Midnight at the Tuscany Hotel

by James Markert

  John approached next, smiling large. Behind him, Beverly was smiling too. Clearly, she wasn’t only hanging around to watch over her grandmother. She and John had been hit by Cupid’s arrow, and they couldn’t stop glancing at each other. Vitto’s first notion was to punch John in the stomach because the obvious exchange of affection was making him nauseated. Instead he just faced John head-on, without a specific story to tell.

  John spoke first. “What are you crying for, Gandy?”

  “I’m not.” He wiped his eyes again. The top of his hand came back wet. “It’s the wind.”

  John looked around as if to find it, but then looked back a little flummoxed.

  Okay, so it’s the water. It made all the old people able to remember, and it made Vitto an emotional mess. At this point he didn’t know what he would prefer, memory of everything or memory of nothing.

  They stared at each other for a few beats, like neither one of them had a story to tell, when Vitto knew darn well that they both did. Plenty of stories, probably, and none of them the good kind.

  “All right, Gandy, since your tongue seems to be stuck in the mud, here we go. Every night I still cry out because of my war nightmares.”

  Vitto chuckled because it was so easy. So simple, too, just like John. “Truth, John. Drink up. That was a dumb story.”

  John laughed, pointed with his glass. “You drink up, Gandy. Because I made it up.”

  “You didn’t make that up. We hear you crying out every night. The entire hotel does.”

  John lowered his face toward Vitto as if to plant one on him and then lowered his voice. “My nightmares are gone, Gandy. That water brought ’em back up, but then it cleared ’em out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Barrel of sunshine, Gandy. My nightmares are gone.” He looked over his shoulder toward Beverly, who now stood listening to a story from an animated Robert, and added, “I’m just pretending to have them now.”

  “Why would you do that?” asked Vitto, and then it dawned on him. Lately, Beverly had been the first one to come running when the screaming started. She’d taken to holding John’s hand and rubbing his back and smoothing down his sweaty head of wheat-colored hair.

  “So you’re a liar?”

  “But for a good cause, Gandy. I’ll wind it down eventually, but I’ve never been this close to having a woman interested in me, and I want to make sure things stick, you know?”

  “Not really, no.”

  John wouldn’t be derailed. He smiled again and winked. “Drink up, Gandy.”

  Vitto drank, wiped his mouth, cursed the moisture still puddled in his eyes. He watched John move on to the next victim, hopefully with a better story than what he’d just had to endure. And he reached quickly to wipe his eyes again. If one more person asked him if he was crying, he decided, he’d just chug the rest of his drink and head up early. Shouldn’t have come down in the first place. The water was messing with his mind, and not in a good way.

  Next he was confronted by a man in his fifties, who said his memories had started going early, right about age forty-nine, and the doctors had been completely confused by his early senility. Said he felt like he’d been dealt a brand-new hand at life now that he was at the hotel. Vitto listened but was also trying to focus on a story to tell. He finally went with a story he’d used often during last call, about the day he and Valerie met when they were kids. Most people thought it sounded too much like a fairy tale and assumed he’d made it up. But this guy immediately said, “You’re telling the truth.”

  He’d guessed right—except it didn’t sound like a guess, more like he already knew. Then he confirmed it, pointing across the piazza toward Valerie, who was telling a story to an old woman with poorly dyed black hair and a movie-star dress that didn’t quite fit anymore. “That your wife?”

  Vitto followed his finger, nodded.

  The man patted him on the shoulder. “She told me the same story last night.”

  Vitto took his mandatory sip, and after five more minutes of bouncing from guest to guest, his glass was empty. Probably for the best; his head hadn’t been in the game. Whatever edge he’d once had, he’d apparently lost. He blinked, and a tear dripped down his cheek. As the cluster of active players dwindled, Vitto found himself sitting on the lip of the mosaic fountain, listening to the water trickle. The moon cast a shadow of Robert’s fountain statue across the travertine. The god of time stretched across the stones as old people unknowingly stepped on him. In his shadow arms was the goddess of memory. At his feet, the goddess of forgetfulness.

  Vitto was thirsty for more wine now that he’d started. But instead of crossing to the bar, he dipped his empty glass into the fountain water and drank it while he watched the game play out. He counted fifteen people left, and Cowboy Cane was still going strong with his train story, probably adding to the lies with every person he told it to. He had Valerie in his grasp now, and she was trying not to laugh—Vitto could tell from how her chin quivered and the left corner of her mouth twitched. She looked good in her purple dress, her feet bare against the stone. She was carefree like that.

  Vitto had unknowingly finished off his water and gone into the fountain for a second scoop. Tears flowed now, big wet ones like raindrops, but silent—just enough for him to let it all go but not be noticed. Cold tears, too, unlike any he’d ever experienced. Cold like the memory of ice and snow at Pont-á-Mousson. Cold like frostbitten toes and the pale skin of the frozen dead. He downed the second glass and cried so much his eyes were blurry.

  Valerie was out of the game now. She’d fallen for the cowboy’s scam and was across the way talking to Elenore Eaves. The game was down to ten now, and John was one of them. So was his woman, Beverly, and they were exchanging glances like a pair of lovestruck teenagers. But Vitto found that he didn’t mind the flirting. For some reason he felt unconcerned, even peaceful, like he’d been given some morphine from the war or ether from the military hospital.

  John nodded toward him. Vitto finished off a third glass of water and nodded back. And then John did a double take because he must have just noticed the tears dripping down into a puddle between Vitto’s Oxfords.

  Vitto was feeling it now, the fountain water churning through him like a storm front. He dipped the wineglass into the fountain a fourth time and chugged it so fast that some dripped down his neck and wet his collar. “I’ve got a story to tell,” he said aloud.

  They didn’t hear him at first. Did I slur? Is it possible to get drunk off this water? So he said it again, louder this time, interrupting the game. “Excuse me! I’ve got a story to tell. Several stories, actually.”

  John stepped closer, spoke under his breath. “You okay, Gandy?”

  “Never been better, John.” Vitto wiped his face. Probably should have felt like a fool, but instead he felt oddly right with the world. “There was this time,” he said, all eyes on him. “There was this time.” Why am I smiling? Crying and smiling at the same time. “During the attack on Berg. I was selected to crawl behind enemy lines. There was a Nazi pillbox holding up our platoon’s advance. We wiggled like snakes. One minute Private Nelson—we called him Dandelion—he was crawling next to me. One minute he had a face. The next minute he didn’t. Happened too fast. I kept going, though. Like a good soldier.”

  John stepped toward him. “Gandy, let’s get you up to bed.”

  Vitto held him back, shook his head as more tears dripped. “I knocked the pillbox clear out with my bazooka and captured ten Nazis by myself. Marched them like little schoolchildren.” He’d migrated away from the fountain, where those left in the game had backed away to give him space. This wasn’t how last call was supposed to go, and they all looked confused. “In the town of Roermond,” said Vitto, “I accidentally shot a woman.”

  Robert said, “Vittorio, that’s enough.”

  “Not yet, it isn’t. Can’t ever be enough. Isn’t this why you wanted me to drink the water?” He tilted the empty glass back; findi
ng nothing, he tossed it to the ground, smashing it into dozens of pieces. “She fired from a window of an abandoned house, and I fired back. Innocent civilian from Holland. A Hollander. The Netherlands. Dutch—is that right?”

  No one answered. They stared, like they didn’t know if they should answer or ignore.

  Valerie’s soft voice broke the silence. “Vitto, that’s enough for tonight.”

  He shook his head, wiped tears that kept flowing, gesturing to everyone listening. “I don’t know if you know this, but I strangled my wife a few weeks ago. Nearly killed her. In my nightmare it was a Nazi.”

  “Vittorio.” It was Robert speaking. He’d never stopped Vitto from acting up before—the discipline had always been Magdalena’s or Juba’s job—so his use of Vitto’s full name as a warning now held little weight.

  Juba arrived from behind the bar and gently took Vitto’s elbow. Vitto walked with him willingly, but he stepped away again as they passed Robert, buying himself more time because the water wasn’t finished. “At Buchenwald . . . I learned what burnt Jews smelled like.” He nodded, took in all the horrified stares. Valerie was crying. “You know, a burnt Jew doesn’t smell any different than a burnt Gentile. Or a burnt Christian. Or a burnt atheist. Black smoke still comes up from the chimney, and it’s all the same. It’s this horrible smell that gets in your lungs. Makes you choke. That’s what wakes me up every night—the smell of bodies burning.”

  He walked back toward the fountain, and no one made a move to stop him. On the way he grabbed Cowboy Cane’s wineglass, which was still mostly full—the man was on his way to winning truth or lies again with his fabricated train story—and downed the wine. He then dipped the empty glass into the fountain water and drank that, too, his chin wet with water and drips of red, his eyes blurry and tear-filled.

  He faced the crowd, spotted his son hiding behind his mother’s leg, and plowed on anyway. “We didn’t know what we found at first. Like a hidden village in the woods. Tanks drove right over the electric barbed wire so fast the fence shorted out. We expected to see some Germans, but they were gone. We stood watching all that black smoke billow. Biggest chimney I’ve ever seen. Then all of a sudden these people started coming out. Ragged, real skinny, most of ’em in these prison uniforms that looked like pajamas. Vertical stripes. Dull gray. Dark blue.”

  Vitto wiped his eyes, set the glass down, and then sat beside it on the edge of the fountain, no longer shouting because he didn’t need to. He had everyone’s attention. “They crept out from in between the buildings. Out of holes and crevices, showing their hands. Skeletons with skin. Eyes sunken in like walking dead. ‘Don’t shoot.’ One spoke English, asked if we were American. Yes, we said. Joy touched their faces. We pointed our weapons to the ground, followed them inside the camp.”

  He stood from the fountain, started pacing. “That’s not accurate. The higher-ups went in first while we waited, stood guard. Left to wondering about that smell, that smoke. And then they came out. I’ll never forget the look in their eyes. Thought they’d seen every horror a war could stir up, but they hadn’t. They told us we were about to see what was called a concentration camp. About to see things we were in no way prepared for. They warned us to look just as long as our stomachs lasted.

  “On the main gate, German words were fashioned in iron: Jedem das Seine. ‘Everyone Gets What He Deserves.’” Vitto grinned, scratched a chin that quivered like his voice. “Nice design—kind of art deco. I heard it was made by somebody famous.” Juba’s big, muscular hand was on his elbow again, not in an attempt to lure him away anymore, but to comfort.

  “Go on.” It was John’s voice. “Let it out, Gandy.”

  “Barrel of sunshine,” said Vitto.

  “Barrel of sunshine,” repeated John, with little emotion. Beverly was hugging one of his arms, her head resting against his big shoulder.

  “Once inside, we followed our sergeant to the right, and there they were.” Vitto locked eyes with his wife. “Cover the boy’s ears, Val.” She did, but then Mrs. Eaves offered her hand, and William took it. She walked him back toward the kitchen and promised him a piece of chocolate. The gesture made Vitto tear up again.

  “Piles of naked bodies stacked like wood.” He showed them with his hands. “Bottom layer positioned north-south. Next layer east-west. Alternating up five feet high. Aisles of human bodies down the hill. Any arm that dangled free, Coopus—that was my CO—would tuck back in. Eyes that were open, Coopus would close. Stacks of humans all set to be thrown into the biggest set of ovens anyone could imagine.”

  He wiped his eyes again, exhaled as the stench of memory enveloped him. “The crematorium had a roar to it. We could feel the heat from out the doors. At least thirty trays fed into that furnace, three bodies to a tray. And they still couldn’t keep up. I ran out, got sick in the woods. Same woods where they’d tie prisoners’ wrists together behind their backs and then hang them a few inches off the ground until their arms dislocated. Called it the singing forest because of their cries.”

  Vitto paused, lowered his chin to his chest, stared at the stones. Silence permeated the piazza. “The funny thing is, I wasn’t even supposed to be there. My division was a hundred miles away. But there was this photographer woman with a double-barrel name. Margaret Bourke-White. She was famous, worked for LIFE magazine, and she’d traveled with my division for a while. I’d kind of been her assistant when she was with us. So when she went over to the Sixth Division and they were closing in on Weimar—that’s the town right outside Buchenwald—she asked for me. Said I had the best eye for setting up shots she’d ever seen—apart from her, of course. So they got it approved for me to go over to the other division. Lucky, huh?”

  He directed the question to the stone floor, not expecting an answer, and he didn’t get one. He made a point of not looking up—didn’t want to see the faces of those around him—and he went on with his story.

  “Patton assigned us there for four days. He was so mad, he went to Weimar, grabbed the mayor, and told him to have every citizen in town ready by morning. And that next morning he marched them all up to Buchenwald and made them walk through the camp to see what we’d seen. He wouldn’t let us start burying those bodies until they saw.

  “We found other camps too—subcamps, hundreds of ’em. We got out our K rations, I was about to dig in, but there was a prisoner holding his hands out to me, starving. I opened up my waxed paper, gave him my chocolate bar. He devoured it. So I opened my twist key and was fixing to give him some canned pork and maybe some cheese, but by then he’d gone pale. He died in my arms—so starved that the chocolate bar was too rich for his system.”

  He paused to let that sink in. “I wasn’t the only one to kill a prisoner by giving him food. Even chicken broth was too rich for their stomachs. We were ordered not to give them any food as they sat there and begged us for it.” Vitto shook his head, stared blankly. “My toughest kill of the war.”

  He stood there for a minute, listened to the weeping of those around him. He couldn’t produce any more of his own tears; he’d finally been drained dry. He turned toward his father. “When I was little, you used to talk about the hero’s journey—a quest for knowledge. Remember? Well, I went to hell and back—there’s your Greek tragedy. Consider this our catharsis.” Purged of every emotion possible, he stared at the crowd. “Sorry for interrupting the game.”

  Vitto was a dried-out cornhusk, but somehow better for now. Lighter. Cleansed. He walked over to the spiral staircase and headed up, each step like a hammer blow on the metal. Finally he was in his room—his bed, the covers, the soft pillow. He turned toward the wall, tucked his knees into his chest, and buried his hands between his thighs because he was suddenly freezing. He listened to the sounds from the piazza below. Feet moving. Whispers of “good night” and “see you in the morning.” Old-people whispers, which meant half of them were practically yelling.

  Doors opened and closed.

  Ten minutes later his father was
chiseling on his statue. They all had their ways of dealing with things, and Robert’s always involved a hammer.

  Vitto was on the verge of sleep when the door opened and light footsteps whisked across the floor. The mattress sagged under the weight of a lone knee. One by one his shoes were removed and placed neatly on the floor. Then Valerie nestled up behind him. She pulled his hands out from beneath his thighs and held them, fingers intertwined.

  She kissed his neck. “Your father just called you the boatman.”

  “I bet he did.”

  “Said you helped that prisoner cross over by holding him in your arms.”

  “I saw lamp shades made out of human skin, Val.” She kissed his shoulder, squeezed his hand. “Photo album covers made of skin too. The first camp commander’s wife sought out inmates with tattoos because she wanted their skin. They called her the Witch of Buchenwald.”

  She shushed him, held him so tight he could feel her heart thumping against his back. They stayed that way until he could no longer take the silence.

  “I don’t want any more of that water, Val.”

  “Okay.”

  “Val?”

  “Yes, Vitto.”

  “Tell me a story.”

  After a beat she squeezed his hand, exhaled into his neck. If it was possible to feel a smile, he suspected he just did. Her voice was the best medicine. Always had been. “In the summer of 1929,” she said, “my parents brought me to this grand place called the Tuscany Hotel . . .”

  Thirteen

  Late summer, 1929

  The Tuscany Hotel

  Valerie didn’t want to leave her friends in San Francisco. Especially not for, as her father had put it, possibly weeks at a time.

  “Months,” her mother had enthusiastically corrected, carefully stowing Valerie’s violin case in the car with Mother’s flute and Dad’s cello and the rest of their luggage. Her parents couldn’t wait to get to the Tuscany Hotel. They’d been talking about it all year.