The Two Hotel Francforts

by David Leavitt

  “Edward!” I called, but he didn’t answer. I turned and saw a bigger wave approaching and, remembering what he had said, I dove down, cleaving myself to the ocean floor.

  This time I felt the wave as a rumbling—what I imagined an earthquake would feel like.

  “Pete!” I heard him calling as I broke the surface.

  “I’m here!” I answered.

  Separately we stumbled out of the water. The tide had carried us thirty feet or so up the shoreline. To reach our clothes we had to backtrack. “A pity we didn’t bring towels,” he said, drying his face with his shirt.

  I put on my glasses. The salt water had marked them. As in a cartoon of drunkenness, I saw spots.

  “Where are you going?” I asked Edward, who had picked up his pile of clothes and was moving in the direction of the dunes.

  Again he didn’t answer. Maybe he hadn’t heard me. I picked up my own clothes and followed him, until we reached the perimeter of the pine trees. Tufts of beach grass burst sporadically from the sand. Edward put his clothes down and stepped toward me.

  Very delicately, he took the glasses from my face, folded them, and rested them atop his pile of clothes.

  “Why did you do that?” I said.

  And he said, “So that you can truthfully say you never saw what was coming.”

  Somewhere

  Chapter 9

  It was five in the morning when I got back to Lisbon. Though the sky was still dark, the stars were gone. You could feel the imminence of sunrise. The entrance to the Francfort was locked. I had to ring the bell three times before the porter, vexed to have been wakened, let me in. The lobby had a hushed, churchlike air. An OUT OF SERVICE sign now hung on the elevator, so I took the stairs to the second floor, where I knocked timorously on the door to our room. No reply. I knocked a little louder. Still no reply. It was while I was pondering the dilemma of how to knock loudly enough to wake Julia, yet softly enough not to wake our neighbors, that I heard a groan and a stumble. Wraithlike in her pajamas, Julia let me in. The room was impossibly shadowy, as rooms where others have been sleeping so often seem to those who have been out all night.

  “I had a terrible headache, so I took a Seconal,” Julia said. “What time is it?”

  “Never mind. Go back to sleep.”

  She staggered to the bed and was at once snoring. I went into the bathroom and got undressed. In my jacket pocket I found the copy of The Noble Way Out that I had bought at Bertrand, still in its brown-paper wrapping. I put it on top of the toilet, then took off my shoes. They were full of sand. My socks, too, were full of sand. When I pulled down my pants, sand spilled onto the floor. With a brush, I tried to sweep it all up—to no avail, since every time I bent over, more sand fell from me. The grains were clustered in the hair on my chest and legs. They seemed to be moving, like lice. I got into the bath, where I rinsed and rinsed with tepid water, and yet it seemed that there was always some further crevice or cleft in which the sand hid. Soon the drain was blocked. The tub wouldn’t empty. I dried off and dressed. Clearly Julia was down for the count, so I headed downstairs, where I told the porter to let her know that I would be at the Suiça. In the interval, the sun had risen. Save for the occasional businessman reading his newspaper as he walked, the occasional market woman carrying a basket of fish on her head, the streets were empty. At the Suiça, yawning busboys were just taking the chairs off the tables. The coffee that the waiter brought me was the first of the day, with grounds at the bottom of the cup. On the sidewalk, pigeons strutted, their feathers the color of pencil-eraser smudges.

  I tried to clarify in my head the events of the previous night. The trouble was, everything was clouded in an absinthe haze, in which the actual could not easily be distinguished from the hallucinatory. Perhaps instinct itself is a sort of green fairy, the bitter taste of which we temper with excuses: I was drunk. It was late. The world was ending. Of course, such excuses are paper thin. Even as we make them, we don’t believe them. They are part of the ritual, along with the carafe and the sugar cube and the perforated spoon.

  Toward dawn, the green mist cleared a little. We were walking back to the car, the cuffs of our pants rolled up, our shoes in our hands. There was still some moonlight, which gave me a chance to reflect upon how big Edward’s feet were—at least twice as big as Julia’s. On each meaty knuckle, a tuft of stiff, pale hair stood out. For a man who is habituated to sleeping with women, the body of another man is always a bewilderment, not in its strangeness but in its familiarity—the strangeness of its familiarity. Touching Edward on the beach, in the dark, I might have been touching myself—and so I assumed that what I would want done to me he would want done to him. And sometimes he did. But sometimes he did not.

  Hard, hairy sternum where there should have been pillowy breasts; stomach going soft but still firm under the surface fat; testicles like prunes, and the organ itself, gay like Daisy’s tail, circumcised, and so requiring more than its own lubrications to function—a bit of a problem, that, since on the beach we had nothing to hand, as it were, except what we could make in our mouths. And we kept getting sand in our mouths … All this came back to me as I sat outside the Suiça, and the sun resumed its posture of perennial bored sovereignty, like a lifeguard on his high chair, and the pigeons gathered, on the lookout for any new customers who, out of gratitude at finding themselves, after so many months, in a city with bread to spare, might give them some crumbs … Either I was in the throes of the strangest dream I’d ever dreamed or everything I’d known until now—my entire life—was the dream, and Edward the warm bed in which I had at last awakened from it.

  Then I saw Julia crossing the Rossio on the diagonal. She was wearing high heels, and between these and the black-and-white polka-dot dress she had chosen, I thought how much she looked like a pigeon; whereas Iris was like a great awkward waterbird, a pelican or, as her classmates had observed early on, a stork. Julia had her black hair tied back with a white ribbon. “I meant to wash it this morning, but I couldn’t,” she said as she sat down. “What the hell happened in the bathroom? It looks as if a sandstorm hit.”

  “That’s my fault, I’m afraid. I was on the beach last night.”

  “The beach! I thought you were just going out for a drink.”

  “We were. But then on the spur of the moment we decided to go to Estoril.”

  “At that hour? How did you get there?”

  “We took the car.”

  “Our car?”

  “Why not? What else is it for?”

  She pushed a stray hair out of her eyes. “I hope you found someplace to park it when you got back.”

  “Actually, I left it at the station in Estoril. Don’t worry, I’ll pick it up this afternoon. We’d had quite a bit to drink, so we came back in a taxi.”

  “I see.” A pause like the trembling ash on the end of a cigarette. “Quite a night, was it?”

  “Do you disapprove?”

  “Not at all. In fact, I’m rather pleased. You’re usually such a stick-in-the-mud, it’s good to know you’re capable of having an adventure. Even if it isn’t with me.”

  The formation of habits is something else that travel accelerates. After a week, the waiter at the Suiça knew us well enough that we didn’t have to order. For Julia he brought a cup of black coffee, for me another garoto, as well a plate of those flan-filled tartlets I loved so much.

  “Anyway, was it fun?” She was stirring nothing into her coffee. “Did you have fun?”

  “I suppose.”

  “It’s curious, in Paris you never had many male friends.”

  “Well, other than the guys at work, who was I supposed to pal around with? Your decorator?”

  “What, you couldn’t have been friends with Jean just because he’s a fairy?”

  “His being a fairy had nothing to do with it. We just didn’t have much in common. And I didn’t have a whole lot of time, Julia. You seem to have forgotten that. I had a job. On the weekends I was tired. The last
thing I wanted to do was to, I don’t know, play tennis with your decorator.”

  “But here in Lisbon it’s a different story, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Well, I’ve got time. For the first time since I can remember. Unlike these poor souls who have to wait all day in lines in front of consulates. And so, yes, I did enjoy myself last night. I did.”

  “You act as if I’m trying to take that away from you. I’m not.”

  I wiped my glasses—and remembered how Edward had lifted them from my face.

  “You don’t like him, do you?” I said.

  “Edward?” Julia lit a cigarette reflectively. “Well … I wouldn’t say I dislike him. He’s just a bit of a know-it-all. If anything, I find him dull.”

  “And Iris?”

  “Oh, I like her. She’s interesting. I mean, she’s done such interesting things. What puzzles me is how she ended up with him. Yet you often find that with women who grew up as orphans, they gravitate toward men who need mothering. It’s the same with the dog. A way of giving back what they didn’t get themselves as children.”

  “I wonder why they never had children of their own.”

  “Oh, but they did. They do. A daughter. Retarded or something. She’s in an institution—in California, I think.”

  I put my glasses back on.

  “I’m surprised he didn’t say anything about it,” Julia continued, “given what great pals you two have become.”

  I too was surprised. Then again, had the daughter been mine, would I have mentioned her to Edward?

  We were quiet. Julia took out her solitaire cards.

  “Do you think you and he are really cousins?” I asked after a moment.

  “Of course not,” she said. “Just because we have relations in the same city … It’s ridiculous.”

  “Still, you could be cousins.”

  She looked me evenly in the eye. “We are not cousins, and I’ll thank you not to bring the matter up again.”

  She swept the cards together and dealt.

  “He’s from an entirely different social class. My grandfather was a banker.”

  “What was Edward’s grandfather?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Still, his money had to come from somewhere.”

  “His money? I assumed it was her money.” Suddenly she was looking over my head. “Oh my God, there they are. Act like you haven’t seen them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if we wave or make a fuss, they’ll feel obliged to sit with us, and they mayn’t want to. I don’t want her to think we’re pests.”

  Like a child caught spying, Julia cast her eyes downward, at her cards. Not knowing where else to look, I looked straight ahead. Iris was kneeling on the ground, trying, from what I could make out, to dislodge something from Daisy’s paw. I couldn’t tell if she’d spotted us.

  After a few minutes, Julia’s game gave out. She put away the cards and stood. “Come on,” she said.

  I didn’t need to ask for the bill. I knew exactly how much we owed. We walked past the Frelengs’ table—and Edward smiled up at us. “Hello there,” he said.

  “Oh, hello,” Julia said, as if surprised.

  Then I said hello. Then Iris said hello.

  Then there was a moment when we might have sat down, or they might have asked us to sit down.

  It passed.

  “Well, lovely to see you,” Julia said. “Come on, darling.”

  “Goodbye,” I said.

  Edward’s smile was almost mournful. With his index finger he stroked a postcard that lay on the table. It was of the beach at Guincho.

  Chapter 10

  Back at the hotel, Julia went into the bathroom. She left the door ajar. In the early years of our marriage, she would never have left the door ajar. I wouldn’t have, either. Only over time does the impulse toward modesty fall away in a marriage, leaving in its wake a laxness, an ease of intimacy, that is at once comfortable and terrible. Thus, in their old age my parents had no qualms whatsoever about using the toilet in front of each other—this though it had been eons since they had slept in the same bed. Oh, it is a strange business …

  A few minutes later she emerged. In her hand was the book I had bought earlier.

  “When did you get this?” she asked.

  “Yesterday. I was going to ask them to sign it, but I forgot.”

  “Thank heavens for that. Pete, promise me something. Promise me you will not ask them to sign it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it would be gauche. You’ve got to trust me on this. I know more about these things than you do.”

  Her notions of what constituted propriety had always puzzled me. “All right. I won’t ask them to sign it.”

  “Have you started reading it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I might give it a look.” She took off her shoes and lay down on the bed. “‘Monsieur Hellier’s body had been found in his office,’” she read aloud. “‘He had shot himself in the mouth, and the blood had spilled onto a rare first edition of Balzac’s Illusions Perdues.’”

  “A lively opening.”

  “Though not especially original.”

  I took her word for this. I had little experience of mystery novels.

  After lunch I took the train to Estoril to pick up the car. To my relief Julia didn’t offer to come with me. She was deeply immersed in The Noble Way Out.

  Edward was waiting for me when I got there, leaning against the chassis in perfect contrapposto. Daisy lay at his feet.

  I embraced him. Apparently I was trembling. “Easy, easy,” he said.

  “I hoped you’d be here,” I said. “I hoped so, but I wasn’t sure. I thought about it on the train, and I couldn’t see why you would be.”

  “Well, I am, so that’s that. When do you have to be back?”

  “I don’t know. Dinnertime?”

  “Good, that gives us hours.”

  In the backseat of the Buick, Daisy rotated twice, as was her habit, and went to sleep. I put my left hand on Edward’s leg. For the duration of the trip he held it there firmly, returning it to me only when my not crashing into another car necessitated it.

  “Are you tired?”

  “Exhausted. You?”

  “The same. I wish we could spend the whole night together—and not have to get up in the morning. But of course in a situation like ours, one always has to get up in the morning.”

  This was the first time he had used that word—“situation”—in regard to us. He spoke it in the voice of a man who had been in situations before.

  We were passing the Exposition. In the noon light, the pavilions, so impressive at night, looked gimcrack, provisional. Or was it the city that was provisional, the Exposition that had endured for eight hundred years?

  Perhaps I wasn’t driving at all. Perhaps the car was standing still, while unseen laborers moved huge stage sets around me.

  To test the theory, I took my hands off the wheel. The car weaved and Daisy woke with a start. I grabbed the wheel back.

  “Steady,” Edward said.

  “I’m sorry. I’m a little lightheaded today.”

  “That’s to be expected. You haven’t slept. You’ve been through an upheaval.”

  Which upheaval was he referring to? The war? The drive to Lisbon? Meeting him?

  “I’m not really feeling upheaved,” I said. “Is that a word?”

  “If it isn’t, it should be.”

  “No, what I’m feeling—it’s more an eerie sort of calm. Like what I felt when we crossed into Portugal. As if all the trouble was behind us, not ahead of us. Is that crazy?”

  “I’d really like to learn how to drive. Maybe you can teach me when we get back. Where did you say you were from?”

  I wasn’t sure that I had said. “Indianapolis.”

  “That’s Indiana, right? Well, of course. The Midwest’s unknown territory to me. Maybe we could drive there together—to Indianapolis—and you co
uld teach me on the way. And then we could go on to California. You could meet my mother.”

  “And your daughter?” I almost said—but didn’t. For while we were talking, Lisbon had caught up with us. Soon the piers gave way to the familiar listing buildings, their facades painted fanciful shades of blue and pink and green. Morning glories blossomed on rusty iron balconies. “Park here,” Edward said when Cais do Sodré—the station from which the Estoril trains departed—came into view.

  “It might be hard to find a place,” I said—and at that moment I found one.

  “The parking god has always looked on me with favor,” he said.

  We got out of the car. Edward put Daisy on the leash and headed off. I followed. Like Daisy, he walked with decision, as if he knew exactly where he was going. The question was whether he did know exactly where he was going—as Daisy did not.

  Taxis were circling the Praça Duque de Terceira, apparently for the sheer pleasure of it. Some of them were motorcycles; the passengers rode in the sidecars. We cut across the traffic to Rua do Alecrim, which ascends from the Tagus to the Bairro Alto at such a steep incline that at its base the street takes the form of a sloped bridge below which Rua Nova do Carvalho runs like a river. Smaller staircase bridges connect the bridge to the houses on either side. We climbed one of these. The door had no sign. Edward rang the bell.

  After a moment a girl with a port-wine stain on her cheek answered. She wore a French maid’s uniform that might have come from a theatrical costumery. She kissed Edward, then stepped aside to let us in.

  We were standing in a tiny, rectangular entrance hall. In front of us an enormous staircase rose, as vertiginous as Rua do Alecrim itself.

  Up we went, the maid first, then me, then Edward with Daisy. Never in my life had I climbed a staircase that long that was not broken up by landings, that neither doubled back on itself nor coiled around an elevator shaft.

  What would happen if I fell? Would he catch me? Or would I knock him down, so that we landed at the base in a broken heap?

  To keep the sensation of vertigo at bay, I trained my attention on the maid’s back. She had a white apron tied around her waist, just under the bust. I counted the steps until we reached the top.