The Hotel New Hampshire

by John Irving

  He brought his bags out into the lobby and startled the hell out of us.

  'Jesus, Frank!' Franny screamed.

  'Sorry,' he mumbled. Frank had his usual queer lot of things: his odd books, his peculiar clothes, and his dressmaker's dummy.

  'Are you taking that dummy back to America, Frank?' Franny asked him.

  'It's not as heavy as what you two are carrying,' Frank said. 'And it's a lot safer.'

  So Frank knew too, we realized. At that time, Franny and I thought Lilly didn't know; and -- regarding our own dilemma -- we were grateful that Father was blind.

  'Keep passing the open windows,' Frank said to Franny and me -- the damn dressmaker's dummy, slung like a light log over his shoulder, had a distressing resemblance about it. It was the falseness of it that Franny and I noticed: the mannequin's chipped face, the obvious wig, and the stiff, unfleshly bust of the dummy -- the fake bosom, the still chest, the rigid waist. In the bad light in the lobby of the second Hotel New Hampshire, Franny and I could be fooled into thinking we saw shapes of Sorrow when we saw nothing at all. But hadn't Sorrow taught us to be on guard, to look everywhere? Sorrow can take any shape in the world.

  'You keep passing the open windows, too, Frank,' I said -- trying not to look too closely at his dressmaker's dummy.

  'We've all got to stick together,' Franny said -- as Father, in his sleep, cried out, 'Auf Wiedersehen, Freud!'

  11 Being in Love with Franny;

  Dealing with Chipper Dove

  Love also floats. And, that being true, love probably resembles Sorrow in other ways.

  We flew to New York City in the fall of 1964 -- no separate flights this time; we were sticking together, as Franny had advised. The stewardess was troubled by the baseball bat, but she let Father hold it between his knees -- humane concessions are made to the blind, in spite of 'regulations.'

  Junior Jones was unable to meet our plane. Junior was playing out his last season with the Browns -- in a hospital in Cleveland. 'Man,' he said to me, over the phone, 'just tell your father I'll give him my eyes if he'll give me his knees.'

  'And what will you give me if I give you my knees,' I heard Franny ask Junior over the phone. I didn't hear what he said to her, but she smiled and winked at me.

  We could have flown to Boston; I'm sure Fritz would have met our plane, and let us stay for free at the first Hotel New Hampshire. But Father had told us he never wanted to see Dairy, New Hampshire, or that first Hotel New Hampshire again. Of course Father wouldn't have 'seen' it if we'd gone there and stayed there the rest of our lives, but we understood his meaning. None of us had the stomach for seeing Dairy again, and recalling when our family was whole -- when each of us had both eyes open.

  New York was neutral territory -- and for a while, Frank knew, Lilly's publisher would put us up and entertain us.

  'Enjoy yourselves,' Frank said to us. 'Just call room service.' Father would behave like a child with room service, ordering stuff he'd never eat, and ordering his usual undrinkable drinks. He'd never stayed in a hotel with room service before; he behaved as if he'd never been in New York before, either, because he complained that all the room service personnel couldn't speak English any better than the Viennese -- they couldn't, of course, because they were foreigners.

  They're more foreign than the Viennese ever dreamed of being!' my father would cry. 'Sprechen Sie Deutsch?' he'd yell into the phone. 'Jesus God, Frank,' Father would say, 'order us a proper Fruhstuck, would you? These people don't understand me.'

  'This is New York, Pop,' Franny said.

  'They don't speak German or English in New York, Dad,' Frank explained.

  'What the hell do they speak?' Father asked. 'I order croissant and coffee and I get tea and toast!'

  'Nobody knows what they speak here,' said Lilly, looking out the window.

  Lilly's publisher put us up at the Stanhope on Eighty-first and Fifth Avenue; Lilly had asked to be near the Metropolitan Museum and I had asked to be near Central Park -- I wanted to run. And so I ran around and around the Reservoir, four times around, twice a day -- that last lap luxurious with pain, my head lolling, the tall buildings of New York appearing to topple over me.

  Lilly looked out the windows of our suite on the fourteenth floor. She liked watching the people flood in and out of the museum. 'I think I'd like to live here,' she said softly. 'It's like watching a castle change kings,' Lilly whispered. 'And you can see the leaves change in the park, too,' Lilly noted. 'And whenever you visit me,' Lilly said to me, 'you can run around the Reservoir and reassure me that it's still there. I don't ever want to see it up close,' Lilly said weirdly, 'but it's comforting to have you report to me on the health of the water, the number of other runners in the park, the amount of horse shit on the bridle path. A writer has to know these things,' Lilly said.

  'Well, Lilly,' Frank said, 'I think you'll be able to afford a permanent suite here, but you could get an apartment, instead, you know. You don't have to live at the Stanhope, Lilly,' Frank said. 'It might be more practical to get your own apartment.'

  'No,' Lilly said. 'If I can afford it, I want to live here. Surely this family can understand why I might like to live in a hotel,' Lilly said.

  Franny shivered. She didn't want to live in a hotel, she had told me. But Franny would stay with Lilly for a while -- after the publisher stopped paying the tab and Lilly maintained her corner suite on the fourteenth floor, Franny would keep Lilly company for a while. 'Just so you have a chaperon, Lilly,' Franny teased her. But I knew it was Franny who needed the chaperon.

  'And you know who I need a chaperon from,' Franny told me.

  Frank and Father would be my chaperons; Father and I would move in with Frank. He found a palatial apartment on Central Park South. I could still run there, I could run through the entirety of Central Park, investigate the Reservoir for Lilly, arrive dripping with sweat and panting at the Stanhope, to report on the health of the water, and so forth, and to show myself to Franny -- to get a glimpse of her.

  These would not be permanent residences for Franny, Father, or me, but Frank and Lilly would become the kind of New Yorkers who affix themselves to certain parts of Central Park and never leave. Lilly would live at the Stanhope for the rest of her life, writing away, trying to grow up to the stature of the fourteenth floor; though small, she was ambitious. And Frank, the agent, would wheel and deal from his apartment, with its six telephones, at 222 Central Park South. They were both terribly industrious -- Lilly and Frank -- and I once asked Franny what she thought the difference between them was.

  'About twenty blocks and the Central Park Zoo,' Franny said. That was the distance between them exactly, but Franny implied it was the difference between Lilly and Frank, too: a whole zoo and more than twenty blocks.

  'And what's the difference between us, Franny?' I asked her, shortly after we'd arrived in New York.

  'One difference between us is that I'll get over you, somehow,' Franny told me. 'That's just how I am: I get over things. And I'll get over you, too. But you won't get over me,' Franny warned me. 'I know you, my brother, my love,' she told me. 'And you won't get over me -- at least, not without my help.'

  She was right, of course; Franny was always right -- and always one step ahead of me. When Franny would finally sleep with me, she would engineer it. She would know exactly why she was doing it, too -- as a fulfillment of the promise she had made to mother us children now that Mother was gone; as the only way to take care of us; as the only way to save us. 'You and me need saving, kid,' Franny said. 'But especially you need it. You think we're in love, and maybe I think so, too. It's time to show you that I'm not so special. It's time to prick the bubble before it bursts,' Franny told me.

  She chose the moment in the same way she chose not to sleep with Junior Jones -- 'to save it,' as she would say. Franny always had her plans and her reasons.

  'Holy cow, man,' Junior Jones told me on the phone. 'Tell your sister to come see a poor wreck of a man in Cleveland. M
y knees are shot, but the rest of me works fine.'

  'I'm not a cheerleader anymore,' Franny told him. 'Get your ass to New York, if you want to see me.'

  'Man!' Junior Jones howled to me. 'Tell her I can't walk. I'm wearing two casts at a time! There's too much of me to haul around on crutches. And tell her I know what a shit-ass town New York is, man,' said Junior Jones. 'If I come to that town on crutches, some dudes will try to mug me!'

  'Tell him that when he gets over his damn football phase, maybe he'll have time for me,' Franny said.

  'Oh, man,' said Junior Jones. 'What does Franny want?'

  'I want you,' Franny whispered to me, over the phone -- when she had made up her mind about it. I was at 222 Central Park South, trying to answer all of Frank's phones. Father complained about the phones -- they interfered with the radio he listened to all day -- and Frank refused to get a secretary, much less a legitimate office.

  'I don't need an office,' Frank said. 'I just need a mailing address and a few phones.'

  'At least try an answering service, Frank,' I suggested, which he would grudgingly accept -- one day. But that was after Father and I moved out.

  In our first New York days, I was Frank's answering service.

  'I want you terribly much,' Franny whispered to me, on the phone.

  Franny was alone at the Stanhope. 'Lilly's out having a literary lunch,' Franny said. Maybe that would be one way Lilly would grow, I thought: having lots of literary lunches. 'Frank's wheeling and dealing,' Franny said. 'He's at lunch with her. They'll be tied up for hours. And you know where I am, kid?' Franny asked me. 'I'm in bed,' she said. 'I'm naked,' she added, 'and I'm fourteen fucking floors high -- I'm high on you,' Franny whispered to me. 'I want you,' Franny said. 'Get your ass over here. Kid, it's now or never,' Franny said. 'We won't know if we can live without it until we try it.' Then she hung up. One of Frank's other phones was ringing. I let it ring. Franny must have known I was dressed for running; I was ready to run out the door.

  'I'm going to take a run,' I told Father. 'A long one.' One I might never come back from! I thought.

  'I won't answer a single phone call,' Father said grouchily. He was having trouble, at the time, making up his mind what to do. He would sit in Frank's splendid apartment with the Louisville Slugger and the dressmaker's dummy and he'd think and think all day.

  'Anything?' he kept asking Frank. 'I can absolutely -- in all sincerity -- do anything I want to do?' Father would ask Frank, about fifty times a week.

  'Anything, Pop,' Frank told him. 'I'll set it up.'

  Frank had already set up a three-book contract for Lilly. He had negotiated an initial first printing of Trying to Grow -- 100,000 copies. He had optioned the film rights to Warner Brothers and had made a separate deal with Columbia Pictures for an original screenplay of the events leading up to the bomb that went off in front of the second Hotel New Hampshire -- and the famous Opera bomb that didn't go off. Lilly was already working on the screenplay. And Frank had put through a contract for a television series to be based on life at the first Hotel New Hampshire (which Lilly was also authoring) -- the series was to be based on Trying to Grow, and was not to be released until after' the motion picture; the movie would be called Trying to Grow, the TV series would be called 'The First Hotel New Hampshire' (this, Frank pointed out, left room for future deals).

  But who, I wondered, would ever dare to make a TV series out of the second Hotel New Hampshire? Who would want to? Franny wondered.

  If Lilly had grown only a little (as the result of creating Trying to Grow), Frank had grown double time -- for all of us (as the result of selling Lilly's effort). It had been no little effort for Lilly, we knew. And we were worried about how hard she was working, how much she was writing -- how grimly she was trying to grow.

  'Take it easy, Lilly,' Frank advised her. 'The cash flow is fast and furious -- you're terrifically liquid,' said Frank, the economics major, 'and the future looks rosy.'

  'Just coast for a while, Lilly,' Franny advised her, but Lilly took literature seriously -- even if literature would never take Lilly quite seriously enough.

  'I know I've been lucky,' Lilly said. 'Now I have to earn it,' she said -- trying harder.

  But one day in the winter of 1964 -- it was just before Christmas -- Lilly was out at a literary lunch and Franny told me it was now or never. There were only about twenty blocks and a very small zoo between us. Any good middle-distance runner can get from Central Park South to Fifth Avenue and Eighty-first in a very short time. It was a winter day, brisk but gray. The New York City streets and sidewalks were cleared of snow -- good footing for a fast, wintry run. The snow in Central Park looked old and dead, but my heart was very much alive and pounding in my chest. The doorman at the Stanhope knew me -- the Berry family would be welcome at the Stanhope for years and years. The man at the reception desk -- the alert, cheerful man with the British accent -- said hello to me as I waited for the elevator (the elevators at the Stanhope are rather slow). I said hello back to him, scuffing my running shoes on the rug; over the years I would watch that man grow a little balder but no less cheerful. He would even deal cheerfully with the complainers (the European Lilly and I saw in a rage at the reception desk one morning, for example -- a portly man in a barber-pole-striped robe; he was beshitted, head to toe. No one had told him about one of the Stanhope's features: their famous upward-flushing toilets. You should beware of them if you ever stay at the Stanhope. After you've done your business in the toilet, it's advisable to close the lid and stand well out of the way -- I recommend kicking the flush handle with your foot. This portly European must have been standing directly over his mess -- he must have thought he'd observe it all going away, when it suddenly was flung up, all over him. And the ever-cheerful man with the British accent, behind the reception desk, looked up at the beshitted guest who was raging at him and said, 'Oh dear. A little air in the pipes?' It was what he always said. 'A little air in the pipes?' the portly European bellowed. 'A lot of shit in my hair!' he howled. But that was another day.).

  The day I was there to make love to Franny, the elevator couldn't get there fast enough. I decided to run up to the fourteenth floor. I must have looked awfully eager when I arrived. Franny opened the door just a crack and peeked at me.

  'Yuck,' she said. 'You'll have to take a shower!'

  'Okay,' I said. She told me to hold the door open just a crack and give her time to get back to bed; she didn't want me to see her -- not yet. I heard her bound across the suite and leap back into bed.

  'Okay!' she called, and I went in, putting the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door.

  'Put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door!' Franny called to me.

  'I already did,' I said, in the bedroom, looking at her; she was under the covers, looking just a little nervous.

  'You don't have to take a shower,' she said. 'I like you all sweaty. At least I'm used to you that way.'

  But I was nervous and I took a shower, anyway.

  'Hurry up, you asshole!' Franny yelled at me. I took as fast a shower as I could and used the potentially upward-flushing toilet very cautiously. The Stanhope is a wonderful hotel, especially if you like to run in Central Park and enjoy watching the Met and its floods of visitors, but you have to watch out for the toilets. Coming from a family used to strange toilets -- those toilets fit for dwarfs in the first Hotel New Hampshire, those tiny toilets used by Fritz's midgets to this day -- I tend to be generous in my feelings toward the toilets at the Stanhope, although I know some people who say they'll never stay at the Stanhope again. But what's a little air in the pipes, or even a lot of shit in the hair, if you have good memories?

  I came out of the bathroom, naked, and when Franny saw me, she covered her head with the sheet and said, 'Jesus God.' I slipped into bed beside her and she turned her back to me and began to giggle.

  'Your balls are all wet,' she said.

  'I dried myself!' I said.

  'You missed your balls,' she sai
d.

  'Nothing like wet balls,' I said, and Franny and I laughed as if we were crazy. We were.

  'I love you,' she tried to tell me, but she was laughing too hard.

  'I want you,' I told her, but I was laughing so hard that I sneezed -- right in the middle of telling her that I wanted her -- and that broke us up for a while longer. It was like that as long as she kept her back to me and we lay together like the stereotypical love spoons, but when she turned to me, when she lay on top of me with her breasts against my chest when she scissored her legs around me -- everything changed. If it had been too funny when we started, now it was too serious, and we couldn't stop. The first time we made love, we were in a more or less conventional position -- 'nothing too Tantric, please,' Franny had asked me. And when it was over, she said, 'Well, that was okay. Not great, but nice -- right?'

  'Well, it was better than "nice" -- for me,' I said. 'But not quite "great" -- I agree.'

  'You agree,' Franny repeated. She shook her head, she touched me with her hair. 'Okay,' she whispered. 'Get ready for great.'

  At one point, I must have held her too tightly. She said, 'Please don't hurt me.'

  I said, 'Don't be frightened.'

  She said, 'I am, just a little.'

  'I am -- a lot,' I said.

  It is improper to describe making love to one's sister. Does it suffice to say that it became 'great,' and it got even greater? And later it grew worse, of course -- later we got tired. About four o'clock in the afternoon Lilly knocked discreetly on the door.

  'Is that a maid?' Franny called.

  'No, it's me,' Lilly said. 'I'm not a maid, I'm a writer.'

  'Go away and come back in an hour,' Franny said.

  'Why?' Lilly asked.

  'I'm writing something,' Franny said.

  'No, you're not,' Lilly said.

  'I'm trying to grow!' Franny said.

  'Okay,' Lilly said. 'Keep passing the open windows,' she added.

  In a sense, of course, Franny was writing something; she was the author of how our relationship would turn out -- she took a mother's responsibility for it. She went too far -- she made love to me too much. She made me aware that what was between us was all too much.