The Hothouse by the East River (13 page)

‘Elsa!’
says Paul.

‘Mr
Mueller,’ Elsa repeats. Then after receiving the reply, she says, ‘Why isn’t he
in? It’s after nine-thirty and the store opens at nine. Have him call me.
Countess Janovic-Hazlett. It doesn’t matter how you spell it; he’ll know who it
is.’ She puts down the receiver.

‘What’s
the matter?’ she says. ‘Why do you keep interrupting me?’

‘You
mustn’t call yourself Countess like that.’

‘Well,
it’s your title.’

‘Do you
have a title?’ says Garven to Paul.

‘My
father was an Englishman,’ Paul says.

Elsa
says, ‘This particular title is inherited from his mother. By special
dispensation of Elizabeth of Hungary.’

‘Well,
I gave it up,’ Paul says. ‘At least, I never even. took it on.’

‘His
mother called herself Countess.’

‘In
Montenegro,’ says Paul, ‘you are noble if you own two goats on a mountainside.
My mother didn’t even have that. Only debts.’

“Well,
I’m calling myself Countess,’ says Elsa.

‘This
is America,’ Paul says.

‘Let
her call herself Countess,’ Garven says. ‘If it makes her feel good why
shouldn’t she call herself Countess?’

‘It’s
outrageous,’ Paul says, ‘starting all that up again now.’

‘Long
live the outrage!’ Elsa says. ‘Long live the holy outrage. I sold Katerina to
Mueller for fifteen hundred dollars one night and cheap at the price.’

‘She
doesn’t know what she’s saying,’ says Paul to Garven..

Elsa
goes to the window and moves her chair to look out on the East River, taking
the telephone with her on the long wire. ‘Nothing but drizzle and sour soot,’
she says, looking out.

Paul
pours a second coffee for himself and Garven. ‘More coffee, Elsa?’ he says.

‘I took
Katerina to Mueller’s apartment on West Thirty-third,’ she says. ‘Katerina was
curious about him, she’d heard so much from you, that he was Kiel, Kiel, Kiel.
So we went along, and he prepared a dinner in the kitchen. He asked Katerina to
help him and while she was there I slipped away. So Katerina stayed on for
dinner and stayed all night. I made him give me seven hundred and fifty beforehand
and seven hundred and fifty afterwards, he was so keen to sleep with Katerina.
She tosses in with everybody, so why not him? Then she said she caught the clap
from him. What a lie! I don’t get fifteen hundred from everyone she sleeps
with.’ She dials a number.

‘Poppy?’
she says. ‘Well, Poppy,’ she says, ‘Good morning, how are you? … Do you know
the latest, Paul says I’m not real. He says I died long ago. That means that
you’re dead too, and Katerina and Pierre were never born. It means that Garven
isn’t real, either, else how could he have been my Guidance Director for a year
and a half and my butler for all these months? Just think of Pierre’s friends
and Katerina’s friends, just think of Paul’s awful little analyst, Annie
Armitage, and his colleagues; and my money isn’t real either. What did you
think of the review of Pierre’s play? — The review in this morning’s paper
isn’t real and the play wasn’t real, of course, but—’

Paul
has grabbed the telephone from her and speaks into it to Princess Xavier.
‘Poppy,’ he says, ‘Elsa isn’t herself this morning, that’s all … No, I don’t
think she should talk any more, Poppy … No, I don’t think I should put her
back on, really, Poppy…. ‘Well, Poppy, it’s up to you … Yes, of course,
darling, you’re real. Here’s Elsa.’ He hands Elsa the phone.

She
looks out of the window at the East River and continues, ‘I think they want me
back in the nut-house, Poppy … Yes, you’re quite right … ‘Well, you know
what I thought of the play, I demonstrated, didn’t I? I have a right to
demonstrate as much as anyone else. All right, Poppy … All right, yes, we’ll
talk later. ‘Bye.’

She
puts down the telephone and says, ‘Poppy thinks you should go to the nut-house,
not me.’

‘I
didn’t say anything about nut-house,’ Paul says.

‘I was
talking to Garven.’

‘I’m
quitting,’ Garven says, gathering up the breakfast tray. ‘Getting booked into
the police office for you is asking too much. Last night was too much.’

Paul
follows him into the kitchen and again the men’s voices can be heard. They are
discussing. Elsa starts singing to herself, as if unable to explain the reason
for her sadness; the voice is small, the notes true. Her shadow spreads from
her chair across the carpet in the weak light and, although at this hour of the
morning it happens to fall at precisely the correct angle relative to the
risen sun, it will certainly continue to fall in this direction. all day,
wherever she may be.

The
telephone rings. It is Katerina. ‘Oh, it’s you. ‘says Elsa. ‘Good morning; I
called you … Yes, I know it’s Merlin you’ve got there, he told me. I thought
Merlin was Pierre’s boy. ‘With a name like that he should be. Your father’s in
the kitchen discussing me with Garven, they’re like a couple of disgruntled
parlourmaids this morning. Yes, I saw the review … What do you mean.? …
Yes, of course it was me who threw the tomatoes. I didn’t like the play. I knew
before I got there I didn’t like it … Well, I’m glad you see my point of
view. Garven got taken to the police station and they released him at two
o’clock in the morning, so I don’t see what he’s got to gripe about. I pay him
a fortune. He says he’s quitting. I wish he would … No, I haven’t heard from
Pierre, I expect he’s bored with the whole thing already. Now your father tells
me I’m not real, I died one time and he brought me back from the grave … Yes,
but he’s said it before and now he’s starting again … Well, it’s only the
eighteenth of the month, what do you do with your money? All right, but you
should make do with your allowance. All these men, one after the other. Don’t
any of them have any money? It isn’t the money I mind, it’s the principle….
You mean today? No, I can’t. I’ll call you later and let you know. You could
pick up the cheque; I’ll leave it downstairs if I’m going out. I’ll call you
later. ‘Bye.’

Paul
comes back, followed by Garven.

Elsa
says, ‘I just spoke to Katerina. Did you hear the conversation either of you?’

‘No,’
says Garven.

‘No,’
says Paul. ‘Why?’

‘I just
wondered if I was real, that’s all. Imaginary people can’t very well have
telephone calls outside of their owners’ imagination.’

‘Who
said you were imaginary?’ Paul says. ‘I wish you were imaginary.’

‘Oh,
good. Now we’re all real, then?’

He
looks at her shadow. ‘You’ve become real. That’s the trouble,’ says Paul.

‘Paul’s
at the end of his tether,’ Garven says, ‘and no wonder.’

‘Why
doesn’t he go to the clinic for a rest?’ Elsa says.

‘We
were thinking, Elsa, that you might think of taking a cure in a better little
clinic, much better, that I know of right here in Manhattan where you can be
near everyone, and the children can pop in and see you every day. Paul can pop
in. You would be free to come and go as you pleased. At any minute you could
just check out if you didn’t like it.’

‘I
don’t need a rest,’ Elsa says. ‘I have a nice comfortable home. What do I need
a clinic for?’

‘Free,’
says Garven, ‘to leave whenever you pleased, and—’

‘Except
that there would be difficulties if I did. Once in, you would be able to bring
your cooked-up evidence to persuade me to stay voluntarily or else be committed
to an asylum for the mad. I remember my former analyst, the last time, at that
place on Long Island. He kept on saying, “It’s either here or Bellevue, Elsa.”
Never again, thanks. Anyway, he died in a car crash. Served him right.’

‘Elsa!’
says Paul. ‘It was a tragedy. A very fine analyst.’

‘He
never noticed my beautiful shadow.’

‘Why
should he notice it? People don’t look at shadows. It was just by chance that
Garven—’

‘Oh,
no, it wasn’t by chance,’ Garven says. ‘I’m unusually observant, remarkably so,
that’s all.’

‘That’s
what I mean, Garven,’ says Paul.

Garven
says, ‘Anyone who had that shadow pointed out to them — anyone responsible in
the field of para-psychology, for instance, would be inclined to agree that
Elsa should be detained for observation.’

‘I
know,’ says Elsa, ‘that there’s a fortune in my shadow. But it’s speculative.
Happily for me I’ve got money that isn’t speculative, it’s real. I can buy
anyone off, including you.’

‘It’s
too hot in here,’ Paul says. ‘I’m going to get these radiators fixed so we can
live in a more moderate temperature.’

The
telephone rings. Elsa answers it. ‘Halo. Oh, it’s you. I rang you at the store
but you hadn’t come in. Where are you calling from? … Really? Why? … ‘Well,
I’ve been having a little chat with my husband and my butler. My husband still
thinks you’re Helmut Kiel, the spy. I must say you look remarkably like the
man. Except that it was back in 1944 when we knew him and you would have aged
since then, wouldn’t you? My husband thinks I had an affair—’

‘Elsa!’
says Paul.

‘My
husband is really a Count,’ Elsa continues. ‘My butler thinks I’m mad and he
threatens to leave. What are you doing tonight?’

Paul
grabs the phone from her hand and bangs it down on the receiver.

‘Garven,’
says Elsa, ‘pick up the newspaper from the floor. It looks untidy. The cleaning
woman isn’t coming today so you’ll have to cope by yourself. I’m going out. I
have to take the jewellery back to Van Cleef’s.’

‘Back
in 1944,’ Paul says, ‘you were sweet and rather gentle.’

Shadowed
by her shadow she walks across the carpet. Soon she can be heard opening and
shutting drawers in her dressing-room, and finally, with business-like
footsteps, she leaves the apartment by the East River where Garven and Paul
remain alone in the stupefying hot air of the winter morning.

‘You
know,’ says Garven, watching Paul as he sits with the newspaper in his hand,
‘you’re an interesting man, Paul. You could be a study in yourself.’

‘What
do you mean?’ Paul says, looking up. He’s starting on me, he tells himself in
his panic. Now he’s on to me. ‘Let’s continue to concentrate on. Elsa,’ Paul
says. ‘She’s our problem. One thing at a time. As we were saying, there in the
kitchen, she’s her own worst enemy, and the best thing for Elsa would be a
totally new environment. She—’

‘An
interesting man,’ muses Garven..

She
stamps her foot. ‘They fit,’ she says, ‘but they look so awful.’

‘You
have to have more boots, Elsa,’ he says. ‘Everyone wears boots. What can you
do?’

‘I
really don’t often do the same as everyone else does, Helmut. The weather’s
turning warm now, besides.’

‘Oh, I
know. I know.’

‘I’ll
have to ask my husband’s advice,’ she says.

‘He
stopped by yesterday. He came in to say hallo.’

‘In
here to the shop? Paul came here? What for?’

‘He
tried to date me,’ says the salesman. ‘He wouldn’t call me Mueller, he kept on
calling me Kiel. He tried to date me for the evening but I told him that I
wasn’t that way.’

‘Pierre
must have inherited the tendency from his father,’ Elsa says.

‘Your
husband,’ says the salesman in his correct accent, ‘is under the impression
that he and I had a sentimental encounter in the year 1944, and he wishes to
repeat the affair as an experiment, in order to establish my identity. However,
I explained that I was not yet born in 1944.’

‘You’re
a liar,’ Elsa says. ‘You know, Helmut, that you were with us at the Compound in
England in 1944.’

‘In our
condition of life,’ says Helmut Kiel, ‘it isn’t possible to lie. Do you want me
to keep the boots aside while you think them over or do you want me to send
them to your home so that you can show them to your husband?’

‘Send
them,’ Elsa says. ‘Scrawl a message on the soles.’

He
gives a little bow. She laughs.

‘Did
you make a date with Paul, then?’ she says. ‘No. But he says he’ll try again.’
He steps over her shadow and opens the door for her.

She is
sitting by the window looking out on the East River.

‘Garven,’
says Paul, ‘is a dangerous man. He’s been shadowing me.’

‘I need
a drink,’ she says. ‘Go and get some ice.’

‘I’m in
danger from Garven. ‘Why can’t you get the ice yourself? Sitting by the bloody
window all day while I’m in danger.’ He pronounces bloody as ‘blawdy’.

‘First
it was Kiel, now Garven.. You’re always in. danger from somebody.’

‘Garven
has turned against me. At least, he says he’s interested in me,’ Paul says.
‘When a man like that says he’s interested in you, it’s dangerous. Sinister.’

Elsa
starts to laugh as if in company with the Nothing beyond the window, high above
the East River.

‘He
said he was going to leave us, but he didn’t. I wondered why. Now I know,’ she
says to the sky.