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You Can’t Catch Me
Joyce Carol Oates writing as Rosamond Smith
for Sallie and Jerry Goodman
I am another.…
—RIMBAUD
I
1
Tristram Heade’s tragic adventure began inauspiciously, and surely by chance: as he was preparing to leave the train in Philadelphia, making his way along the narrow aisle of the Pullman car, a suitcase in one hand and a valise in the other, he felt someone tap his arm, and turned, and it was one of the black porters, who said, politely, “Sir, I believe you dropped your wallet—?” Taken by surprise, Tristram murmured his thanks, seeing, yes, the wallet was his, or so closely resembled his own as to be virtually identical with it: a wallet larger than most American wallets, measuring about six inches by four, but flat, in shape rather like a notebook; made of dark leather of no particular distinction, and fairly well-worn. He gripped his valise under one arm, and managed to slip the wallet into a convenient pocket of his coat; then moved on quickly, urged by his fellow passengers, who were crowding close behind him. The train from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia, an overnight “express,” was nearly two hours behind schedule, and tempers were short.
Out on the platform, however, Tristram regretted not having taken time to give the porter a tip. The man had been exceptionally kind after all. And Tristram did not know his name, and had not, to his shame, taken much notice of his face … except to know, and surely such knowledge was less than helpful, in the context of railroad porters, that the man was black; and that his expression had borne, beneath its courteous, even smiling surface, a look of bone-weary impatience with travelers like Tristram Heade, forever losing things, and dependent upon others for help. Over the course of years Tristram had several times lost his wallet, and various pieces of luggage; any number of pairs of gloves, hats, umbrellas; even, once, a rare, and very expensive, leatherbound first edition of Dickens’s Bleak House which he had bought only a few hours before. And another time, years ago, on his first crossing to Europe, he’d absentmindedly left a thick wad of fifty-dollar bills in a lounge of the old S.S. France, which had not, of course, been there when he returned to look for it.…
“Mister? Are you waiting for a taxi?”
Tristram woke from his reverie to see a taxi idling a few yards away, the driver, a bushy-haired and -whiskered young man, already opening the rear door for Tristram to climb in. “Yes in fact I am,” Tristram said belatedly. Again, he was taken by surprise; he’d made his way without thinking out of the crowded and rather disagreeably clamorous station to the taxi stand, trustingly following other suitcase-bearing men and women who had disembarked from the Richmond train. Though Tristram made the trip north to Philadelphia on the average of two or three times a year, and had done so for the past eleven years, primarily for the purpose of buying antiquarian books, he did not know the Philadelphia railroad station with any degree of confidence. And the task of getting a taxi, whether hailing one on the street, or waiting for one, as passengers did here, in an informal, jostling queue, always rather discountenanced him.
Yet: here was a taxi, as if by magic, and an obliging, smiling driver.
“Thank you very much,” Tristram said, as the man took his suitcases from him, and stored them away in the trunk, “—but aren’t these people ahead of me? There seems to be a line—”
“Nope, just get in, mister,” the driver said, “—no problem.”
“But don’t you think—”
“Where to, mister?”
“—these others, who are waiting—”
“Nope. No problem.”
So Tristram shrugged, and got into the cab, his leather valise gripped under his arm. It had not escaped his embarrassed notice that a number of men and women were staring at him, and at the taxi driver, with looks of resentment and curiosity; there were murmurings, exclamations—Who the hell is that guy? Indeed, it did not fail to strike Tristram as odd that he, so frequently ignored in situations of this kind, his natural good nature and passivity making of him a victim of others’ self-assertion, should be singled out for preferential treatment, and by a total stranger; back home in Richmond, in, at least, the residential district in which he lived his bachelor’s quiet life, and where the name Heade had a distinct old-aristocratic value, the solicitude of a taxi driver would have seemed more credible. But here in Philadelphia where no one knew him …
The driver was squinting at Tristram through his rearview mirror. “Where to, mister? Rittenhouse Square?—It was Rittenhouse Square last time.”
“Last time?” Tristram asked.
“—you were in my cab.”
Tristram didn’t remember; but of course it was entirely possible. He said, “Yes, Rittenhouse Square, the Hotel Sussex on Rittenhouse Square.”
And so the adventure began.
That in fact there was a beginning; a primary cause; a moment when things might have gone differently—that, given the laws of logic no less than those of human experience, there had to be such—Tristram Heade would not have doubted; but this would be retrospective knowledge. That spring evening in Philadelphia, he did not think of such things. Travel-weary, mildly disoriented from a long and rather rocky trip,—the railroads of this country have become unendurable, one of Tristram’s fellow passengers complained, in the dining car—Tristram wanted now only to check into his hotel, bathe, telephone an elderly, invalid Heade uncle, with whom he hoped to dine later that week; and go down to dinner himself, as he always did, at the Sussex; and retire early for the night. And in the morning,—ah, the morning!—his spirits lifted at the prospect—he had an appointment with Virgil Lux, the antiquarian book dealer from whom, over the course of years, he had bought a number of precious books. He was quite excited about the prospect of acquiring, at last, no matter the cost, a rare quarto edition of …
As the taxi turned onto Rittenhouse Square, Tristram sat up suddenly, and said, “I’ve changed my mind: take me to the Hotel Moreau.”
The driver squinted at him through the rearview mirror. “The Moreau?”
“Yes. I believe it’s just on the opposite side of the Square.”
How strange, Tristram thought. He knew nothing, or very little, about the Hotel Moreau; had never stayed there; nor had he, unless memory failed him, so much as dined there. Yet suddenly he felt a compulsion to be taken there; and nowhere else.
The Moreau, on the south side of the Square, was a smaller hotel than the Sussex; marble-fronted, with an elegant Egyptian-styled portico and tall spiky evergreens in enormous urns; a look of European comfort; an atmosphere even more subdued, yet even more aristocratic, than that of the Sussex. That it was even more expensive Tristram did not doubt; but what did that matter? It was a beautiful hotel. The thought had come to Tristram that it was urgent for him to surround himself with beauty, no matter the expense.
And he was so courteously, one might almost say royally treated, there: as soon as his taxi pulled up under the portico, a uniformed doorman stepped quickly forward, to help him out, and to take his bags inside. In the lobby, he had only to approach the desk and the chief clerk stood at attention, and smiled; and the hotel manager himself appeared, smiling, very nearly bowing, murmuring, “Ah! This is unexpected, Mr. Markham! But I am sure we
can accommodate you.”
Tristram stopped in his tracks, and stared, and said, “Did you say ‘Markham’? My name is not Markham, but Heade. Tristram Heade.”
“I assume you would like your usual suite, Mr. Markham?”
“My name is not ‘Markham,’ but ‘Heade.’ ‘Tristram Heade.’”
The manager continued to smile; fixing Tristram with a rather sharp, inquisitive look. He was a small, slender, fox-faced man with a minute waxy moustache. “As you like, sir. There is no trouble about that, sir.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t make a reservation,” Tristram said apologetically. “I only now arrived in the city, and—”
“No trouble about that, sir. I am sure we can accommodate you, sir, and with your usual suite.”
“I don’t believe, though,” Tristram said, frowning, “that I have a ‘usual’ suite here. I usually stay across the Square, in fact, at the—”
“Of course, sir, whatever you say, sir,” the manager murmured, with, now, a small subtle smile, “but I’m sure we can accommodate you, in any case. Will you give me two or three minutes to make arrangements?”
“If it’s the slightest bit of trouble, please don’t—”
“No trouble, sir, I assure you,” the dapper little man said.
There followed then a whispered consultation between the manager and the desk clerk, during which Tristram had the uneasy impression that the Hotel Moreau was indeed filled; or would shortly be filled; and that special measures were being taken on his account. Several times he was about to say that it really did not matter—since he had a reservation at the Sussex he could simply go there. But the lobby of the Moreau with its crystal chandeliers, its rich furnishings and decorations, its atmosphere of studied, understated, yet seductive old-world charm, so pleased his eye, and awakened in him a dim, yet disturbingly powerful memory of the kind we feel for dreams lost upon waking, he said not a word. He thought, If I am here, they must rearrange things for me. For after all they would not wish to offend me.
And so Tristram Heade was given a room; a suite of rooms; on the very top floor. As Tristram was signing his name—in his large childlike hand, in which each letter was plainly displayed: Tristram Joseph Heade—the manager stood at his elbow, murmuring, with a small mysterious smile, “I hope the Louis Quatorze suite will prove as satisfactory as it has in the past, Mr. Mar—, I mean Mr. Heade, but if there is anything you should like, or any complaint you might have, please do not, of course, hesitate to call the desk. I assure you, I will personally do all I can, to make your stay at the Moreau pleasant.”
“I should hope so,” Tristram said, with a quiet laugh. “For, after all …” But his words trailed off since he did not know quite what he meant to say, or even what he meant. His face warmed in embarrassment. He was the sort of man, a gentlemanly man, an oldish young man, at the age of thirty-five rather boyishly middle-aged, as, at the age of twelve, he had seemed prematurely adult, who shrinks from special favors and privileges; as the last-living scion of an old, once distinguished, now moribund Virginia family, he was both embarrassed and annoyed by flattery; though surrounded in his younger life by family servants, he had never so much as given an order to them, or raised his voice in self-assertion. For it was a matter of pride, in a sense; a prideful sort of humility. A true gentleman, Tristram’s grandfather once told him, never presumes upon his own position in the world.
Now Tristram murmured conciliatory words, and shook the manager’s hand, thanking him for his kindness.
“I assure you, Mr. Markham,” the man said, with a quite dazzling smile, “—it is our pleasure.”
Tristram raised a forefinger as if in warning. “‘Heade,’ you know. ‘Tristram Heade.’”
“Of course, sir. No trouble at all, sir. ‘Tristram Heade.’”
In the Louis Quatorze suite, which was, indeed, a lavish, beautifully appointed set of rooms, with a striking view of the leafy Square and of tree-lined streets of brownstone houses to the south, Tristram strolled about in a sort of daze, thinking, They are mistaking me for someone else … and what a wide, deep swath this “someone else” cuts in the world!
If he had heard correctly, the other’s name was Markham. It was a pity he had not been cagey enough to determine the first name.
2
Before dinner, Tristram bathed in the luxurious black-marble tub in the bathroom, and shaved for the second time that day, wondering at the silvery-blond stubble on his cheeks and chin; his beard usually grew at a far slower rate. He regarded his reflection rather shyly in the ornamental mirror, and could not have said whether he was (as his late mother, and numerous of his female Heade relatives, insisted) an unusually attractive man; or whether he was a man whose features, impressive in themselves, did not quite fit together, like a puzzle whose parts had loosened.
His skin was fair, and thin; his hair so pale a blond as to appear nearly white, like an albino’s; his eyebrows and lashes were white as well, and his eyes, round, childlike, intelligent, so faint a blue as to seem colorless, like washed glass. He was nearsighted, and had been so since childhood; when daylight began to fade, his astigmatism became more pronounced. He wore wire-rimmed glasses whose frames, unchanged for fifteen years, fitted his face tightly. The bones of his face were strong, even blunt, but his habitual expression was one of patience, passivity, and, to a degree surprising in so masculine a figure, sweetness; there was something soft, or softened, about him; as if an abrupt movement or a rude word might cause him distress. Tristram feels so very strongly, his mother had said of him, when he was a boy. He had not known at the time, nor did he know now, whether the statement was affectionate, or worried; boastful, or censorious. Nor did he even know if it was true.
He was in any case a large man, standing just above six feet four inches tall, and weighing two hundred twenty pounds; there was nothing dainty, or graceful, about him. Since late adolescence he had had a bearish figure, with his short-trimmed whitish hair, and fair flushed skin, and white-lashed eyes, and an ambling, rather rolling gait. It was his custom to have his hair cut very short, and allow it to grow out, so that, immersed in his bachelor’s routine in Richmond, he need not trouble with it for weeks; before leaving he had gone to his barber, and, to his vague embarrassment, now sported a haircut so short as to resemble a brush cut; which exposed his large pinkish-translucent ears, and ungainly ears he thought them, in which, to his annoyance, stiff white hairs grew.… If I am a bear, Tristram thought, I am a polar bear: an albino.
It seemed to him preposterous, suddenly, that another man might be mistaken for him. With his many flaws, surely Tristram Heade was sui generis?
Though self-conscious about dining alone in public, and armed with a book (a first edition, 1870, of Charles Dickens’s last, unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, carefully wrapped in plastic), Tristram had little difficulty that evening: simply to enter the Fountain Room of the Hotel Moreau with its innumerable gilded mirrors and flickering candlelight and vases of fragrant waxy-white roses on the tables was to incur the respectful attention of the maitre d’, and the head waiter, and the wine steward, and a small platoon of waiters and busboys who were, throughout his two-hour meal, uniquely solicitous of him. (And were there not quizzical, admiring glances from other diners?—including elegantly dressed, bejeweled women?) Tristram had never been a person to fuss over food, and was as far from a gourmet diner as one might be; truly, he cared little what he ate, so long as it was nourishing and good. How odd then that, tonight, he ate and drank with a zestful appetite—appetizers of steak tartar and scallops seviche, an entree of lobster Newburgh, dishes he’d never before found remotely tempting—and an entire bottle of a tart, delicious 1963 French Chardonnay. And he forgot entirely about opening Edwin Drood.
And where in the past the protocol of tipping had always embarrassed him, suggesting as it does that one is superior to another, tonight Tristram had no scruples about tipping very generously indeed. “Thank you, Mr. M—Mr. Heade
,” the maitre d’ said, smiling and bowing as Tristram left. “Always a pleasure, sir!”
When, at midnight, Tristram returned to his luxurious suite, it was to discover to his surprise a bottle of chilled champagne awaiting him; a tall vase of those waxy-white roses; a sumptuous cornucopia of fruits, bonbons, chocolates, and several tiny bottles of brandy, with the accompanying handwritten card: Mr. Angus Markham—compliments of the house.
What to do?—telephone the front desk immediately, and demand to speak to the manager? Or wait until morning? Tristram absentmindedly chewed a bonbon or two, and uncorked a bottle of Benedictine brandy. Perhaps I am making too much of this, he thought. Perhaps “Mr. Angus Markham” would find it all amusing.
So he went to bed, and slept well; far more soundly than he’d ever slept in the Hotel Sussex; not waking, to his shame, until nearly nine o’clock the next morning … a good two hours past his usual time for getting up. Yet he felt wonderfully rested; refreshed; with a good appetite for breakfast; and a sense of excited elation about the day to come. His eleven o’clock appointment with Mr. Lux was foremost in his mind: he had been anticipating their meeting for weeks. Mr. Lux was allowing Tristram to see, before any of his other customers, a rare quarto edition of …
Suddenly, while dressing, he discovered to his amazement an extra suitcase in his room; a handsome leather suitcase of about the size, and the quality, of his own, though it was much newer than his, and free of the various scuff-marks, scratches, and labels affixed to his own. Where had this come from? Had the taxi driver absentmindedly taken another man’s suitcase, at the station, and put it into his trunk?
He checked the closet, and discovered that someone had hung up a stranger’s clothes mixed with his own; it must have been the chambermaid, the evening before, while he’d been at dinner. There were several coats, shirts, pairs of impeccably creased trousers … even, arranged on the floor, several pairs of shoes of about the size, though not the style, of Tristram’s own shoes. “This is terrible,” Tristram said aloud, staring into the closet. He had, once,—had it been in Philadelphia, in fact? many years ago?—lost a suitcase of his own, and remembered how desperate he’d felt.
You Can't Catch Me Page 1
