The Traymore Rooms: A Novel in Five Parts

by Norm Sibum

  Negative Externalities

  Consecrated souls, indeed. The rain in Spain. Hang the bastards. Hoo hoo. No movie should depict us, Eggy and me and Eleanor and Dubois and Moonface. Poem or song should boycott us. Comedians should just throw in the towel and novelists run for the hills. Or betrayal shall finish what betrayal began. Still, Cassandra’s eyes are bemused witnesses to human antics. The old woman and her schatzi of a dachshund on our noble boulevard? God’s judgment on a failed experiment, the hairline cracks of Dubois’s wine-red cheeks not the worst of it. Words, true today, are tomorrow’s betrayals. And then, at some moment, time and space as we have known it, shall simply cease.

  §

  Part Four

  GRANDEUR

  Book I—Pavilions of Gold

  Eggy In Extremis

  Cranach might have painted her, pranked her out nude in pearls. Moonface as Venus. The same unbearably pale skin. The same thin lips. Just that she was not as insipid-looking or as cold to the contemporary eye. Even so, the dear girl never looked so ethereal, the alarm in her gentle eyes genuine enough. She stood behind the cashbox at the counter, prepared to engage the phone. Old Eggy, his chin on his chest, lips turning blue, seemed in a dream-state; if so, it did not appear to be an unpleasant dream-state, his expression somewhat pensive but not unduly troubled. Dubois placed a hand on Eggy’s forehead, then stroked the sallow cheek of an inverted triangle of a face. Perhaps he figured he was saying goodbye, the way he called Eggy’s name, yes, as softly as a south wind in the trees. He looked on the old man as a father might a beloved son.

  ‘I think,’ I said, ‘we’d better have that ambulance.’

  And Robert Dubois signalled Moonface to go ahead, and she punched the numbers that declared an emergency was in progress. Wherever Eggy was, he was deep in that place, and I figured as well that this was it: the old bugger was finally wearied of us. Dubois had the air of a man born to manage a crisis, blue eyes glittering with intelligence.

  ‘How long?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re on the way,’ answered Moonface, hopefully.

  She was in her working garb: coarse white shirt, black denims. Her hair, sandy-coloured, without highlights, was wound tight at the back of her head; it seemed, for her, a new look. Her eyes, black in the light of the purple tear drops—lamps suspended from the ceiling—were actually a rich, golden brown. Eggy continued to dream, Dubois quite serene. Elias popped out of the galley to see what was up, a silly grin his worry. I wondered if Eleanor might show and come across yet another corpse, remonstrating with Death as one might with a cat who drops a bird or a mouse at one’s feet.

  We recognized the siren for what it was: the clarion call of consequence. Soon enough, three youthful medics tramped through the door, two men and a woman in uniform. They brought gear into Le Grec aka the Blue Danube. Immediately, they removed Eggy from his chair and set him on his back on the floor. The woman attempted to communicate with her charge.

  ‘Anglais,’ Dubois advised, ‘anglais.’

  This was how things were in Montreal, our faded Jezebel of a town.

  Even so, Eggy would have understood the woman’s French.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, turning Eggy’s head so that his eyes, still closed, would look straight up, ‘what’s your name?’

  Moonface brought food to Miss Meow and her companion. Eggy may as well have been a floor show. Miss Meow miaowed. At his table, the Whistler whistled and stomped his feet. Oh, he had seen death before, so those feet of his seemed to indicate, feet that were, allegedly, those of a fighter pilot who had flown for the Israeli air force.

  ‘He’ll live,’ the Whistler whistled somewhat sardonically between clenched teeth.

  Other regulars were missing out on the spectacle—Blind Musician, for instance. Gentleman Jim had not been seen in a long while. Antonio the Italian-Albanian waiter was off-shift, he who would kiss Eggy’s pate for luck now and then, much to Eggy’s disgust. Cassandra, wife to Elias, was presumably at home or at French lessons. Gregory, too, was home, perhaps attempting, as Eggy often put it, to incur fatherhood.

  The ancient homunculus stirred, roused now, wires attached to him. A machine spit data like ticker tape. Moonface rolled her eyes up and to the side, a characteristic gesture of hers. Dubois and I went to smoke cigarettes outside on the terrasse, and in the autumnal dark we puffed and observed silence. I had wanted to talk to him about bank failures and the credit freeze, he a man of business, semi-retired. His faith in the system was nearly blown. I understood he would accompany Eggy in the ambulance; clearly, it was going to come to that. I would go and let Eleanor know.

  ‘You wait,’ Dubois finally said, ‘in a few minutes he’ll be giving the nurses a hard time. He’s not going to like staying in hospital overnight.’

  ‘I hope some social worker doesn’t get a hold of him, and he gets stashed in a nursing home.’

  ‘Not a nice thought,’ Dubois the arch-materialist countered.

  An old woman, her dachshund on a leash, stared through the window, shaking her head at the scene. Foolish men. The sidewalk was slathered with cold, fallen leaves. The absurd dog whined.

  ‘Come on, schatzi,’ the old woman said, innocent in Babylon.

  People went in and out of the venues across the street—the liquor store, the video store, Drunkin’ Donuts. Life was good. Dubois and I went back inside. The medics, still hunkered over Eggy, discouraged him from raising his head.

  ‘Your blood pressure dropped,’ said the female medic, her tone severe, temper bad.

  ‘How much do you drink?’ she thought to ask.

  Eggy lied shamelessly, his voice frail and riddled with guilt.

  ‘And your name?’ she asked.

  ‘Effing hell, I told you.’

  It was old Eggy’s old, thundering voice. Dubois guffawed.

  ‘You passed out. Do you know that?’ the woman hectored her rebellious charge.

  ‘I’m not exactly a simpleton.’

  She rose to her feet and shrugged. What a horrid old man. Dubois gave her a look that suggested she should lighten up. He said something in French to the two male medics who then grinned. In the end, they put the old Eggy carcass on a stretcher and wheeled him out to the ambulance, Dubois at Eggy’s side. And in the process Eggy gave me a look, and it was a look that said I know you, but you know, I haven’t really seen you before. Effing hell. Oh well. The rain in Spain. Hoo hoo. It was not quite Eggy with his customary death-is-just-over-the-horizon-for-me eyes; it was Eggy in discovery, and yet, it was understood the epiphany would pass. Eggy and his entourage now out the door, the café returning to normality, my eyes were all over Moonface. She did not appear to mind. She had been heroic on the phone, supplying relevant details, responding to the 911 operator’s questions. The episode, all told, had lasted roughly half an hour.

  Eleanor Restless

  Those who touted the felicities of progress as their greatest happiness were idiots, so I had long since concluded. They were not unlike pushers pedalling highs. I was Randall Q Calhoun, All-American boulevardier. All-around layabout. Passive observer of an on-going farce. Mr and Mrs Civic Smile, of course, had no reason to take me seriously. Why should they? They were busy being civical. Traymoreans dealt with me as they would the weather: day to day, but that I was somehow inevitable. How inevitable had Current President been, eight years of his regime written in stone, try as one might to forget them? Previous tenants of the Traymore Rooms—the so-called pseudo-Traymoreans Marcel and Lucille Lamont and Osgoode—were now mythical, as shadowy in their Tartaruses as Tantalus, origin of a curse that could not be broken. Marcel Lamont may have drunk himself to death, consuming himself, so to speak; Lucille may have killed him, leaving her husband with that lethal case of gin before she buggered off. Osgoode, no doubt, was even now floating from cult to cult, pedophile and Holy Roller. The man was all methodical gusto, American-born. Was there something in his way of pursuing aims that was distinct from how his Finnish or Venezuelan counte
rparts pursued objectives? On what might an ologist chew?

  So there had been nothing more to say or make of Eggy’s swoon. Besides, Moonface was caught up now with walk-in trade and phone customers. I took my leave of the café that, on some nights, was more an asylum than the taverna Gregory and Elias wished it to be. Eggy was going to survive the night just as he had before, when his heart acted up. He would live to consume more wine; he would thunder at us. Zeus-like Eggy. He would explain to Moonface why she was his complementary function all the while she rolled her eyes, Dubois guffawing.

  I returned to my digs, climbing the Traymore stairs. Mrs Petrova’s radiator pumped heat. There was a rather large spider on the wall, perhaps drifted indoors for the winter season. I unlocked my door, entered the apartment, switched on a light. On my couch, I opened a book at random and read these words: the proper disposition of materials. It was, after all, a book of ancient literary criticism. Once more, I knew why I had failed literature. Eleanor. Oh dear. I had yet to catch her up to speed with things Eggy; that he was in hospital for the duration; that Dubois was there, hanging about. I got up from the couch, poured a whiskey, drank it, and made for the good woman’s door. En route, I stood at the window at the end of the hall, seeing nothing, really, and everything. Was I properly disposed? Lit windows. Flickering TV screens. A cat in the back lane. A raccoon was absolutely comfortable with its existence. By day, the maples blazed in their yellows and oranges and russets. There was a great poem in it; I would never write the thing. In any case, as it turned out, Eleanor had already heard the news. This woman of gilded curls, wide gypsy skirt and pompadours, got a call from Dubois, he talking to her from the medical centre in Verdun, Montreal comprised of various municipalities.

  ‘So,’ said Eleanor to me, ‘is the old fart on his last legs?’

  There was a peculiar look in her eyes.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think we’ve gotten rid of him, yet,’ I drolled.

  Usually, we carried on in her kitchen. She liked to bake and cook; and, as I would watch her go at it, I would roll her a cigarette and she might offer up an amaretto, and we would converse. Gossip. Political views. It even went so far, at times, that we flirted. Just at this moment her intention was stunningly clear; she planted on me a searching kiss. We had been through this before, these forays into unvisited territories that were, even so, heavily touristed.

  ‘Not this time, Calhoun, you’re not getting off so easy.’

  It would seem that, in me, the customary whimper of protest died away, extinguished, I supposed, by the effrontery on her part, and the timing of it, and who knows what operations of the random? Had Eggy’s near-death episode realigned the stars?

  ‘What about Bob,’ I said, ‘for God’s sake, Eleanor.’

  Bob Dubois, so Eleanor reasoned, was going to be occupied for a while.

  ‘But this is not good,’ I pointed out, beginning to look for refuge in the possibility that she might find the situation faintly comic and so, come to her senses.

  ‘Of course it’s bad. That’s the point, you boob.’

  ‘Eleanor. Eleanor,’ I said, repeating her name, ‘we’ve been through this. Either I get cold feet or you get cold feet, and mostly I get the cold feet.’

  ‘I guarantee you they’re going to sizzle.’

  By now, she had led me into her bedroom, she cheery and frolicsome. She was a woman who had set her mind, oblivious of hazard.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m going to get to the bottom of you. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll howl, a little, at the moon, you and me. Meanwhile, I’m going to lift my skirt. Observe. Like this. I’m going to lubricate, voila, with this. Get the picture. You’re going to make available your manhood. You’re going to rise to the occasion. The rest should fall into place, pardon the pun, ha ha, that is, if you remember how. If not, I can provide pointers. This isn’t literature, this is life, poet schmoet. Prentiss down the hall gets to have her two studs and they don’t have to take turns. Afterwards, we might feel awful, who can say? God knows, you’ll climb up on a cross. I can smell that coming as we speak. Later, I’ll get Bob’s report on Eggy and I’ll kiss him good night, unless I’m asleep, already. I’ll feed him fine cuisine for a week, my penance. Maybe he’ll take me to the Caribbean. Always wanted to go there. Let’s get cracking, before I lose my looks.’

  And so, what had been faintly comic was serious now, a matter of moment; she fussing, she enthused.

  A Note from Dubois

  No doubt, Dubois slipped his note under my door at some ungodly hour of the night. He had tapped it on his keyboard and printed it off.

  To: Randall Q Calhoun,

  Here is a quick report, given that it is now 0330 hrs.