The Lacuna
Page 119“They’ll think I have a friend. One person knocking on my door who’s not in the pay of myself or the FBI. You hear about it all the time.”
He didn’t answer. Finished with the hand inspection, he wound his watch.
“Aren’t you sick of hotels?”
“Fed up to the blinkers, if you want to know. Let’s go down to the bar.”
“We should get dinner. Some nice oxtail soup and Horlick’s, that’s what you need. You’ve let yourself get run down.”
“Oxtail soup and Horlick’s. Cat, you are off the cob.”
“Corny, that would mean. Sorry. I guess I’ll go.”
He rolled himself upright, facing me, black socks on the floor. “Sorry me, chum, I’m just whammed. Sick of hotels, you said it. What is this furniture, all these bars on everything? It gives me the heebies, like I’m in the pen.”
“It’s a style. Mission.”
“Mission. Do they send up a preacher with the room service?” He lay back down on the bed, reached overhead to grasp the upright slats on the headboard, and briefly rattled them like a prisoner. “The hotel in D.C. had a lousy bar, the place was gestanko in general. Did I tell you there was a big scene?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Well, dig this. It turns out he’s an ambassador from some African country. Ethiopia, I want to say. They got it sorted out. It’s all right because he was foreign, not an American Negro. What do you make of that?”
“Good God. I hate to contemplate. That foreigners aren’t even worth the full measure of American contempt?”
“Could be. But he seemed decent. A nice accent, like a Brit. We rode the elevator together, he was on my floor. He said he hoped I didn’t mind. He’s stayed there loads of times before, and they still make the same mistake.”
“Mind what? You said he hoped you didn’t mind.”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
“How did you feel, Tommy?”
He rolled over onto one elbow, narrowing his eyes. “Feel?”
“In the elevator, with that poor man.”
He fell back again, staring at the ceiling. “I felt I was going up.”
“There was a poke on your mailbox,” Mrs. Brown announced this morning as she came in the door. After these years it still takes me by surprise, though I should have known, she stood there holding it. A poke is a sack. A mesh bag in this case, the type the neighbor uses for carrying home her groceries. Today it contained sundry fountain pens, a fedora, things I’ve given Romulus over several years. Including the rubber atl-atl brought from Mexico, his reward for feeding the cats.
“Here’s a note,” Mrs. Brown said, puzzling over it. “Romulus isn’t to visit here any more.” Please keep away from my boy was the nature of her explanation. Agent Myers had advised her they should not keep any objects given him by a Communist.
“Take a letter, Mrs. Brown. Tell the lady she needs to get in touch with General Eisenhower right away, because he too is in possession of a Communist Object.”
Mrs. Brown sat at the typewriter, hands poised, waiting for the cue that my words were going to make some kind of sense. Sometimes she waits all day.
“What did they call it? Oh, yes!” I said, snapping my fingers. My memory is fine, thank you. “The Order of Victory. It was in Life Magazine years ago, they had a full-page photo. A platinum star set with diamonds. Stalin gave it to him at Yalta. Tell her the next time Agent Myers comes around, she’d better tell him to go see Eisenhower. Make sure the general puts that thing in a poke and sends it right back to Stalin.”
March 4
I grew cross with Mrs. Brown today. It shouldn’t have happened, she is as good as gold. She did the shopping for me, I’m losing the nerve for going out, and it’s only March. She tolerates, as usual. Returned with change and receipts, plus cheerful news of spring, crocuses in the yards on Montford, tennis shoes on sale. A 12-pack of pencils is now 29 cents. The Zippo lighter went up to $6, so she went against orders and bought matches, more economical. I scolded her for it, telling her matches don’t work worth a damn in the bathtub. I’ve never sworn at her before. It made her go pale and sit down, like a telegram bearing bad news. It took her half an hour to respond.
“You shouldn’t be smoking in the bath, Mr. Shepherd.”
“Why, because I’ll burn down the house?”
This afternoon she brought letters up to my study for signature, and I noticed her nails looked ragged. She is on edge too; we both jump when the telephone rings, like schoolgirls, waiting for Lincoln Barnes to ring up. It’s been months that they’ve had the manuscript, and now the corrected galleys. A title, jacket art, everything you might want to have on hand for a publication. Except a publication date.
“Where in the world did that come from?”
“I only ask.”
“I don’t write in Spanish. I write in English, about Mexicans. If I wrote in Spanish, I suppose I’d have to write about Americans.”
“I know you speak Spanish perfectly well. I’ve heard you.”
“Ordering a plate of fish is not writing a novel. I don’t even dream in Spanish. I can’t seem to invent anything in that language. Don’t expect me to explain.”
She should have said Yes sir, and turned on her Kerrybrooke heels. That’s how Gal Friday does it in the movies. Yet there she stood, wearing that look: Hell or High Water. “You might could learn,” she said. “If you stayed there awhile longer.”
“Living there from the ’20s until 1940 wasn’t enough? You think a few more decades of practice might do the trick?”