The Traymore Rooms: A Novel in Five Parts

by Norm Sibum

  —I cannot claim to understand what makes a Quebecker Quebecoise, but I suspect Robert Dubois set himself to play the game of life by enlightened rules. ‘Canada exported 2.265 million barrels of oil to the U.S. of A. in May of this spring,’ a grinning Dubois has said, proving something or another. But that Phillip is as likely to drink himself silly and pass out as caress any and all of Eleanor’s ample charms is all Dubois has going for his other suit as of this moment. He suspects Eleanor is up to something. I look out the window at the end of the Traymore hall. Iron sky. Bright red geraniums two yards over, Fast Eddy’s yard a demolition site. Ecuador’s highlands have few mammals. If I can picture Virgil seeking out Mayan priests, Moonface ought to be able to spot her Thyrsis in a fringed poncho.

  —Eggy, adamant and impish, pipes, ‘What we need here is badinage and nosh. Are you listening, Gregory? Gregory, where are the nuts to go with my beer?’ And Gregory, uncomprehending, asks the old bugger, ‘What you want?’ His sad smile, in respect to Eggy, suggests the Greek equivalent of insufferable old bastard. ‘Oh well, the rain in Spain,’ Eggy hoo hoos. Outside, a white torrent of rain. A pair of teenaged lovers take refuge, hip to hip, in a telephone booth. Cassandra smiles a shy smile where she stands at the cash box, Eggy but something to which she has grown accustomed. Badinage and nosh—the alpha and omega of this faded Jezebel of a town where the days of prohibition brought the Yanks northward for the booze, an interlude of sorts in the roughly 8,000 years of human history on the site. Oh, and the conscription crisis. But Eggy raises a finger in the air, and he, back among us, says, ‘If you haven’t heard it before, I don’t care. I’ll say again: caviar comes from a virgin sturgeon, virgin sturgeon very fine fish, virgin sturgeon needs no urgin’, that’s why caviar is my dish.’ Otherwise, Eggy is not best pleased, Browning poorly represented in a book of immortal poems. Where is sartorial del Sarto, for instance? ‘Bloody effing hell. I won’t tell who’s kissing who down by the well.’ Can hear it now—neo-Nazis busting through the door to beat the bejesus out of Eggy, he, Zeus-like, thundering away: ‘Yes but, guys, Ich hab Mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren.’ Eggy knows best how to conquer hearts and minds. He has a gift.

  —Cassandra’s brainstorm: she will provide the old bugger with a bell to ring should Eggy require service. No longer need he bellow; need he rap against the window with his cane, terrifying half the neighbourhood. Zeus-like Eggy getting godly by the hour. Children shall fashion wreathes of marigolds and affix them to the god. We sat around the terrasse, last evening; braved a couple of downpours. Dubois made mention of politics. I said something about critics I have read who stipulate that one ought not to treat with the moon anymore; it smacks of sentimentalist drivel. Clearly, these thinkers who would deny poetry its moon are sultans of swat and such mentatious rigour as would own civilization for the next thousand years. ‘Yes,’ said Dubois, ‘Putin has won a round of poker.’ ‘The rain in Spain,’ said Eggy. I was baying at the moon. I was certain I had developed a snout. ‘Yes,’ I went on to say, ‘we’ll just pour mold over Eggy’s frame and cast it in bronze and bolt the frickin result to the wall, put out candles and incense and tinklers with clappers, compose psalms and drinking songs, and women shall bring their troubles and men their worst nightmares, and this faded Jezebel of a town, this noble boulevard of ours, shall have its tutelary deity, at last, no matter what the doxology of Ephesians, no matter if the spirits of the ancient Hochelagans shall rally about, scratching their heads; no matter if the beat cop on his mountain bike shall write up tickets and disperse the crowd. Even so, sparrows shall convene in its august presence. Dogs shall cock their legs in respect. Gregory will kiss its pate for luck. And when the Americans invade, it shall inspire insurgents. And when such a one as Calhoun finally pens the Great Poem, it shall head up the honouring procession.’

  So it went, last evening, smiles and guffaws luminescent with bloom, with ease of expression, all the world’s ills treatable. Dubois threw up his hands in surrender, given my verbal onslaught. Eggy was having too much fun to die, his eyes brimming with tears of joy. I beat him about his person with my baseball cap. Fast Eddy sat there, grinning that it was like old times. Moonface, alas, was not in evidence, she at some concert with her Champagne Sheridan. ‘I was at Baalbek, once,’ said Eggy, ‘and I bought a bell there. Still got the thing, I believe. Hoo hoo. It never occurred to me to actually use it, you know, for the purposes of securing my quota of wine.’ ‘It’s not the animals that’ll get her (Moonface) but the rebels,’ observed Dubois. Eggy thundered, ‘I’ve been to Quito. Fine place.’ I returned to my digs; I promptly dozed on the couch. Woke to a rerun of Letterman. He had everything under control: mom, peach cobbler, sleazy corporate behaviour.

  §

  Book IV—‘It Would’ve Rhymed But It Was a Dry Summer’

  Cowgirl in Slippers

  Hard to imagine, but Eggy and I had had a spat. And so, on the evening following the sorry episode, I brought a peace offering to him at the Blue Danube.

  ‘Here,’ I said, ‘Immortal Poems. A book of the things.’

  Straightaway, like a duck to water, he went to the Wordsworth. And he was three sheets, already, to the wind, so that, he burbled rather than read aloud a few Wordsworthian offerings. I cannot now recall which lines the old man highlighted as if remembering to himself forgotten loves, just that the poet in question had loved the woods, and now Eggy the consummate boulevardier thought he loved them, too. He then peered over the top of the book; he was tearing up, so to speak. It was obvious he blamed himself for what had transpired, our exchange of insults.

  ‘Let’s not speak of it,’ I said, ‘and besides, I was as much at fault, if not more.’

  ‘Yes but—’

  ‘Enough.’

  ‘Eff you.’

  He had been to London once, but Tintern might have been a better place to bring a lady. Otherwise, we sat a while, not speaking. Twilight. A trifle humid. A touch cool. And Moonface, it seemed, had been in the washroom, changing her clothes. She was through waitressing for the day. And she was going to walk right by us without so much as a word. Eggy, however, raised a finger; he thundered: ‘No, you don’t. Not so fast.’

  She sighed. And she turned around just shy of the archway made of ferns; she stood at our table and said: ‘Drop it, Eggy.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Eggy answered. ‘Oh well, effing hell,’ he added.

  Something, I did not know what, had incurred Moonface’s displeasure. Sleeveless tank top. Faded jeans. Red sneakers. Her jaw clenched, mouth drawn tight, a less than amused girl took her leave, though she had, in the meanwhile, given me a look that acquitted me of any wrong-doing.

  ‘What was all that about?’ I asked Eggy, she now out of earshot.

  ‘Oh, it’s Gregory, you know. Silly twit. He accused her of talking too much to her customers, namely me. I was going to have a word with him. She’s more than just a serving-wench.’

  It was a quiet night, business-wise, the café empty inside, save for Gregory and Cassandra and Serge. Elias had not been around of late for reasons unknown to me. Gregory, being an easy-going fellow on the surface, what had set him off that he would rag on Moonface? And then, of a sudden, it got busy: two Greeks whom I knew to be friends of Gregory took a table while a woman took another, one adjacent to ours. Immediately, the Greeks were voluble, and though I had no hope of understanding what was being said, I did recognize the word ‘Santorini’, and by its mention, knew the gist. It was in the news: yet another beheading in the world. A male had been seen walking the beach, holding the severed head of a female by its long hair. The one interlocutor, tall and white-haired, said to the other in English: ‘Stupid Greek. Bad for the trade.’

  He meant, of course, the tourist trade. Apparently, Eggy knew the woman who was conspicuously sitting alone.

  ‘Why, Evie,’ he addressed her, ‘where have you been? Effing hell, in any case. I may as well tell you, I’m drunk.’

  The woman grinned. This seemed promising.
From where did Eggy know her? And it seemed I had my answer, Eggy explaining: ‘But you just missed Moonface—’

  ‘Moonface?’

  ‘Alright. Emma, then. ’

  ‘Oh, I wanted to see her.’

  Evie’s voice was pleasant, that of a mysterious entity promising treasures: kisses, keys to the kingdom, sonnets polished to perfection. The long black dress she wore flattered her bosom. My eyes filled with her very pale ankles, her feet shod in shiny slippers. A frilly pink shawl sat on her shoulders. Much jewellery. A gold serpent coiled three times around her right forearm. I supposed she might have walked out of the pages of some gypsy romance, her hair dark, medium length. Her brow was prominent, eyes set wide apart. Hers was an interesting nose; it suggested, perhaps, strength of character and that she was not averse to pleasure. I chose to ignore the barest betrayal in her eyes of the fact she was lonely and seeking a solution.

  ‘Oh,’ said Eggy, ‘I am bad. Evie, meet Randall the poet. No, you know, he really is one, but we try not to remind him of it or why, well, we’d never hear the end of it. You know, poets do go on.’

  Evie extended her hand and I shook it—in some collegial fashion. Evidently, she was well-acquainted with Eggy’s mode of discourse, its twistings, its rabbit leaps of logic. Yes, and she had the look of a woman who had been disappointed. She had been foolish, too, but even so, she continued to hope for the best. It was all I could immediately make of her presence. Still, she made one aware, as one regarded her, of one’s past follies and unworthiness. It was too late, I calculated in regards to my chances; it was always too late. It was too late when Paul on Mars Hill chided the epicureans of Athens for the prevalence of so many idols about. What was gold, silver, and wood; what was constructed by human hand could not be God Known or Unknown, as God had no need of human enablement. Really? This flew in the face of certain streams in modern theological thinking, the pedagogue in me inconveniently rising, Boffo the clown not far behind. And Evie might have smiled; might have heard me out, too polite to show she could have cared less. She had, what, I could not put a finger on it, had the courage of her vulnerability, if nothing else. There they were, reasonable enough suppositions corresponding to what my eyes were telling me. Or else, the wine was affecting my judgment or she was quite the performer. Eggy was almost desperate, trying so hard to play the gallant, on his best behaviour, so much more now than three sheets to the wind. It indicated that Evie had power, sufficient power, at any rate, to render Eggy apologetic for being Eggy. Eleanor, who might also have dressed as outlandishly as the object of Eggy’s deference, seemed coarse now in comparison. Arizona senator was nothing if not fatally jealous of Illinois senator and his charms. But here was Dubois now come upon us, and he wasted no time, going direct to Cassandra for wine. Then he would sit back, drink and watch sparks fly. Eggy, as he was territorial with my right ear, hoo hooed his cacophony into it, terrified we might ignore him, all our attention on Evie. With my left I learned that the woman was raised an Alberta girl among cowboys, rodeos, airplane pilots. Her grandmother had even looked like Kitty in Gunsmoke, owned a bar-restaurant with the unlikely name of The Golden Matador. In Red Deer? Evie had knocked about with bands and poets; had been to Paris; had a horror of conceptual art; spoke well of Kenneth Rexroth, but perhaps did not know a good book from a bad one, and yet, one cannot have everything. Dubois’s blue eyes glittered; they were the most rapt I had seen in a while, though I could not say he had sex on the brain, only that his pleasure in the woman’s company was genuine and abiding. The sky was mostly clear, a few approving stars up there. There could well have been rioting in the street in this, our faded Jezebel of a town, but we would not have noticed, well-established in our own little world of dialogue and not a little sympathy, that other world pleased to overlook us. Yes, Evie was perfectly at her ease, three bibulous gentlemen nothing strange or threatening. And yes, her grandfather had written a poem, once, and he had said of it, drolling, ‘It would’ve rhymed but it was a dry summer’. So much for the terror of beauty and angels in Red Deer. And later, back in my digs, I supine on the couch, more sloshed than I might have wished, I accorded her distinction, that she had the honour of being a true daughter of a country I did not understand or would ever understand, though I had lived within its boundaries for forty years. That many already? For she was not besotted with the usual isms, the kind that disguise what is, in the worst sense of the word, provincial. A false cosmopolitan outlook offends against truth. Even so, she had a weakness for this and that spiritual trend currently going the rounds. She had deemed it necessary to apologize for the fact her name was similar to some starlet’s of a hit TV show. Well, I threw up my hands. It had been one of those evenings; no point in getting carried away. Clearly, she would enhance Traymorean society. Why she had not, thus far, it did not occur to me to ask. When I managed to rouse myself from the doze into which I had fallen, Letterman had long since waggishly cracked his jokes at a void; America still mom and apple pie and siren song cleavage; still a forensics laboratory; still a paradise for shills and corporate arselickers; incapable of doing wrong though Current President, with much dispatch and enterprise, had shot all the grim self-satisfactions to hell.

  Echo Seen

  In the morning, Dubois knocked on my door and was admitted. He had a grip on his attaché case, the item a well-worn, venerable, honest object. A most business-like look took up his countenance; and indeed, he was on his way to his office, some point of interest that no Traymorean, not even Eleanor, had yet to clap eyes on.

  ‘I just wanted to tell you,’ Dubois said, ‘I’ve seen Echo.’

  He certainly had my attention.

  ‘Well, I’ve seen her twice, actually. That’s the good news. The bad news is something rather different. I mean the first time, she’s walking her dog. I’m just coming out of the bagel shop. I ask her how she is. She doesn’t really answer. But am I still wining and dining at Le Grec? Yes, I say. The look she gives tells me she doesn’t think well of this. She then says her mother went there and made quite a scene, ranted at Gregory, I guess. Anyway, Echo has had her hair cut brutally short. And she doesn’t have that pep she had, not by a long shot.’

  ‘And the second time?’

  ‘We didn’t talk. She was just up the street from the café with her boyfriend. She did not look in a good way.’

  So, Echo, then. At least, she was alive. So Dubois, bearer of news. I shut the door behind him. I might as well perform some chore, I figured, as sit down and have a cry over Echo. Those marvelous bronze curls—all shorn. The summer look? I took out the garbage. A thunderstorm at dawn had ushered in the day. Dubois ushered in another sort of day. Perhaps Echo, though she had not disappeared, though she lived, was in actual fact, fading away, yes, as it was in the old stories recounted by ancient poets.

  Setting newspaper on a wet bench, I parked myself under weeping maple boughs, the sky grungy with cloud. It might thunder and it might pour at any moment, but that it would only drown not so much the grief in me but the low-grade despair with things in general, the sorrows on the cheap. Or a melancholy made of Echo, just a girl, she, but what a girl she had been. Sally McCabe appeared, green-sweatered, red-lipped. She was the pin-up genius of a night’s desert air.

  ‘You took your time,’ I observed.

  ‘Saw no reason to bother you,’ she said.

  ‘You’re mistress now of some temple, burdened with temple chores.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘Those days are long gone.’

  ‘You’re right. It’s finished. The ologists have it all.’

  ‘She’ll get over it,’ McCabe suggested, ‘whatever Echo has to get over.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what she’s been thinking and feeling, lately.’

  ‘Why should you imagine anything? None of your beeswax.’

  ‘I fear she won’t recover.’

  ‘You have a low opinion of human wherewithal.’

  ‘True, most people bend but some brea
k. I wonder if Echo isn’t one of those.’

  ‘And what could you do about it, in any case? Cluck a brotherly, fatherly, unclesome tongue? Didn’t I teach you better?’

  ‘You taught me well, I must admit.’

  ‘I surely did.’

  ‘No kidding.’

  ‘It’s my birthday, as of three days ago. Two years running now, and you’ve missed it. You might light a candle for me, sing my praises if only under your breath in your next wine-induced stupor.’

  ‘I will make amends.’

  ‘That’s it then. All I have to say. Yes, I do look rather like that starlet who played Caesar’s daughter in the gladiator flick, same bearing, smile and insouciant air of privilege. Cautionary note, however: she didn’t get her true love, not really. Got a whiff of his honour, though.’

  ‘And you’re saying what?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘That’s all there is ever—a whiff now and then?’

  ‘Remember, you owe me a candle, a poem, too, if you can see your way clear.’

  I waved my hand in dismissal; I was so poor in verses I could afford my cavalier, failure-masking attitude. I might have asked Sally McCabe what part of sex she liked most. The act itself? The aftermath, that one of lovely quiet, time a gently flowing river sun-dappled, paradisal, sheltering? I might have asked her only to hear her respond: ‘Come on, Randall, get real.’

  And who was Evie Longoria, come to think of it? Why was she not the belle of the ball, that Traymorean ball in which the long odds were always preferable to the short ones, though we all of us drifted on currents of expediency, having no other leverage?

  Another severed foot washed up on a British Columbia beach. There was no one left to kill in Baghdad. The head of Orpheus once floated on the seven seas, but I could not recall the tale’s mythological import, something about bringing to all the world’s parts wisdom, medicine, mystery religions, wild singing, unassuaged grief. I regarded Moonface with a jaundiced eye, there inside the Blue Danube, rain falling now. She was no Eurydice but then, hang on, of course she was, in the way all women are, always waiting—