Collected Stories (98 page)

Barely a week had passed since our departure, but I felt that I had been wandering for months. From sitting so long in one position I was overcome with a lust that wasn’t love or even sexual passion but something purely animalistic. It seemed that my partner shared the same feelings, for a special heat emanated from her. When she accidentally touched my hand, she burned me.

We sat for hours without a single word, but then we became gabby and said whatever came to our lips. We confided intimate things to one another. We yawned and went on talking half asleep. I asked her how it happened that she had married a man forty years older than herself.

She said, “I was an orphan. The Turks murdered my father, and my mother died soon after. We were rich but they stripped us of everything. I met him as an employee in his office. He had wild eyes. He took one look at me and I knew that he wanted me and was ready to marry me. He had an iron will. He also had the strength of a giant. If he hadn’t smoked cigars from early morning till late at night, he would have lived to be a hundred. He could drink fifteen cups of bitter coffee a day. He exhausted me until I developed an aversion to love. When he died, I had the solace that I would be left in peace for a change. Now everything has begun to waken within me again.”

“Were you a virgin when you married?” I asked in a half dream.

“Yes, a virgin.”

“Did you have lovers after his death?”

“Many men wanted me, but I was raised in such a way I couldn’t live with a man without marriage. In my circle in Turkey a woman can’t afford to be loose. Everyone there knows what everyone else is doing. A woman has to maintain her reputation.”

“What do you need with Turkey?”

“Oh, I have a house there, servants, a business.”

“Here in Spain you can do what you want,” I said, and regretted my words instantly.

“But I have a chaperon here,” she said. “Mark watches over me. I’ll tell you something that will seem crazy to you. He guards me even when he is in London and I’m in Ankara. I often feel that he sees everything I do. I sense it isn’t he but his father.”

“You believe this?”

“It’s a fact.”

I glanced backward and saw Mark gazing at me sharply as if he were trying to hypnotize me.

When we stopped for the night at a hotel, we first had to line up for the toilets, then wait a long time for our dinner. In the rooms assigned to us, the ceilings were high, the walls thick, and there were old-fashioned washstands with basins and pitchers of water.

That night, we stopped late, which meant that dinner was not served until after ten. Once again, Mark ordered a bottle of wine. For some reason I let myself be persuaded to drink several glasses. Mark asked me if I had had a chance to bathe during the trip, and I told him that I washed every morning out of the washbasin with cold water just like the other passengers.

He glanced at his mother half questioningly, half imperatively.

After some hesitation, Mrs. Metalon said, “Come to our room. We have a bathroom.”

“When?”

“Tonight. We leave at five in the morning.”

“Sir, do it,” Mark said. “A hot bath is healthy. In America everyone has a bathroom, be he porter or janitor. The Japanese bathe in wooden tubs, the whole family together. Come a half hour after dinner. It’s not good to bathe immediately following the evening meal.”

“I’ll disturb both of you. You’re obviously tired.”

“No, sir. I never go to sleep until between one and two o’clock. I’m planning to take a walk through the city. I have to stretch my legs. From sitting all day in the bus they’ve become cramped and stiff. My mother goes to bed late, too.”

“You’re not afraid to walk alone at night in a strange city?” I asked.

“I’m not afraid of anybody. I took a course in wrestling and karate. I also take shooting lessons. It’s not allowed boys my age, but I have a private teacher.”

“Oh, he takes more courses than I have hairs on my head,” Mrs. Metalon said. “He wants to know everything.”

“In America, I’ll study Yiddish,” Mark announced. “I read somewhere that a million and a half people speak this language in America. I want to read you in the original. It’s also good for business. America is a true democracy. There you must speak to the customer in his own language. I want my mother to come to America with me. In Turkey, no person of Armenian descent is sure of his life.”

“My friends are all Turks,” Mrs. Metalon protested.

“Once the pogroms start they’ll stop being your friends. My mother tries to hide it from me but I know very well what they did to the Armenians in Turkey and to the Jews in Russia. I want to visit Israel. The Jews there don’t bow their heads like those in Russia and Poland. They offer resistance. I want to learn Hebrew and to study at Jerusalem University.”

We said goodbye and Mark wrote the number of their room on a small sheet he tore from a notebook. I went to my room for a nap. My legs wobbled as I climbed the stairs. I lay down on the bed in my clothes with the notion of resting a half hour. I closed my eyes and sank into a deep slumber. Someone woke me—it was Mark. To this day I don’t know how he got into my room. Maybe I had forgotten to lock it or he had tipped the maid to let him in.

He said, “Sir, excuse me but you’ve slept a whole hour. You’ve apparently forgotten that you are coming to our room for your bath.”

I assured Mark that I’d be at his door in ten minutes, and after some hesitation he left. Getting undressed and unpacking a bathrobe and slippers from my valise wasn’t easy for me. I cursed the day I had decided to take this tour, but I hadn’t the courage to tell Mark I wouldn’t come. For all his delicacy and politeness Mark projected a kind of childish brutality.

I threw my spring coat over my bathrobe and on unsteady legs began climbing the two floors to their room. I was still half asleep, and for a moment I had the illusion that I was on board ship. When I got to the Metalons’ floor, I could not find the slip of paper with the room number. I was sure that it was number 43, but the tiny lamp on the high ceiling was concealed behind a dull shade and emitted barely any light. In the dimness I couldn’t see this number. It took a long time of groping before I found it and knocked on the door.

The door opened, and to my amazement I saw Celina Weyerhofer in a nightgown, her face thickly smeared with cream. Her hair looked wet and freshly dyed. I grew so confused that I could not speak. Finally I asked, “Is this 43?”

“Yes, this is 43. To whom were you going? Oh, I understand. It seems to me that your lady with the diamonds is somewhere on this floor. I saw her son. You’ve made a mistake.”

“Madam, I don’t wish to detain you. I just want to tell you they invited me to take a bath there, that’s all.”

“A bath, eh? So let it be a bath. I haven’t had a bath for over a week myself. What kind of tour is this that some passengers get privileges and others are discriminated against? The advertisement didn’t mention anything about two classes of passengers. My dear Mr.—what is your name?—I warned you that that person would trap you, and I see this has happened sooner than I figured. Wait a minute—your bath won’t run out. Since when do they call it a bath? We call it by a different name. Don’t run. Because you’ve forgotten the number, you’ll have to knock on strangers’ doors and wake people. Everyone is dead tired. On this tour, before you can even lie down you have to get up again. My husband is a good sleeper. He lies down, opens some book, and two minutes later he’s snoring like a lord. He carries his own alarm clock. I’ve stopped sleeping altogether. Literally. That’s my sickness. I haven’t slept for years. I told a doctor in Bern about this—he’s actually a professor of medicine—and he called me a liar. The Swiss can be very coarse when they choose to be. He had studied something in a medical book or he had a theory, and because the facts didn’t jibe with his theory this made me a liar. I’ve been watching you sitting with that woman. It looks as if you’re telling her jokes from the way she keeps on laughing. My husband sat next to her one time before she monopolized you, and she told him things no decent woman would tell a stranger. I suspect she is a madam of a whorehouse in Turkey. Or something like that. No respectable woman wears so much jewelry. You can smell her perfume a mile away. I’m not even sure that this boy is her son. There seems to be some kind of unnatural relationship between them.”

“Madam Weyerhofer, what are you saying?”

“I’m not just pulling things out of the air. God has cursed me with eyes that see. I say ‘cursed’ because this is for me a curse rather than a blessing. If you absolutely must take a bath, as you call it, do it and satisfy yourself, but be careful—such a person can easily infect you with God knows what.”

Just at that moment the door across the hall opened and I saw Mrs. Metalon in a splendid nightgown and gold-colored slippers. Her hair was loose; it fell to her shoulders. She was made up, too. The women glared at each other furiously; then Mrs. Metalon said, “Where did you go? I’m in 48, not 43.”

“Oh, I made a mistake. Truly, I’m completely mixed up. I’m terribly sorry—”

“Go take your bath!” Mrs. Weyerhofer said and gave me a light push. She muttered words in French I didn’t understand but knew to be insulting. She slammed her own door shut.

I turned to Mrs. Metalon, who asked, “Why did you go to her, of all people? I waited and waited for you. There is no more hot water anyhow. And where has Mark vanished to? He went for a walk and hasn’t come back. This night is a total loss to me. That woman—what’s her name? Weyerhofer—is a troublemaker, and crazy besides. Her own husband admitted that she’s emotionally disturbed.”

“Madam, I’ve made a terrible mistake. Mark wrote down your room number for me, but while changing my clothes I lost the slip. It’s all because I’m so tired—”

“Oh, will that red-haired bitch malign me before everyone on the bus now! She is a snake whose every word is venom.”

“I truly don’t know how to excuse myself. But—”

“Well, it’s not your fault. It was Mark who cooked up this stew. The driver told me to keep it secret that we’re getting a bathroom. He doesn’t want to create jealousy among the passengers. Now he’ll be mad at me and he’ll be right. I can’t continue this trip any longer. I’ll get off with Mark in Madrid and take a train or plane back to the border or maybe even to Paris. Come in for a moment. I’m already compromised.”

I went inside, and she took me to the bathroom to show me that the hot water was no longer running. The bathtub was made of tin. It was unusually high and long. On its outside hung a kind of pole with which to hold in and let out the water. The taps were copper. I excused myself again and Mrs. Metalon said, “You’re an innocent victim. Mark is a genius, but like all geniuses he has his moods. He was a prodigy. At five he could do logarithms. He read the Bible in French and remembered all the names. He loves me and he is determined to have me meet someone. The truth is, he’s seeking a father. Each time I join him during vacations he starts looking for a husband for me. He creates embarrassing complications. I don’t want to marry—certainly not anyone Mark would pick out for me. But he is compulsive. He gets hysterical. I shouldn’t tell you this, but I have a good reason to say it—when I do something that displeases him, he abuses me. Later he regrets it and beats his head against the wall. What can I do? I love him more than life itself. I worry about him day and night. I don’t know exactly why you made such an impression on him. Maybe it’s because you’re a Jew, a writer, and from America. But I was born in Ankara and that’s where my home is. What would I do in America? I’ve read a number of articles about America, and that’s not the country for me. With us, servants are cheap and I have friends who advise me on financial matters. If I left Turkey, I would have to sell everything for a song. I tell you this only to point out there can never be anything between us. You would not want to live in Turkey any more than I want to live in New York. But I don’t want to upset Mark and I therefore hope that for the duration of the trip you can act friendly toward me—sit with us at the table and all the rest. When the tour ends and you return home, let this be nothing more for you than an episode. He’s due back soon. Tell him that you took the bath. You’ll be able to have one in Madrid. We’ll be spending almost two days there, and I’m told the hotel is modern. I’m sure you have someone in New York you love. Sit down awhile.”

“I’ve just broken up with a woman.”

“Broken up? Why? You didn’t love her?”

“We loved each other but we couldn’t stay together. This past year we argued constantly.”

“Why? Why can’t people live in peace? There was a great love between my husband and me, though I must admit I had to give in to him on everything. He bullied me so that I can’t even say no to my own child. Oh, I’m worried. He never stayed away this long. He probably wants you to declare your love for me so that when he comes back everything will be settled between us. He is a child, a wild child. My greatest fear is that he might attempt suicide. He has threatened to.” She uttered these last words in one breath.

“Why? Why?”

“For no reason. Because I dared disagree with him over some trifle. God Almighty, why am I telling you all this? Only because my heart is heavy. Say nothing about it, God forbid!”

The door opened and Mark came in. When he saw me sitting on the sofa, he asked, “Sir, did you take your bath?”

“Yes.”

“It was nice, wasn’t it? You look refreshed. What are you talking about with my mother?”