by Louis Begley
Excerpts from a Notaben (undated and unnumbered)
Carvalho wakes me from a sleep like death. I don’t know how long the telephone had been ringing. He says, Come to my place, we are having a party. The dentist I told you about is here.
Is this a dream? I look at my alarm clock: ten-thirty. Morning? Night? The curtains are drawn. Meanwhile Carvalho keeps talking, telling me he is in the company suite, two floors up, they have food, he knows I have not eaten. Now I remember the dentist: a German who settled in Rio soon after the war. Made Carvalho’s front teeth. Knows everybody. In the background people are laughing over the sound of samba. My voice sounds like hell when I answer. I say I have a headache and need a bath. If I feel better, I will be up.
My face is beet red in the bathroom mirror. Reflection of the sun during all that time, I guess, even though I swam with my face in the water. I make the bath hot, because I still feel a chill, and pour in all the oils and gels I can find to fix my skin. Eventually I feel better and very hungry, so why not go to Carvalho’s? One never knows what to wear in Rio: an open shirt and blue jeans or one’s best dark suit. I decide on the former and soon knock on his door.
Large living room, larger than in my suite, with a giant television. Very brightly lit. I see four, maybe five, young women, girls really, young and blond, some men who must be Americans according to their girths and haircuts (judgment confirmed first by their speech and then by introductions; chemical-engineer types working for Rawlson or Carvalho), an older woman in black with unnatural anthracite hair, and Carvalho himself talking to a man who must be sixty, very sharp in a blue silk outfit. This must be the dentist. I approach and shake hands. Dr. Willi knows all about me. We get onto New York café society, and again he knows everyone. There isn’t a single old biddy whose bridgework he hasn’t fixed. Hauls out a pale lizard wallet to show me the X ray of Mary Lasker’s jaw! I laugh and ask if he is in love with her. Quick as a wink, he tells me he is no Hans Castorp, ha! ha! ha! So nice we both like high literature, not true? Wants to look at my teeth and gums. I almost bite his hand, but not before he observes the inflammation of the lower right quadrant. I don’t know how this gets us on the subject of the war, but as I eat my cold roast beef he tells me he was with the Wehrmacht on the eastern front and was lucky to be taken prisoner by the Americans near Salzburg, after the retreat. Then got to Brazil via Trieste. I inform him of my presence on the same front, in a manner of speaking, and we examine that subject and its effect on the formation of our respective characters dispassionately—as he puts it, like men of the world.
Carvalho has left us. Probably bored by ancient history. I ask Dr. Willi who are the bimbos and the dame des toilettes. Even as we converse, my consciousness of the minuteness of their dresses in relation to their busts, posteriors, and thighs has been growing, unchecked. Ah, he says, they are my little protégées, he says, good German girls from the state of Rio Grande in the south, near Porto Alegre. He goes on to explain that there are whole towns where nothing but the language of the Führer is spoken, so that’s where he finds them, that’s how he is able to introduce them to his special patients and friends.
Scales fall from my eyes. It’s the stars. In my life, sex and dentistry are to be inextricably allied.
There is one I know will be just right for you, the Doctor continues. Allow me.
A gesture and she stands before me, smiling. A picture postcard from Tyrol, curly haired and blue eyed. Her name is Lotte. The old pander is right. I like her. How long is it since I left Paris? I think I will faint if I touch the skin on her arm. The details of her costume sink in: her particular miniskirt is flared—rayon, green leaves and yellow flowers on a background of white; she is wearing a poor little girl’s white sweater, washed many times over and very clean. It buttons down the front. Herr Doktor points to a love seat. Sit down, he says, and get acquainted.
We do as told and right away she curls up so that her knees are pressed against my legs. I watch the blond, almost white, baby down on her thighs, knees, and calves. Before I realize what I am doing, I stroke her thigh. Since in the act I lean over her, she opens her mouth for me to kiss. It is very wet. She has a large, unhurried tongue. If I come, she will see the stain spread, and I almost want her to; it will be my homage. Instead, although my heart is pounding, I recover enough to break the kiss and try conversation. She laughs at my kitchen Spanish. German works better; the sort of things I want to say about her eyes, lips, etc., can still be managed. It turns out she speaks clearly, in German and in Portuguese. I am now touching her freely. She has maneuvered so that her forearm is on me.
We are interrupted. It’s Carvalho, the Doctor, and Carvalho’s men. They have a tape measure and want to get the dimensions of Lotte’s breasts. I see that the other girls are already topless. It seems to be a competition. They ask if I want to do the measuring. I leave it to the Doctor; he is a scientist. Lotte’s nipples stiffen under his touch. Chairs are pulled up in a semicircle before us. Some of the girls sit down also. We are all drinking pinga and crushed lime. It’s deadly. I get Lotte to button her sweater and put my arm around her. How sweet, exclaims the pipi-room matron, little lovebirds—like an engaged couple!
A lapse of time, during which I notice nothing because Lotte is kissing me. Her breasts burn holes in my shirt. Then she stops and says it’s terrible, she will never do it, not even with me. I look where she is pointing. One of the girls, now quite undressed, has broken out of the other room, followed by Carvalho, the engineer, and the Doctor. She and Carvalho are screaming at the pipi-room lady. The engineer is complaining in English, so I begin to understand. When the Doctor joined him and Carvalho on the girl, it hurt. She is willing to go back with two, but not three, and that’s what they do.
The pool is lit. Around it, shadows numberless. Emerald waves when Lotte dives in. She is a good swimmer. I think I see the triangle of her hair when she turns. Back and forth, back and forth, there is no reason why she should ever stop. Carvalho’s men are making too much noise. Drunken giggling. Soon, some guest will call the reception to complain, but not yet; no light switch has been turned; the windows look on blindly. The Doctor tells me he takes care of these girls’ mouths. Doesn’t make them pay—couldn’t afford to, anyway. He assures me they are clean: like young cows. A good mouth means good digestion.
Lotte is at the metal ladder. I rush to her side with a tablecloth I have snatched from our table. Don’t want the others staring through verdurous glooms. At once, she enters my mouth.
The Doctor reproves me for having covered her. It’s foolish, he says, running his hand over her shoulder. You are treating her like a debutante. She is here for the guests to share. You leave Rio tomorrow. She will be coming to many parties.
I know that, but something is tugging wildly at my heart. An absurdity. Until the thing is consummated, where is the difference between a virgin and a whore? I pull Lotte to her feet. While she staggers in her high heels, looking for her bra, her comb—I see that her worn-out pocketbook is broken—the laughing Doctor and I shake hands. Then, cautiously, up the back stairs, I lead Lotte to my room. Private policemen with truncheons watch over the dignity of my part of this hotel. I don’t want to tangle with them.
She likes papaya, and coffee with milk and sweet rolls. She is very clean. The Doctor is right. Her mouth is fresh like a mountain source. I am inside it when the phone rings. A woman’s voice, speaking German too fast for me to understand. I disengage and hand the receiver to Lotte. Long conversation, which makes me think of Paul and his sense of timing. It’s my lady of the pipi room. Lotte tells me she is coming up to be paid. She is miffed because Carvalho left the hotel without paying and she has had to go looking for her girls’ customers from floor to floor.
I don my bathrobe and meet her in the living room. She asks for a pittance—hardly worth making this house call—and I ask that she repeat the figure. I understood correctly, so I give her vastly more and say I will be keeping the girl for some days.
My Lotte wants to go to the hairdresser and also home to get her bikinis and heavens knows what else before we set out for Angra. I tell her by all means to have her hair done and to buy the rest at the beach shop downstairs and offer to come with her if necessary. She seems quite pleased by the idea of shopping.
The plane—like a gracious water bug—waited for them at the old airport named for the aviator Santos Dumont just beyond the Praia do Flamengo. The man checking the passports and the pilot, businesslike in a gray suit, gave Lotte curious looks, and Ben half regretted that she had bought anonymous jeans and a shirt to wear on the plane. Contrary to his feeling the evening before, he would have liked to exhibit her such as he knew she was—in her tart’s skirt and platform shoes. Dressed in white jeans and a white cotton shirt, carrying the white leather duffel bag into which he told her to put the rest of her belongings, she looked like any girl from Ipanema, unless there were dead giveaway signs that a native’s ear or eye would detect independently of dress—her accent? scarlet lipstick and long fingernails to match? And that was not what he wanted. From rooftops, if possible, urbi et orbi, he would have liked it proclaimed that he, circumspect and fastidious Ben, was going on holiday with a call girl procured by a Nazi dentist, that he would mount her until they both groaned with exhaustion, and then, lying by her side, he would stroke her fat white rump while she taught him bad little girl’s secret German words for each thing they had done or would soon do.
The shoreline passed in review under them. He recognized the end of the beach at Sao Conrado and soon the plane veered to the right to follow the strange long sandbar of Marambaia. They had entered the Bay of Sepetiba; their destination was at its western end, across from the Ilha Grande. The plane was flying so low that Ben could see each wrinkle on the water, the smoke rising from occasional chimneys on the tiny green islands that did not appear even as dots on the pilot’s map. Lotte squealed—was it fear or excitement?—each time the plane lurched. There was a strong wind, offshore. Then the pilot pointed and Ben saw the landing strip. It was a narrow rectangle of red earth, surrounded by red-earthen walls on three sides, smoothly carved out in the side of the mountain that closed the bay. The plane headed suicidally for the wall at the far end, quickly turned, and came to a trembling halt. Heavy, moist heat enveloped them as they stepped out. A Volkswagen bus was waiting, its windshield covered by red dust.
Their room, itself whitewashed, was at the end of a long white building. Under voluminous mosquito netting stood a narrow bed. A trickle of tepid, brackish water ran from the shower. There was a chest of drawers, a black wooden table, and two black wooden chairs. The driver of the bus, who had taken them to the room, assured Ben that no other rooms, with large beds, were to be had. On the way they had passed through the dining room, with long tables being prepared for dinner. There was but one service, at eight. In the combination bar and salon, dozens of overweight parents and children were gathered before a television set that, although turned to what seemed maximum volume, could be heard only with difficulty in the noise of conversation. When Ben asked for a drink to take to the room, the waiter produced a bottle of beer and a bottle of mineral water. There was wine to be had, but not before dinner. Although Carvalho’s description, to which the Hotel do Tio had so far conformed, should have prepared him for this, the feeling of having made a mistake descended upon Ben—in his case usually the precursor of guilt, depression, and anger. He began to wonder whether he could make the plane return for them that very evening. It could take them to Cabo Frio—the same distance from Rio, only in the other direction. There was nothing to stop him, for that matter, from taking Lotte to Uruguay, to Punta del Este, or, since one did not absolutely have to be on the beach, to Buenos Aires. At least he would be offering her something that she might like, that she was not accustomed to. Afterward, she could go back to Rio and he would fly directly to New York. Beginning to plan how to explain these choices to her in German with all the consequential complexities of transportation, and to enlist her in translating into Portuguese the necessary instructions to be given at the hotel and over the telephone, he turned in her direction. She had taken off her shirt and her shoes. The window of the room gave on the sea. She was standing before it, crying very quietly. What is the matter? he asked her. I am so happy, she replied, this room is beautiful. I want to stay here forever.
IN THE MORNING Ben found out that all the motorboats and sailing dinghies belonging to the hotel had been rented or reserved. Only one beach could be reached on foot: it was meager and already covered with the bodies of fellow guests. He sensed that Lotte was not a useful intermediary in dealing with the manager. He sought the man out himself and, in a mixture of Spanish and English, explained how highly recommended the hotel had been by Dr. Alvaro de Carvalho of Rio. The name was the right password—Ben wondered why it had not been noted with his reservation and whether, had he used it the previous day, a room with a large bed might not have suddenly become available. He was reluctant to change now, his room having overnight acquired magic characteristics of its own. When the manager returned, it was with a placid old man with huge hands and calloused bare feet. Wellington was a fisherman and porter. He could not let them have his boat because he needed it for his business. But he would take Ben and the senhorita to island beaches each morning and return to fetch them at an agreed hour. This suited Ben. He would let the old man choose the desert rock upon which to abandon them. The manager prepared a basket of bread, white Minas cheese, wine, and water.
Wellington explained in words and gestures that the beach they were heading for was the best in the bay, with large trees to offer shade. The island was uninhabited, except for one small farm on the other side, and it had no name. They would not be disturbed. He pointed to a dense jungle of palm trees and ferns rising up from the shining water less than two kilometers away.
They were slow in arriving. The sun was so intense that the boards of the boat burned their feet. Perhaps twenty meters from shore, in shallow water, Wellington put the engine in reverse and brought the boat to a stop. They took their provisions, climbed out, and, legs in the water, waved good-bye to Wellington.
The silky water was warm and translucent. As they waded to the beach, schools of minnows chased one another, and shadows of slightly larger fish flickered over a bottom that seemed half sand and half sticky clay. Multicolored feathers floated on the surface. The beach belonged to birds, which sat in the branches of the trees or circled overhead, raucous and domineering. With a handful of fern leaves, Lotte swept a space clear of the droppings that covered the sand. They put the food in the shade, took off their clothes, and lay down in the water. Later, they swam. When they returned to the beach, two very domestic-looking hens picking insects from the sand looked up startled, then hurried down a path into the jungle. Ben and Lotte followed them. In the middle of a clearing they saw a hut with more hens and a large rooster. So the single habitation was not on the other side of the island, as Wellington had claimed, but quite near, almost within earshot of the beach. Cautiously they approached and looked in through the window, an unglazed opening in the wall. Inside they could see only an army cot, its canvas stained and torn. But there must have been a presence; someone must have filled the basin from which the hens drank. Although they returned to the island each day during the week that followed, they never saw the hens again and did not solve the mystery.
Notaben 401, dated 16/12/70:
Lotte dozes in the shade. I read in my battered copy of Les liaisons dangereuses.
Her right buttock is my lectern. She is so tame that the rhythm of her breathing doesn’t change as I turn the pages. Yesterday, as I was reading in the same position, her innate trust stirred me; so as not to lose my place, I put the book facedown in the sand and entered very gently, from the rear. She was ready. The light upward pressure of my hand on this same buttock was enough to open her. And she slept on.
No, I am not playing Valmont on Robinson Crusoe’s island, i
f I write a mock love letter to V it will not be in a folio I have balanced on Lotte’s posterior. The explanation for Les liaisons in this place, with this companion, is chaste. Traveling light, always eager to better myself, I settled on this text to help purge my French of anglicisms and Parisian grime and took no other. If as it happens it has been also of assistance twice today in ways that are more to the point here, that is pure good luck.
In fact, my “mechanism” is quite different from Valmont’s. A woman he can have he does not want. I am unable to keep my hands, etc., off Lotte precisely because she is so available. I am tempted to add so passive, because what she does, and she does plenty, is done solely in response to my need. How long this harmony could last is a question we need not answer.
Example: The moment when my feeling for the Cockney reached that place, low down in my entrails, which is unfailingly stirred at moments of true complicity with another.
We stop at rue du C-M, quite innocently, so I can drop off my briefcase and wash my face before going on to an opening. She precedes me up the stairs to my bedroom, and I watch her heavy, English rear with satisfaction. Once in my room, she pulls open the drawer where my shirts are stored, opens her pocketbook, takes from it the round, white plastic case with her diaphragm inside, and places it under a stack of striped shirts in which pink predominates.