The Hotel New Hampshire (33 page)

“I have a lot to do here,” he said.

“But this will be so
different
,” I told him.

“Why do the people jump out of windows?” he asked me.

And I explained to him that it was just a story, although the sense of a metaphor might have been lost on him.

“There are, spies in the hotel,” he said. “That’s what Lilly said: ‘Spies and low women.”’

I imagined Lilly thinking that “low women” were short, like her, and I tried to reassure Egg that there was nothing frightening about the occupants of Freud’s hotel; I said that Father would take care of everything—and heard the silence with which both Egg and I accepted
that
promise.

“How will we get there?” Egg asked. “It’s so far.”

“An airplane,” I said.

“I don’t know what that’s like, either,” he said.

(There would be two airplanes, actually, because Father and Mother would never fly on the same plane; many parents are like that. I explained that to Egg, too, but he kept repeating, “I don’t know what it’ll be like.”)

Then Mother came into our room to comfort Egg and I fell back to sleep with them talking together, and woke up again as Mother was leaving; Egg was asleep. Mother came over to my bed and sat down beside me; her hair was loose and she looked very young; in fact, in the half-dark, she looked a lot like Franny.

“He’s only seven,” she said, about Egg. “You should talk to him more.”

“Okay,” I said. “Do
you
want to go to Vienna?”

And of course, she shrugged—and smiled—and said, “Your father is a good, good man.” For the fast time, really, I could see them in the summer of 1939, with Father promising Freud that he
would
get married, and he
would
go to Harvard—and Freud asking Mother one thing: to forgive Father. Was
this
what she had to forgive him for? And was rooting us out of the terrible town of Dairy, and the wretched Dairy School—and the first Hotel New Hampshire, which wasn’t so hot a hotel (though nobody said so)—was
that
so bad a thing that Father was doing, really?

“Do you
like
Freud?” I asked her.

“I don’t really
know
Freud,” Mother said.

“But Father likes him,” I said.

“Your father likes him,” Mother said, “but he doesn’t really know him, either.”

“What do you think the bear will be like?” I asked her.

“I don’t know what the bear is
for
,” Mother whispered, “so I couldn’t guess what it could be
like
.”

“What
could
it be for?” I asked, but she shrugged again—perhaps remembering what Earl had been like, and trying to remember what Earl could have been
for
.

“We’ll all find out,” she said, and kissed me. It was an Iowa Bob thing to say.

“Good night,” I said to Mother, and kissed her.

“Keep passing the open windows,” she whispered, and I was asleep.

Then I had a dream that Mother died.

“No more bears,” she said to Father, but he misunderstood her; he thought she was asking him a question.

“No,
one
more bear,” he said. “Just one more. I promise.”

And she smiled and shook her head; she was too tired to explain. There was the faintest effort of her famous shrug, and the intention of a shrug in her eyes, which rolled up and out of sight, suddenly, and Father knew that the man in the white dinner jacket had taken Mother’s hand.

“Okay! No more bears!” Father promised, but Mother was aboard the white sloop, now, and she went sailing out to sea.

In the dream, Egg wasn’t there; but Egg was there when I woke up—he was still sleeping, and someone else was watching him. I recognized the sleek, black back—the fur thick and short and oily; the square back of his blundering head, and the half-cocked, no-account ears. He was sitting on his tail, as he used to do—in life—and he was facing Egg. Frank had probably made him smiling, or at least panting, witlessly, in that goofy way of dogs who repeatedly drop balls and sticks at your feet. Oh, the moronic but happy
fetchers
of this world—that was our old Sorrow: a fetcher and a farter. I crept out of bed to face the beast—from Egg’s point of view.

I could see at a glance that Frank had outdone himself at “niceness.” Sorrow sat on his tail with his forepaws touching and modestly hiding his groin; his face had a dippy, glazed happiness about it, his tongue lolled stupidly out of his mouth. He looked ready to fart, or wag his tail, or roll idiotically on his back; he looked like he was dying to be scratched behind his ears—he looked like a hopelessly slavish animal, forever in need of fondling attention. If it weren’t for the fact that he was dead, and that it was impossible to banish from memory Sorrow’s
other
manifestations,
this
Sorrow looked as harmless as Sorrow ever could have looked.

“Egg?” I whispered. “Wake up.” But it was Saturday morning—Egg’s morning for sleeping in—and I knew Egg had slept badly, or only a little, through the night. Out the window I saw our car driving between the trees of Elliot Park, treating the soggy park like a slalom course—at slow speed—and I knew that meant Frank was at the wheel; he’d just gotten his driver’s license, and he liked to practice by driving around the trees in Elliot Park. Also, Franny had just gotten her learner’s permit and Frank was teaching her to drive. I could tell it was Frank at the wheel because of the stately progress of the car through the trees, at limousine speed, at
hearse
speed—that was the way Frank always drove. Even when he drove Mother to the supermarket, he drove as if he were bearing the coffin of a queen past throngs of mourners seeking one last look. When Franny drove, Frank yelped beside her, cringing in the passenger seat; Franny liked to go fast.

“Egg!” I said more loudly, and he stirred a little. There was a slamming of doors outside, a changing of drivers in our car in Elliot Park; I could tell Franny had taken the wheel when the car began to careen between the trees, great slithers of the spring mud flying—and the wild, half-seen gestures of Frank’s arms waving in what is popularly called the death seat.

“Jesus God!” I heard Father yell, out another window. Then he shut the window and I heard him raving at Mother—about the way Franny drove, about having to replant the grass in Elliot Park; about having to chip the mud off the car with a chisel—and while I was still watching Franny racing among the trees, Egg opened his eyes and saw Sorrow. His scream jammed my thumbs against the windowsill and made me bite my tongue. Mother ran into the room to see what was the matter and greeted Sorrow with a shriek of her own.

“Jesus God,” said Father. “Why does Frank have to
spring
the damn dog on everyone? Why can’t he just say, ‘Now I’m going to show you Sorrow,’ and carry the damn thing into a room—when we’re all
ready
for it, for Christ’s sake!”

“Sorrow?” said Egg, peering from under his bedclothes.

“It’s just Sorrow, Egg,” I said. “Doesn’t he look nice?” Egg smiled cautiously at the foolish-looking dog.

“He
does
look nice,” Father said, suddenly pleased.

“He’s
smiling
!” Egg said.

Lilly came into Egg’s room and hugged Sorrow; she sat down and leaned back against the upright dog. “Look, Egg,” she said, “you can use him like a backrest.”

Frank came in the room, looking awfully proud.

“It’s terrific, Frank,” I said.

“It’s really nice,” said Lilly.

“A remarkable job, son,” Father said; Frank was just beaming. Franny came in the room, talking before she came in.

“Honestly, Frank is such a chicken shit in the car,” she complained. “You’d think he was giving me stagecoach lessons!” Then she saw Sorrow. “Wow!” she cried. And why did we all wait so quietly for what Franny would say? Even when she was not quite sixteen, my whole family seemed to regard her as the real authority—as the last word. Franny circled Sorrow, almost as if she were another dog—sniffing him. Franny put her arm around Frank’s shoulder, and he stood tensed for her verdict. “The King of Mice has produced a fucking
masterpiece
, “ Franny announced; a spasm of a smile crossed Frank’s anxious face. “Frank,” Franny said to him sincerely, “you’ve really done it, Frank. This really
is
Sorrow,” she said. And she got down and patted the dog—the way she used to, in the old days, hugging his head and rubbing behind his ears. This seemed completely reassuring to Egg, who began to hug Sorrow without reserve. “You may be an asshole in an automobile, Frank,” Franny told him, “but you’ve done an absolutely first-rate job with Sorrow.”

Frank looked as if he were going to faint, or just fall over, and everyone began talking at once, and pounding Frank on the back, and poking and scratching Sorrow—everyone but Mother, we suddenly noticed; she was standing by the window, looking out at Elliot Park.

“Franny?” she said.

“Yes,” Franny said.

“Franny,” Mother said, “you’re not to drive like that in the park again—do you understand?”

“Okay,” Franny said.

“You may go out to the delivery entrance,
now
,” Mother said, “and get Max to help you find the lawn hose. And get some buckets of
hot
,
soapy
water. You’re going to wash all the mud off the car before it dries.”

“Okay,” Franny said.

“Just look at the park,” Mother told her. “You’ve torn up the new grass.”

“I’m sorry,” Franny said.

“Lilly?” Mother said, still looking out the window—she was through with Franny, now.

“Yes?” Lilly said.

“Your room, Lilly,” Mother said. “What am I going to say about your room?”

“Oh,” Lilly said. “It’s a mess.”

“For a
week
it’s been a mess,” Mother said. “Today, please, don’t leave your room until it’s better.”

I noticed that Father slunk quietly away, with Lilly—and Franny went to wash the car. Frank seemed bewildered that his moment of success had been cut so short! He seemed unwilling to leave Sorrow, now that he had re-created him.

“Frank?” said Mother.

“Yes!” Frank said,

“Now that you’re finished with Sorrow, perhaps
you
could straighten up
your
room, too?” Mother asked.

“Oh, sure,” Frank said.

“I’m sorry, Frank,” Mother said.

“Sorry?” Frank said.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t like Sorrow, Frank,” Mother said.

“You don’t
like
him?” Frank said.

“No, because he’s
dead
, Frank,” Mother said. “He’s very
real
, Frank, but he’s dead, and I don’t find dead things amusing.”

“I’m sorry,” Frank said.

“Jesus God!” I said.

“And
you
, please,” Mother said to me, “will you watch your
language
? Your language is terrible,” Mother told me. “Especially when you pause to consider that you share a room with a seven-year-old. I am tired of the ‘fucking’ this and the ‘fucking’ that,” Mother said. “This house is not a locker room.”

“Yes,” I said, and noticed that Frank was gone—the King of Mice had slipped away.

“Egg,” Mother said—her voice winding down.

“What?” Egg said.

“Sorrow is not to leave your room, Egg,” Mother said. “I don’t like to be
startled
,” she said, “and if Sorrow leaves this room—if I see him anyplace but where I expect to see him, which is right here—then that’s it, then he’s gone for good.”

“Right,” said Egg. “But can I take him to Vienna? When we go, I mean—can Sorrow come?”

“I suppose he’ll
have
to come,” Mother said. Her voice had the same resignation in it that I’d heard in her voice in my dream—when Mother had said, “No more bears,” and then drifted away on the white sloop.

“Holy cow,” said Junior Jones, when he saw Sorrow sitting on Egg’s bed, one of Mother’s shawls around Sorrow’s shoulders, Egg’s baseball cap on Sorrow’s head. Franny had brought Junior to the hotel to see Frank’s miracle. Harold Swallow had come along with Junior, but Harold was lost somewhere; he’d made a wrong turn on the second floor, and rather than come into our apartment, he was wandering around the hotel. I was trying to work at my desk—I was studying for my German exam, and was trying
not
to ask Frank for help. Franny and Junior Jones went off looking for Harold, and Egg decided against Sorrow’s present costume; he undressed the dog and started over.

Then Harold Swallow found his way to our door and peered in at Egg and me—and at Sorrow sitting naked on Egg’s bed. Harold had never seen Sorrow before—dead or alive—and he called the dog over to the doorway.

“Here, dog!” he called. “Come here! Come on!”

Sorrow sat smiling at Harold, his tail itching to wag—but motionless.

“Come on! Here, doggy!” Harold cried. “Good dog, nice doggy!”

“He’s supposed to stay in this room,” Egg informed Harold Swallow.

“Oh,” said Harold, with an impressive roll of his eyes to me. “Well, he’s very well behaved,” Harold Swallow said. “He ain’t budging, is he?”

And I went to take Harold Swallow down to the restaurant, where Junior and Franny were looking for him; I saw no reason to tell Harold that Sorrow was dead.

“That your little brother?” Harold asked me, about Egg.

“Right,” I said.

“And you got a nice dog, too,” Harold said.

“Shit,” Junior Jones said to me, later; we were standing outside the gymnasium, which the Dairy School had tried to decorate like a building of parliament—for the weekend of Junior’s graduation. “Shit,” Junior said, “I’m really worried about Franny.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Something’s bothering her,” Junior said. “She won’t sleep with me,” he said. “Not even as just a way of saying good-bye, or something. She won’t even do it
once
! Sometimes I think she doesn’t
trust
me,” Junior, said.

“Well,” I said. “Franny’s only sixteen, you know.”

“Well, she’s an
old
sixteen, you know,” he said. “I wish you’d speak to her.”