by Paul Theroux
It was raining, the pool was empty, and we were playing whist in the office—Vinny, Larry, and the janitor we called Speedo—this was about two days later.
I said, “I’d like to give blood again—I mean, sell it. But you can only do it every six or eight weeks.”
“What else is new?” Larry said, and put a card down. He had a cardshark’s way of snapping them onto the table. Then he said that he had heard of places where you could sell sperm—they injected it into women who wanted kids.
“Hey, I could do that,” Muzzaroll said.
Speedo grinned, thinking the same thing.
“They’d turn you assholes down,” Larry said. “They don’t want a bananaman. They want class. You gotta take tests.”
“Jerk-off tests,” Speedo said.
“Psychological tests, to make sure you’re not crazy. Intelligence tests. The whole bit. You think it’s just a hand-job. It’s not. It’s science. After you get the okay, you jerk off into a test tube and they give you about twenty bucks. You think I’m shitting you. The place is right here in Boston.”
“You can sell your body,” Muzzaroll said. “For science. For experiments and shit like that. You can get about three hundred bucks for it.”
That sounded like a fortune to me.
“Or in Speedo’s case, about thirty clams,” Larry said.
“What happens?” I said.
“Andy’s interested,” Larry said. “It’s like this. You sign something and they give you the money, and when you die they claim your bawd. Then they cut you into hamburg for their experiments.”
“Who are we talking about?” Muzzaroll said.
“Students,” Larry said. “Harvard students.”
Speedo said, “How do they know when you die?”
“They find out. See, when they give you the money they put a tattoo on the sole of your foot. It stays there. No matter when or where you die, your body gets shipped to Harvard Medical School.”
“I’d do that,” I said. And I imagined showing someone like Mimi Hardwick, or Lucy, or any girl, the tattoo on my foot that said This body is the property of Harvard Medical School. “What difference would it make? I’d be dead.”
“What if your foot got chopped off?” Speedo said. “Like you got run over or something—”
“Play the fucking game,” Muzzaroll said, scraping up the deck of cards and dealing.
Then Larry said, “Here she comes.”
It was Mrs. Mamalujian, in a big cartwheel hat and a flower-printed dress. She looked very stylish and out of place, carrying a blue umbrella and walking up the path to the MDC pool. She lifted her sunglasses and looked at me.
I had put my cards down and run out to intercept her. I didn’t want the others to hear anything.
“Where have you been hiding?”
I wanted to tell her that I didn’t have any money, and with no money I felt I did not exist.
“I’ve been here. How did you find me?”
And I walked over to the fence so that she would follow me and so that the others wouldn’t see us.
“Your mother told me,” she said. “This is my third visit, for crying out loud. I’m glad to see you. We miss you up at the Maldwyn Country Club.”
“They can come down and swim here. This is for everybody. Only they probably wouldn’t want to. It’s all maniacs here.”
There was laughter in the office. They couldn’t play whist with three people, so they were horsing around, and I could hear Speedo shouting and protesting.
Mrs. Mamalujian said, “I thought we were going out to lunch.”
“We were, but I ran out of money.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’ve got lots of money.”
That made me feel sick with envy and confusion.
She said, “God, you’re funny,” and looked past me at the pool.
Vinny and Larry were carrying Speedo through the rain to the pool. Speedo was wearing his janitor’s blue overalls, and he was yelling and struggling. They propped him up at the edge of the pool, tormented him for a while, and they pushed him in.
“Who are they?”
“My colleagues,” I said.
Mrs. Mamalujian laughed. She had a good, deep, appreciative laugh that was somehow improved by her heavy smoking.
“I have to go back to work,” I said.
“Some work,” she said, sarcastically. “When’s your day off?”
“Saturday.”
“We’ll have lunch then. Do you know the Copley Plaza? Peacock Alley? I’ll meet you there Saturday at noon.”
That night after work I went back to Medford Square, not so much to buy a sub as to talk to Mr. Balinieri again.
But there was a new man behind the counter.
“I was looking for Mr. Balinieri.”
“He don’t work here no more.”
And I knew he had been fired by this ignorant procrustean guinea wop, because he didn’t fit.
5.
I brought my copy of Moby Dick so that I would have something to talk about with Mrs. Mamalujian. I had underlined the paragraphs in chapters 64 and 65 that were about eating whale meat, which was what I wanted to have for lunch. I was very nervous.
Coming out of the Boston Public Library I had often looked across the square they called the plaza, and marveled at the grand hotel on the south side, and wondered what the rooms were like. I had never felt that it was forbidden to go in, only that it was better to have a reason, and an inkling that you needed an invitation of some kind. The idea of going into any Boston hotel seemed strange to me. They were for businessmen and honeymooners; for strangers, for people from out-of-town. I had a notion that hotels were for people who did not quite belong: they had nowhere else to go.
It was a mystery to me. I was nineteen years old and had never traveled anywhere; had never stayed overnight in any hotel. That took money and I didn’t have any.
Another reason for my nervousness was I had told Lucy I would call her. But I was hesitant. I didn’t know what time I would be free, and I felt guilty about making her wait.
I thought fondly of her watering her flowerpots. This is my garden, she had said. This is my library.
And I thought it might frighten her if I told her I loved her. It seemed simpler for things to remain as they were—for us to be passionate when we were in bed, and in between times be close friends. I was also afraid myself that she would depend on me, and I imagined every time I turned around I would see her and she would say, What shall we do now?
Was that Irish-looking doorman staring disapprovingly at me? He had white hair and a red face and a graceful way of reaching for the door. When I saw people doing lowly jobs like opening doors and hailing taxis I tried to picture them as presidents or kings by mentally giving them different clothes; and usually it worked. I made that doorman a presidential candidate and then breezed past him.
What Mrs. Mamalujian had called Peacock Alley was a long corridorlike entry way, with oriental carpets the length of it, and mirrors on the sides. Between the mirrors there were ornate chairs.
“There you are,” I heard.
Mrs. Mamalujian was sitting in a big soft chair, her legs crossed, and kicking one up and down.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your clothes on before,” she said.
That made a passing couple smile.
“It’s impossible to tell whether you’re blushing, you have such a good tan.”
She stood up, wobbled a little in her shoes, and gave me a wet kiss.
“Oh, I’ve left lipstick all over you,” she said, and then made a business of wiping it off, which she did with a very fragrant handkerchief. “Shall we go?”
She had made me unsure of myself. It was the confident way she spoke to me, and the fact that she seldom said anything that called for a direct reply. She just uttered odd statements and she seemed to be making them as much to people who might be eavesdropping as to me.
“I’ve seen trees com
e up faster than that elevator,” she said, and behind us some men chuckled.
She smiled, enveloped in a cloud of strong perfume.
“What’s the book?”
“Moby Dick,” I said, trying to whisper.
“I’ve always liked that title,” Mrs. Mamalujian said.
One of the men cleared his throat.
“You look good in clothes, Andre. You should wear them more often.”
Someone snorted behind me.
“What floor is it on?” I asked, when we got into the elevator, just to have something to say.
“Six,” she said, and poked the button with one of her bulging rings.
When we were outside the door I asked, “Is this a restaurant?”
She just laughed and jangled the key and fumbled with the lock. It was not that she was unmechanical, but rather that she was too vain to wear her glasses. At last the key turned and she pushed the door open.
“Do you like it?”
I stepped inside and looked around.
“Is it a living room?”
There was no bed. I saw a sofa and some wing chairs, and a table with a new copy of Look on it (Kennedy on the cover), all of Boston out the window.
“The bedroom’s in here.”
It was my first hotel room. I did not have to be told it was a suite. I was impressed—by the luxury, the silence, the coolness on this hot summer day.
Mrs. Mamalujian said, “Sometimes when I’m feeling really awful I check into a hotel. This one or the Ritz-Carleton, or the Parker House. And after a few days I feel much better, and then I check out. Do you ever do that?”
“I don’t usually feel awful.”
“It’s wonderful to be young,” she said. “Sit down and have a drink.”
She handed me a menu with a list of drinks on it. I wanted a beer but there was something wrong with drinking a beer in this suite at the Copley Plaza. I looked down the list: Pink Lady. Sidecar. Grasshopper. Manhattan. Tom Collins.
“I’ll have a cocktail,” I said, stalling.
“Which one?”
“A Grasshopper.”
“That’s exciting,” she said. “I’m having a dull old gin and tonic. But tonic’s healthy, you know.”
As I was wondering where the drinks would come from, Mrs. Mamalujian lifted the phone and said, “Room Service? This is six-oh-eight. We want three Grasshoppers and three gins and tonic.” She hung up and said, “I can’t wait to see what a Grasshopper is.”
I had no idea what it was. I said, “Is the restaurant on this floor?”
I was sitting deep in the sofa, and Mrs. Mamalujian smoked in a wing chair across the room. She was swinging one leg over the other with her shoe dangling.
“Room Service,” she said, blowing smoke. “Hungry?”
“A little,” I said, to be polite. I was very hungry and I knew the drink—whatever it was—would make me hungrier.
She said, “I wish I were hungry. I love the idea of food, but the sight of it affects me, and when I start eating I lose my appetite.”
The drinks came—three for Mrs. Mamalujian, three for me. After she signed the bill, the bald man in the tight vest said, “Very good, Madam,” and left the room walking backwards.
“What would you like to eat?”
“Whale steak,” I said.
She looked at me strangely and said, “Are they on the menu?”
“They must be,” I said. We looked. I was very surprised that they weren’t.
She dialed Room Service again and said, “Do you have whale steaks? No? Well, what do you have?”
To simplify matters I said I’d have a hamburger. She ordered crab salad. She smiled at me and said, “Grasshoppers. Whale steaks. Moby Dick.” She winked. “You’ve got a sense of humor.”
A Grasshopper was a minty green drink in a wineglass, mingled with alcoholic chocolate and topped with a layer of thick cream. It was sweet sticky goo, and the liquor in it made my eyes water.
“Is that drink all right? It looks like creme de menthe to me. I don’t know how you do it. You’re so thin!”
“I always drink these,” I said. Did that sound debonair? I didn’t think so.
She had already started her second gin and tonic. “It’s good if you have malaria,” she said. “By the way, they miss you at the club. It hasn’t been the same since you left. That idiot Mattanza still walks around in his stupid bathing suit, thinking he’s so wonderful.”
“I’m still pissed off about that job.”
“You don’t need them,” she said. “You’ve got me.”
I wondered what she meant by that. Why was I here? It seemed the most inconvenient place to have a meal. You ordered a drink and waited twenty minutes. You ordered food and a half an hour later you were still waiting.
She said, “What sort of people stay here, do you think?”
She seemed to be genuinely wondering.
“People from out of town,” I said. “Society people.”
“Oh, society people,” she said, and made a disapproving noise in her throat. “Have you been reading the papers?”
I said no, I never read the newspaper. I was too busy with books.
“The scandal about that so-called debutante—Olivia Harrison? The one who was jilted by that Brazilian? The one they just locked up? Know what they locked her up for?”
I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“After the greaseball jilted her for another so-called deb, she went to Brazil—just got onto a plane and flew there. She saw the guy and shot him dead. But she wasn’t finished with him. She cut his penis off and took it back to Boston in a box, and gave it to his new girlfriend.” Mrs. Mamalujian took a sip of her drink. “Society people.”
The food came on a wheel-in table. There was an upside-down silver bowl over my hamburger and Mrs. Mamalujian’s crab salad was in a dish balanced on cracked ice.
“I’m really impressed that you’re reading Moby Dick.”
“I’m rereading it.”
“Any particular reason?”
She put her fork down and wiped her mouth carefully so that she wouldn’t smudge her lipstick. Was she through after two mouthfuls?
I was too embarrassed to tell her how I imagined eating whale steaks and reading her passages from the chapters “Stubb’s Supper” and “The Whale as a Dish.” I wanted to eat whale, so that I could say that whale was my favorite meat.
“You’ve finished your hamburger,” she said. “I wish I had your appetite. Can you eat any of my salad?”
I ate all the crab salad, and all the rolls, and even chewed the thin slices of orange and the sprigs of parsley that decorated the plate. But I had only drunk one Grasshopper.
Mrs. Mamalujian had finished her gins. She took a small gin bottle out of her bag and said, “Be prepared,” and poured herself another drink.
“You’re a great reader, aren’t you?” she said, raising her glass.
“I guess so.”
“But you can get lost in books. Remember you once told me you were writing a play set in a department store—something about a notions counter?”
I nodded, too humiliated to speak, hearing the thing described to me. I had said that in order to keep what I was really trying to write a secret.
She said, “I got so sad thinking of you indoors staring at a blank piece of white paper on a beautiful summer day.”
That was exactly what I loved doing.
She was too drunk to notice that I hadn’t said anything.
“I love books, but sometimes you have to put them down and go into the next room. Art is wonderful, but—you know what’s in the next room?”
I said I didn’t know.
“Life,” she said.
The first time I heard that I was deeply impressed: it was an experienced woman’s wisdom.
She said, “You’re very bad—you’re making me drink too much!”
“Isn’t it supposed to be healthy?”
“It has a nic
e clean taste,” she said. “That’s why I like gin.” She plopped a little more gin into her glass. “Moby Dick,” she said, and giggled.
She still wore her hat. She stood up unsteadily and sat down beside me on the sofa. I wondered whether anyone would find her attractive—her face was somewhat lined, probably more from sitting in the sun than from old age. She was big-breasted and had skinny legs and her high heels made her seem tall. She was well-dressed—the sort of woman who had her picture taken: an important man’s wife.
“I bet you have a fur coat,” I said.
“I have three fur coats.” she said. “What a thing to say on a hot summer day! You’re a scream.”
She became very quiet and nodded a little: I had the impression that time was passing very quickly for her, though it was passing very slowly for me.
She said, “Sometimes you have to put your books down.”
I finished the thought in my head and this second time it sounded corny.
“Look at the time,” she said, putting one eye against the dial of her watch. “I’m too drunk to go home. I’ll have to take a shower.”
She plumped her hand on my knee, and then my shoulder, struggling to her feet.
“Excuse me,” she said.
“I don’t mind.”
“I’m just going to get into the shower.” She tottered a little as she made for the bedroom.
I didn’t know what to say.
“I’ll be in the next room.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
She went into the bedroom, leaving doors open and talking to herself, repeating things, sort of narrating what she was doing. “Right in here … Pull the drapes … Put my bag down …” In a muffled and straining voice she said, “Get these clothes off.”
After a while I heard water running very loudly. The bathroom door was open. I heard the hiss and crackle of the shower curtain being hit by spray.
I picked up Moby Dick.
That mortal man shall feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you might say; this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and philosophy of it.
I read on and became so absorbed in it, and in the subsequent chapters, that I was startled when I heard “Have you seen my dress?” Mrs. Mamalujian was standing over me, very wet, and dripping, and wrapped in a small towel.
