Summer Accommodations: A Novel

by Sidney Hart

“Melvin, you didn’t tell me Harlan left the hotel. Did you tell him about your meeting with Joe?”

  “Never.”

  “Did you tell him about a chute at the side of my house?”

  “No. We had a fight about Sarah and then he left.”

  “He left because you two fought about your girlfriend? Melvin, do you think I’m an idiot? Why would he leave over something like that? Did it have anything to do with my daughter?”

  “In a way. He was getting involved with Sarah and,—listen, I’m still pretty upset about all of this and …” Ben grabbed my shoulders and spun me around to face him.

  “You told him about the trap, admit it, don’t lie to me.” I looked away and nodded.

  “I just wanted you to tell me the truth, Melvin. Harlan was seen trying to leave the grounds very early this morning. I figured he was going to beat it if he got wind of my plan so I had Joe on watch in the parking lot. Joe discouraged him from trying to pack it in and leave. Joe is very persuasive,” he said, with a knowing smile, “and Harlan got the message, but you won’t be seeing him again. And by the way, Harlan was the thief we were looking for. He had a jewelry store in his toiletry kit. Someone will come by later to collect the rest of his things.” He gave my shoulders an affectionate tug then turned and walked away. It was a relief that in the end I was spared having to turn Harlan over to Ben. He had betrayed me, but I hadn’t betrayed him; I hadn’t violated the code.

  I walked back to my room wondering about the things Harlan left behind. What were his things? There was the temptation, a strong desire to look into Harlan’s dresser drawer. Who knows what’s to be found there? As a child I had discovered pornographic pictures in the dresser drawers of Jerry and Steve. They were hard core black and white photos of couples engaged in sex, the men naked but for the black anklet socks they wore. Some of the men attempted to disguise themselves by drawing the outlines of eyeglass frames around their eyes, as if these pictures might fall into the hands of their friends and relatives who’d scrutinize the porn wondering, could that be Manny? Harlan probably didn’t need any pictures. He didn’t flip through copies of Playboy because he had women climbing all over him like grape vines on an arbor. For all of his womanizing, his seductions and betrayals, he never joined in the waiters and busboys sex talk about girls. In the end I shrugged off the impulse to search whatever he might have left behind knowing there’d be no money, or jewels, or answers to his mystery.

  There was some time to kill before lunch but it was of no use to me. I was without strength or vitality. I felt as though my muscles had been detached from my bones. If I were to go to the basketball court my shots would never reach the backboard; if I went to the pool to swim I’d sink like an anchor and drown. There was nothing that appealed. It had been several weeks since I’d smoked a cigarette and even that held no temptation. It was as though grief had removed me from myself and the world of the every day. Ron was waiting for me when I entered our room. His promise to be chaste until he and Vivian were reunited had failed the test of Martha’s physical allure and, like a compulsive masturbator, Ron would be guilt-ridden and self-loathing in the immediate aftermath of an episode only to be drawn back again by desire and the need to re-test his potency.

  “So, what happened with you and Sarah?”

  “Not now, Ron, it’s just too soon, it still hurts too much to talk about.”

  “Is that what you and Harlan fought about last night?”

  “Who said we fought?”

  “Nosy Abe. He said he heard a loud thud that woke him up. When he peeked into the room you were gasping for breath on the floor and Harlan was standing over you rubbing his fist.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t call that a fight. It was just his one punch and that wasn’t about Sarah.”

  “That bastard. So what was it, you wanted switchies with Heidi and Mr. Cool took offense?”

  “Listen! I don’t want to talk about it! Let it rest. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”

  “Bullshit, you can tell me right now. In a few days this will matter no more to you than judge Crater did, believe me. Remember how hard you worked to help me with that?” Because of or perhaps despite his sarcasm I wouldn’t reveal what I knew about the judge.

  “Another bad night with Martha, Ron, is that what you’re taking out on me?” Whatever warmth he’d shown when I told him Sarah and I were through had cooled. Was it his struggle to abstain from luxuriating in Martha’s spectacular anatomy that had him so tense or was he just mean by nature? Either way there was no time for this now.

  “Even a bad day with Martha beats no day with Sarah.”

  “Whatever you say.” I grabbed my towel and went to the shower room to get away from him.

  Immediately I began thinking of Sarah and her demeanor just hours ago. She’d said I love you. It didn’t make me feel any better then and recalling it in the midst of my pain only made it worse. Was it truly over? Was I too injured to let her back in? The pain of betrayal and loss is ineffable. You know it when you feel it. It can’t be described or imagined; it is a unique pain that exists apart from language. Shakespeare wrote only “howl” for Lear when he comes upon the body of his beloved Cordelia, “howl” because the pain of that grief strikes one dumb, obliterates words and leaves one to wail like a wounded animal.

  Once before in a circumstance of heartbreak I learned, completely by chance, that swimming a great distance under water grants you asylum from the pain. You become aware of everything but your thoughts then, aware of your breathing, aware of your surroundings, aware of your physical experience of buoyancy, of the temperature and pressure of the water against your body, of the quality of the light around you, of anything and everything but your emotions and your thoughts. Amidst the waterworks of showers and sinks and toilets I sought to submerge myself in an interior sanctuary but my tears would not hold back and as I started to cry Ivan Goldman and Spider Johnson came into the room. Pride could not suppress my pain but it could propel me into the shower and, still in the clothes I’d worn for breakfast, I turned on the cold water and stood under the icy spray as it washed the tears from my face. Ivan and Spider left without a word. They had witnessed my madness and turned away from it just as people do in the subways or the streets of New York City, as if to acknowledge it might somehow burden them with an insufferable responsibility for me. Better just to look away and leave.

  2.

  I sleep walked through lunch and dinner. Sammy did not chide me for being aloof and unsociable that night. Either he saw that I was totally incapable of any kind of friendly interaction or he was punishing me with indifference, his “eye for an eye” kind of justice. “Sammy, I don’t mean to disappoint you it’s just that I’ve had so many things change in such a short time I can’t take anymore changes.” He shrugged and left me sitting near our side stand. The thought of Sarah was still too painful to dwell on. I had not tried to contact her and Heidi, who was completely undone by Harlan’s exit, had not shown her face all day and was not available to bear messages between us. I caromed between longing and resentment whenever Sarah’s face appeared in my thoughts. I was unable to make a plan, to think straight.

  With Harlan gone and Ron off to see Martha yet again I had the room to myself. A visceral churning kept launching me off my bed and into the center of the room, but for what?

  My restless pacing and mindless motion was like an awkward ballet performed to atonal music. Every thought felt ugly, discordant, wrong in some way. On the one hand wait for her to come to me and beg forgiveness, on the other hunt her down and make passionate love to her, let the lusty fires consume the awkward fumblings of the past and her betrayal as well, yes, even that, like a smelting furnace, so a new love might be cast from the molten remains.

  By10 o’clock I knew Sarah was not going to come looking for me. I sat on Harlan’s bed contemplating what I believed were my choices. Hadn’t she said she loved me? Hadn’t she sobbed and pleaded with me only hours ago? Why be so fe
arful of meeting her, why expect her to be other than as she was? But I had a feeling Sarah would not be as I had left her early that morning. Should I trust such a feeling? Was the old cautious Melvin back in charge? What happened to the Melvin who said even bad news is better than no news? What happened was he didn’t get accepted to Columbia and had become wary of that attitude. Nonetheless, I knew it would be another sleepless night if Sarah and I didn’t meet.

  Once again, on the path behind the waiters’ quarters, I stumbled on the old well’s stones. For all I knew Judge crater was down there after all but this wasn’t the time to ponder that possibility. Funny how things had proceeded since Ron and Lenny marched me to this place. I would have been laughing about how the summer had evolved if Sarah and I were okay; but we were not. This was not the time for laughter.

  Sarah’s roommate Barbara met me on the porch of the counselors’ cabin.

  “Sarah is at Heidi’s house. You can imagine how Heidi is feeling.” It seemed as though Sarah had said nothing about our crisis to Barbara because her tone was matter of fact and chummy.

  “Yeah, Harlan left early this morning. I bet he never said goodbye to Heidi.”

  “Oh, but he did. He even apologized to her for flirting with other women.”

  “Flirting! That’s a laugh.”

  “Well, it wasn’t with other women,” she said, drawing quotes in the air around other women, “it was with Sarah.” I stiffened. “He said he didn’t mean anything by it, just being playful, but he should never have done anything like that, however innocent, with Heidi’s dearest friend.”

  “How did you hear about this?”

  “Sarah told me. She was with Heidi all morning and at lunch she asked me to cover her group so she could stay with Heidi and comfort her some more. That was when she told me.”

  “Is she going to sleep there tonight?”

  “Maybe, she didn’t say.”

  “Maybe I should bring her some clothes, you know, a nightgown, or pajamas or …”

  “Heidi has plenty of pajamas, Mel, you don’t have to bring her anything.”

  “I want to see her,” I blurted out suddenly, startling us both.

  “She doesn’t want to see you, Mel, not yet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mel, give her some time. She was almost raped by those two bastards last night. You saved her, I know, and she’s very grateful to you for that, but she can’t be around anything male right now.”

  “Anything male? You mean roosters, and stallions, or just men?”

  “Don’t be hurt, it’ll be okay, just give her a little time.”

  “That’s all there is is a little time. There’s only a week left to the summer,” I protested in vain. Barbara shrugged and went back into the cabin.

  When you come right down to it, the last thing you think at a time like this is that she’s too embarrassed to face you. No, what you think is she doesn’t care about you anymore and is deliberately avoiding you rather than say it to your face. I considered going to the Braverman residence and knocking on the door but it was late and Ben probably had exhausted his tolerance for my romantic travails. The late August cold enveloped me and made me shiver. Standing on the porch of the dormitory afloat in the murmurous sounds of girls preparing for bed, I wondered about my choices. Was I already forgiving Sarah for what I’d seen? Was I craving her so ardently I’d accept her on any terms? Should I simply leave and forget her, no goodbyes, no see you in the city, no expectations of anything? I didn’t have to decide at that hour. It was only later that I realized it was not even my decision to make.

  That night I didn’t sleep at all but swam and swam in my internal refuge.

  3.

  Newcomers kept arriving in the driveway for the final week of summer vacation, the exhaustion of the trip evident on their faces, in their bodies, and the wilted appearance of their clothing. Bernie Abramowitz. pacing, pinching, and pumping his way through the crowd was never happier than on these occasions of welcoming. I no longer felt irritated by his displays but instead felt pity for him and gratitude in the knowledge that my life would never be anything like his. Never.

  About half of my guests were holdovers who had taken the last two weeks of August for their vacations. They enjoyed the warm days and cool nights but sacrificed the extra daylight hours the July vacationers enjoyed. There were those who were philosophical about the distribution of summer’s bounty and celebrated their share, but then there were others who thrived on complaint, the ones who felt they weren’t getting what was coming to them. Sammy had no patience with the latter group. His regulars were celebrants happy to be in the country and content with Sammy’s kibitzing. The others, well, Sammy had a way of describing them that still makes me laugh when I think of it. “Nothing is ever good enough for these trumbeniks. Not only is their glass half empty, it’s dirty and there’s a chip in the lip.”

  Sammy was still cool with me but he introduced me politely to our new guests. No regulars were among the last week’s roster of new arrivals and this seemed to drive home to him the inevitability of the end of summer. It was already as good as over. We served the usual Sunday night dinner of boiled beef, stuffed chicken breasts or steamed vegetable platter, and the ice cream dessert was the hit of the meal. During the clean-up Sammy carried in a tray of glasses for me and then sat me down.

  “You made a mistake, Melvin, not taking me up on my offer to make you a waiter. I hired a man from town who will fill in for Harlan and I decided to keep that station at just three tables instead of four. You could have made extra money and worked less for it, but that was your decision.”

  “So does that mean Ron and I won’t be getting a new roommate?” Shaking his head, he frowned.

  “No, there won’t be anyone else staying in the room. That’s what’s important to you? Not the money? Not my feelings for you? Whether there’s a new roommate for one week? Meshugah.”

  At that moment I felt an understanding and empathy for Sammy emerge from the general climate of sadness enveloping me. Here was a man with a raw, uncultivated intelligence surrounded summer after summer by boys and young men who would go on to careers in various professions, careers that would carry them away from him and Braverman’s and these sagging mountains forever. Lacking the education he admired he had settled for being a character, an eccentric personality, the unforgettable drill sergeant who never graduates with the officers he’s trained. His story was hidden behind a white shirt and a black bow tie, his sad clown’s costume.

  I asked, “Will Heidi be working in the dining room now that Harlan, I mean the thief, is gone?” Heidi was still my best route back to Sarah.

  “Probably not. She is so upset I don’t think she’ll be working anywhere the last week of the summer. And you, you too are upset. Who ever thought Harlan would cause so much damage?” Ron, I thought, Ron did. “Well, maybe I can give her some comfort. Do you think the Bravermans would mind?” Sammy shrugged and forced a smile for me.

  “Melvin, I have no answers for that question.” He squeezed my arm and left me at the side stand.

  I showered and changed into khakis and a navy and green plaid shirt, my Diana debacle outfit—I’ve never been superstitious and may actually dare the fates to try me again—tied a crew neck sweater around my waist, and set off for the Bravermans’ house. Sunday night there was no show or activity at the recreation hall so Ben and his wife would likely be in. They rarely left the grounds of the hotel at night, even with their two sons gradually assuming control of the resort’s operations.

  The meteor showers of late August were easy to spot in the mountains when you were away from the lights of the hotel’s buildings and the path to the Bravermans’ residence was unlit. I saw several shooting stars but the thrill they usually gave was occluded by the dread of what might lie ahead with Sarah. The feelings of betrayal and hurt had damped the fires of the passion I imagined might rescue us from the collapse of the meaning of “us”.

&nbs
p; It was just after nine o’clock when I knocked on the Bravermans’ front door. Ben answered almost immediately, a whiskey in hand.

  “Melvin, what a surprise. I was expecting company, what is it you want?”

  “Is Heidi here?”

  “Heidi! First you tell me you’re having fights with Harlan over Sarah and now you come to my house calling on Heidi? No, Heidi is not here, she’s with Sarah in the arts and crafts shed. So which one do you want to see?”

  “I want to see them both, but Sarah more than Heidi.” I said, trying not to exclude his daughter completely while stating my more pressing mission.

  “Well, you’ll find them down there. Be sure to knock louder when you get there. They’re both in no condition for surprises right now,” he said, shutting the door without so much as a goodbye.

  The day camp occupied a stretch of land along the northwest portion of the property away from the swimming pool, tennis courts and adult playgrounds. To walk there in the dark one relied upon the neatly tended wide dirt road that led from the swimming pool to the nature cabin; the art shed could be located next to the chicken coop behind the nature cabin. A small family of local raccoons had discovered the chickens and was removing them one by one for a while before Ben and his boys ambushed them and hung their tails up on the flag pole in the center of the camp. It was illegal to hunt raccoons but no one working there told the police. Ben treated his land and his animals the way an eighteenth century English Lord might, as if he was above the law. No, as if he was the law.

  The shooting stars were brilliant in their course, their silence almost a surprise in the wake of the years spent imitating the whistle of descending bombs when the U.S. was at war. The chickens were asleep and the only sound was that of Sarah and Heidi talking and giggling in the distance. I hurried towards the shed, hopeful and fearful at the same time, eager to learn where we were—where I was with her and she with me, still unclear about what I was willing to forgive and whether she was even slightly interested in having to ask for my forgiveness. Though what she had done was wrong, hurtful and destructive, feeling humiliated herself by her actions could cause her to avoid me even if I did not reproach or berate her.