The Two Hotel Francforts: A Novel Read Free Page B

I was in one compartment of the revolving door and Edward was in the one behind it, pressing me forward at such a speed that I tumbled out the other side as if I were drunk … About the lobby’s tiled floor, islets of furniture were dispersed, each with its own reef of rug. The curtains were drawn against the sun. In the artificial gloom, women’s earrings winked like coins; the pinpoint gleam of cigarettes might have been torchlight.
    “Look at this!” Edward said. “A proper hotel lobby! Our Francfort doesn’t have a lobby, only a mean little reception. Oh, and you’ve got a winter garden, too.”
    “Not much use in the summer, a winter garden,” I said, as if it were something to be ashamed of. “Well, thanks for getting me back in one piece. I think I can manage from here.”
    “Nonsense, I’m not having you break your neck going down a dark corridor. Wait a second.”
    Then he strode off to the front desk, where for about five minutes he chatted with Senhor Costa, the hotel manager, in a French too idiomatic and swift for me to follow. For though I had lived in France for fifteen years, working for an American company as I did, I had never really mastered the language. Neither had Julia. This was for both of us a source of embarrassment.
    When he returned, he held the key to our room. “Sorry about that. I was just asking him to take my name in case a room happened to open up … Oh, a lift! What we wouldn’t give for a lift, especially now that we’re on the top floor.”
    “Yes, but it’s a very old lift,” I said as we stepped inside. “It breaks down all the time.”
    “
Shh
.” Edward touched a finger to his lips. “You mustn’t saythings like that or they’ll hear you.” At which the lift, as if to prove his point, shuddered and heaved, lurched upward, trod air, as it were, for a few long seconds before hauling itself, with a great groan of effort, to the second-floor landing. “See what I mean? It’s the same with cars. You mustn’t praise them or they’ll break down. Of course, being in the car business, you must know that.”
    “I don’t make a habit of talking to my cars.”
    “Wise of you. Their conversation isn’t much.”
    Again he took my arm. Down the corridor he led me—he and Messalina nodded to each other like old acquaintances—to my door, into which he fitted the key as if it were his own. Sunlight spilled through the cleft. “I say, this is nice,” he said, taking in our little room with its narrow bedstead, its intricate tiled floor, its single chair over the back of which Julia had flung one of her slips. Pots and jars, the unguents and emollients on which my wife relied to maintain her youth, lay scattered over the surface of the vanity. “Oh, and don’t tell me you’ve got a bathroom!”
    “I’m afraid we have, yes.”
    “Don’t be afraid, be glad. May I?” He nudged open the door. Underwear hung drying from a cord that Julia had rigged up over the tub.
    “I’m sorry things are in such a state,” I said. But Edward wasn’t listening. First he tried the cold tap, then the hot tap. Then he lifted the plug from the drain. Then he touched his fingers to one of the pairs of Julia’s panties.
    “Silk,” he said, caressing the material. “With handmade lace. Very nice.”
    I was flabbergasted. Was this a compliment? And if so, who was being complimented?
    “Julia has always been very particular about her things,” I said.
    “She has a tiny waist,” he said, reaching his hand through one of the leg holes. “Iris’s figure is more zaftig. Rubenesque—if Rubenshad ever painted Scottish lasses. Of course, she’d never wear this kind of thing. She only ever wears plain white cotton knickers. Schoolgirl knickers.” He smiled at me. “Do you like that sort of thing? You know, a grown woman in little girl’s pants?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”
    “Oh, come on. You must have thought about it.” He stepped closer.