The Two Hotel Francforts: A Novel (20 page)

“Such as?”

“Sleep. Since you came on the scene, I’ve been sleeping better than I have in years. I know that when I wake up, he’ll be there.”

I didn’t answer. I thrust my hands into my pockets, gripping the keys in my fist. Somehow the weight of them, at that moment, was a comfort.

“And while we’re on the subject of marriage, how are things with Julia?” Iris said.

“Funny, I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“How should I know?”

“Just a feeling I have.”

She laughed archly. “As usual, you overestimate my powers of clairvoyance.”

“It’s not your clairvoyance I’m worried about. It’s your influence.”

“Influence! What do you think I am, a Svengali?”

“I don’t know. That’s the trouble. Since she met you, Julia’s been acting … well, in a way she’s never acted before.”

“And you think that’s my doing?” Iris clicked her tongue. “This tendency men have to blame everyone but themselves for things! It’s almost funny … Hasn’t it occurred to you that it might be since she met
Edward
that she’s been acting differently? After all, it’s him you’re sleeping with.”

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure they couldn’t hear us. “On your advice, I’ve made sure she doesn’t know that.”

“Oh, it’s true, you haven’t rubbed her nose in it. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t
know
. She knows something’s up even if she doesn’t know what it is. Which only makes it worse.”

“Then why not tell her?”

“Well, why not break it off with Edward, if it comes to that?”

“I think you’re wrong. I don’t think Julia has the slightest clue what’s going on … Anyway, if I was the bastard you think I am, I could just say to her, ‘Fine, you stay in Sintra, I’ll go. When I get home, I’ll wire you money.’ Then there’d be no obstacle to my going on with Edward. But I haven’t done that, you’ll have noticed. I refuse to abandon my wife.”

“How noble of you.”

“My point is that I care enough about Julia to protect her. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Or are you afraid of how guilty you’d feel? Not that it matters,
because you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. There’s more on Julia’s mind than going home.”

“Such as?”

Iris touched her hand to her forehead. “Oh dear, how do I put it? … I gather it’s been rather a long spell since you and she last had—what is it the courts call them? Conjugal relations?”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Of course, if it was par for the course, it would be one thing. But given that you’ve been such an amorous pair until now—twice a week on average, isn’t it?”

“Shut up. I can’t believe she told you that.”

“You really don’t know much about women, do you? Not that
that
comes as any surprise.” She stopped in her tracks, turned to look me in the eye. “All right, here’s some education for you. Women aren’t like men. They’ll talk about anything with each other. Anything … Why, Pete, you look positively stricken! Poor thing, you’re such an innocent in some ways. Such a
novice
. You think there’s a protocol to all this—that if you make love to your wife, it’ll be tantamount to cheating on your lover. But there are no rules here. We’re beyond rules … Anyway, if you’re worried what Edward will think, you can relax. I promise not to breathe a word. It’ll be our little secret.”

“And why should I trust you—about anything?”

“You shouldn’t. But you should believe me.”

Our spouses had now caught up with us. “Sorry about that,” Edward said, a little breathlessly. “Daisy slowed us down.”

“You shouldn’t let her stop to lick everything,” Iris said. “God knows what’s been spilled on the pavements around here.”

“It’s not just that she stops to lick at everything. It’s that she’s old. She can’t move the way she used to.”

“She moves just fine with me.” Iris made a sound like a gear shifting. “Oh, Pete, I meant to tell you—this afternoon Julia showed me
the pictures of your apartment in
Vogue
. It turned out we’d already seen it—only we hadn’t realized it was yours.”

“I’m not surprised, since our name wasn’t given.”

“I thought the couple in question was called Client,” Edward said.

“They’re rather
dramatic
rooms,” Iris said. “So … uncluttered.”

“It’s true,” I said. “Whenever I was in them, I always felt as if I was spoiling an effect.”

“Out of curiosity, why
didn’t
you give your name?” Edward said.

“It was Julia’s decision. I remember at the time I said, ‘But, darling, if we don’t give our name, how will your family know it’s our apartment?’ And she said, ‘My family would consider it the height of vulgarity to give our name.’ In so many more ways than she cares to admit, my wife is her mother’s daughter.”

“Your memory is off,” Julia said. “We made the decision jointly. We didn’t want to seem to be showing off.”

“Well, but why have an apartment in
Vogue
in the first place if not to show off?” I said.

“Don’t be facetious.”

“Actually, I think Pete has a point,” Iris said. “I mean, one
would
want to show off an apartment like that. Certainly I would.”

“In any case, I don’t see why you’re kicking up such a fuss about it now,” I said. “It’s not as if you were ever happy there.”

“Of course I was happy there.”

“Really? As I recall, you were always worried about spilling something on the carpet, or knocking over a lamp, or scratching something. It was why we never had people over.”

“That’s not true. We did have people over.”

“And then that leather desk you wouldn’t let me use—”

“One doesn’t
use
a desk like that—”

“Then what’s the point of having it?”

“Living among beautiful things is its own reward.”

“I agree,” Iris said. “Beautiful things lead to beautiful thoughts.”

“No beautiful thoughts were ever thought in that apartment,” I said bitterly. “At least by any of its inhabitants.”

“Is there a reason you’re being so horrid?” Julia said.

“I wish your decorator could have had a go at our house,” Iris said. “So much clutter! Eddie’s one of those people who’ll never throw anything away.”

“As if it makes any difference now,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Julia said.

“Well, how likely is it that any of us are ever coming back to France?”

“Iris, will you excuse me?” Julia said. “I’m not feeling terribly well. I don’t think I’m up to dinner.”

“Julia,” Iris said.

But she was gone. It was remarkable how fast my wife could move when she wanted to. She was like Daisy in that regard.

Suddenly Iris turned to me. “Good God, what were you thinking?” she said.

“What do you mean? If she doesn’t feel well—”

“Are you mad? Go after her. She might
do
something.”

“Yes,” Edward repeated, almost hissing. “Go after her.”

I looked at him. His face was contorted with something like rage. And I thought: Of course. He cannot bear other people’s scenes—only his own.

When I got back to the Francfort, the key was not on the peg. Seeing this, my heart rose and sank at once, if that is possible.

Slowly I climbed the stairs … I have not, in these pages, written much about the sexual side of my marriage to Julia. Given the story I am telling, you might think that this is because our marriage was a sexual failure. In fact, though, it was a sexual success. By this I mean that in the bedroom my wife and I were happy together in a way that we rarely were in the living room or the dining room, much less in restaurants and cafés and cars. Yet such were Julia’s innate if peculiar notions of discretion that, when she was alive, I would no more have spoken of these matters with strangers than I would have forced her to have her name appear in the pages of
Vogue
. This was why it mystified me to learn that she had confided in Iris. To confide in
anyone
went against her nature. It suggested that she was in extremis. And while it was true that our sexual habits had changed since leaving Paris, so had our eating habits, our
sleeping habits, our digestions. It had never occurred to me that Julia might see the cessation of conjugal relations between us (to quote Iris’s charming phrase) as significant above and beyond the other disruptions we had suffered—or, for that matter, that it might
be
significant above and beyond the other disruptions we had suffered. As Edward had observed, I was not used to the double life.

I found her at the dressing table, playing solitaire with more than her usual vehemence.

“What are you doing back so soon?” she asked.

“I wanted to make sure you were all right,” I said.

“Well, as you can see, I’m fine,” she said. “So you might as well go back to the restaurant.”

“No point,” I said. “The dinner’s off.”

“Why?”

“What, did you think the three of us would just go ahead and eat without you?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, we didn’t.”

She resumed her game. The sound her cards made as they hit the table was like the swatting of flies. Beleaguered Castle, this variety of solitaire was called.

I undid my tie. I lay down on the bed and put my arms behind my head. On her bedside table,
The Noble Way Out
lay splayed open. To judge from the placement of the bookmark, she had read about half of it.

“What do you think so far?” I said, picking it up.

“About what?”

“Their novel.”

“It’s all right, I suppose. Of course, you can see how it’s going to end from a mile away.”

“So you read ahead?”

“Of course I didn’t read ahead.”

“Then how do you know how it’s going to end?”

“I don’t. I could be wrong. I probably am.”

She threw down another card. I replaced the book on the table.

“Julia …”

“What?”

“Why did you storm off like that?”

“I didn’t storm off. I just didn’t feel like eating.”

“It upset the Frelengs. They’re worried about you.”

“They’ll get over it.”

“I realize that what I said about the apartment must have annoyed you.”

“Why should I care what you think about the apartment?”

“Then that I said it in front of them.”

“If you want to make me look like a fool in front of other people, there’s nothing I can do about it—except hope that they’ll see through to your real motives.”

“Which are?”

“I have absolutely no idea. Nothing you do makes sense anymore.”

“But, Julia, you must realize, since Sintra you’ve hardly spoken a word to me. It’s why … Well, perhaps I wanted to hit a nerve.”

“Oh, so that’s what this is about. Sintra. Well, you needn’t worry about
that
. I’ve given up on
that
.”

“But that’s just my point. It’s not like you to give up on things.”

“So what are you saying, that you want me to fight you just so you can beat me down again? Humiliate me again? No, thank you.”

“Iris told you to say that, didn’t she?”

“Iris? What has she got to do with any of this?”

“It’s just been my impression that you’re—I don’t know—in thrall to her.”

“Me! If anyone’s in thrall to her, it’s you. You’re obsessed with her. Sometimes I wonder if you’re not in love with her.”

“With Iris? Good God!”

“Well, for your sake, I hope not, because you’ll never get anywhere with it. I mean, she doesn’t even think of you as a
man
. She just goes on about how sweet you are, and how devoted you are, and how I should be grateful to you for treating me like dirt because you’re only doing it for my own good. Hardly the way a woman talks about a man she wants.”

“Is that supposed to be wounding? A blow to my ego?”

“Take it however you like … You mock the apartment, but I dream about it every night. That I’m back there. And some other woman—some German woman—is sitting at my table. Using my things. I wish I’d stayed. Then I could have defended it. I might have ended up dead, but so what? Everything I care about I’ve lost … And now, as if things aren’t bad enough, I’ve seen Aunt Rosalie.”

Suddenly she threw down her cards. Her voice was tremulous. I sat up in the bed.

“Aunt who?”

“Aunt Rosalie. From Cannes.”

“You mean the black sheep?”

She nodded. “It was at the Aviz. I was with Iris, and suddenly there she was, asking for a table. Rosalie. And I panicked. I pretended I was sick. I asked Iris to take care of the bill and I ran to the bathroom. I don’t think she spotted me.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. An unseemly relief had flooded me.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you laughing? Oh, this is so typical … You pummel me into telling you things, I tell you, and then you treat it as if it’s a joke.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just—well, if Aunt Rosalie’s in Lisbon, so what?”

“Isn’t it obvious? It means she’ll be sailing on the
Manhattan
. She’ll descend on me, she’ll cling to me, the way she used to when she visited us in New York. My mother didn’t even want her in the house, and still she showed up. And she’d come up to me in the front hall or the living room—once she even came into my bedroom—and put her face close to mine so I could smell the wine on her breath and say, ‘We’re just alike, you and I. Two peas in a pod.’” Julia shuddered.

“Well, but aren’t you?”

“Aren’t we what?”

“Two peas in a pod.”

“Pete!”

“I just mean that your lives took the same course. Both of you left New York, both of you settled in France.”

“How dare you compare me to that woman? She’s a parasite. Living the high life all these years, doing God knows what with God knows who—and all of it on Edgar’s money. Loewi money.”

“But, Julia, are you even sure it’s her?”

“Of course I’m sure it’s her. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.”

“But sometimes in Paris you saw people you thought were your relations—and then it turned out they weren’t—”

She dropped her head on the table. “Now do you see why I haven’t said anything about it? I knew you wouldn’t take me seriously. I knew it. All these years, I thought I’d escaped—for good. But you never escape. Not really.”