Basic Black with Pearls Page 3

  – It is written that one meeting is worth ten partings. Yet one parting is of greater consequence than ten meetings. For if lovers keep regular hours, then meetings and partings are as the comings and goings to the supermarket.

  Fortunately, I can take evasiveness for an answer. Otherwise we would engage in a tennis match of accusations and denials, denials and accusations, back and forth, interminably. Just the same I wished he would consider my point of view. A straight yes or a no. I’m tired of having to interpret. Some instinct, though, cautions me to avoid ultimata. My defeats are numerous enough without inviting more. Possibly I said,

  – I live in a nice house, you know. My house is in a nice part of Toronto. I hate disorder. Every time I leave I clean and straighten the drawers. The laundry is done; the plants are watered. Every time I go away I leave the house in good shape. I miss putting things in order.

  Perhaps he replied,

  – My work is hazardous, but there’s a good pension after twenty years with The Agency. I think I’ll take up golf when I retire. The children will be gone by then, I’ll probably be lonely, but there will be grandchildren. I am looking forward to that. Elfrida is getting married in June, did I tell you, a week after her graduation?

  Suddenly a door slams and I am eleven years old. It is February and I stand in a cold rain. The landlady is in the doorway and says, You don’t live here any more; go find your mother. And slams the door shut.

  In our eagerness, Coenraad and I had undressed so quickly our clothes were all over the room. I began to tidy up. I placed pairs of shoes under the bed, I hung up his English costume of gray flannels and blue blazer. I put his bowler hat on top of the dresser. I folded, hung and straightened until order was restored. Only then was I able to return to the pleasures of that hotel room.

  Yet, despite Coenraad’s passionate embraces, despite kisses and endearments, despite everything, my mind dwelt only on the furnishings of the room. I stared at the walnut veneer of the dressers, the dot of light in the television glass, the Swedish sphere overhead and the five chrome lamps of different sizes strategically placed about the room. On the wall opposite, appearing and disappearing with the motion of Coenraad’s body above me, were three watercolors painted on rice paper, of lotus blossoms in the rain, two small birds on a snowy branch and a bamboo grove. The décor was an intriguing theme of East meeting West, or, as Auden defined poetry, the juxtaposition of irreconcilable elements. I was about to expatiate on the phenomenon of paradox, when I remembered that my philosophizing causes Coenraad to lose his erection. I lay still. Soon I was free to turn on my left side. Silent stars were visible through the window.

  I must have fallen asleep with the postcard in my hand, for a sharp edge against my face woke me during the night. In the morning, I knew that my dreams had been satisfying, although I could not remember them. I woke with vague, contented thoughts. That I was. That Coenraad was. That it was all necessary. Such certainty evaporated when I was about to leave the room. Before venturing out, I spilled the contents of my purse on the dresser top. Item by item I picked up and replaced into zippered safety: my passport (false) which says my name is Lola Montez and that I was born in New York, New York, in the United States of America, on May 11, 1925, and shows a picture of me taken three years ago, which is still a reasonable likeness; my international credit card, good for another eight months; my travellers’ cheques in various American-dollar denominations. Into the easily accessible centre pocket went a comb, hand mirror and lipstick, toothbrush, a packet of tissues, chewing gum and an extra pair of hose, as well as the hotel’s Key to Toronto to be examined over breakfast. In the outer compartment I placed the botany reprint. In this section also there was a pen and a writing tablet, on the first page of which was the opening of a letter. My dear darling children . . .

  I would continue the letter when I had decided what to write. Something had to be said. They were entitled to a communication from their mother. And if I worded it precisely, the letter might spare them a guilt they would always feel even though the fault is mine. Hidden deep inside this outer pocket was a smaller zippered one in which I kept their pictures, taken when they were small and when I was full of determination.

  In this secret place also was a newspaper clipping, the print faded along its creases, torn from last spring’s Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune. It showed Coenraad being decorated by President de Gaulle. The President was a head taller than my lover, yet, in that stalwart glance of his, as he looked up past de Gaulle’s right shoulder, Coenraad gave the impression he was the same height as the man who was pinning a medal on him. I presumed that the two young lads and a young girl, taller than everyone except the President, were Coenraad’s children; and that the patrician woman at their side was his wife. She, Coenraad’s wife, whose features have been bred small, her hair thick and her ankles slim. If he knew I had this picture, Coenraad would demand that I destroy it, since there must be no evidence to connect him with me.

  Before leaving, I looked about the room to remember what I must return to. The small room was well laid out and contained, without crowding, a double bed, two chairs, two bedside tables, a large dresser and three lamps. The television set occupied an entire corner and was placed directly opposite the doorway, so that it was the first thing one saw on entering. It could be viewed comfortably while lying in bed. I considered living in a hotel room like this, where I could come and go unnoticed, but the faded mustard and olive green drapes and matching bedspread and shag rug would all have to be changed. On the other hand, the moment one thinks of improvements, other dissatisfactions crop up, and then one does not want to live there any more. The long, old-fashioned window, held together, it seemed, by a mesh of tiny wire hexagons, looked out on two skyscrapers, the CN Tower and a patch of lake.

  At this time of the morning in all hotels the automatic lift stops at each floor to pick up men in gray suits, white shirts and blue or maroon ties, who smell of lotions and pomades, who keep a tight grasp on their attache cases, who crowd against one another and against me.

  – That sexy singer is on again tonight, wanna go?

  – Naw. She’s full of shtick.

  – Everybody’s gotta have a shtick.

  – Yeah, well, I’ve seen hers.

  Then, a moment before they touch down in the lobby, a change comes over their faces, which, from the start, had displayed a certain irascibility — seconds before the elevator stops, their heads tilt forward, there is a shuffling of feet. Here, now, at the King Edward, at eight o’clock in the morning, I was alone in the elevator all the way from the fourteenth to the main floor. The lobby was empty except for a man in a brown suit in a big leather chair, looking down his cigar, bringing it to his mouth slowly and regularly. Coenraad never smokes, not even for professional reasons.

  It was a relief to get out into the streets crowded at this hour with people going to work, or leaving for home after a night shift. It was a relief, almost, to be assailed by fumes of monstrous trucks. I stopped at the kiosk on the sidewalk in front of the O’Keefe Centre, read announcements of plays and concerts, and stared at photographs of actors and musicians unknown to me. I go only to movies, where I can slip into the dark at any time. Outside the Union Station images came to me of my war-time voyeurism at sixteen, when I went on Saturdays and Sundays and holidays to watch the tearful partings and reunions. I remembered especially the children. They hovered near a parent, their eyes bright with fear. They pretended pride of luggage, saying they would watch it, served by an intuition that where there are possessions there is home; that they would not be left behind so long as they stayed close to the suitcases. Tears sprang to my eyes as I considered my present loneliness, similar to that of my youth; now, as then, they were tears of longing for an absent lover.

  At that precise instant it came to me what Coenraad’s message was: the street was Elm and the number of pages of the botany bulletin, fou
r, pointed to the street number as possibly four or forty or four hundred. All at once, pangs of hunger replaced my anxiety. Across the street was the Royal York Hotel, which looked as formidable as it did in the days when I stood in awe of large buildings. Because of the heavy traffic, I crossed the wide boulevard with difficulty; at one point I stood on an imaginary island of safety while cars and taxis drove on either side of me.

  Steps retraced, it soon became apparent, led to fears recalled. I felt I was going to be asked to leave this huge, hushed lobby with its many lamps and dark wood, its deep red carpeting buried under soft sofas and chairs. Then my attention was caught by a board at one end of the long reception desk. There were numbers in sequence on the board, room numbers probably, and over some of the numbers a little light was blinking rapidly. The same numbers over the key slots were also lit up. Thus, at a glance, one knew immediately whether there was a message or mail. For the first time I preferred the mechanical to the personal. The humiliation of having to approach, obsequiously, an indifferent clerk, to ask, over a period of many clays, and several times a day, for word from Coenraad — that form of debasement would be obviated.

  Here, as elsewhere, unless I clearly revealed what was regarded as wealth, position, or, at the very least, respectability, I came under scrutiny, direct and indirect, from everyone. This was no time to prevail. I enquired, Where is the coffee shop? And here, as elsewhere, there was obvious relief in the reply, You must go downstairs, follow the signs. The basement rotundas were bright with overhead fluorescent lights and a practical carpet of orange and red circles set in squares of blatant blue. This confirmed my theory that all carpets in hotels all over the world were either orange or red or a combination of the two colors, and all in geometric patterns. The wallpaper in the coffee shop was a duplicate of the floor. Inside the entrance was a sign on a floor stand, Please Wait To Be Seated.

  I followed the hostess who was dressed, like myself, in a basic black dress with pearls. She held a clutch of menus to her breast. I followed her as she made her way between small square tables towards the wall opposite and turned left. I saw I was being led to the end table next to the supply station where waitresses were milling about, clattering spoons and filling glasses with water. For a long time I have suspected that when I come alone into a restaurant I am going to be seated next to swinging kitchen doors or behind bins for dirty dishes. In contrast, when Coenraad and I enter a dining room there is a snapping of fingers and a scurry to seat us at an advantage. The hostess halted before a table laden with dirty plates; a cigarette stub was in the ketchup. I decided to stop following on her heels and fell back. She must have sensed what was, for me, a kind of rebellion, for she suddenly wheeled about and led me to a seat at a window at the other end. She put one of her cards on the table before returning to her place behind the sign.

  In front of me appeared a glass of water; to my right the cup was lifted and filled with hot coffee, even as I was reading the menu. I was aware of someone in a white apron over a blue dress, standing at my chair, probably the waitress, her pencil poised over a pad, but I hesitated to give my order. Truth was, I felt I should not be here. There is something indecent in eating breakfast in public. It’s like getting out of bed in a roomful of strangers. Keeping my eyes on the printed cardboard, I ordered Breakfast Number Four, consisting of juice, porridge, bacon and eggs, toast, jam and coffee. Whatever lies ahead, my mother used to say, a good breakfast will see you through. Every morning with her eyes on the clock she would become impatient with my lack of attention; alternately she urged me to eat more and to stop eating because she would be late for work. As I looked up to give my order, I thought the waitress must have risen very early, while it was still dark, to be ready, all combed and starched and white shoes cleaned, to serve me at this hour. Perhaps she has a child to take to the day nursery on her way to work. I can see them, mother and child, still somnolent, she pulling the little girl, who has difficulty keeping up with her mother. They take buses and subway, she, the child, being pulled on and off. There will be a return trip, reversing the direction. In winter it will again be dark as they make their way home, the mother tired and walking not so quickly, the child chattering, the mother not listening, so that whatever is significant at that moment to the four-year-old girl will disappear from her memory forever, perhaps to be recalled in dreams that will seem to be without meaning.

  When the table was cleared, except for the coffee cup, which I asked to be refilled, I spread out the map. Streets were listed on the back. I suffered a seepage of self-confidence. Which of the streets named Elm was I supposed to locate? There were not only two Elm Streets, but Elm everything else — glen and grove, crest and place, square, bank, avenue, dale, manor, lane and road. I counted twenty-six in all. I brought out the botany reprint, hoping to find a phrase or a sentence that would reveal a more precise location. The only place named was Quebec. The new strain, known as Quebec Elm, from its origins at L’Assomption, north of Montreal, resists the blight that will eventually wipe out the American elm. I considered that Coenraad might have been in error, directing me to Toronto when he meant Montreal. Yet to doubt his knowledge of Canadian geography would be to doubt the man himself: he is his work, and his work is, in a sense, global. Any notion that I have a superior ability to read, interpret and deduce disappeared in the face of the hopelessness expressed in this scientific paper. Then it came to me that love has nothing to do with science, and that my first hunch was correct. The map showed an Elm Street downtown, north of Queen, between Yonge and Bay, within walking distance.

  Even as I gulped the last of the coffee and crumpled the map I wondered how I would be able to wait for Coenraad in Toronto. The city is mined, for me, with the explosive devices of memory. In other places I await my lover with a degree of equanimity because I know what I have to look forward to. I can wait anywhere. I have learned to sit still, to stand still, to remain silent. I eat and sleep and I wander the streets. To help put in the time while waiting I take long walks. Wherever I am, I set out thinking the air will do me good, which is untrue in London or Mexico City or Los Angeles, but the habit is strong and I march along believing the excursion will prove salubrious. I don’t use maps; I don’t worry about gettting lost. I make turns recklessly: a right turn here, a left there. Walking in circles has become a skill. This is to avoid the monotony of merely stepping on and off curbs.

  Venice provided me with endless turns, many leading to little curved bridges, where I would stop exactly midway and take in the view from both sides. Invariably I leave the main thoroughfare and find myself, in the cities of Europe, on narrow cobbled streets. In America it is more difficult to create diversions while walking, since the streets are laid out in simple blocks that often lead only to a gas station or a shopping mall. Sundays, however, I take no walks; Sundays fill me with despair. I hang about the hotel, in my room or in the lobby, until the museums open. Sunday is a family day. It is on Sunday that husband and wife and children go out for a walk, the youngest daughter at her father’s side. And in Paris, I observed, husband and wife take a promenade when they are old, his arm linked in hers, resting in a cafe, where they order rich cakes.

  In other cities I walk endless hours in palaces and art galleries and libraries and museums. I feel at home in public buildings. Their doors, by law, must be open on specified days, at specified hours. Their doors, old or new, are on well-oiled hinges and await only a slight shove or a light pull to open. Once inside, I am free of all repsonsibilities: it is requested only that I do not smoke or spit on the floor. I surrender to the seduction of stale air and the subtle persuasions of the dead. I am invited to love the Gutenberg Bible or the Guernica or a wooden Japanese saint, circa 1132. I become an arbiter of taste, a patron. And when my eyes can no longer focus and my mind no longer has preferences, I am at liberty to leave.

  Coenraad cannot comprehend the art of waiting. Often, when we were sitting up in bed, shoulders and legs touching,
he asked me,

  – When did you get here?

  – Three days ago.

  – And what have you been doing?

  – Waiting.

  – Yes, but what did you do?

  – I told you, I waited.

  – You must have done something — you ate, you slept, you took a shower. What else?

  – I walked to the Louvre. I took the train to Versailles.

  – He is not aware of the activity involved in waiting for him.

  It takes a great deal of energy to wait. Although I am quiet, I feel as if I were running all the while to a point in the distance, panting for breath. My entire being strains towards that moment when he will appear. Time is suspended; it goes on without me. And then, at the sight of him, in one split second, the waiting comes to an end: the clocks start their wild clacking, their hands race towards the time when he will go back out the door. And then, the instant the door closes behind him, the instant I am alone again, when I see the empty pillow beside me, there begins that exquisite longing to be with him again. The yearning starts and ends my days. As for Coenraad, he said that once, when he was in danger, he told himself, if I get out of this alive, I will never let her go. But of course he did. Over and over. Still, I have become accustomed to waiting. It’s not so bad: I always have something to look forward to.

  Despite the dreary morning, under a sky the color of ashes, people hurrying to work displayed a verve and buoyancy I found stimulating. The men were freshly shaven, the women’s lipstick was unblemished, all had clean shirts and fresh blouses. A momentum carried them towards one building or another, into which they disappeared with an eagerness I knew they couldn’t maintain past the first coffee break. Tenacity of purpose remains with their middle-aged employers, who precede them by one hour in the morning and depart one hour after they have left. These reflections came to mind as I began to pass familiar buildings. I was walking north on Bay Street, on the east side, keeping to my right. On the other side of the street many changes had taken place. Another skyscraper was going up. Gone was the Canadian Pacific Railway and Steamship office at the corner of King Street, where, just before the war, I went with my mother to buy a ticket to sail on a Cunard liner to Marseilles. I went alone to see a father whom I didn’t remember. But the Stock Exchange was still in the same place. I smiled again at the sight of its frieze of sturdy, stalwart laborers drilling, digging, pounding. Now there was a fried-chicken restaurant next door.