The Houseguest (23 page)

20.

F
ROM THE OUTSIDE
, the Hotel Utica was a fortress—a broad, blocky structure taking up the whole corner of Lafayette. Red brick, mostly, with checkered white columns, the top four floors bumping out past the face. It reminded Abe of that more daunting city he'd left behind years before when he'd moved upstate. The hotel was out of place here . . . too big, too elegant, a landmark leftover from the textile tycoons of half a century before. Nothing about it fit the Utica of today, which he supposed made it the right place for Ana Beidler.

The thought of her weakened him as he stood outside, but he took a deep breath, pushed past his hesitation, stepped into the revolving glass. The light changed, the street sounds faded. Inside, he was greeted by a doorman in a starched black cap. “May I help you, sir? Checking in?”

“Just visiting,” Abe muttered, stepping further into the lobby. How many rolls of carpet it must have taken to cover such a lobby. How many armchairs and sofas and cocktail tables and footstools to furnish it. This was a habit of Abe's, to see every place in terms of the materials it would one day be reduced to. Two grand pianos not unlike the ones he'd hauled in pieces to the yard sat unmanned and silent—one near the back and one near the bar. The only music was human chatter, heavy footsteps across the marble floor, complaints and questions and laughter floating up, spreading out into the white,
domed roof. From the ceiling, at least a dozen chandeliers drooped like teardrops, scattering stars across the faded carpet that felt stiff underfoot; pillars finely carved, a few unlit candelabras that hadn't been dusted since Prohibition, and presiding over it all at the main desk, a dandy of a concierge, a man with dyed black hair and waxed eyebrows. This was the limbo to which he'd consigned her. This blind stab at something elevated and cosmopolitan but not quite getting there—the Hotel Utica.

Abe approached the front desk slowly, placed his hands on the desk.

“I've come to see a guest—a woman named Ana Beidler.”

“And is Miss Beidler expecting you?” the clerk answered. It was a good question. He'd promised to check in on her the day she'd left, but men made promises. They made them and broke them. Had Ana assumed she was done with him the day she departed, regardless of what he claimed? Had the assumption brought her pain, relief, comfort?

“She's expecting me, yes,” Abe said. Then, before the clerk could challenge, “I'm here from the synagogue. She's a refugee. We've arranged for her room, and the synagogue sent me to check in on her.”

“Very well, sir. Very well.”

He gave his name, then waited while the clerk called up, announced his presence, nodded curtly. “Yes, of course,” he said. Then to Abe, “Miss Beidler asked you to come to her room at quarter past seven.”

He looked at his watch and saw that it was five. “Seven?” he said. “Could I talk to her now?” The clerk was already on to other business, answered without looking back. “I'm afraid Miss Beidler was sleeping when I phoned up. She didn't think you'd mind the wait.”

“
AT LAST
,”
SHE
said. “You're here.” She blocked the doorway but he could see inside the familiar disarray that she had inflicted on his own house.

“Well?” she said.

“Well.”

He had his hands in his pockets. In the right he pressed his fingers against the slip, the return of which was his ostensible reason for coming to see her. He had laundered and ironed it himself. He couldn't hand it to her in the hallway, in plain view of any bellboy or respectable traveler who happened by.

“I wanted to see you, to see how you're doing,” he said.

She stared at him directly, refused to retreat, even though physically speaking, he had to admit she was not at her most presentable. Her hair was matted in the back. Soft gray half-moons of yesterday's makeup shaded her eyes. She looked thinner, poorly rested, less like a guest and more like a prisoner.

She didn't respond right away, stared blankly instead.

“And? What is your verdict? Am I doing well here? Am I flourishing? I've been sitting in this room more or less for two weeks. No one to speak to. Nothing to pass the time. Nothing but my own miserable thoughts to keep me company. Does it seem to suit me, this solitary life?”

“Ana. . . . It's not so bad. Please, may I come in?”

She stepped aside and let him enter. He looked around the room, wanting to convince himself as much as her about the room's opulence, but the truth was that it wasn't what he'd hoped. It was spacious but dim, certainly nicer than any accommodations he would allow for himself, but not a place perfectly suited to a woman of a melancholic disposition. The lights were off, the bed unmade, the light fixture above the bed held a cemetery of dead moths. Here is where he'd put her, the glamorous Ana Beidler, only slightly less glamorous in her state of dishevelment.

She was dressed in simple slacks, a blue sweater. The bureau was covered not with perfume or costume jewels but with newspapers in every language, some folded neatly, some opened and torn apart. She crossed to her nightstand, lifted a cigarette from the ashtray, stood
there a moment, then walked with it to the window. Smoking, she looked out at the street below, the cars and buildings and people shopping, hurrying to work, small and faceless. “Abe,” she said. Something was different about her voice. It sounded less guarded, somehow, more direct. She spoke without turning away from the window. “Where are all the Nazis, Abe?” she asked, laughing softly. “Do you ever wonder where they are in this country? What kind of a country is this without Nazis?”

“A safe one.”

Again, she laughed. “You think such a thing exists?”

“Why wouldn't it?”

She continued to stare off. “I had a friend once, a friend who was a director. He cast me in a play when I was hardly twenty. I died at the end of the first act and appeared as an angel all through the second. Originally, the part had belonged to another girl, a younger actress, much prettier than myself. But Jacob wanted her to float across the stage in one of the scenes, to levitate by wires. And at a rehearsal, she kept asking him if it was safe. . . . Was he sure it was safe? Was he certain? Without any warning, he fired her. He called on me at home that evening and said, ‘Are you afraid to fly?' I spoke without thinking. I said I wasn't afraid of anything. I've told so many lies in my life but I think that was true.”

“Have you lied to me?” he asked.

There was a flask of cognac on the bureau and she pointed toward it without waiting for an answer. “No, not to you. Of course not to you. Pour us a drink, why don't you, since you've come all this way.”

Only one glass sat beside the flask. He poured the liquor high, took a sip, then held it out to her.

“How is Irene? Is she glad to be rid of me? She must be relieved to have her home all to herself again. Her husband, too.”

“She's fine—away for the weekend. She and Judith went to Albany to look for wedding veils.”

“Ah yes,” she said, smiling lightly, lifting the curtain over her face. “A blushing bride.” Then she dropped the curtain, picked up her cigarette again. There was a nervousness in her face he hadn't noticed before, a restless, pinched agitation. She didn't know what to do with her arms, whether to pace or hold still. Finally she reached them out beside her, tilted back her head and let out a great moan. “
Vey iz mir!
” she said. It sounded more like a climax than a lament. She stood tall then, composed completely. “What?” she said. “Why do you look at me that way?”

“I look at you because I can't not look at you. And because you seem like a woman who likes to be looked at. Sometimes I think you're always performing.”

“Maybe I am. It would make sense. What else have I ever been taught to do? What else do I know?”

He came closer. Her face was neither inviting nor accusing. It seemed fragile to him then, birdlike. He remembered their kiss at the lake, touching her face with his fingers, and then with his lips. At the time, the danger of it had both thrilled and frightened him. It had made him sick with fear. Now, he'd only wish he'd taken more. He was ashamed of his boldness, but also his restraint.

She shook herself free from his gaze. “I'm hungry,” she announced. She stood and walked to her nightstand, picked up an open box of chocolates. “I stole these,” she said. He thought she would explain but she didn't, just sat on the bed, cross-legged like a child, placing the chocolates on her tongue, one by one. He went to her, sat beside her tentatively.

“Ana, what's wrong? You're not yourself. Do you want to come back to our house? Would that be better?”

“I don't feel I can, not without the blessing of the rabbi.”

“Ana.”

“Do you know where he, what's the word, skedaddled to?”

“No one does. Least of all me.”

“I knew several actors who walked off the stage in the middle of shows. It wasn't such a shock, really. There were reasons. Always reasons. The bigger problem was the people who rioted for their money back.”

“A rabbi isn't an actor,” said Abe, “and services aren't a show.”

Ana opened her mouth but caught herself.

“I am your guest, Abe, so I will refrain from commenting further.”

With more hostility than he wanted, Abe said, “Good.”

Her face held firm. Then it softened and she began to laugh. The laughter grew louder, wilder.

“I've said something funny?”

“Everything you say is funny, Abe. Every word.” She didn't explain, only laughed harder.

I've made it happen, he thought. She's come unhinged. But as soon as the idea occurred to him she calmed herself, lit a cigarette, smoked as she began moving around the room, picking up clothes that lay crumpled on the floor, folding the newspapers, tidying the small knickknacks and hairpins and earrings that lay about. She acted as though he wasn't there, leaned toward the mirror above the dresser, peered at her reflection, combing her hair with her fingers, wiping away the smudges beneath her eyes. Then suddenly, she stopped, stood straight and still as though an idea had occurred to her.

“Abe,” she said, her eyes brightening.

“What is it?”

“It just came to me what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave this place. I can't stand it one minute longer. But I can leave. I'm not a prisoner here. I can leave any time I like. You can help me.”

“Leave the hotel?” he asked.

“The city. Utica. The whole awful town. I'm going to pack my bags, go to New York, start a new life there. And I want you to go with me.”

“Ana.”

“It's not as crazy as it sounds. I'll need your help at first, but I have a plan. That friend of mine, the director I mentioned, Jacob Feinman; he can help us. He's putting together a great pageant of Yiddish talent to be performed in Madison Square Garden. I'll go to New York and audition.” She said it quickly, evenly, as though it were all decided.

“Ana, nothing is as easy as you make it sound.”

“But for me it is. Don't you see, Abe? I have to do something, to be of use, to find my place. Otherwise I'll disappear. I know I will. This could be my comeback. A new beginning.”

“A pageant,” he said. “A beauty pageant?”

“Don't be a fool. It's a theatrical pageant. A production. A play. Haven't you read the paper?” She tossed it at him and he read.

October 9th. Madison Square Garden. Two hundred rabbis. Two hundred cantors. Four hundred actors and one hundred musicians. Some of the biggest names in show business had signed on. It was organized by a man named Shmuel Spiro, a Jew from Palestine who had come to America to raise a Jewish army, to make people see what was happening to Jews abroad.

When he raised his eyes from the paper, she was looking at him intently, her face close to his own. He tried to object but she shushed him, then lowered her lips to his, softly at first, then again. She kissed his lips, his eyes, his cheeks. She took his hands and kissed his fingers, pressed her face into his neck and kissed him there.

He pulled away sharply, tried to catch his breath.

“What's wrong?”

“What's wrong? You don't know?”

When she didn't respond he said what he'd been holding back all these months: “What's wrong is that I'm in love with you, Ana. I'm sick with love.”

“We'll go together to New York. Then after the pageant, we'll go farther. It hardly matters to me anymore, as long as it's someplace
new. Someplace vibrant and alive. I've always wanted to return to Argentina. Or maybe Palestine. We'll go together.”

“Ana,” he said, “There are millions of Jews across Europe who would give their limbs to get into America, and you want to get out. It makes no sense.”

“So you won't help me? You won't come with me?”

“Come with you?”

She didn't speak. She lay her hands on his shoulder, drew her face close. “Yes, come with me, Abe. The two of us, we could go to Palestine. A summer sailing after the war. We'll never be cold again. We'll be lost and hungry and poor, but we'll never be cold. Can't you see it, Abe? A room in a plain, sunny building with laundry lines draped from all the windows, a courtyard maybe with a lemon tree. I don't cook so we'll go to the market and buy oranges and almonds and olives and eat them on the floor of our little room.”

“I do like oranges,” he said.

“Then it's decided.”

He walked to the window. Outside, a gray haze hung over the city. A ladybug walked across the sill, then onto his hand. It was going where it was going. He transferred it to the tip of his finger. He wished his own life to be so tidy, so simple.

She stood close but her voice sounded distant. “Did you hear me, Abe?”