Three Bedrooms in Manhattan (3 page)

“I'm in no hurry.”

She smoked like American women—the same gestures, the same pouting lips you saw on magazine covers and in movies. She struck the same poses, too, shrugging her fur coat off her shoulders to reveal her black silk dress, crossing her long legs in their sheer stockings.

He didn't need to turn to check her out. A mirror ran the length of the diner, and they could see themselves sitting side by side. The image was unflattering, almost distorted.

“You're not eating, either,” she said. “Have you been in New York long?”

“About six months.”

What made him introduce himself just then? His vanity, of course—he was sure he was going to regret it.

“François Combe.” His voice as he said it wasn't nearly casual enough.

She must have heard him. She didn't seem surprised. And yet she'd lived in France.

“When were you in Paris?”

“Let's see … The last time was three years ago. I passed through on my way from Switzerland, but didn't stay long.”

Immediately, she added, “You've been to Switzerland?”

Without waiting for a reply, she said, “I spent two winters at a sanatorium in Leysin.”

Strangely, it was those words that made him look at her for the first time as a woman. She went on with a show of gaiety that somehow touched him, “It's not as terrible as people think. At least not for the ones who get out. They told me I was definitely cured.”

She stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray and again he looked at the bloodlike stain her lips had left on it. For the space of a second, he thought of Winnie, though he'd never laid eyes on her.

It was the voice, he realized suddenly. This woman, whose name he didn't know, had one of Winnie's voices, the voice of her tragic moments, wounded and animal.

A low voice that made you think of a scar that hadn't healed, of a hurt that lingers beneath consciousness, soft and familiar, deep inside.

She ordered something from the black man and Combe frowned, for she'd used the same intonation, the same facial expression, the same fluid seductiveness she'd used on him.

“Your eggs will get cold,” he said testily.

What was he hoping for? Why did he want to get away from this room where a dirty mirror reflected their two images back at them?

Was he hoping they'd leave together, just like that, though they were total strangers?

She began to eat her eggs so slowly that it annoyed him. She stopped to shake pepper into the glass of tomato juice she had ordered.

It was like a movie in slow motion. One of the sailors was being sick in a corner, just as Winnie must be doing right now. His friend was helping him like a brother, while the black waiter looked on indifferently.

They had sat there a whole hour and still he knew nothing about her. It irritated him that she kept drawing things out.

In his mind, they'd already agreed to leave together, and her inexplicable stubbornness was cheating him of the little time they had.

Several minor problems were preoccupying him. Her accent, for one. Her French was perfect, but there was something about it he couldn't quite place.

When he asked her if she was American and she replied that she'd been born in Vienna, he understood.

“Here they call me Kay, but when I was little I was Katherine. Have you ever been to Vienna?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

She looked at him almost as he'd been looking at her. So she knew nothing about him, and he knew nothing about her. It was after four o'clock. From time to time someone came in from God knows where and with a tired sigh hoisted himself onto a stool.

She was still eating. She ordered a hideous cake covered with bright frosting that she picked at with the tip of her spoon. Just when he hoped she'd finished, she called the black man over and ordered coffee. It was scalding when it came, so they had to wait even longer.

“Give me a cigarette, won't you? I'm out.”

He knew she'd smoke it down to the end before leaving, maybe ask for another one, too. He was surprised at his own impatience.

Outside, wouldn't she simply offer him her hand and say good night?

At last they were outside. The corner was deserted except for a man who was asleep on his feet, with his back against the subway entrance. She didn't suggest a taxi. She started walking down the sidewalk as if it made perfect sense—as if it was taking her somewhere.

She stumbled a few times because of her high heels. After about a hundred yards, she took his arm, and it seemed like the two of them had been walking the streets of New York at five in the morning, from the beginning of time.

Later he'd remember the smallest details from that night, though while he was living it, it seemed so disjointed as to be unreal.

Fifth Avenue stretched on forever, but he only recognized it after ten blocks, when he saw the little church.

“I wonder if it's open,” Kay said and stopped.

Then, with unexpected sadness, she said, “I'd be so happy if it were.”

She made him try all the doors to see if one was unlocked.

“A pity,” she said, sighing and taking his arm again.

Then, a bit farther on, “My shoes are killing me.”

“Do you want to take a taxi?”

“No, let's walk.”

He didn't know her address and didn't ask her for it. It felt strange to be walking like this through the huge city without the slightest idea of where they were going or what would happen next.

He saw their reflection in a shop window. She was leaning on him a little, perhaps because she was tired, and he thought they looked like a pair of lovers, a sight that just the day before would have made him sick with loneliness.

He had gritted his teeth—especially the last few weeks—whenever he passed a couple that was so plainly a couple, almost reeking of intimacy.

And yet here they were, looking like a couple to anyone who saw them pass. A funny couple.

“Do you want a whiskey?” she suddenly asked.

“I didn't think there was anyplace open this time of night.”

But already she was off with this new notion of hers; she led him into a cross street.

“Wait … No, not here. On the next block.”

Nervously, she picked the wrong place twice, then pushed open the grilled door of a little bar where a light shone and a man with a mop stared back at them with startled eyes. She questioned him, and after another fifteen minutes of roaming, they found themselves at last in a basement where three gloomy men were drinking at a counter. She knew the place. She called the bartender Jimmy, but then remembered his name was Teddy. She launched into a long explanation of her mistake, though the bartender couldn't have cared less. She talked about some people she'd been here with before. The man listened without saying a thing.

It took her nearly half an hour to drink one scotch, and then she wanted another. She lit another cigarette. It was always going to be the last cigarette.

“As soon as I finish,” she promised, “we can go.”

She grew chatty. Once outside, her grip on Combe's arm was tighter. She nearly tripped as she stepped onto the curb.

She talked about her daughter. She had a daughter somewhere in Europe, but it was hard to tell where, or why they were no longer together.

They reached Fifty-second, and they could see the lights of Broadway, where silhouetted crowds were streaming along the sidewalks.

It was almost six. They had walked a long way. They were both tired. Out of the blue Combe asked, “Where do you live?”

She stopped and looked at him, and at first he thought she was angry. He was wrong, he saw at once. There was trouble, perhaps even real distress there. He realized he didn't even know what color her eyes were.

She took several hurried steps on her own, as though running away. Then she stopped and waited for him to catch up.

“Since this morning,” she said, looking him in the face, her expression tight, “I don't live anywhere.”

Why was he so touched that he wanted to cry? They were standing in front of a shop, their legs so tired they were trembling, with a bitter, early-morning taste in their mouths and an aching emptiness in their heads.

Had the two whiskeys put them on edge?

It was ridiculous. Though they were both teary-eyed, they looked like they were scowling at each other. The gesture seemed sentimental, and yet he seized both her hands.

“Come on,” he said.

After a moment's hesitation, he added, “Come on, Kay.”

It was the first time he'd spoken her name.

She asked, already yielding, “Where are we going?”

He had no idea. He couldn't take her to his place, to that hole in the wall he hated, to the room that hadn't been cleaned for a week, with its unmade bed.

Again they started walking. Now that she had confessed she had nowhere to live, he was afraid of losing her.

She talked. She told a complicated story filled with first names that meant nothing to him but that she dropped as though anyone would know them.

“I was sharing Jessie's apartment. You should know Jessie! She's the most seductive woman I've ever met … Three years ago, her husband, Ronald, got a very important job in Panama. Jessie tried to live with him down there, but because of her health she couldn't … She came back to New York, it was okay with Ronald, and we took an apartment together. It was in Greenwich Village, not far from where you and I met.”

He was listening, but at the same time he was trying to solve the problem of the hotel. They were still walking. They were so tired they could barely feel it anymore.

“Jessie had a lover, a Chilean named Enrico, who's married, with two children. He was about to get a divorce for her … You know?”

Of course. But he was only vaguely following the story.

“Somebody must have told Ronald, and I think I know who. I'd just gone out this morning when he showed up. Enrico's pajamas and bathrobe were still hanging in the closet … It must have been a terrible scene. Ronald is the kind of man who stays calm no matter what, but I hate to think what he must be like when he gets angry … When I came home at two in the afternoon, the door was locked. A neighbor heard me knocking. Before Ronald took her away, Jessie managed to leave a letter for me. It's here in my purse …”

She wanted to open her purse and show him the letter. They had just crossed Sixth Avenue when Combe had stopped under a bright hotel sign. The sign was neon, a horrible purple-violet: Lotus Hotel.

He nudged Kay into the lobby. More than ever he seemed to be afraid. He spoke in a hushed voice to the night clerk leaning on his counter, who gave him a key on a brass disc.

The clerk took them up in a tiny elevator that smelled like a rest room. Kay squeezed Combe's arm and said in French, “You should ask him to get us some whiskey. I'm sure he can.”

Only later did he realize she'd called him
tu
.

It was about that time in the morning when Winnie got up without making a sound, leaving J.K.C.'s damp bed and slipping into the bathroom.

The room at the Lotus was as grimy as the daylight filtering through the curtains.

Kay had dropped into a chair, pushing her fur off her shoulders. She had mechanically kicked off her black suede shoes with the too-high heels. Now they were lying on the carpet.

She held a glass in her hand and was drinking slowly, staring into space. Her purse was open on her lap. There was a run, like a long scar, in one of her stockings.

“Pour me another, will you? It'll be the last.”

Already she looked a bit tipsy. She drank this glass faster than usual, then sat for a moment, shut up within herself, far away from the room and the man who was waiting without knowing exactly what he was waiting for.

At last she stood up, her big toes showing through her flesh-colored stockings. She turned her head away for a fraction of a second, then, with a gesture so simple it might have been practiced, she took two steps toward him, spread her arms to enfold his shoulders, raised herself on her toes, and drew his mouth to hers.

The cleaning staff in the corridor had just plugged in their vacuum cleaners. Downstairs the night clerk was getting ready to go home.

T
HE SURPRISING
thing was that he felt almost glad not to find her there beside him, though an hour, even a few minutes later, the thought would have struck him as incredible, almost monstrous. But the thought hadn't been conscious, so he could deny, without being entirely dishonest, having committed this first betrayal.

When he woke up the room was dark, its darkness pierced by two shafts of reddish light. They were like wedges driven in through the curtains by the neon signs in the street.

He had stretched out his hand and touched nothing but the cold sheets.

Had he really been glad? Hadn't he really believed that things would be easier if they had ended like that?

Apparently not—because when he saw the crack of light under the bathroom door, his heart registered the shock.

What happened next happened so easily and naturally that he could barely recall the sequence of events.

He had climbed out of bed, he remembered, because he wanted a cigarette. She must have heard his footsteps on the carpet. She had opened the bathroom door while she was still in the shower.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asked happily.

Strangely ashamed of his nakedness, he'd reached for his shorts. “No.”

“My sweet Frank, it is half-past seven in the evening.”

No one had ever called him that before, and the words made him feel lighter. It was a lightness that would stay with him for hours, and it made everything seem so easy that he had the wonderful impression he was juggling with life itself.

What had happened? It didn't matter. Nothing would matter anymore.

He said, “I wonder how I'll shave.”