Via Dolorosa (10 page)

“Likewise,” said the bell captain. Then he extended his hand and
held out a small, silver key. “It’s for the storage closet. Erich said you
wanted to keep your supplies in the closet at the end of the hall.”

“If it’s not a problem…”

“No problem.”

“Thank you,” Nick said, taking the key from the bell captain.

“Listen,” the bell captain continued. “Now that it’s a new day and
we are, at least in the scheme of days, both new people, I want to apologize
again for my behavior last night at the bar. I don’t know what I was
thinking, going on like that. And I certainly didn’t mean to embarrass
you, Nicholas.”

“I’ve already forgotten about it. Anyway, you didn’t embarrass me.”

“Well, you’re just trying to make an old fool feel less like a fool, but
we were both there last night. I’m sorry. I can be reflective and sentimental
sometimes. It gets out of control on occasion, I’m afraid. Don’t let it
spoil your stay.”

“We’re all prone to reflection. Nothing wrong with that. Not a
damn thing in this world.”

“All right,” the bell captain said. He smiled and it was a weary, old
man smile. For the first time, Nick wondered just how old Myles Granger’s
father was.

The lights flickered and went out.

“It’s the storm,” Granger said. His head was tilted up, his eyes scanning
the light fixtures in the ceiling, as if to identify the problem would
be to rectify it.

The hallway was dark; the only brilliance came from the windows of
the front lobby, twisting in a glowing, winding river of ephemeral light
down the narrow corridor to the bank of elevators and to the spot where
they both stood.

“There’s a generator that’s supposed to kick on,” Granger continued,
but he did not sound hopeful.

“I take it the generator doesn’t always work,” Nick said.

“Observant.”

“This is a pretty big place to not have power.”

“Oh,” said Granger, “it’s a nightmare.” A pager at Granger’s hip suddenly
went off. The bell captain snatched it up, scrutinized it, then said,
“I’m sorry, I have to go. Will you excuse me?”

“Go ahead. I’m breaking for lunch now, anyway. Besides,” he added,
“not much I can do in the dark.”

“Not much,” Granger said, and quickly departed, padding furiously
down the corridor with his short, stocky legs. Nick watched him go.

Upstairs, back in the room, Emma had opened the sweep of curtains
that covered the patio doors and had pulled open the shades over
the windows, too, but the room was still dark. There was no sunlight
and, because of the storm, there was no electrical light down the sloping
beachfront that could be seen through the windows of their hotel room.
The gloom made his stomach feel funny—the way it felt sometimes
when he would have to wake up too early in his youth, before the sun
had had time to rise. Emma stood against the patio doors, her body pale
and ghostly in the lightlessness, the shadow of the heavy rain projected
onto her skin.

“Did you get scared?” he said, coming in.

“What happened?”

“Storm knocked out the power.” He sat on the edge of the bed and
peeled off his shoes.

“How long will it be out?”

“I don’t know.”

Room service had already come, and there was a tray on the writing
desk. Nick could smell freshly brewed coffee. Emma stepped away from
the patio doors and, in the half-gloom, moved to the tray. Nick did not
go toward her; he stood and went directly into the bathroom, turned
on the sink, washed his face for what felt like an hour. The conchs and
clam shells had disappeared from the basin. Emma had most likely just
showered, too: the bathroom was still dense with moisture and warmth,
and the mirror above the sink was still slightly fogged and dripping with
condensation. He wiped away an arc of moisture from the mirror and
looked at his face in the glass.
Some face,
he thought. Then he continued
to wash his hands, careful of his injured right hand (attempting to massage
it beneath the numbing stream of hot water), and scrubbed the paint
off, which had not had time to dry. For a moment, he sensed Emma’s
presence at his back, but he did not turn and he did not look up to meet
her reflection in the mirror. He felt completely aloof and unbalanced.
Mindful of his bad hand, he shucked off his pullover and carried it back
into the room. Emma had returned to the patio doors, looking out but
not really seeing anything. She turned and Nick felt her eyes on him as
he pulled on a fresh tee-shirt and, sitting on the edge of the bed, climbed
out of his corduroys. He could smell his own sweat in his clothes.

“I got you a club sandwich without bacon and some tomato soup. I
also got baked apples in sauce for dessert.”

“Thanks.”

“I had them send up a pot of coffee and some wine, too. I didn’t
know what you’d be in the mood for.”

“What wine?”

“
Wha
—?” She hadn’t understood.

“What is the wine?”

“Red Truck.”

“I don’t like red wine.” He said this on purpose.

“Yes, I know,” Emma said quickly, “but it’s the wine the bell captain
suggested the other night. Do you remember? He said it was really
smooth and not as bitter as regular red wine. You said you wanted to try
it. That’s why I ordered it. But,” she added, her voice dropping, “I can
pour you a cup of coffee instead.”

“I’ll get it myself,” he said, standing up in his underwear and going
to the writing desk. He picked up a wedge of club sandwich and
extracted a bite, then filled one of the two coffee mugs with coffee. The
smell was instantaneous. He noticed the baked apples and the wine in its
sleek, dark bottle, and the bowl of tomato soup, and nothing else. “Did
you eat already?”

“I didn’t order anything for me,” she said. “I’m not hungry.”

“Did you have a big breakfast this morning?”

“Not really. A bagel with cream cheese and a cappuccino.”

“It’s a nice café,” he said, sipping the coffee. It was strong and good.
He needed it to be strong and good.

“What did you think of Isabella?”

“The diagnostician?”

“Yes. You two seemed to hit it off.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. I’m just saying. It’s nice to meet new people.”

“She was fine.”

“Isn’t it a small world,” Emma said, “her living in New York like that?”

“Lots of people live in New York. Eight million or so. I don’t know
what makes that such a small world.” And he thought,
There you go! You
are certainly being a regular jerk now. Good for you, you bastard. Feel better?

“Nick,” she said, but did not say anything more.

“What?”

She still did not say anything more.

“What?” he repeated.

“Can we please talk?”

“I’m trying to eat.”

“Can we talk after you eat?”

“I have to get back to work after I eat.”

“The power is out in the hotel, Nick,” she said. “How are you going
to work?”

“It’s paint-by-numbers,” he told her. “I could do the shitting thing
with my eyes closed.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“Sure,” he said. “Okay. Sure. Fine.”

Her small lips had come tightly together, white and bloodless. Her
eyes, tiny and round and like a bird’s, would not leave him.

“Picasso paints deaf, I paint blind…we’re like Helen Keller, put us
together like that.”

“Will you at least listen to me while I talk then? You won’t have to
say a damn thing if you don’t want to.”

He set his coffee down and did not think he could eat another bite
of the sandwich. “I can’t do this now, Emma, okay?”

“What’s going to happen to us, Nick?” And she said this quickly,
pushed it out of her mouth, as if this question would have been the objective
of whatever speech she had maybe prepared, and, realizing there
would be no speech because he would not let there be a speech, she had
simply come right out with it. And even in his anger—even in the midst
of his own personal anguish—he could not help but feel a slight sting.

“Emma,” he said, and let her name linger in the air, floating and dying
between them in the gray, lightless atmosphere of the hotel room. It was
her own name, fired back out at her in an attempt to buffer and halt anything
further she might wish to strike him with. And, truly, anything she
might say would now be a strike at him. He couldn’t, wouldn’t hear it.

“I’m frightened,” she said. “You asked that when you came in and
I didn’t give you an answer. But yes, Nick, I’m frightened. I’m scared to
death. And it has nothing to do with the goddamn lights being out.”

“Well,” he said. What else was there to say? He picked up his coffee
again and carried it—somewhere, anywhere, he suddenly needed to not
be in this room, but there was nowhere else left to go. So he carried the
coffee across the room and sat on the far end of the bed, his back facing
her. He set the coffee down on the nightstand and, in his apprehension,
picked up the Holy Bible from the nightstand, which was the only thing
within his reach. He thumped it twice against his left thigh and wondered
just what the hell he was doing. Or was going to do.

“What, Nick? Tell me. Tell me what you need me to do,” Emma
said from behind him. “Tell me, Nick. Tell me what it is you need me
to do. I’m frightened and I feel helpless because you won’t let me do
anything.”