The Rose Garden (31 page)

“Ninety-three his last birthday,” the buxom lady said, and crossed her legs and took a pack of cigarettes out of her large, handsome handbag—an opulent bag, a big, rich, capacious bag, with wide smiling jaws that snapped shut at a touch of its mistress's capable fingers. That bag had a confident air. That bag would be familiar and unafraid before safe-deposit boxes. A bank president's desk would be just a home away from home to that
bag. Oh, the commanding serenity with which that bag would rest beside a cashier's cage! Miss Lister wistfully fingered her own narrow beadwork envelope, in which the change from even a two-dollar bill might feel cramped, and resumed her apprehensive survey of the two elevators.

“We're aiming for a hundred,” the buxom lady said. “And when we reach a hundred, we're going to aim for a hundred and one to ten. Aren't we, Daddy? We're going to live for a lot more years. Aren't we?”

The old man, who was nicely dressed in a dark-gray suit, with a black wool cardigan buttoned across his meager chest, did not raise his eyes, which were fixed on his bony, upthrust knees. His lips were pressed together, his silky white hair was combed to one side, and he looked like a newly washed old saint.

“He can't hear much,” the buxom lady said, “but I like to think he knows I'm trying to include him in the conversation.”

“Is it all right to talk directly
to
him?” the magenta-haired lady inquired, in a whisper. The buxom lady nodded vigorously, smiled, blew out a cloud of smoke, and smiled again.

The magenta-haired lady drew a deep breath, smiled rather foolishly, and said, in a loud voice, “Aren't you the lucky one, Mr.—”

“Mr. Whitticombe,” the buxom woman said. “I'm
Miss
Whitticombe.”

“Oh, Mr. Whitticombe, aren't you lucky to have such a wonderful, wonderful daughter?” There was no response from the old man. “Oh, Mr. Whitticombe,” the magenta-haired lady shouted, “aren't you the lucky one, going to Key West?
Key West!
” she screeched, in desperation, clutching at the back of his chair and smiling with all her strength. The old man's eyes, which had once been blue, swiveled upward. She bent over him, and her smile sweetened expectantly.

“Damned old fool,” the ancient squeaked, and lowered his gaze to his knees.

The magenta head, the mink shoulders, the shiny black hips jerked backward in shock.

Miss Whitticombe laughed heartily. “Isn't he adorable?” she said. “He says that all the time.”

“I suppose he doesn't know what it means anymore,” the magenta-haired lady said doubtfully.

“I imagine not,” Miss Whitticombe said, and tapped the ash from her cigarette. “His mind, you know,” she added cheerfully.

“Oh, yes, of course. I suppose he's forgotten everything,” the magenta-haired lady said sympathetically.

“Everything except food,” Miss Whitticombe said. She leaned toward her father. “Milk, Daddy!” she cried suddenly. “Milk!”

The old man raised his head and looked at her, and then he turned and looked thoughtfully toward the entrance to the dining room.

Miss Whitticombe nodded triumphantly, and the magenta-haired lady gasped with admiration.

“Well!” she cried. “He really does understand, doesn't he?
Mn-hmn!
He's nobody's fool, is he? He understands when he wants to. He knows what he wants, all right. Isn't that just like a man?”

Miss Whitticombe beckoned to one of the elevator attendants.

“I'd like to order something from the dining room, William,” she said to him when he came over. “Ask them to send in a small glass of warm milk—just barely warm—for my father. A fruit-juice glass—they know. Tell them it's for Miss Whitticombe.”

When the boy had gone, she smiled at the magenta-haired lady.

“It's like a little cocktail for him,” she said. “He has it before lunch and dinner when I have my martini. We could go into the bar, but he can't manage those three steps down.”

Smiling, the magenta-haired lady adjusted her stole and jerked
her bouclé blouse taut over her stiffly defined waistline. She put out her hand. “I must run,” she said. “It's been so nice, Miss Whitticombe. Really, I've made more friends in the elevator here. I'm Mrs. Ryce, by the way. R-y-c-e. Perhaps we'll meet again during our stay in New York. I certainly hope so. Goodbye, Miss Whitticombe. And Mr. Whitticombe, of course. Bye. Bye now.”

Miss Whitticombe turned to Miss Lister, who was still watching the elevators. “I'm sorry I bumped you like that,” she said. “I'm afraid I wasn't looking.”

“Oh, it doesn't matter at all,” Miss Lister said, hardly looking at her. “I'll only be here a minute anyway. Oh, there he is now.”

She lunged forward as an elderly man stepped out of the elevator, but then she sank back again, for this man—erect, white-haired, large-faced, and grim—advanced directly to the cashier's office, without a glance to the right or left. In one hand he carried a walking stick and a pair of gray suede gloves that matched his gray silk tie. In the other he held a sheet of paper. He thrust this paper at the cashier, and then he leaned lightly on his stick, placed his face sidewise to the grille, and spoke his mind.

“What do you mean by loading my bill with these extras? Do you take me for a fool? What the devil does this mean? Room service, a dollar-twenty. Laundry, five dollars and seventy-five cents. Is this how you make your profits, cheating your guests? Here, can't you see? Here. Explain that, if you can.” He had a powerfully disagreeable voice. The door marked MANAGER opened, and the manager walked out, a small man, walking with graceful stealth. He took his angry guest by the elbow and guided him a few steps to the main desk, where he leaned against the broad counter and began to talk rapidly, in a low voice that was not audible to the attentive audience on the love seat.

“Oh dear,” Miss Lister said. “Oh dear. It's the same every week.
But just today I was
hoping
he wouldn't. It's so dreadfully embarrassing.”

“Your father?” Miss Whitticombe asked with interest.

“Yes.”

“How extraordinary!” Miss Whitticombe said. “He reminds me so much of my father at that age. My father had—yes—a little less hair, and, of course, he was a much bigger man, and he wore a mustache, a big mustache, but there is a very definite resemblance. My father used to carry a stick, too.” She laughed gently. “How old is your father?”

“Seventy-seven, nearly seventy-eight,” Miss Lister said.

“Ah, yes. Well, I wouldn't worry too much, my dear. I mean the manager seems to be handling him very nicely. Mr. Tuttle is such a diplomat—and a dear man, don't you think so?”

“No, I don't,” Miss Lister snapped. “I think he's a horror. And the elevator men, and the waiters—they're all horrors. The switchboard girl won't even answer my phone. I hate this place.” She subsided dismally.

“I know,” Miss Whitticombe murmured. “I know just how you feel. I remember the feeling very well. But I've always found this little place very agreeable. We stop here twice a year, you know. We were here in May, on our way to the Cape. And now we're headed for Key West. I adore New York this time of year, don't you? But how I used to dread the winters here. And summer in New York—ugh.”

Miss Lister was not paying any attention. Suffering deeply, she watched the conversation at the desk. Miss Whitticombe watched also.

“Just the same,” she observed. “Even his gestures are the same. My, he does have a temper, doesn't he? Are you having lunch in the dining room?”

“Not today,” Miss Lister said. “We do, usually. But—it's so
awkward—we had a little difficulty last night at dinner. My father was quite right, of course. The sole—”

“I understand,” Miss Whitticombe said soothingly. “But you see, my dear—” She hesitated as a waiter appeared with the milk on its tray. “Thank you so much, Albert,” she said. “Put the tray close to his hand. There, that's just right. He can help himself now. And bring me a very dry martini, will you? No olive, nothing.
You
know.”

She turned back, but Miss Lister had got up and crossed the room. She hovered at her father's back, just inside the street doors. Mr. Lister faced the manager, who was evidently concluding a truce. The manager, smiling politely, bowed, turned away, and started back to his office. He did not bother to greet Miss Lister. Miss Lister drew abreast of her father, and they went out without speaking.

Miss Whitticombe watched them go. Then, smiling contentedly, she turned to her father. “Daddy!” she cried. “Why, you're dribbling! All that good, warm milk. Is that nice?”

From her handbag she produced a large white handkerchief and dabbed at the old man's chin. She took the empty glass from him and set it back on its tray. Her martini arrived, and she began to sip it with enjoyment. She leaned forward to look into her father's eyes. “Did you enjoy your milk, Daddy?” she asked.

He moved his eyelids. He looked at her hazily. He said nothing.

Miss Whitticombe smiled. “Sweet,” she said.

With a benign expression, and quite unnecessarily, she smoothed a lock of the silky white hair. She patted a hollow old cheek.

“Sweet!” she said.

A Snowy Night on West Forty-ninth Street

I
t snowed all night last night, and the dawn, which came not as a brightening but as a gray and silent awakening, showed the city vague and passive as a convalescent under light fields of snow that fell quickly and steadily from an expressionless heaven. This Broadway section where I live is all heights of roofs and all shapes of walls all going in different directions and reaching different heights, and there are times when the whole area seems to be a gigantic storehouse of stage flats and stage props that are stacked together as economically as possible and being put to use until something more substantial can be built, something that will last. At night, when the big Broadway lights go on, when the lights begin to run around high in the sky and up and down the sides of buildings, when rivers of lights start flowing along the edges of roofs, and wreaths and diadems begin sparkling from dark corners, and the windows of empty downtown offices begin streaming with watery reflections of brilliance, at that time, when Broadway lights up to make a nighttime empire out of the tumbledown, makeshift daytime world, a powdery pink glow rises up and spreads over the whole area, a cloudy pink, an emanation,
like a tent made of air and color. Broadway lights and Broadway nighttime color make a glittering spectacle that throws all around it into darkness. The little side streets that live off Broadway also live in the shadow of Broadway, and there are times, looking from the windows of the hotel where I live at present, on West Forty-ninth Street, when I think that my hotel and all of us here on this street are behind the world instead of in it. But tonight when I looked out of these windows just before going to dinner I saw a kaleidoscope out there, snow and lights whirling sky-high in a furious wind that seemed to have blown the Empire State Building clear out of the city, because it was not to be seen, although I had my usual good view of it this morning. It was a gray morning and the afternoon was gray, but tonight is very dark, and when I walked out of the hotel into the withering cold of this black-and-white night, West Forty-ninth Street seemed more than ever like an outpost, or a frontier street, or a one-street town that has been thrown together in excitement—a gold rush or an oil gush—and that will tumble into ruin when the excitement ends. This block, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, exists only as a thoroughfare to Broadway, a small, narrow thoroughfare furnished with what was at hand—architectural remnants, architectural mistakes, and architectural experiments. The people who decided to put this street to use for the time that remains to it have behaved with the freedom of children playing in a junkyard. The houses and buildings are of all sizes, some thin and some fat, some ponderous and some small and humble, some that were built for grandeur at the turn of the century, like my hotel, which now has a neon sign hanging all down its fine, many-windowed front, and some that never could have been more than sheds, even if they are built out of cement. In the daytime and especially in the early morning, the street has a travel-stained look and an air of hardship, and then the two rows of ill-matched, ill-assorted houses make me think
of a team of worn-out horses, collected from everywhere, that are being worked for all the life that is left in them and that will have to keep going until their legs give out. Nobody will care when this street comes down because nobody really lives here. It is a street of restaurants, bars, cheap hotels, rooming houses, garages, all-night coffee shops, quick-lunch counters, delicatessens, short-lived travel agencies, and sightseeing buses, and there are a quick dry-cleaning place, a liquor store, a Chinese laundry, a record shop, a dubious movie house, a young, imperturbable gypsy who shifts her fortune-telling parlor from one doorway to another up and down the street, and a souvenir shop. The people who work here have their homes as far away from the street as they can possibly get, and the hotels and rooming houses are simply hotels and rooming houses, with tenants for a night or a week or a month or an hour, although there are a few old faithfuls who moved in for a little while and stayed on and on until the years tamed them into permanent transients. The oldest houses on the street are four thin, retiring brownstones that still stand together on the north side, all of them with restaurants or bars on their ground floor. It was to one of these brownstone houses that I went for dinner tonight, to the Étoile de France. Above the restaurant all the floors of the house are abandoned, the windows staring blankly and the wall scarred, but the falling snow curtained the windows and shaped the roof so that the old house appeared once again as it did in its first snowstorm, when the street was new. I had walked along from the hotel, and I waited to cross over to the Étoile, but the cars were going wild, confined as they were to one uncertain lane by the mountains of snow piled up on both sides, and while I waited I looked back the length of the street. The bewildering snow gave the shabby street an air of melancholy that made it ageless, as it will someday appear in an old photograph. But it will have to be a very old photograph. The inquisitive and sympathetic
eyes that will see this street again as I saw it tonight have not yet opened to look at anything in this world. It will have to be a very old photograph, deepened by time and by a regret that will have its source in the loss of all of New York as we know it now. Many trial cities, facsimiles of cities, will have been raised and torn down on Manhattan island before anybody begins to regret this version of West Forty-ninth Street, and perhaps the photograph will never be taken. But on the street level, Forty-ninth Street defied the snow, and business was garish as usual. The Étoile was very bright and cheerful when I walked in, but there were very few customers. There was only one man sitting, lounging sideways at the bar—an old Frenchman who comes in often at night, after having had his dinner at the Automat. Only three of the tables in the bar were occupied, and the big back room, the dining room, was dim and deserted. The Étoile is a very plain place, with plain wooden chairs, very hard chairs, red-and-white-checked tablecloths, a stamped tin ceiling painted cream, and wallpaper decorated with pale, romantic nineteenth-century scenes. I sat at a table across from the bar, which has a long mirror behind it to reflect the bottles and glasses and the back of the bartender's head and the faces of the customers and the romantic wallpaper on the wall behind me. One waiter was still on duty—Robert—and he brought me a martini and took my order and went off to the kitchen in a hurry. I think the chef must have been making a fuss about getting away early on this stormy night when there were almost no customers and he was going to have trouble getting home. He lives in Long Island City. Mme. Jacquin, who owns the restaurant, had gone home, and her daughter, Mees Katie, was in charge, together with Leo, the bartender. Leo has been working here about fifteen years. He is Dutch, and I think he is in his late fifties, a few years younger than Mme. Jacquin. Mees Katie is about thirty. She has a singularly detached manner, as though she were only working
at the Étoile while she waited for her chance to go to some place where she really wants to be, but she spends more and more time here, while her mother, who used to almost live in the place, often does not come in for days at a time. Mees Katie began coming in about five years ago to help during the luncheon hour, but now she is here every night as well. She leaves at ten o'clock, when the chef goes home, and after that Leo manages by himself. On good nights the bar is open until two in the morning, or even later.