The Hothouse by the East River (18 page)

‘Don’t
look back or answer her,’ says Paul as he comes out into the street with Elsa.
But Peregrine calls out, ‘There’s a lady here wants to see you, Mrs Hazlett.’

‘Walk
on, Elsa,’ says Paul. ‘Our life’s our own to do what we like with.’

At the
corner of the street they wait till another taxi pulls into the kerb. They ride
off, this time followed closely by the Rolls.

‘That
car behind us, the Rolls Royce-’ Paul says to the driver, ‘we want it to get
lost.’

They
drive through Central Park, then quickly double back. Paul does a deal with the
taxi driver to wait for them outside Katerina’s flat.

‘I was
asleep,’ she says. ‘Did you bring me good news, Pa?’

‘Your
father just wanted to know if you were alive,’ Elsa says.

‘He
could have called me in the morning. Where have you been? It’s late.’

‘We
went to L’Etoile and we couldn’t get in, then we went to the Banana Skin. We
started at Jimmy Ryan’s. We got to a golden. wedding somewhere, I forget. All
over the place.’

Paul
says, ‘Do you need some money?’

‘You
have to be joking,’ she says.

He
takes out his cheque book and, sitting on the arm of a chair, rests it on his
knee while he writes out a cheque.

“We
still have places to go,’ he says. ‘Come on, Elsa.’

‘Not
this late?’ Katerina says. She is looking at the cheque, then folds it up. She
looks at Elsa. ‘Do I thank you or Pa?’ she says.

‘You thank
him, I suppose,’ Elsa says. ‘I never had any money in my life. It’s all a
myth.’

‘You
should go home,’ Katerina says, dopily. ‘You know, you gave me a fright, waking
me up. I almost called the cops. You should let me know before you come on a
visit, there might be an inconvenience.’

‘I did
tell your father that,’ Elsa says, looking at herself as she passes the glass
in the hallway. ‘I told him it was rude.’

‘Melly,’
says Paul, ‘I knew you’d still be up. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘I
never go to bed at night,’ says Melly. ‘Have a drink. Help yourself.’

‘Elsa’s
waiting.’

‘Where?’

‘In the
other room. Talking to your night watchman.’

‘Oh,
well.’

Melly
is shrivelled with a great age. She is alert and heavily laden. with bracelets
and necklaces. Her hair is brightly gilded, her fingers are long and crooked.
She is Paul’s oldest friend in New York. Above the Adam fireplace is the Titian
she bought from Paul’s family in Montenegro before the war. Her collection of
paintings spreads from room to room throughout her Park Avenue duplex flat.

‘Melly,
do you remember those trips I made to New York, when the war was on?’

‘Of
course, I remember them.’

It was
Melly who got him the job at Columbia University and kept the apartment on the
East River vacant for him.

‘Our
apartment’s overheated, Melly.’

‘What
can one do? It’s an old building. They’ll tear it down like everything else.’

‘Melly,
are you real?’

‘Sure
I’m real,’ she says, ‘and I’ve got the money to prove it.’

‘I get
ideas,’ he says.

‘Maybe
you’re hooked on something,’ she says. Her bracelets jingle. ‘Go get some
cognac,’ she says. Her fingers reach for a pen on the table by the side of her
chair. She takes up a writing block on which she has made a list. Paul fetches
a tray of cognac and two glasses.

‘Doesn’t
Elsa want a drink? Tell her to come on in.’

‘No,
she said she’d rather wait. I think she’s anxious to get home.’

“Well
I’ll just tell you this,’ says Melly, ‘to show whether I’m alive or not. I’m
planning a show of my paintings to raise funds for the Met. I want everyone to
come. I sent a wire to Truman. I sent a cable to Solzhenitsyn. but he didn’t
answer yet. If he comes I’ll serve vodka and caviar, I guess that’s what he’s
habituated to. I called Peggy in Venice. I said, ‘Look, Peggy, we have to
talk.’ She just had a robbery but then I read in the
Times
that she got
them all back. I sent a wire to Bertolt Brecht but he didn’t answer yet. Here’s
the list of the names who’ve answered. It’s quite a list.’

‘Melly,
it’s time for your rub.’ It is Melly’s nurse at the door of the room holding a
bottle of cologne.

‘I have
to go for my rub-down,’ Melly says. ‘I don’t go to bed till morning but I have
to have my rub at four.’

Paul
helps her out of the chair and the nurse comes to take her arm. She says, as
she walks slowly across the room: ‘Do the two Rothschilds still go out at four
in the morning to give tea from that wagon to these winos in the Bowery?’

‘I
think they do,’ he says.

‘I saw
a movie the other evening. I forget what it was called. What was it called,
Lilian?’

‘The
Sacred River,’
says the nurse.

Melly
says, ‘All their breasts showing.’

‘It was
bottoms,’ says the nurse.

‘Well
it looked like breasts,’ says Melly.

‘How
are your feet?’ says Paul.

‘Not so
bad.’

They
are walking home from Melly’s in the morning light. They turn east at 46th
Street. The garbage trucks are out and the early workers are passing them on
the pavements.

Paul
looks up and down the avenues at each corner. ‘Poppy and her crowd seem to have
given us up,’ says Paul. ‘I wonder why?’

‘I’ll
be glad to get home,’ Elsa says.

They
stand outside their apartment block, looking at the scaffolding. The upper
stories are already gone and the lower part is a shell. A demolition truck
waits for the new day’s shift to begin. The morning breeze from the East River
is already spreading the dust.

Elsa
stands in. the morning light reading the billboard. It announces the new block
of apartments to be built on the site of the old.

‘Now we
can have some peace,’ says Elsa.

Out of
the traffic behind them a voice calls out, ‘Elsa, Paul — don’t keep us waiting
any longer.’

Poppy
is leaning out of the window of the Rolls. The three men are asleep, Kiel
beside the driver, Miles Bunting and Tylden in the back, their heads lolling on
the puffy leather upholstery of the car.

“We’ll
take you back. Hurry,’ Poppy calls. ‘Come Elsa,’ Paul says, ‘we can go back
with them. They’ve been very patient, really.’

She
turns to the car, he following her, watching as she moves how she trails her
faithful and lithe cloud of unknowing across the pavement.