by Sara Davis
“Excuse me,” he said, calling over the waitress. “Could I have a glass of iced water?”
I wished he would not address her quite so loudly, and felt a fleeting alliance with her, against him, and hoped she would not notice his untouched tea.
Then he turned his attention back to me. It was clear now that he had made a decision and was about to inform me of it.
“If I were you,” he said, “I’d withdraw. Before the committee meets. In fact, I’d do it today.”
“It’s Saturday,” I said.
He made a gesture of impatience, but he had his own agenda now, and that trumped the irrelevance of what I’d said.
“On Monday, then.”
“Monday,” I repeated, nodding. How useless, I thought. All this, so far, was meaningless. But then he said something I did not expect.
“I’m going to have them make you an offer. I mean, at the med school. You can withdraw from here.” He gestured vaguely out the window at, I presumed, the city of Ottawa. “You can take some time, let’s say two, three months, just to clear your head, and we’ll get something together for you.”
I lowered my cup of tea slowly back to the safety of its saucer. “Something together?” I said, and he raised his palm.
“Just something administrative, you know, nothing glamorous, while you figure things out, but it’ll carry you through.”
“I—” I tried again. “In California?”
He gave me a strange look.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “In California.”
He seemed to think of something else then—like he was poised on the brink of it, unsure. Then he decided: yes, he would proceed.
“I haven’t…” he began, and I saw that he was no longer at ease; his eyes flicked across the tablecloth, avoiding mine.
“Always been the best at … keeping in touch,” he said, finally. He shook his head, as though he were disagreeing with himself. “But the past is in the past.”
And now there was a little silence, a pause, in which he could not even bring himself to look at me, to see how I’d received this. Of course, I thought, I understood the transaction now: job offer as apology for a lifetime of neglect. It was clear to me, and yet I was not made of stone; I could not help but thaw to him a little.
“That’s very generous of you,” I said. “The offer, I mean.”
He shrugged. The waitress had brought over his ice water by now, and gingerly, as if one could not be sure even of such a familiar beverage in an establishment like this, he took a sip.
“Think it over, if you want,” he said.
I nodded. I had a brief, hideous vision of myself in a convertible, driving down a sunny avenue lined with palms. The conversation with my father and its unexpected offer of employment had cast my present situation in a different light. It was probably foolish to think that a provincial, gray, rain-soaked place could keep me happy for a lifetime. And it was true that the love affair had given me pleasure, but a little voice, one I’d done my very best to ignore, told me I would never have it quite the way I wanted. After all, I thought, I was only twenty-three. Was there not, I thought, some other, better love around the corner?
* * *
By the time this long and strange remembrance of my father was over, my spaghetti had grown cold. I had to start the microwave again. When it was done, I sat down at the plastic table and ate—the noodles now unpleasantly rubbery—in silence.
18
It was just like me, I thought, back at my desk again, to dwell on the past. I had not thought of that visit of my father’s in a long time, perhaps not in years, and I had been taken aback by just how vivid it had been. Still, there was nothing to be gained from going over matters like that again and again, like a dog with a bone.
Out of habit, I shuffled a pile of papers on my desk, re-capped a pen, and straightened a few things. It was just, I thought with a heavy heart, the kind of thing a glorified secretary would do. What a strange way to pass the day: to encounter a stranger in the break room, then to overhear by chance an unflattering remark about yourself, and then, somehow as a consequence, to be lost in a long, detailed, and remarkably realistic daydream about a visit your father paid you more than twenty years ago! It was no wonder I— But that was when I saw that, amid my flurry of tidying and rearranging, I had taken the folded piece of stationery out of my pocket and spread it flat against my desk with the palm of my hand. Not the one I’d found in the pocket of my father’s coat, but the one the guest lecturer had given me in the Arboretum, the one with the name Daniel Shriver written on it, in clearly legible script, as if whoever had written it could not afford to be misunderstood. I spread it flat again; I smoothed it a second time with my palm, more slowly, like I was stroking a cat. But, I thought, what are you thinking of doing here? With my index finger I traced the two convergent lines of the cross and the steeple.
Then another thought bubbled up: Wasn’t that quite enough second-guessing? If the day’s dillydallying had taught me anything, it was that now was a time for action. Indolence is the forerunner of death, I thought. I had read that somewhere, I was sure. I took a deep breath, picked up the telephone, and dialed the number for the Old Mission Hotel.
Perhaps this time—I thought—and then there was a click, and a slight pause, and then a cool, impersonal voice said, “Hello? Mr. Shriver? We’ve been expecting your call.
“Hello? Are you there?”
I cleared my throat. With considerable effort I produced a hoarse, “Yes.”
“We’ve been trying to reach you,” said the voice, and of course I recognized it immediately, it was the smooth-faced young man from the reception desk, the one who’d told me my watch had stopped.
“I see,” I said. Somehow, events were moving out of my control, and I had a perverse desire to simply hang up the phone and walk out of my office, to never hear the name Daniel Shriver again.
“About your bag,” said the young man.
“About my bag,” I parroted. “Yes.”
“It seems you left it behind during your stay.”
“Yes,” I said again.
“Should I send it to the address on file?”
I felt like a man swimming deep in the ocean, trying to read a sign being held above the surface. The man was clearly speaking to me, but nothing he was saying was making any sense. The address on file. The image of the open house sign, sitting like a white bird on the lawn, flitted through my mind’s eye. Laboriously, I thought it through. Nothing would be gained by having the bag sent there.
“No, thank you,” I said, finding my voice at last. “I can come pick it up myself.”
“That is excellent news,” said the young man, and his tone suggested he really was pleased by it. “When can we expect you?”
I eyed the little clock on my shelf—it was now ten minutes to one. I could be there in twenty-five minutes, if I didn’t dawdle. I was just about to propose this time to the voice on the telephone when it occurred to me that perhaps there was something undignified about dropping everything and rushing over right away. The Swedish policeman, for example, would not have done so; I was sure of it. If he was no Stepin Fetchit, then neither would I be.
“Five,” I said, “around then.”
“Excellent,” said the voice on the other end. “We’ll have it waiting for you.”
* * *
After what seemed like an eternity of waiting it was a quarter to five, and I gathered up my things and prepared to leave. All afternoon my thoughts had been circling around the phone call and the mysterious piece of luggage I was about to claim, circling and circling like water circles a drain. As I passed the mailboxes in the hallway I stuck my hand out and patted the inside of mine. The gesture was pure habit, and I’d already gotten the mail that day, so I was startled when my fingers brushed up against something. I stopped. What was it?
It was a single sheet of paper, a flyer advertising an upcoming lecture. I would not have given it a second thought
were it not for the bizarre title, which read, in block letters, AMERICAN HOLOCAUST. The speaker was being hosted by the history department, read the information below, as part of an ongoing lecture series, and here was a grainy photo of the speaker himself, a strong-featured older man with white hair, wearing a dark V-neck sweater. For a moment I had a flicker of recognition—I’ve seen this man before! But the feeling just as quickly dissipated. Not everything is connected, I thought, weary of myself. He was merely like countless academics before him: pale and besweatered. His name looked vaguely French.
Well, that was just ridiculous, I thought, crumpling the flyer up into a ball and dropping it in the wastepaper basket. This was a university, not a tabloid newspaper. American Holocaust indeed, I thought, shaking my head; everyone knew that such a thing did not exist.
19
I drove west through campus, and when I reached the oleander-lined driveway of the Old Mission Hotel, the foothills in the distance were just beginning to purple, and I could see above the hedge that the late-afternoon sun had steeped the red-tiled roof in a burnished coppery color. It really was a lovely building, I thought, with its gently sloping lines and thick white walls, to which the fading light had lent a rosy glow. Its loveliness has stayed with me. I can’t seem to cancel my intention of going back to visit it, though of course there are many reasons that is no longer possible; I am told that not a brick remains.
It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom of the lobby. Here, I saw, day or night had no meaning, the same bluish light suffused the windowless space at all hours, and the same faint music pulsed from the omnipresent sound system. My own pulse gave a little shudder and skip forward when I caught sight of the smooth-faced young man behind the reception desk—but, I thought, get ahold of yourself. Of course the young man is here, you only just spoke with him on the phone. If you’re going to have a small heart attack each time you encounter an employee of the hotel, how exactly do you plan to solve a murder?
He was in the middle of helping a professional-looking young woman with dark hair and a suitcase beside her; they were conferring in low tones, and if he’d noticed my arrival at all, he gave no sign. Someone had added a vase of white lilies to the front desk, their stamens slick with yellow pollen, and though I was standing several yards away, I could smell their funereal scent distinctly. To my right I could see that the dark wooden bar was open for business, the row of red votive candles had been lit, and a few patrons with drinks were scattered along its length. I had the impression that the hotel was now more robust, somehow, more lively, than it had been the first night, when I’d crossed the lobby with the intoxicated guest lecturer, as if that had only been a dress rehearsal, and this was the real thing. But this, I reflected, was mere silly imagining; of course it had been a hotel, and to the same degree, all along.
The woman in front of me concluded her business with the front desk, snapped the handle of her suitcase smartly, and rolled it away, its wheels squeaking on the spotless floor, and suddenly the reality of my project came fully to bear. When I approached the desk I would be masquerading as Daniel Shriver, whoever that was, who had come to retrieve a bag he’d left behind. Really it should not fill me with dread the way it did. People did it all the time. The Swedish policeman— But before I could think what exactly the Swedish policeman would have done, I saw that the smooth-faced young man had finally noticed me. Looking up from his desk, he beckoned me forward with a small smile.
“How can I help you?”
“Hello,” I said, stiffer than I would have liked. “I left a bag behind. Here,” I added unhelpfully.
“Oh yes,” said the man. “What was the name?”
I was suddenly overcome with embarrassment; I felt like an actor in a bad play. “Daniel Shriver,” I said begrudgingly.
The young man nodded at the mention of “my” name and gave every indication that he was about to set some bag-retrieval process in motion, until he stopped completely, his attention suddenly arrested by something else. Following his line of sight, I saw that it was the bouquet of white lilies I had noticed before on the counter; they had wept a light, powdery dusting of yellow pollen onto the black surface.
“Excuse me for a moment,” said the young man. Without warning, he dipped behind the counter and surfaced holding a small cloth, which he used to wipe away the offending pollen—a fastidious gesture, like a woman wiping away a bit of makeup. I watched, transfixed.
“Sorry about that,” said the smooth-faced young man. He gave me his little smile again. It was warm but impersonal, like the smile of a young Buddha.
“Yes, your bag, Mr. Shriver,” he went on. “How could I forget? We spoke on the phone earlier, if I’m not mistaken.”
I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry again. Did he recognize me, I wondered, from the night we’d crossed paths in the lobby and he’d told me my watch had stopped? Would he put two and two together—and suspect? But it occurred to me, of course—I could have been “Daniel Shriver” then, too.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s me.”
The young man appeared to check something below my line of sight.
“Oh, that’s right,” he said brightly, looking up. “We did have your bag, but your representative has already picked it up for you.”
“My—” I said. “I’m sorry. My what?”
“Yes,” said the smooth-faced young man, as if this were all to be expected. He gave no sign that he noticed my agitation. “Don’t worry, she hasn’t gone far.”
“She?” I managed to get out.
“Yes,” said the young man, and he thought for a second, remembering. With a look and a slight tilt of the head, he indicated the other end of the lobby.
“She’s at the bar.”
* * *
How unpredictable life is, I thought. In the morning one is a glorified secretary, and at night one’s “representative” has retrieved a bag one has attempted to pick up while masquerading as someone else.
I thanked the young man and made my way toward the bar. I was strangely calm, as if this were how I had imagined my evening unfolding all along. It was clear that the young man at the front desk found nothing odd in the arrangement. As I approached the bar, I scanned its patrons for anyone obviously attached to a piece of luggage, but I saw nothing more remarkable than a few women with handbags. I cast a glance back at the reception desk, but the young man was already helping a new set of guests, a harried-looking couple with a small, fidgety child. I turned my attention back to the bar. There was, I saw, one female figure who appeared to be unaccompanied, and the more I studied her the more I had a strong impression of familiarity, like the whiff of a familiar scent. I know the set of those shoulders, I thought; I know that brassy hair. I had approached this particular hair-and-shoulder combination not so long ago, from the very same angle, amid the blue skies and birdsong of the Arboretum. So this was my representative, I thought. It was the guest lecturer.
I stood somehow immobilized a yard or two behind her, like a butler waiting at table. Tonight she was wearing a suit very similar to the one she’d worn the night we’d met, except instead of lavender, this one was white. White jacket, white pants. Who was she, and why had she decided to attach herself to me? Not only to my waking life, but to my dreams. I looked around her for a bag of any kind but saw only on the bar in front of her a long red lacquered-looking pouch. Clearly a woman’s, clearly not Daniel Shriver’s, clearly not a suitcase. There was no bag, I realized. It was all a bizarre ploy to bring me face-to-face with the guest lecturer again.
Just then there was a loud crash from the front end of the lobby. The vase of white lilies had fallen to the floor in front of the reception desk and shattered. Water was dripping steadily from the counter’s lip, and the mother was remonstrating with her little boy, her hand viselike on his arm.
When I turned back to the bar, the guest lecturer was gone.
In her place, balanced on the stool she had recently vacated, was an object I recognize
d, a slim leather briefcase, its gold buckles glowing faintly in the candlelight. I looked around me, to the dimly lit couches, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Excuse me, did you see the woman who was sitting here?”
I had spoken to the bartender, who had materialized in front of me, tall and unfriendly-looking, with a grid-like tattoo peeking out from under each shirtsleeve. In answer to my question, he gave me a quizzical look.
“Yes,” he said. His voice was deep, and not a jot friendlier than the look of its owner.
“Do you know if she’s staying here at the hotel?” I asked, attempting a breezy tone. I was met with silence, then an arch look, and then the bartender began polishing a glass with a white cloth napkin. It occurred to me suddenly that because of the way my question was phrased, he might suspect me of harboring romantic inclinations toward the guest lecturer, and I hurried to acquit myself of this suspicion.
“It’s just that I think she may have forgotten her bag,” I said, with a gratuitous gesture at the briefcase.
We studied the bag together. The implausibility of it was immediately apparent. The briefcase, as I had remarked earlier on my first visit to the Old Mission Hotel, just did not go with the woman.
“Or,” I said, “it may be mine, come to think of it.”
Now that I had embarked upon this grotesque conversation, I was having trouble drawing it to a close. The bartender seemed not to have even a glimmer of interest in what I did with the briefcase in front of me, and yet words continued to pour out of me like water from a tap.
“The man at the front desk told me someone had picked something up for me. I wonder if this could be it?”
Some time ago, over by the front desk, the little boy who’d knocked over the flowers had begun to wail, his high voice rising against the background of the ambient music like a mourner’s, and now he grew louder and more piercing, making it difficult to think clearly. And yet, I thought, what is there to think? The bartender was still blank-eyed, polishing his glass. I made a pretense of looking the briefcase over, of lifting it by the handle and turning it from side to side, and then, feeling more and more like a third-rate understudy, I produced a little crowing noise of recognition.