Basic Black with Pearls Read online

  Despite the disintegration of the street, I came across an elegant restaurant. It, too, was boarded up, except that its blind exterior suggested exclusiveness. The front was of dark, burnished wood, reflecting pale yellow lights; dashes of color were provided by stained glass windows. From where I stood on the sidewalk nothing could be seen of its interior. Some couples, well-dressed, strong perfume on the women, passed me and went inside. Even then as the door was opened I could see nothing. To the left of the door was a menu under glass. The food and the prices, I thought, indicated a clientele I could be part of if I wanted to: I would fit right in with my good black dress and the pearls; I know how to order in French; how to use a knife and fork in the English manner; how to place without ostentaion my credit card on the little silver tray with the bill. But right now, I wanted to cling to what the day had evoked: the encounter in the bakery, the tears in the rain, the shock of the Bonnard, the smells of the boarding house.

  On Yonge Street, between Elm and Dundas, I saw a sign in angular letters, Naxos. It was repeated on a door to the left of a shoe shop. Stairs led up to a small, bright restaurant. The waitress and I were the only women in a roomful of men. Most had come from work, to judge by their clothes. Were their wives still in the Old Country? I was led to a small table, which was vacated at my approach by two men who had been only sitting and smoking. This was done wordlessly. An ashtray was removed and the plastic over a red-checkered cloth was wiped clean. Yet, even here, in this plain room with bare windows, aspirations were evident. The menu, found behind the cash register, was elaborately printed. Although the dishes had Greek names, the headings were set in Old English type: Ye Starte, and, for the desserts, Ye Finish. The owner came around the counter to bid me welcome and to urge me to come again and bring my friends, then went back to watch over my shish kebab at the broiler. A jukebox pounded Greek music. Eventually it became silent and no one put in any more coins. In a corner, two tables over, four men sipped Turkish coffee and smoked steadily. I took them to be intellectuals from the way they held their cigarettes between thumb and forefinger and from the fact that they wore jackets, shirts and ties. Their hushed tones and their occasional outbursts made me think they were talking about the military coup in Greece. It was in my mind to go over and ask them a question that had been nagging me. In the knowledge, though, of torture and repression in that country I was afraid my words would not be taken at their simple value; perhaps they would be suspicious of my intrusion, looking upon it as a feminine ploy to gain access to their politics or their sex. I wanted to ask them if they knew why Theseus abandoned Ariadne on the island of Naxos. Did Theseus abandon Ariadne because he no longer loved her; or, as one legend claimed, because his ship was blown out to sea? . . .

  At nine o’clock that night I went again, as I had in the morning, against the flow. Everyone hurried north as they came out of the Queen Street subway, hurrying, I imagined, to catch the last show or the remaining hours in a bar. Only four of us crossed the street in the opposite direction. At King Street an elderly man waited with me for the lights to change. He kept his eyes on the ground, yet, as the light turned green, I was aware he was keeping pace with me. I turned the corner slowly towards the hotel, but he continued to shuffle south. I was the only person left on the street.

  Through the revolving doors, through the lobby again as if crippled, being careful to bend the right knee as before, establishing almost a dance rhythm. It is evident that I have given myself a handicap, in the sporting sense. The night clerk watched my progress towards him. He made a concession, a minor one perhaps, but important to me: his information was given in a complete sentence.

  – I am very sorry, madame, but there is nothing in your box tonight; maybe there will be a message for you tomorrow. Have a good evening.

  In what way, I wondered.

  Then I caught sight of a group of botanists. There were seven to be exact, four men and three women, still wearing their tags. They stood in the exact centre of the lobby, under the huge chandelier, an earnest congregation in dark suits and black shoes and in dresses in small print. I felt impelled to join them: I had to find out who, amongst the delegates, left the botany journal and the message of diseased elms. It was possible that the extra man, the one without a partner, was Coenraad. But which one? I gathered, from stray words reaching me, they were trying to decide what to do with the rest of the night. I hung about in the hope that one of them was my lover.

  It was not possible to assess the mating combinations, not in their faces, which were one and at the same time impersonal and yet animated; not in the way they stood, which was one and at the same time far apart and yet close together. I sought the eyes of each of the men in turn. When Coenraad has no other safe means of communication, he signals me with a deep look into my eyes, blinking three times between unwavering stares. The hawk-headed one with the bushy brows and a gray plume of hair avoided my gaze; another, whose heavy-lidded eyes looked back at me with melancholy, was having his maroon knitted tie straightened by one of the women; the eyes of the third one were crinkled with laughter as he chuckled ho-ho-ho’s; the last stood four-square in Roots boots and met my gaze, although not in that special transfixed stare. He had red hair, his face was shaven down to the fringe of a lighter red beard tracing the jawline in Mennonite fashion. That’s the sort of disguise Coenraad prefers, a readily identifiable type, easily recalled by a witness in a description to the police. I stepped forward and said evenly,

  – Is there any hope for the elm?

  – A chemical compound has been developed, the Mennonite replied, that can be injected into the base of an elm tree to inhibit the progress of the disease.

  The new code was working! I have been persuaded never to tip my hand, as the expression goes, when we meet in public. I therefore maintained an air of neutrality and awaited further signals. The Mennonite was saying that he for one wished to go to bed now, it had been a long day; moreover, he, for one again, was not interested in a nightclub with topless waitresses, although as a scientist he’d be the first to acknowledge the usefulness of the female breast for the survival of the human race. Up to now, that is. How like him to make reference to breasts, knowing I would recall the nights he lay beside me quoting from the Song of Songs, Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins which feed among the lilies. I said I had to prepare my paper on Ceratocystis ulmi. Perhaps they attributed my announcement to embarrassment, because I was blushing with memory and anticipation. The Mennonite recognized the Latin term for the blight that has destroyed the magnificent elms. I’d like to have a copy of your paper, he told me. I could barely contain my joy. On my way to the elevators I slowed down my lame steps to give Coenraad, if indeed it was he, a chance to catch up with me. Just as I entered the elevator, all seven of them came in. They were laughing, the men poked one another with their elbows, the women stood with lowered eyes. I concluded that the mere idea of voyeurism had been sufficient for their evening’s excitement. Five of them, including the Mennonite, got out on the eighth floor, without a backward glance. The other two got out on the ninth.

  It was with reluctance that I turned the key in the door to my room: I dreaded the sight of the plastic surfaces and the bilious colors, in the midst of which I would have to endure the long night ahead. Nor, once inside, could I bring myself to secure the bolts and chains provided for my safety: a sealed door right now would end all hope that Coenraad would come through it: I had to be able to open it quickly with just a twist of the knob. I pressed my back against the door as if to postpone my entry into the room proper, which, despite the many pieces of furniture and the television set on its own stand, and the lamps that lit up with a switch in the hallway — that room despite efforts to appear crowded with amenities, was empty.

  A light tap on the door behind my back caused my spine to reverberate as though there’d been an explosion outside. I controlled an impulse to fling open the door — it might be one o
f those hotel spies sent out in the late evening with a towel over the arm, who makes her slow way to the bathroom, all the while darting quick searching glances into every corner. I opened the door, not too wide, and remained hidden behind it, as they do in the movies, so that if it were Coenraad he would be forced to pay a small penalty, as is exacted by children in their games, for having kept me in suspense the past twenty-four hours. I pictured him on the other side, hesitating, not knowing whether it was his lover or his enemy on the inside. Or perhaps it was really I who was afraid to risk knowing whether it was my lover or a rapist who was demanding entrance. There was no retreat. It was necessary to dissipate the charge being created by the two of us.

  I confronted a black man in beige overalls. A broad leather belt was around his waist. Attached to the belt was a pouch full of tools, the weight of which caused the belt to hang low over his hip. He was leaning against the door frame, with a patient look. He said he had come to repair the telephone. I said it did not need fixing. He asked me how I knew that, having just come in. I asked how did he know that? During this exchange I speculated that if he were Coenraad, and he were being watched, he had to “play it straight” until I, the occupant, let him in. But, reluctantly, I had to face the fact that his height was exceptional; his head almost touched the top of the door frame. Coenraad can disguise almost everything, even his color, but not his height. That is to say, he can by means of platforms on his shoes extend himself to about five foot eleven, but unless he were on stilts, he could never measure, as did the man before me, several inches over six feet. He was now regarding me with an air of here-we-go-again, as in all those crime shows on television, where the assassin pretends he is a telephone repair man. I concealed my eyes, because he read in them the memories of countless crime shows I have watched in countless hotel rooms, dramas wherein the murderer gains access to his victim by pretending to be a telephone repair man. I blocked the doorway.

  – There is no need to repair it. I never telephone anyone.

  I watched him go down the hall and waited until he turned a corner before I came back into my room. He may have been a rapist, a killer, a thief, but I could not have brought myself to shut the door in his face.

  I tried the phone. It was dead. I felt ashamed of my suspicions. I told myself that so much caution had led to uncertainty, which had led to distrust. As recently as a year ago I was still flinging open the door to any signal — a tap, a rap, a ring. In Quito one morning last March, I responded to light taps and the sound of heavy breathing. An intense little man fell at my feet, exhausted. I, assuming it was Coenraad, gathered him in my arms and pulled him inside the hotel room. When he shrank from my affections, doubt assailed me. Up to then all our meetings from Mexico to Belize to Ecuador had gone smoothly. Quickly I checked our code in the National Geographic and found nothing to account for the terrified, ragged, emaciated figure pleading wordlessly for sanctuary. Just then, a key in the lock and the maid slipped in, pushing the cleaning cart ahead of her. There were muffled cries and embraces. I helped her lift him into the canvas laundry container and we covered him with towels. At that hour, eleven in the morning, no one was in the corridor except another maid at the far end. I walked ahead of the cart in case someone appeared who needed to be diverted. The maid gave me a grateful, anguished smile as the door to the service elevator clattered shut on her and her cargo. When I told Coenraad about my adventure, he assumed I had been badly frightened and he attempted to reassure me: the terrorist’s presence in our room was sheer coincidence. The maid was his wife. Besides, he added, they had both been apprehended in the laundry in the basement.

  That same hot afternoon with Coenraad beside me in a darkened room, I forgot everything; that same night when we strolled the streets under a navy-blue sky, no thought came to me of what would be done with the two prisoners; later that same night, drinking rum and listening to itinerant singers confessing love in falsetto voices, plucking at their guitars in despair, I never once thought of torture; and back in that same room, after quiet prolonged lovemaking falling into a dreamless sleep at dawn, it never occurred to me that those other two would never wake to another day.

  On the plane to Guatemala I reflected on the nature of coincidence. Was it pure bad luck that brought the guerilla leader (his picture was on the front page at the newsstands) to seek safety in Coenraad’s room; was it fate that his wife was a maid in that room; was it mere chance that an ally, myself, was the mistress of the very man who had been ordered to capture him? . . . I was assailed again by that unholy trinity of doubt, distrust and suspicion. Was Coenraad using me in his work, was his love affair just another cover? It’s just as well the telephone is out of order: there is danger in its use with my overwrought imagination. Except for that one call in Tikal, Coenraad and I have never spoken on the telephone because of wire taps. Telephones are ringing behind every wall, but I receive no calls nor do I dare make any. (In the letter to my children I will draw attention to the fact that the telephone is theirs exclusively from now on. Their father is satisfied to receive a mid-week report on Wednesday night on his mare at the stables, otherwise he rarely finds use for the apparatus. Just think, my dear ones, you will not have to wonder for whom the bell rings: it will ring for you. I made all those allusions to this-is-your-home, yet you never felt the phone belonged to you. It’s all yours now. That is what I will write.)

  I sat on the edge of the bed and contemplated the useless instrument on the night table. It was colored beige and had a two-inch-wide drawer that pulled out of its bottom, with tiny plastic-covered pages that gave instructions for its use for various hotel services, for local and long-distance calls. There were also advertisements and numbers for a taxi, a nightclub, an escort service, restaurants of exotic ethnicity. I reflected that within its deceptively simple design the telephone contains at any given moment such portents of joy or disaster, of boredom or terror, that even a shaman would fall in a faint with fear of the spirits that come shrieking through its wires. It is just as well I cannot use the phone: I might be tempted to look up the number of someone I once knew. What would I say after all these years?

  – Hello, is this Maximilian’s mother? This is — this was — Shirley Silverberg. Listen. I must ask you something. If you had not sent your son away and he would have taken me dancing a few more times and I had put my face on his chest against that silky white shirt I know you ironed for him to go out in, and he would have been careful to keep his hand around my waist while we danced and when the music stopped lead me to our table, and when they played The Last Waltz he would have kissed me lightly on the cheek (did you imagine we ever did more than kiss?); if I had only been able to calmly announce to my father some Saturday night that I was going to the movies and Max drove up in his father’s Buick (instead, I often muttered a bitter “nowhere” when my father demanded to know where I’d been); if Max and I had had a few phone calls in the spring when he was writing exams and I told him I was promoted from stenographer to secretary, and anyway I had to wash my hair and catch up on my reading, had he ever read Bernanos?; if, in early summer, after his exams, he picked me up at Herbert House after work and we walked down to the lake and spent our exuberance in the icy waters kicking and splashing each other, gasping for breath; and if, afterwards, making certain no one was about, and no one ever was at that time of year, kissed long and longingly; if you had taken some one else to lunch and left us to make certain discoveries — his imperious manner, my bluntness, his oily hair, my shoes that pinched, his sudden silences, my outbursts on streetcars — then in time we would have telephoned one another less often and, finally, perhaps, stopped seeing each other altogether. If you had left us alone then Maximilian need not have broken his back and I need not have married a man who reminded me of him.

  Zbigniew. The fault was not his. He happened to have eyes set deep under a straight brow; he happened to have a small waist below the hollows under his ribs; and his buttocks were small
and muscular; his fingers were long and his feet narrow. He happened to have those features I had to reclaim as mine.

  Zbigniew has done nothing wrong. He never breathes in my face. The fault is not his that I cannot look into his unclouded eyes, that I cannot meet the gaze that once commanded a squadron. I am afraid of hands (his) that exert an iron control over horses. For a long time now I have not raised my voice. Any agitation on my part brings to the bedroom two men in white. The ambulance lights flash; the crowd gathers; the siren splits the air; Zbigniew receives sympathy.

  No, the fault is not my husband’s that I am sitting on the edge of a bed in a hotel room, alone, staring at a dead telephone.

  The day having been uneventful, time spent unrequited and my hopes unfulfilled, I got to bed as quickly as possible. I flipped the postcards with the desperation of an addict. The colors flashed: castles and gardens, bridges and statues, museums and marketplaces. All, all, bringing to mind scenes more vivid, more graphic in detail, than the actual event through which I had passed with all my senses reeling. Only in retrospect do I hear the peal of church bells, smell the food in the stalls, hear the words of our murmurings in the dark, recognize the sources of our laughter. Even the silences are felt again in their exact meaning. Coenraad was right: it is with memories like these that pleasures are restored. Once, in Venice, in a gondola within sight of the Bridge of Sighs, I looked up at the little grilles through which the condemned on their way to their dark, dank prisons had their last sight of the Venetians. I wept for all who have had to relinquish the little they have known of happiness.