Henny said, "And suppose he starts giving his views on the thanatos urge? Honestly, dear, your friend's going to get sent off this island in a bag."
"Old Sendings never die," Norman said, "they just get sent away."
Hazel said to Cohn, "I have the two most heartless parents alive."
Atlas's vague hoarse bellowing sounded in the lobby, and he came in sight leading Virgil and Millard, each carrying a large frosty cardboard package.
"Hey, Norm! Here's your meat, by Jesus, eight packages, ice cold and hard as rock. All right, boys, take those on back to the kitchen and bring over the rest."
He came charging to their table, clad in something known as a cabana set, shorts and a matching shirt, vertically striped pink and blue; sweaty, wrinkled, and indistinguishable from slept-in pajamas. He fell in a chair with a crash, and pulled out one of his torpedo cigars. "Yes, sir, Norm, the senior partner saved the situation this time, hey? Tell Henny. Did I or didn't I? Where would those steaks be now if not for me, hey? Stinking up the whole city of Caracas. Waitress! Double Old Granddad on ice."
Norman said, "I told Henny, Lester. We're both grateful to you."
Atlas chuckled. "Well, I only hope this little incident teaches you a lesson. You're a sweetheart, I know, and I'm a son of a bitch. In this world the sweethearts have the friends, Norman, and the sons of bitches give the orders. The thing is, you're giving orders now, mister. You're trying to run a hotel, and you've got to become a little bit of a son of a bitch. You'll never be a real one, that's a matter of talent, but you've got to work at it anyway."
"I resent all this," Henny said. "My husband is too a real son of a bitch."
"She knows," Norman said. "She's called me that any number of times."
"She was just building up your ego. Haw, haw! Henny, you know I'm telling the truth. He's a sweetheart. He's nice to people. He trusts them. He puts up with all kinds of horse manure. He probably wouldn't sleep at night if he fired somebody. This won't do Norm, I'm warning you. I've been checking around here this morning. How on earth could you tolerate for even one day that barefoot slob with the big straw hat on? The one with the machete? That's not the kind of personnel for a hotel, Norm. You've got to start thinking of your image. I fired the bastard. I mean, pleasant appearance is absolutely the first thing you have to-what's the matter? Bone in your throat? Want me to slap your back? Catch me eating those goddamn trout, they're a menace-"
Norman stopped gasping and choking long enough to articulate, "You did what? You FIRED Hippolyte? What do you mean? How could you do that?"
"How? I told him to get his ass off the grounds. I didn't intend to do that at first. I just told him to put on his shoes, take off his hat, and put away that machete if he wanted to keep his job. But he gave me some kind of dirty sass in a foreign language, and do you know, he made a sort of pass at me with the chopper? I don't think he meant it, he was trying to scare me. Heh! Norman, I was taking knives away from guineas on Longfellow Avenue before that character was born. I wasn't scared, but I was annoyed. I told him to get the hell off the island and stay off before I threw him off. He gave me some more sass, but then he went. You've seen the last of him, and good riddance. What did he do here, anyway? He looked pretty useless, just mooching around the lobby."
Norman slowly got to his feet, drawing a deep breath to ease the terrible tightness in his chest. He started talking in a tone of exaggerated soft calm. "Now listen, Lester, maybe we should get one thing straight. You don't own the Gull Reef Club. You know? I own it. You're not a senior partner. You're not a junior partner. You don't have a dollar in this hotel. You have no right to do anything here but ENJOY YOURSELF. You're a guest. Is that clear? Maybe I'll die here trying to make this hotel work, but for God's sake, I'm going to do it my way!" Norman was now pounding the table and shouting.
Lester said not unkindly, "Norm, you own the place because I put my name on a piece of bank paper. I'm only trying to be helpful. Maybe I had no right to rescue those steaks for you either, but I just did it. I'm that kind of guy."
"Go ahead and finish your lunch, everybody," Norman said. "I've got things to do in a hell of a hurry. That man was my best employee, and I've got to get him back, if it means crawling on my hands and knees."
"Well, go ahead, go ahead, but you'll regret it. Nobody loves a truth teller, Henny," Atlas said plaintively. "And that's all I am, an old truth teller, and that's all I've done here, and Norman doesn't like it. Okay, Norm, I wash my hands of this hotel. If you drop dead, I'm out twenty thousand dollars. It's perfectly okay. Do things your way from now on."
Atlas's maundering self-pity made Norman feel better, it was so laughable. "We all love you just as you are, Lester," he said. "Don't ever change."
Millard and Virgil, each with a package of frozen steaks on his head, stood in the doorway of the kitchen. Sheila was showering them with abuse. When she saw Paperman she came plunging out at him, and he was hard put to it to stand his ground.
"Mistuh Pape'mon! Tell me one ting. Who de fot parson? He make so much confusion ron' hyah, we ain' goin' be able do nuttin'. De fot porson he hoross Hippolyte. Hippolyte say he goin' away, he don' want to kill de fot porson. You know dat?"
Paperman assured her in the strongest terms that the fat person would not bother anybody, ever again. She began to calm down. But when he asked her where he could find Hippolyte, she exploded.
"NO SUH, Mistuh Pape'mon. You wants Hippolyte, you does have to send away de fot porson. We goin' have a wery bad accident in de hotel if Hippolyte come back now. Hippolyte he come talk to me before he go, and he talk plenty fonny." She turned on Millard and Virgil, standing dumbly and dropping sweat, and she shouted, "You crazy, mon? I tole you take de meat by de freezer dung tung. What for you stand dere like jumbies?"
Virgil smiled in a pitiable effort to please. "De fot porfon, he fay bring de meat heah."
"Dis my kitchen, an' de fot porson he ain' nobody! You heard de boss!"
"Do as Sheila says," Paperman told the men. "Never mind the fat person. Never mind anything he says after this."
They trudged away with relief.
Norman begged Sheila to rush to Hippolyte with his apologies, and an urgent request to return, and a promise that Atlas would never interfere with him again. The cook would not go. Nor would she even tell him where Hippolyte could be found. "Mistuh Papuh, you gone be wery sorry if he come back before de fot porson go. You best hope he don' come back widout you ask him. Hippolyte plenty mad."
"Sheila, Mr. Atlas will be here for at least two weeks."
"Dey ain' nuttin' to fix now. De confusion all fix, we got 'lectric, we got water. I tell you someting, suh. Leave Hippolyte be."
4
Miraculously-as it seemed to Norman-the Gull Reef Club did survive the departure of Hippolyte, day after day. It was true, as Sheila had said, that all the serious troubles were over, and for the moment no fresh ones were cropping up. Hippolyte's queer mute crew stayed on the job and finished the new rooms, glumly accepting Henny's supervision of the last touches. The work seemed good. The toilets flushed; taps flowed; lights burned; doors opened and shut; the green-and-gold Japanese wallpaper stayed on the walls. Henny furnished the rooms out of Hassim's shop with stuff from Hong Kong and India-wicker chairs, brass or porcelain lamps, Chinese scrolls and water colors-none of it very costly and all blending in exotic charm. Smaller than the old rooms, these were nevertheless the best accommodations the hotel now offered. Dan Freed and his party grabbed them when they came. Lionel, who arrived greener than ever in the face, but happy as a boy, announced that he was going to hire Henny to redecorate all of Hogan's Fancy in exactly this style.
Freed's Broadway entourage, a laughing fast-talking group of eleven that included two well-known actresses, filled the Club with chic clothes and New York chatter. The other guests were thrilled and awed. Islanders crowded the bar day and night to stare at the celebrated performers and the pasty little producer of four current Broadway successes.
The delight of the New Yorkers with Kinja and with Paperman's hotel was complete. They swam, they sailed, they danced, they drank, they roared around the island in rented jeeps, they made friends with Kinjan field workers, bartenders, and policemen; and they all said they had never had such fun in their lives. Norman became tired of being told how brilliant his idea had been, and how lucky he was. The main thing was that, with these finicky people, the Club had scored a success. There was little doubt that next year it would have a Broadway vogue.
And as it was, the Club glittered with sudden prosperity. The Christmas jam was on. Norman turned away dozens of people begging for any kind of place to sleep, even a cot in the lobby. The reservation list for lunch and dinner was closed each day by ten in the morning. Two extra bartenders were assisting Church, who was now spending most of his time ringing up money and keeping records. The accountant, checking the books three times a week, reported that Church was accurate and honest, and that earnings were sharply up. Altas, scrutinizing the books every day despite his pledge not to interfere, told Norman that he was over the hump at this point, and set for life, if he actually wanted to stay in the Caribbean. The extra rooms had been his salvation, Atlas said; the hotel would smoothly pay off its purchase price now, while giving him a living of ten thousand a year or so; and once the debts were cleared, Norman would be swimming in profits.
None of this reassured Norman much. He knew all too well how quickly a calm situation in Kinja could explode into chaos. Each day the absence of a mechanical breakdown seemed to him almost too good to be true. His hope was that the rickety structure would stand until Atlas left, when he could get Hippolyte back; and his prayer was that a collapse, if it did come, would at least occur after the Tilson dinner party on December 27th. Norman now had nearly three thousand dollars sunk in that venture alone. For all his temporary prosperity, he was working with a chokingly narrow margin of cash. If the Tilson affair failed to come off, or ended in disaster, he would not only be in permanent bad odor on the island, he would collapse under his debts. He pointed out these hazards to Atlas, who merely laughed. Norman was like a child afraid of the dark, he said; what could go wrong with a dinner party? The old truth teller's optimism about the hotel was now boundless.
When Norman told him about Mrs. Ball's offer to settle her promissory notes for cash, Atlas became almost as excited as he usually did at seeing a bikini girl. He wanted to find Mrs. Ball and wind up the matter at once. "She'll take five thousand, don't give her another nickel," he exulted. "She's got herself a new stud already, that's what. She wants to buy him diamond cuff links and such garbage. Five grand instead of thirty-five! Norm, that's fourteen cents on the dollar! Jesus, you should have made the deal right there."
Norman mildly pointed out that he hadn't had five thousand at the time, and still didn't. Atlas told him to find Mrs. Ball; he would arrange for Norman to get the money. But she was off the island that day, and with all he had on his mind, Norman didn't immediately follow it up.
For one thing, Iris was a continuing worry. She remained immured in her cottage. Once Norman glimpsed her swimming near her beach; she answered his wave with a wrist flick, and turned her back on him. Esm‚ reported that she never answered the telephone, and that the governor was calling often. Sheila told him Iris was not allowing the chambermaids into the cottage, and that no food was going down there from the kitchen, not even for the dog. Walking by the cottage, Norman could hear the phonograph and the barking dog, and he could sometimes see Iris shadowily moving inside. On the fifth day of this siege, Iris did admit the cleaning girls. When they left, she asked them to bring table scraps for Meadows. The girls carried back to Norman such an ill report of Iris's looks that he nerved himself to telephone the governor. It was a miserably awkward little conversation.
"Governor, I'd like to talk to you-in private-about Iris, about Mrs. Tramm. She's not quite well."
"I see." The brisk voice became guarded. "Here, or at your hotel?*'
"There, I think."
"Come on over."
Sanders was at his desk in his shirt sleeves when Norman arrived. He shut off his telephone and intercom, locked the door, and sat in his chair with arms folded, smoking, while Norman told him about Iris's collapse. Norman talked as though she were the governor's sister or ex-wife, about whom no preliminaries were necessary. Sanders accepted the tone. The governor's face showed no emotion as Norman spoke. His fingers, when they weren't drumming softly on the desk, strayed to his thin mustache or his kinky grizzled hair.
"Do you think she should be hospitalized?" he said when Norman paused.
"She should be brought out of there somehow, Governor. I've tried and failed."
"I can see that it's awkward for you. After all, there she is, and you have a hotel to run."
"That's not the idea. She's been kind and helpful to me. She's not creating trouble, but I think that at this rate she's going to become dangerously sick. If you could persuade her to go back to her parents in San Diego-" The governor winced and grimaced. "Governor Sanders, I'm well aware that this is not my business, but-"
"Perfectly all right. However, telling Iris to go back to San Diego, I assure you, isn't the best idea you ever had." Sanders left his desk and paced the room, swirling the layers of smoke. The air-conditioner rattled away; it was the noisiest one on the island, Paperman thought. Sanders half-sat on the edge of his desk, very close to Paperman, and said with a bitter little smile, "She's talked to you about us?"
"Only a very little."
'Well, I guess there's no point in presenting my side. Possibly I have no side, but since you seem to be saddled with the problem-the long and the short of it, Mr. Paperman, is that I was given this post instead of something in a big city, or even in the Virgin Islands. Iris wanted to come anyway. I couldn't resist letting her come because I'm in love with her, Mr. Paperman, but in this tiny place she's been living in a glass bowl. It's no good. That's why after a while I, too, suggested San Diego, just until I could get another appointment. It caused an explosion such as I hope you'll be spared, and she went into a spin like this one. Things have been bad since." Sanders lit a cigarette and paced; and as he talked, a Negro quality, more attractive than his studied speech-class diction, came into his voice. "You see, Mr. Paperman, here's how it is. If I were a night-club entertainer, I could marry a white lady and go right on performing-even an unusual white lady like Mrs. Tramm-but unfortunately I'm not a very amusing fellow. I'm strictly government. If we got married I'm afraid she'd find herself with an inexperienced porter or bellhop fifty years old on her hands Do you follow me? I have no answer to that, and if you could think of one I'd be truly obliged."
The two men looked at each other. Norman spread his hands, and stood. "I thought I had to tell you."
"Thank you. Iris is an unbelievably strong woman, I can assure you. She's probably healthier right now than you or me. The psychoanalysts have called her a self-destroyer, yet the fact is she has one hell of a will to live. She pulls out of these things. I've been through this. The less you interfere, usually, the better. If you keep an eye on her and inform me of anything real bad I'll appreciate that, but I think it's going to be all right. As all right as it can be. -Well! And so your Mr. Atlas is here again," he said, turning on his speech-class voice. "And he is bidding on Crab Cove. And at the Reef, I hear, everything's going as merrily as a marriage bell." He held out his slender cool hand, yellow on the back and white-palmed. "Thank you for coming."
5
Hazel had been visiting the Sending daily in the hospital, sometimes twice a day, and had found him most unreasonably peevish; so she told her parents. His bitterest complaint was about an intelligence test the hospital had given him. It had been so insultingly elementary, and he had been so irritated and bored, that he had filled it up with the most comically wrong answers he could think of, depicting himself as an illiterate with an IQ of perhaps thirty or forty. Unfortunately the hospital had taken the results quite seriously;
it closely agreed with the kind of scores they often got in their large ward of mentally disturbed Kinjans. His frantic efforts to convince the staff psychiatrist that it had all been a hoax, and to let him take the exam again, had been to no avail. The chief of the hospital, Dr. Tracy Pullman, had ruled that this would be cheating.
It had, therefore, really begun to seem that Klug was in for a long confinement in the Amerigo Hospital, as a brain-damage case, capable of lapsing now and then into a human vegetable. He was in a foaming rage about this, and claimed to have already written to the Ford
Foundation for a grant on which to live while composing a scathing play about the low state of Caribbean medical science. But an unexpected turn set Sheldon free before the week was out.
From the first day he had maintained that he must have wrenched an arm and a shoulder in his underwater struggles, because he had pains in the right shoulder, elbow, and wrist, and in the right knee joint too. A doctor from a visiting submarine, brought to the hospital by Lieutenant Woods to check on these pains, announced after thoroughly examining Klug that he actually had a mild case of the bends. Nitrogen bubbles had settled in his joints, when he had ascended too fast from a hundred and ten feet to the point where he had hung up on the coral. The bubbles were still there. He would continue to be in pain until he was decompressed; moreover, if he weren't decompressed soon, he might become a chronically gouty sort for life. The nearest decompression chamber was at the navy base in San Juan. The Sending, beside himself with frustration and ill-humor, elected to fly back to New York instead, to get himself decompressed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. On this basis the hospital released him.
Herman Wouk - Don't Stop The Carnival Page 38
