The Pink Hotel (11 page)

The Pantry

The new pantrywoman smiled in satisfaction, anticipation. She had a secret. She had given her name to the timekeeper as Elizabeth Stevens and he had hired her like a shot,
too, but she was really Emma Schacht, and Emma Schacht had many secrets.

She looked about her at the salads, the cheeses, the fruits and garnishes, the jams and desserts, and felt a sense of power in her own person, a rising indignation against all constituted authority.

Take a poor woman’s liberty away from her, would they? Hound her over the country, never give her a minute’s peace, just because she had been a little unfortunate.

She smiled again, hands on her ample hips. Well, she had fooled them all right, had been too smart for them, had got away. She was intoxicated by the cunning of Emma Schacht, Elizabeth Stevens. She’d showed them, she guessed. She’d always show them.

She pinned a towel expertly over her neat brown hair, wiped her gray face with a handkerchief, adjusted a white apron over her comfortable girth. It paid to look real neat, and she eyed the jars, the bowls, the shellfish in cracked ice, appraisingly. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t do. Nobody could fix a salad, scallop a grapefruit, fill a parfait glass, as pretty as she could.

She polished her glasses, settled them on her nose. A wave of sympathy for the unjust persecution of Emma Schacht swept over her. It was all lies, every bit of it lies. People just couldn’t resist the way she fixed things up. They ate too much, and naturally they had indigestion, that was all.

Of course, a few had died but that again was just an unfortunate coincidence. There was nothing the matter with Emma Schacht why she’d hardly had a sick day in her life. Oh, the skitters a few times maybe. And the words they used!
“Radius vector. Bacillus typhosus. Typhophor.”

She’d like to see those old doctors live on an island all by themselves and never see a living soul—provisions delivered from a boat once a week, and never even a friendly hello. Treated her as if she wasn’t human, that’s what they did, and the whole city of New York spread out before her, just out of reach. She could see the buildings in the daytime, the signs and lights at night.

She got lonesome, she guessed, the same as anybody else. Why, it was downright cruel, that’s what it was—expecting a woman still in her prime, a good cook and just real sociable, to spend the rest of her life on that old island!

If she’d been an old woman now, maybe it might be different, but no, it was against nature. She’d fooled them, though. She’d fixed that young couple with the outboard motorboat a real nice lunch, and then she had asked them to take her across the bay.

She hadn’t been out of work since, either, she told herself, except when she was traveling and she had used a different name every place too. Ella Sondheim. Emily Sauter. Esther Singer. Ella Seeger. Elva Schloss. She’d been too smart, always a jump ahead, for them to catch up.

She was just real motherly-looking, she guessed. It gave people confidence in her and she loved to cook. She could always get a job in a kitchen and when she began to notice certain things now, she just moved on, that was all.

It was indigestion, that’s what it was, and she knew now the symptoms of the indigestion that followed overeating of her good cooking. They had the blues something terrible, and fever, and they seemed to be sort of off in their heads. What really proved it was something they ate was the little red spots on their chests and stomachs, a sort of strawberry rash, like she got herself from shrimp. Their bowels was upset, too, but most of them got over it all right after a while. They certainly did look funny, though, with their hair all growing in again.

She reviewed the places where she had worked since getting off the island and where people had gotten sick from eating too much of her good cooking. There was the Asylum, right out of New York City, it was, and the Orphan’s Home in Washington, and a boardinghouse for a while, and the hospital in Nashville, and the Y. W. C. A. and the Methodist Old Ladies. The Methodist Old Ladies had loved her cooking; an awful lot of them had gotten indigestion before she had decided that she ought to take a little trip, move along.

She thought she’d stay in Florida quite a while, as long as
she could. People were coming and going so much; there were so many hotels, things to do, to see, that she thought she was pretty safe. She liked this place—its sparkling white buildings, its dazzling blue skies, its shops, its astrologers, its souvenir and fruit juice stands. She might even marry again if she met a real nice middle-age man. One with no children though, she added quickly to herself. They always made trouble.

Of course, if she did get married again, her husband would probably get indigestion like all the rest, and that always led to complications. She sighed. Maybe it would be better if she didn’t marry again, just for a while.

Her hands were deft among the fruits and vegetables, her appearance comfortable and serene. Excitement mounted in her and she looked around the kitchen, at the chefs, the food checker, the dishwashers, the bus boys, wondering which of them would be the first to get indigestion from her good cooking.

She patted the pocket under her apron that held her change purse and the slip of paper that certified that she was Elizabeth Stevens, that she had been examined by a licensed medical practitioner and found free of infectious or venereal disease. Emma Schacht patted her change purse and smiled again and when she smiled, she was just real motherly-looking.

The Beach

It was a beautiful day in Technicolor, the sort of day seen in travel posters and on postcards, a perfect day, unseasonable even in an unseasonable climate, a day too good to be true.

Sand, sea and sky put on a holiday air, posed genially for their pictures. There was the steady click and
whir-r-rr
of cameras.

Mr. Mather paced the Pleasaunce edgily and took a bismuth tablet. In Rome, Mr. Mather wore a
fanciful beach
ensemble involving sportive pink dolphins on a discreet, beige background. He felt a little foolish, almost as if he were wearing pajamas in public, and he consulted his watch frequently in early anticipation of three o’clock, his enchanted release from the malaise which afflicted him now without Mrs. Dukemer.

Mr. Mather had rented a car for the beach party, a dashing maroon convertible, and he took little proprietary glimpses at its hood from behind his sunglasses, singling it easily out of a shiny queue of motorcars. Mr. Mather was aware of latent miracle and suspense in the blue candor of the day, the lazy susurrus of pine and palm and sea.

Occasionally, he walked down to the convertible, switched on the motor, tested it for knocks, quick starting, its adequacy to the situation in hand, reassuring himself as to the car’s emergency performance. The pink dolphins and the convertible, the day itself, combined to incite Mr. Mather’s imagination to incautious pleasantries.

He was impatient of hotel regulations, the proprieties, and his mind churned with improbable getaways in the convertible with Mrs. Dukemer, inconspicuous elopements over the border to Canada or Mexico.

The convertible, geared to noisy laughter and unhallowed love, made Mr, Mather crave the warm immediacy of Dukemer as, in Waltham, his ulcer had craved zwieback and carrot juice. He yearned uncomfortably for Millie’s laughing red mouth, her knowing eyes, her really extraordinary droll remarks.

Dukemer, too, waited doggedly for three o’clock, the clearing of the machine, her great balancing act. Five thousand dollars was a lot of dough in quarters and nickels and pennies, new singles and new fives. Her checks were neatly listed, a careful subtotal already taken on her bank. Thank God, she was on the late shift tomorrow.

“Go home,” a voice said just behind her. “You’re holding up a good woman.” It was Frannie Wooten, her relief, and it was only two-thirty!

“I love you,” Dukemer said. “Want me to kiss your hand? Have you any little part to which a tinker might attend?”

“You’d do the same for me,” Wooten pointed out. “Have fun—”

“I can’t guarantee it,” Dukemer said, “but I certainly will
try.”
After that, Wooten helped her so much that neither of them could tell whether she was in balance or not, but it was a near thing. Accounting would probably give her hell tomorrow. Let them, Dukemer decided. Mafiana. She was getting like Purcell.

Purcell himself fidgeted and the blood in little Mary Street’s veins turned to a sluggish trickle of brown sugar syrup. The layers of devil’s food waited, rich and moist, but Mary had been frantic and near tears when Mr. Baldwin, out of some fund of secret knowledge, suggested powdered sugar. Everyone agreed later that there had never been such icing, such a cake.

They had all met at a drive-in near the ocean. Mr. Mather carried, in addition to his sunglasses and the black silk umbrella, a very large, crisp lettuce in a bowl and a flask of French Dressing.

“Dr. Livingstone, I presume,” Dukemer said, and bowed.

Purcell arrived in a cab with a thermos full of stingers, and little Street got off a bus and advanced on the double, balancing a cake plate wrapped in waxed paper and carrying a hinged, wicker picnic basket.

“Put it in the back, Mac,” Dukemer said and shook hands suddenly with the counterman. There was the small, green crackle of a new bill as their hands touched. “I left a package here this morning.”

“For you, sister, anything,” the counterman said devoutly, looking at Mary and producing Dukemer’s package and a big, ripe mango. “Compliments of the house. I got about fifty pounds of ice packed around them beer cans,” he added.

Purcell progressed to the counter taking paper cups out of his pockets. “Have a drink with us, Professor,” he said. “One for the road.”

Dukemer winked elaborately at Mary Street, closed thumb and forefinger in a brief salute. “The nuts, baby,” she
said.

“We are having a little
fête champêtre en voiture,”
Mr. Mather observed politely.

“Don’t give me none of that,” the counterman said darkly. “Back home, I got a cousin in the State Legislature.” He swallowed briefly. “Tally-ho, the fox,” he said. “Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t do.”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Mather.

Perfection attended them to the beach, in a satisfactory mingling of legs and baskets and bottles, peppermint and salt air. Mr. Mather whistled tunelessly at the wheel of the maroon convertible and said, “By ah-George,” at intervals. Dukemer sprawled at her ease.

The beach, when they got to it at last, was expressly made for a picnic. It was an ideal beach, conforming to every preconceived standard of excellence in sand and sun, sea and sky. They had spread their blankets and finished the stingers, eaten the counterman’s magnificent mango. The mango was the archetype of every fruit, a subtle quintessence of peach and pear and plum, cantaloupe and pineapple and banana—and it was
very
sticky.

They had bathed, then, splashing and laughing, in a friendly element that was warm enough to be soothing, cold enough to be bracing. Little Street collected exquisite shells, held a jellyfish in her palm for a slippery instant. Dukemer floated like a cork on the careless, blue breast of the Atlantic, and Purcell jackknifed expertly into the big ones.

Mr. Mather returned to the beach again, and yet again. It was the sand tits. He almost believed, he told Mary, for the first time, in Theosophy. Not gurus, of course, but simple, animal reincarnation.

“Don’t give me none of that,” Mary said. “Back home, I got a cousin that’s a Bird Watcher. He’d resent it.”

“The little buh-h-hds remind me quite ah-forcibly of Auntie Alix. She was ah-addicted to black and white. Ah-ex-citable. She crossed a ah-street so,” he said, indicating the frenzied advance, the hasty retreat of the pipers.

“They do look a little like clubwomen,” Mary agreed.

“Well corseted,” he went on. “Self ah-important. I ah-pre-fer something a
little
less rigid. All elas-ah-ticity,” he said admiringly, and waved at the bobbing Dukemer.

Mr. Mather was so nice that little Street found herself telling him about Mother and phrenology and the Conjugal Bumps, about Darlene and Centralia. “You have a wonderful one,” she said, squinting at the back of his head.

“Premah-ture, my dear,” he said. “Pre-mah-ture,” and headed for Dukemer, cutting the water neatly with his breast stroke. Mary made for Purcell with a wicked little crawl, matched him jackknife for jackknife.

Dukemer and Mr. Mather were opening bottles, unwrapping sandwiches, cutting the cake, when Purcell came in with little Street.

“No mayonnaise,” Dukemer crooned over her deviled eggs. “Just vinegar and soft butter and dry mustard. Try one,” she said softly.

“Devilish,” Mr. Mather agreed. “Another, please,” he said promptly. “I ah-fail to remember having such an appetite,” he remarked with his mouth full. “Excuse
me,”
he said.

Little Street’s sandwiches were perfection, Mr. Mather’s lettuce, a triumph. The sun was very warm and the beer was very cold. Purcell ate half of the devil’s food cake before anyone could stop him, and washed it down with beer.

“Quite definitely ah-titillating,” Mr. Mather said, and reached for another deviled egg.

“Mind your language, mister,” Purcell warned him. “This is a decent, respectable house.”

“I can’t pull another blade of grass I’m so full,” Dukemer said and loped purposefully behind a sand dune. She buckled once and fell abruptly asleep, in a gradual lengthening and burrowing, from the knees up.

Mr. Mather followed her quietly, clutching a beer can and a deviled egg. He sat down, finished the egg lingeringly, and licked his fingers. He sipped his beer, touched Dukemer’s loose hair occasionally with his finger tips. She was no Tom Edison. Not at all. She was his enchanted Princess, his Sleeping Beauty, his
degno amore,
and she was very tired.

Mr. Mather covered Dukemer carefully with the coat of his jaunty beach ensemble; then he had hugged his knees and rocked lightly back and forth in brooding content. Dukemer slept on, and Mr. Mather continued to sip his beer and rock a little, hugging his knees, while sea and sky deepened and darkened with umber shadows. The beach elongated in careful sworls: Dukemer’s breathing stirred the pink dolphins to sportive play, while streaks of mauve appeared in the sky, were succeeded by violet and indigo and pale coral.

“Having a good time, baby?” Purcell asked, and rolled toward Mary. “You look pretty damned cute,” he said, and patted her bare midriff. “Smell good, too. Now’s the time that I usually say ‘if you could only cook,’ but you can, baby, you can. Best icing I ever tasted,” he said, and Mary was careful not to mention Mr. Baldwin.

“Gee, I’m full,” she groaned. “This is the only time I’ve had enough to eat since I left home. I think maybe a beer.”

Mary lay back on the blanket, closed her eyes and opened them again. Mr. Purcell really
was
nice, and he looked handsomer than ever in the short Persian trunks he wore. She watched a muscle ripple smoothly into his shoulder as he opened the beer for her. His shoulders were big and brown, with a scattering of pale freckles, and Mary had a funny feeling that she would like to set her teeth in Mr. Purcell’s shoulder. Not bite, she thought lazily, just sort of taste. “I think a drink in this pretty city,” she said surprisingly.

“Are you as sweet as you look, baby? As nice as you look?”

“I’m a—a healthy, normal, American girl,” Mary said and drank out of the can with a little gurgle. “Wh-what about you? Are—are you as nice as you look?”

“I’m not nice,” Purcell said. “I’m a whited sepulcher. Stay up late. Smoke cubebs. Drink sarsaparilla. The things I think! About you,” he said fondly and put a negligent arm around
her, drew her a little closer. Mary sighed and seemed suddenly to have no bones.

The colors in the sky brightened in pompous violence. Cloud banks shifted. A gull screamed. God, it was wonderful. No house count. No J. Arthur. No people. No
soupe du jour,
some
jours.

There was nobody in the whole world but little Mary, warm and sweet and quick beside him. The sky grew more brilliant. Orange and purple. Red and blue. A land crab scuttled along the breakwater, and Purcell gave a quick wrench.

Get me out of here, he thought in panic. The first thing he knew, he’d be saying Will You and I Do, not that it wasn’t a
fine idea for somebody else. “Cashier!” he shouted suddenly. “Front, boy!” It had been a near thing, and he wondered for a minute if Dukemer was playing a dirty, feminine trick on him. All women were matchmakers—
schadchens—
at heart.

“Yes
sir,”
Dukemer murmured drowsily. She sat up painfully, shook her head. “I was sound. . .” she said, and embraced Mr. Mather’s left arm, put her head on his shoulder. “I needed that.”

Mr. Mather kissed Dukemer’s hair, permitted his lips to close on her forehead. “Shall we ah-join the others?” Dukemer struggled to her feet, wavered uncertainly in half sleep, and Mr. Mather’s arm went safely around her. “Dear love. Dear love,” he said.

Purcell and Mary had started a tentative little fire with trash and driftwood and were laughing a lot.

“He wud a baddy boy!” Mary reproved an unchastened Chiang, and Purcell miaowed with feeling.

“Detail,” he said with a weary gesture. “Detail. No time for Executive Thought.”

“Just one, but make it a big one,” Dukemer said. “Is nothing sacred to you two, not even money? The Madam wouldn’t approve of this. On several counts. ‘What is a Guest? A Guest is the most important person in this hotel. He is important to
you.
A Guest is never an interruption of your work. He is the reason for it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a service by permitting us to do so. Smile at all times. If you render a Guest some small service, say Thank You. Do not say Yes, say Yes
Sir.’
Not to mention all this he-ing and she-ing,” she added.

Mr. Mather looked up and saw again the galaxy of extraordinary stars, the absurd orange moon, that had been his catalysts at El Diablo. “A ah-capital night for a swim,” he
observed wistfully.

“The last one in’s a night clerk,” Mary said running. Purcell followed in a spurt of sand.

“My dear, my very dear Millie,” Mr. Mather said as they walked down to the water. “You ah-need not swim. Float. Float, only. So beautifully, float.” He chuckled and coughed. “Quite ah—Jamesish,” he said.

Mr. Mather’s eyes were wide to the night as he floated with Dukemer, hands lightly touching in the quiet sea, and he had felt again that he was about to compose a poem. “Pearls. Ambergris,” he whispered to himself. “Anemones.”

The night sea in its turn cradled them softly, broke gently over them. There was no sound but the lashing of the waves against the breakwater, no time but this, no death. Dukemer and Mr. Mather were of the night and the water and each other, and the night and the water was of them. “To float-to float, only,” Mr. Mather bubbled moistly. Pearls. Ambergris. Anemones.

Purcell and little Street crawled easily through big rollers to a shallow sand bar, rested and laughed, ducked and splashed. The stars, that moon, seemed unreasonable even to them, took all substance out of their wet frolic. Purcell had kissed Mary once and she had strained eagerly up to him, but a wave that knocked the nonsense out of both of them had intervened. Ny-ah, ny-ah, none of that, my boy, Purcell’s mind warned him. “Let’s go find the bodies,” he said when he could talk again.