The Accidental Tourist (32 page)

“Um—” he said. “This is Macon Leary. To whom am I—”

“Oh, Macon.”

“Rose?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“What are
you
doing there?”

“I work here now.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I’m putting things in order. You wouldn’t believe the state this place is in.”

“Rose, my back has gone out on me,” Macon said.

“Oh, no, of all times! Are you still in Paris?”

“Yes, but I was just about to start my day trips and there are all these plans I have to change—appointments, travel reservations— and no telephone in my room. So I was wondering if Julian could do it from his end. Maybe he could get the reservations from Becky and—”

“I’ll take care of it myself,” Rose said. “Don’t you bother with a thing.”

“I don’t know when I’m going to get to the other cities, tell him. I don’t have any idea when I’ll be—”

“We’ll work it out. Have you seen a doctor?”

“Doctors don’t help. Just bed rest.”

“Well, rest then, Macon.”

He gave her the name of his hotel, and she repeated it briskly and then told him to get on back to bed.

When he emerged from the phone booth the chambermaid had a bellboy there to help him, and between the two of them he made it to his room without much trouble. They were very solicitous. They seemed anxious about leaving him alone, but he assured them he would be all right.

All that afternoon he lay in bed, rising twice to go to the bathroom and once to get some milk from the mini-bar. He wasn’t really hungry. He watched the brown flowers on the wallpaper; he thought he had never known a hotel room so intimately. The side of the bureau next to the bed had a streak in the woodgrain that looked like a bony man in a hat.

At suppertime he took a small bottle of wine from the mini-bar and inched himself into the armchair to drink it. Even the motion of raising the bottle to his lips caused him pain, but he thought the wine would help him sleep. While he was sitting there the chambermaid knocked and let herself in. She asked him, evidently, whether he wanted anything to eat, but he thanked her and said no. She must have been on her way home; she carried a battered little pocketbook.

Later there was another knock, after he had dragged himself back to bed, and Muriel said, “Macon? Macon?” He kept absolutely silent. She went away.

The air grew fuzzy and then dark. The man on the side of the bureau faded. Footsteps crossed the floor above him.

He had often wondered how many people died in hotels. The law of averages said some would, right? And some who had no close relatives—say one of his readers, a salesman without a family— well, what was done about such people? Was there some kind of potters’ field for unknown travelers?

He could lie in only two positions—on his left side or on his back—and switching from one to the other meant waking up, consciously deciding to undertake the ordeal, plotting his strategy. Then he returned to a fretful, semi-consciousness.

He dreamed he was seated on an airplane next to a woman dressed all in gray, a very narrow, starched, thin-lipped woman, and he tried to hold perfectly still because he sensed she disapproved of movement. It was a rule of hers; he knew that somehow. But he grew more and more uncomfortable, and so he decided to confront her. He said, “Ma’am?” She turned her eyes on him, mild, mournful eyes under finely arched brows. “Miss MacIntosh!” he said. He woke in a spasm of pain. He felt as if a tiny, cruel hand had snatched up part of his back and wrung it out.

When the waiter brought his breakfast in the morning, the chambermaid came along. She must keep grueling hours, Macon thought. But he was glad to see her. She and the waiter fussed over him, mixing his hot milk and coffee, and the waiter helped him into the bathroom while the chambermaid changed his sheets. He thanked them over and over;
“Merci,”
he said clumsily. He wished he knew the French for “I don’t know why you’re being so kind.” After they left he ate all of his rolls, which the chambermaid had thoughtfully buttered and spread with strawberry jam. Then he turned on the TV for company and got back in bed.

He was sorry about the TV when he heard the knock on the door, because he thought it was Muriel and she would hear. But it seemed early for Muriel to be awake. And then a key turned in the lock, and in walked Sarah.

He said, “Sarah?”

She wore a beige suit, and she carried two pieces of matched luggage, and she brought a kind of breeze of efficiency with her. “Now, everything’s taken care of,” she told him. “I’m going to make your day trips for you.” She set down her suitcases, kissed his forehead, and picked up a glass from his breakfast table. As she went off to the bathroom she said, “We’ve rescheduled the other cities and I start on them tomorrow.”

“But how did you get here so soon?” he asked.

She came out of the bathroom; the glass was full of water. “You have Rose to thank for that,” she said, switching off the T V. “Rose is just a wizard. She’s revamped that entire office. Here’s a pill from Dr. Levitt.”

“You know I don’t take pills,” he said.

“This time you do,” she told him. She helped him rise up on one elbow. “You’re going to sleep as much as you can, so your back has a chance to heal. Swallow.”

The pill was tiny and very bitter. He could taste it even after he’d lain down again.

“Is the pain bad?” she asked him.

“Kind of.”

“How’ve you been getting your meals?”

“Well, breakfast comes anyway, of course. That’s about it.”

“I’ll ask about room service,” she told him, picking up the phone. “Since I’ll be gone so . . . What’s the matter with the telephone?”

“It’s dead.”

“I’ll go tell the desk. Can I bring you anything while I’m out?”

“No, thank you.”

When she left, he almost wondered if he’d imagined her. Except that her suitcases sat next to his bed, sleek and creamy—the same ones she kept on the closet shelf at home.

He thought about Muriel, about what would happen if she were to knock now. Then he thought about two nights ago, or was it three, when she had strolled in with all her purchases. He wondered if she’d left any traces. A belt lost under the bed, a glass disk fallen off her cocktail dress? He began to worry about it seriously. It seemed to him almost inevitable; of course she’d left something. The only question was, what. And where.

Groaning, he rolled over and pushed himself upright. He struggled off the bed and then sagged to his knees to peer beneath it. There didn’t seem to be anything there. He got to his feet and tilted over the armchair to feel around the edges of the cushion. Nothing there either. Actually she hadn’t gone anywhere near the armchair, to his recollection; nor had she gone to the bureau, but even so he slid out the drawers one by one to make sure. His own belongings— just a handful—occupied one drawer. The others were empty, but the second one down had a sprinkling of pink face powder. It wasn’t Muriel’s, of course, but it looked like hers. He decided to get rid of it. He tottered into the bathroom, dampened a towel, and came back to swab the drawer clean. Then he saw that the towel had developed a large pink smear, as if a woman wearing too much makeup had wiped her face with it. He folded the towel so the smear was concealed and laid it in the back of the drawer. No, too incriminating. He took it out again and hid it beneath the armchair cushion. That didn’t seem right either. Finally he went into the bathroom and washed the towel by hand, scrubbing it with a bar of soap till the spot was completely gone. The pain in his back was constant, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. At some point he decided he was acting very peculiar; in fact it must be the pill; and he dropped the wet towel in a heap on the floor and crawled back into bed. He fell asleep at once. It wasn’t a normal sleep; it was a kind of burial.

He knew Sarah came in but he couldn’t wake up to greet her. And he knew she left again. He heard someone knock, he heard lunch being brought, he heard the chambermaid whisper,
“Monsieur?”
He remained in his stupor. The pain was muffled but still present—just covered up, he thought; the pill worked like those inferior room sprays in advertisements, the ones that only mask offending odors. Then Sarah came back for the second time and he opened his eyes. She was standing over the bed with a glass of water. “How do you feel?” she asked him.

“Okay,” he said.

“Here’s your next pill.”

“Sarah, those things are deadly.”

“They help, don’t they?”

“They knock me out,” he said. But he took the pill.

She sat down on the edge of the mattress, careful not to jar him. She still wore her suit and looked freshly groomed, although she must be bushed by now. “Macon,” she said quietly.

“Hmm.”

“I saw that woman friend of yours.”

He tensed. His back seized up.

“She saw me, too,” she said. “She seemed very surprised.”

“Sarah, this is not the way it looks,” he told her.

“What is it then, Macon? I’d like to hear.”

“She came over on her own. I didn’t even know till just before the plane took off, I swear it! She followed me. I told her I didn’t want her along. I told her it was no use.”

She kept looking at him. “You didn’t know till just before the plane took off,” she said.

“I swear it,” he said.

He wished he hadn’t taken the pill. He felt he wasn’t in full possession of his faculties.

“Do you believe me?” he asked her.

“Yes, I believe you,” she said, and then she got up and started uncovering his lunch dishes.

He spent the afternoon in another stupor, but he was aware of the chambermaid’s checking on him twice, and he was almost fully awake when Sarah came in with a bag of groceries. “I thought I’d make you supper myself,” she told him. “Fresh fruit and things; you always complain you don’t get enough fresh fruit when you travel.”

“That’s very nice of you, Sarah.”

He worked himself around till he was half sitting, propped against a pillow. Sarah was unwrapping cheeses. “The phone’s fixed,” she said. “You’ll be able to call for your meals and all while I’m out. Then I was thinking: After I’ve finished the trips, if your back is better, maybe we could do a little sightseeing on our own. Take some time for ourselves, since we’re here. Visit a few museums and such.”

“Fine,” he said.

“Have a second honeymoon, sort of.”

“Wonderful.”

He watched her set the cheeses on a flattened paper bag. “We’ll change your plane ticket for a later date,” she said. “You’re reserved to leave tomorrow morning; no chance you could manage that. I left my own ticket open-ended. Julian said I should. Did I tell you where Julian is living?”

“No, where?”

“He’s moved in with Rose and your brothers.”

“He’s what?”

“I took Edward over to Rose’s to stay while I was gone, and there was Julian. He sleeps in Rose’s bedroom; he’s started playing Vaccination every night after supper.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Macon said.

“Have some cheese.”

He accepted a slice, changing position as little as possible.

“Funny, sometimes Rose reminds me of a flounder,” Sarah said. “Not in looks, of course . . . She’s lain on the ocean floor so long, one eye has moved to the other side of her head.”

He stopped chewing and stared at her. She was pouring two glasses of cloudy brown liquid. “Apple cider,” she told him. “I figured you shouldn’t drink wine with those pills.”

“Oh. Right,” he said.

She passed him a glass. “A toast to our second honeymoon,” she said.

“Our second honeymoon,” he echoed.

“Twenty-one more years together.”

“Twenty-one!” he said. It sounded like such a lot.

“Or would you say twenty.”

“No, it’s twenty-one, all right. We were married in nineteen—”

“I mean because we skipped this past year.”

“Oh,” he said. “No, it would still be twenty-one.”

“You think so?”

“I consider last year just another stage in our marriage,” he said. “Don’t worry: It’s twenty-one.”

She clinked her glass against his.

Their main dish was a potted meat that she spread on French bread, and their dessert was fruit. She washed the fruit in the bathroom, returning with handfuls of peaches and strawberries; and meanwhile she kept up a cozy patter that made him feel he was home again. “Did I mention we had a letter from the Averys? They might be passing through Baltimore later this summer. Oh, and the termite man came.”

“Ah.”

“He couldn’t find anything wrong, he said.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“And I’ve almost finished my sculpture and Mr. Armistead says it’s the best thing I’ve done.”

“Good for you,” Macon said.

“Oh,” she said, folding the last paper bag, “I know you don’t think my sculptures are important, but—”

“Who says I don’t?” he asked.

“I know you think I’m just this middle-aged lady playing artist—”

“Who says?”

“Oh, I know what you think! You don’t have to pretend with me.”

Macon started to slump against his pillow, but was brought up short by a muscle spasm.

She cut a peach into sections, and then she sat on the bed and passed him one of the sections. She said, “Macon. Just tell me this. Was the little boy the attraction?”

“Huh?”

“Was the fact that she had a child what attracted you to that woman?”

He said, “Sarah, I swear to you, I had no idea she was planning to follow me over here.”

“Yes, I realize that,” she said, “but I was wondering about the child question.”

“What child question?”

“I was remembering the time you said we should have another baby.”

“Oh, well, that was just—I don’t know what that was,” he said. He handed her back the peach; he wasn’t hungry anymore.

“I was thinking maybe you were right,” Sarah said.

“What? No, Sarah; Lord, that was a terrible idea.”

“Oh, I know it’s scary,” she told him. “I admit I’d be scared to have another.”

“Exactly,” Macon said. “We’re too old.”