the U.S. of A. was mad. Forty years later, and I was still wondering. Some were avowing they saw in the Illinois senator’s White House run an echo of the martyred Kennedy. I had nothing intelligent to say about any of it; I did not wish to trigger presentiment. History, stated a famous writer recently, is full of surprises, most of them unpleasant. Moonface opened her Herodotus and recited: I, O King, who has seen many mighty empires overthrown by weaker ones— I raised my hand for her to cease and desist. Serge in the galley looked thoughtful.