What Happens at Night

by Peter Cameron

  The waitress’s uncomprehending look confirmed that she did not understand, so the man repeated his question, as if heard enough times, or at the right pitch, comprehension might occur. The waitress shook her head, indicating that her darkness was impenetrable, but a man with dreadlocks at a nearby table cleared his throat and lifted his finger in the air, and then pointed at his own dish. He made a bleating goatlike sound. Then he put both his fists atop his head with his pointer and middle fingers extended like floppy ears and hopped up and down in his seat. He smiled proudly at the man and returned his attention to his own meal.

  Goat and rabbit? Or perhaps there was some sort of long-eared, hopping mountain goat native to the region? In either case his interpreter seemed to be enjoying his meal, which was composed of chunks of meat and potatoes and what appeared to be carrots in a gelatinous brown gravy. It looked tasty, so the man held up one finger and pointed to the dish at the neighboring table and said, Meat stew, please.

  The waitress nodded and then pointed to the glass of beer on his friend’s table and then turned and pointed to the carafe of red wine being shared by the married couple and then mimed throwing back a shot. The man knew what that meant: schnapps.

  Shall we have beer or wine? he asked the businessman.

  Beer, said the businessman. The wine here is piss. Two beers, he said to the waitress. Grande.

  The hostess pushed through a swinging door into the kitchen. The businessman stood up and removed his cape. He did not remove his hat. Take off that sissy jacket, he said to the man. I’ll hang it up for you.

  The man took off his parka and handed it to the businessman. Was it a sissy jacket? Maybe the halo of fur around the hood? But it was odd because if anyone looked like a sissy it was the businessman, with his velvet smoking jacket and silk cravat.

  The businessman hung the man’s parka on one of the many pegs that lined the walls of the restaurant and then slung his cape atop it so that the two outer garments appeared to be spooning. He returned to the table. The waitress arrived carrying a tray and placed two glasses on the table and then opened two green bottles of beer with no label and poured an inch or two into each glass. Then she hastened away.

  The businessman emptied his bottle into the glass and waited while the man did the same. Then he lifted his glass and said, To the joys of fraternization!

  The man lifted his glass against the businessman’s glass and then they both drank.

  It’s nice to drink a beer with another man, isn’t it? asked the businessman, when he had placed his glass back on the table.

  Yes, said the man, it is.

  There are some things I only do with men. Drinking beer. Playing polo. Smoking cigars. You wouldn’t want a woman involved with any of that, would you?

  No, said the man, despite his belief that gender roles were obsolete. And he neither smoked cigars nor played polo.

  The waitress reappeared. She placed the fish stew in front of the businessman and the meat stew in front of the man and a plastic basket with two small loaves of bread in the middle of the table. She hastened away.

  For a few moments they both ate their stew. Then the businessman picked up the basket of bread and held it toward the man.

  Would you like some bread with your stew?

  Yes, said the man. Thank you. He felt ashamed that he had not thought to offer the bread to his dining companion before it was offered to him. He took the slightly smaller loaf of bread from the basket. The businessman took the remaining loaf and carefully replaced the basket at the center of the table. He turned away from the table and surveyed the room, and when he saw the waitress emerge from the kitchen, he raised his arm and summoned her. She came directly to their table and stood there uncooperatively, giving no indication she had any purpose there other than gazing disdainfully at them. But the businessman seemed not to notice, or to ignore, her attitude, for he said over-emphatically, Two more beers, and a round of schnapps for us both!

  The waitress departed without giving any indication she had heard or understood what the businessman had said.

  I don’t want another beer, said the man. Or schnapps. I can’t get drunk!

  Why can’t you?

  I’m not here to get drunk, said the man.

  Then what are you here for? asked the businessman.

  To get a baby, said the man. To get our baby.

  What do you want with a baby? Don’t tell me she’s brainwashed you?

  Who?

  Wifey! Back at the hotel with her vapors. Is she the one who wants a kiddie?

  We both do, said the man. That’s why we’ve come here.

  You poor sod. You might as well cut your balls off. Would you believe me if I told you that the moment you have a kiddie your primal life is over?

  No, said the man. I think that is when your life begins. Your true life. He took another bite of his stew. He was enjoying it, but the meat had a strange flavor and texture. He tried not to remember that what is meat in one country is offal in another.

  The waitress returned with their beer and schnapps and set them, unceremoniously, on the table.

  Men like us were meant for finer things, the businessman said. He raised his little glass of schnapps. Let the plebs procreate and raise their litters, but let you and me enjoy the pleasures of fraternization. He reached out and petted the man’s cheek.

  The man pushed his hand away. Look, he said, I don’t know what game you’re playing but I wish you’d stop. It’s become tiresome.

  I’m not playing a game, said the businessman. I don’t play games.

  Well, whatever it is you’re doing, please stop it. I don’t like it.

  The businessman leaned back in his chair and looked at the man appraisingly, as if he were seeing him for the first time. You’ve changed, haven’t you? he asked.

  No, said the man.

  You have, said the businessman. You didn’t use to be like this.

  I’ve never met you before! said the man. You have no idea of how I was, or who I am.

  Well, in that case I should introduce myself, shouldn’t I? I’m Henk Bosma. He held out his large, fleshy hand. It stayed there a moment, hovering above the table, before the man reached out and shook it, and said his name.

  Well, that’s better, isn’t it? said the businessman. Now we’ll have no more of this useless prevarication.

  They both returned their attention to their stews. After a moment the man, deciding to take the offensive, said, And you? What brings you here?

  Business, said the businessman. Money. Nothing else could possibly get me above the sixtieth parallel.

  What kind of business?

  Oh, the crudest kind. Oil. The Russians want to buy the rig and refinery here from the Finns and I’m putting it all together. Or not. More likely not. Have you ever tried to do business with Russians and Finns?

  No, said the man.

  Well, count your blessings. They’re both mad. But mad in extremely different ways. And now the Japs are up here too, trying to buy it out from under us.

  And who do you work for? The Russians or the Finns?

  Neither. I’m just the man in the middle. The punching bag.

  The businessman laid down his fork and lifted both his fists. He took a few jabs at the man. Pow! Pow! he said.

  Although the man knew that the businessman did not intend to punch him, he flinched. This amused the businessman. Relax, baby, he said. We’re all friends here. He leaned forward and patted the man’s cheek, then quickly withdrew his hand. Oh! he said. Pardon me. I forgot that touching was verboten. Nevertheless he touched the man’s cheek again before picking up his utensils and attacking his stew.

  The man felt ashamed that he had flinched at the businessman’s playful sparring. He looked down at his own meat stew. The sauce was congealing, and the chunks of meat were looking oddly slick and somewhat purple. He realized he was beginning to feel sick. At first just a little sick and then, suddenly, very sick. He stood up and said, Do you know
where the toilet is? I think I’m going to be sick.

  It’s downstairs, said the businessman, pointing to an open doorway beyond which a flight of stairs descended into the basement.

  The man pushed himself away from the table and hurried down the steps into the basement, where he found himself in what was obviously a storeroom, with huge glass jars filled with what looked like pickled fruits and vegetables and perhaps, disquietingly, meat, stacked on the metal shelves. The man was almost sick on the floor because these glass jars filled with floating organic matter reminded him of a jar he had once seen that contained a human fetus with an abnormally large head similarly floating in dirty brine. There were two doors on the other side of the room, and the man raced toward the closest one and opened it. In the dark he could discern the toilet at the far end of the long narrow room, gleaming faintly, and he rushed toward it and arrived just in time to lean into it and allow his sickness to erupt. It came out of him in several almost crippling gushes, a violence he did not know his body was capable of manifesting. After the third great wave of sickness he was able to lay his head on the rim of the toilet and close his eyes.

  He felt so much better, relieved to have such calamity behind him, and he thought, It isn’t really so bad kneeling here with my head on the toilet. It’s nice and peaceful. He kept his eyes closed and quietly allowed himself to sink into a place that was nearer to his true self.

  And then he felt, suddenly, on his eyelids, the push of light, and he opened them see that the light in the bathroom had been turned on. He sat up and turned his head but before he could see anything the light was shut off. In his haste to reach the toilet he had left the door open. Now the door was closed and it was utterly dark. He could sense a presence just inside the door, hear someone breathing. He began to stand up but then thought better of it and tried to press himself back into the corner of the room alongside the toilet, but there wasn’t enough room for him to fit between the toilet and the wall, so he thought he might be able to crawl past whoever had entered the bathroom if he kept low enough to the floor. He pressed himself against the nearest wall and began to slide forward on his belly, trying to keep his body parallel with the wall. Then he thought that if he kept perfectly still and flattened against the wall, the man would move past him and he could get up and run out the door. He stopped moving and pressed his body tightly against the wall. He felt the cold from the earth seeping through the concrete and he wished he had never come to this place.

  It was very quiet in the dark room. He knew that the man was listening for him, so he kept perfectly still. And then he wondered if perhaps he had been wrong. Maybe there wasn’t a man in the room. Could he have imagined it? But he remembered the light and the door being closed. And then he heard a sound he could not identify, but whatever it was, it was coming closer to him, and he realized that there was a man and that he was kicking, kicking both feet in all directions trying to find the man. The first kick found the back of his head and smashed his face into the wall and the next kick landed on his spine just between his shoulder blades. He heard the other man saying something in his language and felt himself being pulled up, a hand beneath both of his arms dragging him up and pushing him hard against the wall, and then one hand held the back of his neck hard against the wall and other reached down and felt his ass, patting and squeezing it, and he thought he was going to be raped and tried to scream but his mouth was pushed hard against the wall, and then the other man found his wallet, stuck into his buttoned back pocket, and he pulled hard and ripped the pocket open—the man heard the button ping as it hit the floor—and grabbed the man’s wallet. The hand let go of his neck and the man lost his balance and fell onto the floor and hit his head on something—the toilet, he thought—and he felt the mugger kicking him again, and then the mugger kicked the toilet and cried out in pain and kicked him once again very hard and then he was gone, a soft gleam of light as he opened the door and then darkness again.

  The man lay quietly on the floor. He had covered his face with his hands and now he pressed them tenderly against his skin and this tender touching of himself calmed him. He rocked himself back and forth. He kept one hand on his face and with the other felt for his left ear, which he thought might have come off, but it was still attached to his head, and he pressed his hand tightly against it to keep it from falling off.

  The next thing he knew was the light had been turned back on, and he curled himself more tightly into himself and waited to be kicked again.

  Jesus, what’s happened to you? He felt someone kneel beside him and a hand touched his upper arm, trying to pull him around, away from the toilet. But he managed to shirk off the hand and curl more tightly around the toilet.

  It’s me, the voice said. What’s happened? Open your eyes. It’s over.

  The man opened his eyes and saw the businessman kneeling beside him. He gently patted the man’s upper arm. Can you stand up?

  The man nodded, although he wasn’t sure if he could stand up.

  Let me help you, the businessman said. With one of his hands under each of the man’s arms he dragged the man up. The man stood for a moment but then dizzily sat on the toilet.

  You’ve got a bloody nose, said the businessman. Here—he reached into a pocket of his smoking jacket but found nothing. And nothing in the other pocket. He reached up to his throat and removed his silk cravat and handed it to the man. You’d better do it, he said. I might hurt you.

  Are you sure? the man asked. Your beautiful cravat?

  Of course, said the businessman. Take it. I have thousands.

  The man took the cravat and gingerly dabbed at his nose.

  Just hold it there, said the businessman. Tilt your head back.

  The man did this and the businessman stood beside him, moving his hand in a circle around the center of the man’s back, but so lightly that the man felt the warmth of his hand more than the actual touch of it.

  The woman was awoken by a knocking on the door. The utter darkness of the hotel room revealed nothing about who or where she was, and it took her a moment to remember her identity and circumstances. Then she heard the knocking again. Oh, she thought, it must be room service with my dinner. She reached out and turned on the nearest bedside lamp.

  Come in, she called, but her voice sounded feeble, unused, so she repeated herself.

  I would if I could but I can’t, a voice called through the door. A woman’s voice. The damn door’s locked!

  The woman drew back the covers and got out of the bed. She felt dizzy, so she stood for a moment, with one hand pressed tightly against the faux-brick wall. Then, when she felt able to, she walked across the room and opened the door. It was dark in the hallway—it seemed to be dark everywhere in this hotel—but in the gloom she could see Livia Pinheiro-Rima standing and holding a tray.

  I’ve got your supper here, Livia Pinheiro-Rima said, and pushed past the woman into the room. Where should I put it? Without waiting for an answer, she lowered the tray onto the bed and then wrung her hands together, as if they were sore from carrying it. Your husband’s gone out to dinner, she said, so I intercepted the swarthy youth they sent up because I thought you might like to see a friendly face, stuck up here all by yourself.

  The woman remained standing by the open door. A friendly face? she asked.

  Well, a familiar face, if nothing else. Or maybe not. Don’t you remember me? I’m the woman who saved you from freezing to death last night when you ran out of the hotel in your skivvies. If that’s not friendly, I don’t know what is.

  Yes, said the woman. Of course. I just didn’t expect to see you again.

  Really? Not ever again?

  Well, not up here, said the woman. With the tray.

  You’ve got to learn to take things at they come, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. That’s one thing I’ve learned. Now come, back into bed with you before you freeze to death. We’ll pretend you’re a little girl in the nursery and I’m your beloved old nanny. That should be a comfort t
o both of us, I imagine. Into bed, my poppet!

  Although the woman had no desire to indulge this fantasy of Livia Pinheiro-Rima’s, she was cold and tired and so dutifully returned to the bed, and in this way temporarily forfeited her rights to a rational existence.

  There’s a good girl, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Now let’s see what Cook’s sent up for our supper. She removed the two silver domes from the dishes on the tray and exclaimed, Lucky girl, it’s your absolute favorites! Cock-a-leekie Soup and Toad-in-the-Hole! Let’s get this soup in your tummy while it’s still piping hot.

  Livia Pinheiro-Rima replaced the dome on top of one dish and carried the bowl of soup, a spoon, and a large white cloth napkin around the bed to where the woman lay. You’ll have to sit up, my dear; you can’t eat soup lying down like that. Let’s prop you up and make you comfy cozy. She put the things she carried down on the bedside table and helped the woman sit up, placing the pillows behind her back, and drew the blankets tightly up and around her. There we are, she said. She sat down on the bed and tucked the napkin into the neck of the woman’s underwear so that it fell down over the gold coverlet. Then she picked up the bowl of soup. She paddled the spoon through the soup and then lifted it out of the bowl and said, Open up.

  I can feed myself, said the woman.

  You keep your little mitts beneath the blankets where they belong, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Ouvre la bouche, mon petit chat.

  The woman opened her mouth and was fed the soup. It’s good, she said.

  Of course it’s good. Do you think I’d feed you bad soup? Ouvre. The woman opened her mouth and was fed more soup. She realized she quite liked being fed soup while snuggled up in bed in the dim pink-lighted room with the snow falling outside the curtained windows. It was the warmest and safest she had felt in days.

  When the bowl of soup was finished, Livia Pinheiro-Rima pulled the napkin out and wiped the woman’s lips. Then she re-tucked it beneath her chin. Ready for our Toad-in-the-Hole?