The Traymore Rooms: A Novel in Five Parts

by Norm Sibum

  ‘I might be imagining things,’ Dubois said, nodding at the window, ‘but I think he’s steamed.’

  And vain and handsome Dubois was not referring to Eggy’s churning pins and the piston-like action of his cane, Eggy’s countenance noticeably dark. Ever the gallant, Dubois rose and went to help the homunculus through the door.

  ‘That woman’s at it again,’ the old man thundered.

  ‘And who’s going to spring for wine?’ he thought to ask.

  He fairly ripped his scarf from his neck; then he collapsed into his chair and caught his breath. He peered around, as if unsure where he was.

  ‘What’s up?’ I inquired.

  ‘Eff you.’

  ‘Is that any way to talk to your friends?’ Dubois put it to Eggy.

  ‘What friends? Haven’t got any friends. The world’s gone to hell. And women ought to be put back in their place. In the kitchen, I tell you,’ Eggy thundered some more.

  Dubois guffawed: ‘What’s brought this on?’

  ‘Yes, but she rubbed my nose in it. Alright, so she was starkers. She was knocking on all the doors, making quite a racket. Alright, so I answered the door, and she, well she must’ve just been there, but she was down the hall. Anyway, she turns around and walks right up to me as pretty as you please in her birthday suit, and she grabs my head, yes, like this, and she shoves my face in her titties. “Here,” she said, “hoo hoo on this”. I mean, besides being naked, she looked peculiar.’

  Well, it had to have been Prentiss.

  A Stony Silence

  As I was in no mood for drinking, I withdrew from my august company, leaving Eggy to lament the fact that Dubois considered Eggy’s depiction of his episode with Prentiss overstated. With any luck, Prentiss might have settled down. Even so, as I went up the Traymore stairs, Suzie Q, knapsack strapped on, unseen of late, was descending them. The look in her eyes suggested she had blundered into a lunatic asylum, but was stuck there for the duration: presumably she witnessed the Prentiss-engineered commotion. She passed me by in what I could only describe as a stony silence. Indeed, what a hash the older generations had made of things. It was, no doubt, what she was thinking. I heard one of Mrs Petrova’s clocks. Heard Eleanor’s plumbing. Nothing from the Prentiss apartment. In my digs, I powered up the ghetto-blaster. Piano, accordion and oud. I was too agitated for a lie-down and a stew; and if I was tempted to write Moonface a letter, what was the point? I did not know where to send it, and it would only, in any case, compromise her sojourn away from Traymorean and Blue Danubian realities. Dear Moonface, How are you making out? You are missed. —RQC

  I waited for the knock I knew was coming. My eyes fluttered through a documentary on TV. Heard on the stairs: ploo sah change ploo say lay meem shose … Eggy. Heard Dubois complain of the catastrophic effect of Eggy’s French on his ears, and would he please get a move on. Eff you. And I fluttered through the BBC news. Fluttered at the onset of Letterman, and he was still slagging Previous President who had once incurred the Queen Mother’s displeasure. A man’s manners were his worth. It was a plaintive rapping laid on my door. It was rapping that said: for your ears only. Though all the world, and especially the Traymore, most likely had ears to the ground. I did not know what to expect. Nudity, coarse language, mature themes? She was wearing some tubular, sack-cloth dress. She stood there rubbing an ankle with a bare toe. Her cheeks were wet. I would have regarded such tears as would have emanated from dead, watery eyes as suspect. She pushed me aside and entered my domain. She looked around in the semi-dark of my living room, the only light the light of the TV. She was always putting out sexual energy, but not this go-round. And it did not take long, the woes Prentiss had to relate. She did not, she supposed, love Dundarave all that much. And yes, they had had a row; and it sounded to me like the man may have been reasserting his manhood by withdrawing his favours; and then again, I could have been mistaken. To be sure, Ralph was a good man, and she would most likely marry him; only that he would expect of her a certain wifeliness, and it would chafe. She would probably spend half her time wandering the countryside where they would reside, she in search of distraction. She knew I detested her politics and her views on Arabs. Too bad. The Palestinians were no better than dumb brutes with whom the Israelis were saddled, just as the Americans got as their burden the tribes they conquered and dispossessed; and the liberals were always coddling losers, and she would have none of that. Otherwise, she was a feminist. It went with the territory she trod; and if men could not hold up their own end when it came to sexual role-playing, well, she was not going to coddle them, either. Her cheeks seemed to be drying, and I had the distinct feeling that she was enjoying herself, perched there on the edge of my couch. And what a horrid little man it was, and she meant Eggy. And Dubois was such a know-it-all. And in that department, I was an even worse offender; and she could not, for the life of her, see what I contributed to anything, mooching, as I apparently did, off Eleanor’s generosity; and there was a good if somewhat frustrated woman. And I supposed that Prentiss had assumed, vis a vis Eleanor, that she could teach her a thing or two; and I knew that Eleanor, in respect to Prentiss, and for all that Eleanor flaunted her body and tossed her thoughts about as so many bean bags, would never presume to teach back in kind. It was an almost moral position she took.

  ‘So what are you doing here if I’m so useless?’ I thought to ask.

  ‘You have an honest face,’ she laughed, her voice a dull boom, like that of thunder dying away.

  I could not decide, what with her Cleopatra bangs, whether she was some hybrid Pocahontas figure caught between two futilities—those of paradise and those of hell, Captain John Smith her gullible mark; or whether she was as twisted as I was inclined to suspect.

  ‘It’s late,’ I attempted to observe.

  ‘What of it?’

  Her voice was growing huskier. This set off alarms. And then I overshot my mark:

  ‘Actually, if I were Ralph, I wouldn’t have you. And if I were Dundarave, well, I don’t know—’

  ‘Is that what you think? Oh, I’m wounded. Been put in my place.’

  I had no satisfying rejoinder, so I regarded the woman on my couch in silence.

  The door at street level slammed; and I was just now learning that Suzie Q could whistle, if tunelessly. And Prentiss had the air of a woman who had taken a man’s measure and was sure of her conclusion, and that was an end on it. Why then should I continue to debate?

  ‘I really am tired,’ I said, ‘so if you’ve gotten it out of your system, whatever it was that was bothering you, I’d appreciate it if you left.’

  ‘And Eleanor said you’re a gentleman.’

  ‘Hardly. And I only hold forth when I’m drunk or among friends or both. And the world makes less sense than it did an hour ago, and tomorrow, it’ll make even less sense. I don’t know about you, but that’s what I have to look forward to. In the know-it-all department, I think you can hold your own. But not now. I’m going to bed. You know where the door is.’

  I had not intended to have the last word on X, Y and Z, but apparently, I had had it. And she rose and lifted her arms above her head and yawned, a gesture which caused her bosom to shift under the dress she wore, and her eyes caught mine and they laughed. I had not had the last word, after all. And she quit the field.

  True Colours

  I learned from Dubois that Eggy was eating his strawberries in the Claremont, a watering-hole in the next district over. He was slated, too, for an evening out, not with us, but with some mystery girl who was young and married. Eggy would escort this prize to the opera, Eggy having got it in his head that he was a rascal, a homewrecker.

  ‘Well,’ I said to vain and handsome Dubois there in the Blue Danube, Antonio working the floor, ‘speaking of rascals, a certain far right talk show host has really outdone himself. And here’s the unfortunate quote: that if the British Prime Minister continues to slobber all over New President at the G-20 meeting, British Prime Minister stands to
risk anal poisoning. Delicately put, wouldn’t you say?’

  Dubois winced.

  ‘Yes,’ I continued, ‘and one wonders what kind of effect New President is going to have on the course of world history, as it’s beginning to look like there will be such an effect, something more than the mere countermanding of the effect of Previous President. Well, I wonder, even if you might not.’

  ‘Oh, I think about it, too,’ said Dubois, collegially, ‘and I think he’s paying attention to the fundamentals, which is good.’

  And just then, Joe Smithers aka Too Tall Poet made an entrance. He had the air of a man who had been parachuted into enemy territory against his will, his mission suspect, poorly thought out by his superiors.

  ‘I had a hankering for pizza,’ he announced to us, grinning, ‘imagine that.’

  One had to remind oneself that Too Tall Poet went about his business with his head in the clouds; that it was almost literally true; and that for him a pizza pie might have constituted an exotic object.

  ‘So pull up a chair,’ Dubois invited the man, ‘don’t be a stranger.’

  Too Tall Poet consented; and Antonio brought over a menu. It might have been radioactive, this menu, so gingerly did Too Tall Poet handle the thing.

  ‘I don’t want to hate life’s winners,’ I said to Dubois the arch-materialist, ‘just in case I happen to become one. Not likely though. Am I such a snob? Help me on this. Tell me that greed and ego are everyone’s immutable lot and—’

  Dubois guffawed. Too Tall Poet tittered, uneasily.

  ‘There are winners,’ I said, ‘that succeed in making Prentiss appear spiritual.’

  Dubois guffawed some more, Too Tall Poet blinking his eyes, Prentiss an unknown to him.

  ‘You know,’ the poet said, ‘I only thought I was hungry. Gentlemen, it was good to talk with you. I should do this more often.’

  He giggled. Life’s winners, my arse—Too Tall Poet ducked as he went out the door, one of nature’s rare fauna. Dubois returned to his soup. I looked out the window a while.

  Demon Love V

  —Eggy has had his grand night out, one consisting of preliminary drinks at the Claremont; then with his Lithuanian hottie in tow, Cosi fan tutte at the Monument-National—old-style theatre as Eggy depicts it; then nightcaps back at the Claremont until 2 a.m. And Eggy even had time enough to discuss the politics of Lebanon with a cabbie or two. Eggy our homuncular Stendhal. Well, good for him. Meanwhile beheadings, mass shootings, serial kidnappings—all this comprises a goodly portion of American news, not to mention banking fraud and unemployment figures. I am, as snow sleets down bewilderingly, in one of my theological snits; and it is when I am farthest from God, if there is a God; and I do not insist that there be a God, as I would not dream of imposing on secular humanists in their cheap suits; just that oh those bones, oh those bones, oh those skeleton bones, oh mercy, how they scare brand of reasoning does not reason all that much, in the end. Yes but, it is National Poetry Week somewhere, celebrities passing themselves off as rhymesters and making poetry tolerable for an hour.

  —I put it to Eleanor: ‘The drunk understands that much of his fate is in the hands of imbeciles and he is master of nothing, dominant nowhere but in his fantasies. His intelligence counts for nothing. He evades, defuses, avoids. He may despise militant joggers, but he otherwise steps aside when they would schlep by, eyes shining with mastery of situational ethics. For it is time to reinvent society and put it on a viable economic footing. Dumdeedumptum time. We are all in this together, so the lie goes. Since when? What’s a drunk to do? Humankind may be one of evolution’s products, but human instincts have dulled quite a lot. So where are you all dressed up to go?’ ‘None of your business. But I do have an engagement. I’d let you cop a feel, but I’m in a hurry. Now if you were to wash those dishes for me, I might could see my way to rewarding you handsomely, later.’ ‘Ah, there she is—the Eleanor I used to know and love.’ ‘Don’t get smart. Don’t stop drinking. Kisses. Must run.’

  §

  Book VI—Theological Freelancing

  Avuncular Once More

  Prentiss and Dundarave had upset Suzie Q’s equilibrium by way of a sex game, enough so that Suzie Q saw fit to move out. She was going to have to move out, in any case, Moonface’s return imminent and yet, I was almost sorry to see her go. Despite her confusions, there was something in her of authentic rebellion and a regard for truth for its own sake and yet, Prentiss and Dundarave had, more than likely, appealed to her vanity and she fell for it. It was my thinking on the matter. I wished she had not been so pouty with me when she knocked on my door, dangling a set of keys before me: ‘Emma’s. I don’t know what to do with them, so I’ll leave them with you. Well, goodbye.’

  ‘Best of luck,’ I said, accepting the keys.

  She was stooped from the weight of her knapsack; and it was a bursting suitcase she was about to heft down the stairs.

  ‘Do you want some help with that?’ I asked, with some sincerity.

  ‘I can manage.’

  ‘Was there something you wanted to say to me?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Alright then.’

  I raised my hand in a salute, and she went to resume her struggles elsewhere. It was now, what, my third or fourth spring in the Traymore. It pleased me to think I had lost track.

  I fought the impulse to unlock Moonface’s apartment, enter and occupy her cozy and well-used love seat. A vague impression of her digs came to mind, and it had been a while since I was last in it: the prints, the plants, the books on the floor, items of clothing strewn about, unwashed coffee mugs. In other words, Moonface was not particularly tidy. And I would sit in that love seat, a proper gentleman, and ponder things. Ponder the poet Virgil in the darkness. And yes, how did Christ get to be Christ? And when the last of the Medicis lay dying, death having trumped pride, what was the last Medici thought? I could see Moonface up on her toes, splendidly naked, perhaps; or begowned and somewhat sombre; but smiling, in any case, confident that she was, after all, a girl wonder, and a bridge to a future that would set things right. It was snowing when I left the Blue Danube aka Le Grec, Eggy and Dubois given over to a spate of affectionate bickering, Antonio the waiter appealing to some Italian-Albanian heaven each time Eggy thundered with truth on his side; and the air smelled like October. It seemed I was clapping eyes on the Traymore for the first time, noting the smell of the foyer’s radiator heat; appreciating the fact that the lit stairs were not as gloomy as some I had known, the wainscoting a nice touch. I gained the carpeting at the top of the stairs that Mrs Petrova, by way of Herculean labour once a week, managed to keep presentable. I had no intention, after all, of stepping into Moonface’s domain; it smacked too much of a violation; though I might have had good cause; as Suzie Q could have inadvertently left the gas on or water running or some such thing. I inserted my key in its lock, and then I noted I was being watched. And yes, there was Prentiss at her door in one of her long cotton shirts, her bare toe rubbing a bare ankle. She regarded me with a look I could only describe as emanating from a distant place; and it did cross my mind that the woman was insane. I was, for a brief instant, alarmed. I had not been witness to the infamous episode when she had an apparent breakdown, prancing about starkers in the hall, ornamented with a pink boa, packing a gun; but I reminded myself that she was capable of anything. Even so, it was clear she had no intention of speaking, of communicating with me in any time-honoured mode. Space and time did fall away; and perhaps, in her eyes I did not exist, or I was but an object, some pebble of interesting colour and shape and yet, not in the end collectible. It was a strange, near violent juxtaposition: those dead, watery eyes consecrated to sorrow, the infinitely malicious smile. One could only hope that the world that occasioned her contemplation was worth the scrutiny. Aphrodite, her left knee bent … Indeed, her pose was that of an ingénue, casual and mocking, however weighty her thoughts. Philosophy, religion, folk wisdom, magic rite, and even science—it was
all there compacted in her gaze that extended from one point of a centreless universe to another, and who knew what cosmic wind was at its back? And just then, she placed a hand on her belly and held it there. I signalled with a nod that I recognized her existence, and this gesture seemed to break the spell; and she was momentarily startled. You? I escaped into my apartment, not disturbed so much as thoughtful. I had had a conversation the language of which was no language my intellect could grasp and yet, my body knew, and the knowing would kick in at some point down the line. I could look forward to an evening of documentary-viewing, something to do with a phenomenon known as black money, world-wide high level bribery, in other words; and there was BBC news, and there was Letterman, if I managed to stay awake. Have you got any money? I don’t have any money. Where’s all the money gone? Walmart has all the money. Sally McCabe manifested; she had the air of a woman revisiting old haunts.

  ‘You’re such a putz, Calhoun,’ she let me know, her nose prettily wrinkled, her smile a genial force.

  ‘That I am.’

  ‘People are not moral as such,’ she mused, ‘but they tend to adhere to the rules as they are understood, and the thing about rules is that one may bend them once in a while, and this is an understood, if not expected, prominent feature of the Great Plan. Otherwise, one takes one’s pleasures when and where one is able. I have. You certainly have. Biarritz. Been there? Basque pelota. Ever heard of it? It’s said it’s a game that goes back to the ancient Greeks. But what do I care about such things? I’m just a pom-pom girl, teen slut with personable patter, and if I’ve been Isis in your eyes, I suspect I was an Apache princess in another life. Prentiss? Yes, she’s an interesting case, isn’t she? Now and then I come across her type in my travels. It might be overly generous on your part to consider her a strangely spiritual creature, however twisted. She’s bent right out of her tree. If she honours obscure deities, 5 will get you 10 she doesn’t even know their names. Well, I see you’re about to observe your evening services and I’m in the way. Ta-ta.’