The Traymore Rooms: A Novel in Five Parts

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by Norm Sibum


  ‘Good luck.’

  Ah, Eleanor. What man in his right mind could turn her down? Perhaps Dubois was not in his right mind, or else he was too greedy or too finicky in his terms. I lacked the energy with which to push back against her egoism, lack of energy my age-old excuse. Even so, I did not really mind it, her egoism, and, as such, it was much to be preferred to the hubris of civilians playing at generals or generals shining up their ribbons and stars. Our wretchedness consisted of, and here I was the cynic, if nothing else, of some capacity for truth-telling, of our existential isolations, of such bliss as never frees us from mortality. And when Lucretius, for example, was in his writings sanguine in the face of death, I did not believe him, though I might for a moment admire his Roman pluck. Eleanor, realizing the conversation had run its course, was rather reluctant to clear off the couch, hideous item of furniture, its colour bordello green, an item of furniture in which I took perverse pride. We had not even broken into the amaretto; I had not kissed her when I might have been welcome to; I had not insisted she go. She just knew. When the woman was right she was right, and she knew.

  ‘It was a hoot,’ she drolled.

  She was more tired, I suspected, than she realized. I must have hallucinated: for a moment I was looking not at Eleanor’s comfortable countenance but, rather at, Prentiss’s grinning visage. The Prentiss entourage had been, perhaps, taking its toll on us both. Soon enough, I would hear Eggy and Dubois on Traymorean stairs. The bloody effing hells. The Come on, man, lift your foot. I might hear Moonface, too, if she were not spending the night with her Champagne Sheridan in righteous sin. I doubted that Mrs Petrova gave her tenants a moment’s thought, she a woman of an entirely different order of obsessions in comparison to ours, her origins a great deal more troubled, ours getting to be troubled, here in Canada, in the prop wash of American realities.

  ‘Well, I guess I’ll take myself off.’

  Well, I guess she would.

  ‘Maybe I’ll throw a party,’ I said, right at the end.

  ‘Why don’t you do that?’ said Eleanor, a hint of frustrated justice in her voice, ‘I might even cook something, if you ask me nicely enough.’

  The Love Book of Marjerie J Prentiss

  Haitian women, dressed for church, waited for bus service. Secular moms with tots in tow hung out together at the health food store. Singularities drank coffee at outdoor tables catering to those in the loop. For all that, it was ragtag St Tropez up and down the street, though what one was to think of the bag lady, sorrowfully scrutinizing a pizza flyer on a park bench, one was not sure. I had abandoned my writing project. For in my jottings I would have itemized every commercial sign, the retail bent of every shop, took note of such humankind as graced the poor man’s super mart where I had gone for bread. Too much bother, those jottings. But it was in the mart where I ran into Eleanor, who regarded me with something like a chill to her countenance. I was not, I suspected, in her best books. As we stood by a shelf of jams and marmalades, she let me know that, in general, I lacked the courage to deal with the real world, unlike Bob, for instance, who had wiles to match its wiles. I did not doubt it. Be that as it may, in view of my one very serious shortfall of character, to go with so many lesser ones, Eleanor, however, relaxed her critique, chortled and said: ‘I’ve seen something you have to see to believe.’

  Well, this was mysterious.

  ‘I’m supposed to keep it to myself. But you know me, and besides, you could use a treat.’

  Which would be, what, news that Current President had fallen off the wagon or that Palestine had gotten its state?

  ‘But later,’ she said.

  She was buying aubergines.

  ‘Later,’ she repeated, ‘at the terrasse. If Eggy’s there, he may as well hear of it, too. It’ll curl his toes.’

  As for Dubois, he was gone to Boston for reasons of business. He had got it in his head to rent a car and drive the distance. All this had come about of a sudden, the details of which were initially unknown to Eleanor.

  ‘No matter,’ she said, disguising her disappointment, ‘that’s Bob. He’s still got the get up and go. I like that in a man.’

  So why was she so besotted with Dundarave, a layabout like myself, so far as I could tell, only that he tiptoed through the tulips without literary polish? We returned some way together until she detoured into the drug store, for toiletries, as she put it, and I went on alone. I would have liked to believe that the Jamaican speedster, the fellow who had just smashed the world record for the 100 metres, who flew it, had grown up poor and unscientifically. For he ran the last 10 metres like a child, one ecstatic, without regard for technique or regimen. Perhaps it was so. It was, in any case, a stunning performance, one for the ages, as it were, the event wanting its Pindar, strophe and antistrophe of heart and grit and God-gift, as well as mention of a tiny nation’s GNP.

  One of life’s worst fears was not so much to die having accomplished nothing, but to have barked up a wrong tree with one’s ambitions and labours. All those rigours, all those expectations, let alone the accidents of love and the hazards of sex—all beside the point. Of course, I was, as self-described, a cynic; as such I was anathema to the Civic Smile. Was I to posit that the gateway to Unipolar Dominance was Central Asia, the Middle East a side show, would it make of me a think-tanker in pancake makeup, Mr and Mrs Civic Smile parked in front of their TV, nodding gravely in agreement? And was it not just a little obscene, comparing the weekend receipts of one blockbuster flick compared to the gross take of another? Was it not just a trifle celebratory of spiritual suicide? (The cynic in me was thinking now that Illinois senator would not prevail; he was not enough of a grotesque as was his rival, for all that there was in him a bit of the schoolmarm or the prig.) When I got to Le Grec aka the Blue Danube, a faith group, along with squirming, noisome, obnoxious brats, had taken over the place. Moonface, usually so accommodating, was disgusted. Cassandra was panicked, Gregory and Serge in the galley officers of a submarine undergoing depth charges. Back from yet another tour of a culture-deprived geographical entity, Blind Musician was trapped with Miss Meow at a table, high water rising higher. The one personage despised the other. Perhaps the faith group regarded the whistling and stomping Whistler as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, but even he appeared somewhat nervous. I retreated to the terrasse, and with my eyes gunned off any overzealous child with proprietary designs. Mothers had already thrown in the towel. Poor Moonface. Here was a moment of truth for her diary, that nothing she would encounter in Ecuador could possibly imperil her as much as what was swirling about her knees. Mothers in flip flops and shorts. Fathers in baseball caps. Mood pills and God-providing. And she stepping out to see what I wished, was coming up for air.

  ‘Stick around,’ she said, her mouth drawn tight, ‘I may need you.’

  Beach volleyball was on the flat-screen TV. Build it and they would show.

  Well, I was curious to see what Eleanor had in store for me by way of a treat; she seemed to be taking her sweet time. I ordered coffee from the dear girl, then had recourse to a book of verse. It was one I had had lying around and not yet investigated. I read: Rein in your mares and weep, for a love and a campsite—

  A hot breeze seethed amidst the maples leaves. And Eleanor, when she, at last, showed, took one look at the doings in the café and shuddered.

  ‘Oh my,’ she said, ‘feeding time at the zoo.’

  Had it been any woman other than Prentiss, I might have applauded the intention. It seemed she, too, kept a notebook, but one in which she recorded her sexual dealings with men and rated their performances; one in which she listed their physical charms as well as their peculiarities. As in So-and-So’s left testicle hung lower than his right. Or that So-and-So was a good kisser, but his breath … And so forth and so on. But to have entitled this dossier as The Lovebook of Majerie J Prentiss seemed overly grandiloquent.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ I said to Eleanor.

  ‘Oh no, it’s for real. Wh
at’s more, she has headings for you, Eggy, and Bob.’

  ‘Surely, she doesn’t intend to sleep with Eggy,’ I said, incredulous.

  ‘Of course not. Eggy is, so she said to me in that way she has of saying things, beyond the pale. She thinks you and Bob are prissies. Too stuck on yourselves. Need treatment.’

  ‘What treatment?’

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  And Eleanor did not know for what the initial J stood, the J that separated the sex enthusiast Marjerie from the empirically-minded Prentiss of a name. I wondered what Prentiss would make of a certain Gerald of my Polson High days, the boy who was addicted to weight-lifting and something of an exhibitionist? He was hopeless at football, just that he would whip out his immense manhood whenever Sally McCabe was conveniently in view; and she, surely as much the empiricist as Prentiss, would smile and say, ‘Impressive, Gerald. Very impressive. But your timing is a little suspect.’ In any case, the surprise element Eleanor had promised me was now a stale prospect; and the fact that Eggy had now joined us was also ruinous to revelation and further wonderment. He looked to be establishing a moustache on his inverted triangle of a face, or else he no longer cared to bother with shaving. He was exercised with them Russkies, so he hoo hooed it, old Cold War warrior that he was; and who, after Georgia, was next? Poland? The Ukraine? There were bastards who ought to hang, yes, but they were not necessarily such luminaries as once lit up Russia’s political class in by-gone times.

  ‘Jill,’ I said, ‘or, God help us, Josephine.’

  ‘Jasmine would be worse,’ Eleanor reflected.

  Eggy gave us both a look with his darkening countenance.

  ‘Why, what’s in a name?’ he huffed, having no idea, even so, what we were on about.

  Then Eleanor volunteered other news. Dubois had been detained at the border for a considerable time; had been subjected to unpleasant questions all because Robert Dubois showed up in the computer and was, at it were, red-flagged. He phoned Eleanor, afterwards, from somewhere in Vermont, put out enough to consider turning around and denying the U.S. of A. the boon of his cash and credit card and business savvy.

  ‘He was not a happy camper,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Imagine that,’ crowed Eggy, ‘Bob a terrorist.’

  ‘He’s mad enough to blow something up now,’ Eleanor observed, and then added: ‘Pig. Well, that’s what Bob said, only in French.’

  ‘Cochon,’ said Eggy, who knew a few of the more picturesque words, his finger raised.

  In the meantime, the faith group had dispersed; they had subjected Blue Danubian staff to terrorism of a kind, so much so, Gregory, Cassandra and Serge were exchanging words in Greek while Moonface doggedly cleared tables, in English, one assumed.

  ‘But,’ said Eleanor, reverting to our earlier topic of discussion, ‘what woman would keep tabs like that?’

  ‘Like I said, an empiricist,’ I answered. ‘And why not? Just that Prentiss is a mean spirit and has a false estimation of her own qualities.’

  ‘And Montcalm threw the battle,’ Eggy said, apropos of so very little.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Eleanor, ‘love book? Sex book is more like it. All the men she’s slept with. Their inclinations. Their perversions. I mean—’

  ‘Yes but,’ Eggy piped up, ‘every Madame of every whore house in every world capital has their little notebook. Big bucks, you know.’

  Eggy was most pleased with himself, this worldly-wise, tiny sparrow of a man.

  ‘She swore me to silence,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Oh she knew you’d talk,’ Eggy observed, then went on to say: ‘But I don’t know the woman. Comely wench.’

  I wondered aloud if the so-called love book was not trimmed in gold leaf and leather-bound, as would befit a genealogy of sorts, or state secrets. I wondered, too, how long I would remain a blank entry in it. My wondering was truncated, Eleanor snorting: ‘You don’t seem to think it’s all a little bizarre? Don’t you think it’s bizarre? I do.’

  ‘The rain in Spain,’ observed Eggy.

  ‘Maybe she’s researching a novel,’ I said.

  This put Eleanor’s pompadoured foot to increased agitation.

  ‘Judith,’ I said, ‘Julia.’

  ‘Jackie,’ said Eleanor, gone absent-minded.

  ‘Yes but,’ said Eggy, ‘here’s one: Jezebel.’

  The old bugger hoo hooed in this his faded Jezebel of a town, his finger raised in exclamatory mode. Eleanor and I, we gave him a look.

  ‘Jan,’ I offered, wearying of the game.

  And Moonface came out to ascertain how it was with us, though Eggy had yet to tinkle his bell. The humidity was stinky, the maples looking a shade less splendid, looking rattier. Soon enough, however, one would awake to their autumn vestments, and one would be consumed once more with dread and awe, courtesy of the passage of time.

  Innocent Cute

  I was summoned to Eleanor’s kitchen, that commodious room, finest, perhaps, of all the Traymore Rooms, barring Mrs Petrova’s suite below. Marjerie Prentiss, knocking at my door, issued the writ, she looking sharp at a mid-morning hour, ready to do battle in a world all corporate mergers. Red, sleeveless blouse, collar raised, the two ends of which seemed to nestle her chin. Kim Novak look.

  ‘Your presence is required,’ she said, her voice a dull boom.

  She did not bother to indicate where, exactly, my presence was required; it was assumed I knew. She was a grand vizier of the female sex, smug and lethal. She turned so as to retrace her steps, her body, sylph-like, presenting challenge. It was not, I figured, that she always had sex on the brain, just that there was no such thing as chance in her universe. And there was no contest she might engage of which she could possibly get the worst. Passing through Eleanor’s comfortably cluttered living room, I feared for its occupant. There was a zone, so to speak, where the pursuit of the pleasures bespoke the virtues of intelligence and kindly regard; there was a borderland that delimited the zone on the other side of which was only vice without sensibility, human feeling at risk.

  And it was a Rembrandtian scene, at first glance: Marjerie, Ralph, Eleanor at table. Phillip stood behind Eleanor, his arms loosely slung over the good woman’s shoulders, the grin on his face brazen. And Marjerie’s eyes told me that while she did not object to this two-person tableau, there would be a price to pay for it, eventually. I was incensed. The table offered amaretto, whiskey, beer, packs of cigarettes. A nondescript blues band played nondescript blues on the radio, the very music I could not bear.

  ‘Randall,’ said Eleanor, greeting me, her leer apologetic. ‘Here’s the thing. What we want to know is this—’

  Her voice was dangerously thick.

  ‘Yes,’ said Marjerie, attempting levity, ‘we want to know—’

  ‘We want to know,’ Eleanor continued, ‘whether it’s Tuh-blisi or Tee-blisi.’

  ‘Teh-blisi,’ said Marjerie, who considered herself something of an expert on geo-political realities.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I answered, cheerful and urbane in a pit of vipers.

  ‘What in hell does it matter?’ said Phillip, perfectly sensible.

  ‘Because,’ said Ralph, with the tone of a concerned citizen, ‘we’re talking the next world war.’

  ‘Oh rot,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Shove over some balm,’ she commanded of no one in particular, and Marjerie, grabbing the amaretto by its vessel’s neck, emptied some of its fiery sweetness into Eleanor’s glass.

  ‘You poor dear,’ she said, ‘you’ve gone dry.’

  ‘Catastrophe,’ Eleanor agreed.

  She looked up at Phillip and puckered her lips.

  ‘But that’s enough now,’ she added, ridding her shoulders of his arms. ‘I am, after all, spoken for. I might be kind of loose, you know, but I’m no push-over.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Marjerie boomed, ‘perish the thought.’

  Phillip took a chair with the air of a man who would live to fight another day.

  ‘Wel
l,’ said Eleanor, regarding me, ‘what are you bloody good for?’

  ‘He imagines he’s a thinker or some such rot,’ she said to Ms Prentiss, ‘a poh-weet.’

  ‘Indeed,’ a voice boomed.

  My damnation was forthcoming, and when it came, it went like this, the judgment Eleanor’s.

  ‘You know, I’ve had him in my clutches and he gets right sprightly, you know, real spright. But he’s a reluctant hoser. Ah hates a re-luck-tant hoser. It means some jackass is looking down on you all the while you’ve got your hands in its pants.’

  ‘My, my,’ boomed that voice in its subterranean depths.

  Ralph and Phillip did not envy me my status. I had business elsewhere.

  §

  Book V—Scéance

  What Eggy Knows

  —My first words to Eggy of an evening are ‘capote anglaise’, and the old man replies, ‘Oh, those bloody things.’ The words are, in any case, obsolete, their Portuguese equivalent—shirt, perhaps, or blouse of Venus, I am only guessing—also unjustifiably extinct. Nevertheless, under a canopy of maple boughs, the Blue Danube terrasse is busy; the air is rich with silky voices, some of which hold forth on the games in Beijing, some on love and men and lawyering. Eggy, meanwhile, knows his Stuarts, his Williams and Annes, his South Sea scams, his Treaties of Utrecht, this homuncular Zeus of infinite consciousness. He, so I belatedly realize, has been keeping me young. And now that Gregory, Elias and Cassandra have had their write-up in a restaurant review, the terrasse has been attracting customers somewhat more worldly than your nunnish Miss Meow, though perhaps Blind Musician has trotted his Scots burr and violin all over the globe; though the Whistler may have been a warrior for the Israeli air force. Gentleman Jim, his presence sporadic of late, even so, would not look out of place in an impressionistic depiction of an exotic drunk, his pessimism riding the green-feathered wings of an exotic drink, his missions all kamikaze. Too Tall Poet does not easily cavort with the demimonde. Our local high-flyers are, in any case, leery of him, his stratospheric noggin as if top-hatted like Ahab, his hand occupied with an harpoon. For all that, Cassandra is run off her feet. Dubois, almost absurd in cargo pants, sockless in yachting sneakers, come now on the scene, catches her eye and she runs her hand through her purple hair and nods and will bring on a half pint, no words necessary. Just back from Boston, he has showered and is among us. He has not much to say, not even on the subject of his having been detained at the border and hassled beyond reason. He just indicates they are nuts down there, gone overboard with the patriot game. He is pleased to be back among his bilingual roots, where, though church and state were once joined at the hip, one was not so brainwashed in one’s youth as are the Yanks forever talking about their generations in sermon and song. Once Blind Willie Johnson rumbled: Trouble will soon be over, sorrow will have an end.

 

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