The White Hotel (10 page)

When they heard of this, Madame Cottin and the young woman had a whispered exchange and summoned their waiter. He sprang to their side, all attention, then as nimbly skipped to the Dutch table with their invitation. Almost before he could get his words out they were leaping from their chairs and pouring across to take up the kind offer. And after they had drained their glasses, or drunk directly from her breast, other smiling, slightly merry guests got up to join the queue. The band, too, demanded their refreshment. And even Vogel, without ever losing his supercilious expression and air of boredom—as if to say, I’m here, so I’d better join the herd—came over and sucked briefly at the breast. Returning to his sister, he wiped the milk from his lips with a sarcastic grin.

The sun, dropping suddenly, spread butter on the trees beyond the french windows, and the guests sobered. The priest took his mouth from the nipple, contentedly, and thanked her; then
feeling a stab of pain in his heart as he remembered his mother, his guilt at her loneliness and poverty, so far away in his native Poland. Also, sadly, he had broken his vow. He had to get himself ready for the funeral service for those who had died in the flood and the fire. He felt more in the mood for a nap; but his duty had to be done. He stood up and looked for the pastor. They were to share the duties. The young woman fastened her dress.

She could feel her lover’s hand touching her beneath the table cloth. Her head was spinning from their having drunk too much. Her lover and Madame Cottin had to support her as they made their way slowly out of the dining room. She protested that she could manage perfectly well, and for Madame Cottin to go upstairs ahead and get her coat for the funeral procession. But Madame Cottin said she was not going. She could not face it.

In the bedroom Madame Cottin undressed the young woman and laid her gently on the bed. Her young lover’s penis had been inside her even while they were struggling up the stairs; and now Madame Cottin left her corset and stockings on so that he could stay in her all the time. Vaguely she heard the chants of the mourners as they set off for the cemetery, and she lay peacefully enjoying him. Her eyes were shut, but she felt him take her hand and guide it to where he wanted to press her fingers a little way into her vagina beside his penis. He felt, beside the stroke of the young woman’s fingernail, the hardness of Madame Cottin’s ring. “It’s helping me to get through,” whispered Madame Cottin, and the young woman mumbled that she understood: her own wedding ring had been a help to her in her sorrow, and she still could not bear to take it from her finger.

The corpses were being taken on carts, which they heard for a while rumbling through the pines, before fading to silence. The
young woman felt empty where she was most filled, and asked for more, sleepily. Dragging her eyes open, she watched Madame Cottin and her lover kissing passionately.

The path around the shore to the mountain cemetery was very long, and the priest had made this journey on foot once today already. Also, he felt weighed down with the food he had eaten and the strong liquor he had drunk. Clearly others felt much the same as he, and they soon grew tired of singing the funeral hymns. They fell silent, listening to the grumbling of the cart wheels on the sandy path.

The priest fell into hesitant conversation with the pastor. It was the first time he had talked at some length to a minister of the opposite faith; but disaster makes strange bedfellows, he thought. It was an interesting talk, on matters of doctrine. They could agree at least that God’s love was beyond analysis. It ran without a seam or join through the whole of His creation. They were stumbling now with fatigue—because the pastor was not a young man either—and stopped talking to conserve their strength. The priest’s thoughts went back to the breast at which he had sucked. He tried to remember its roundness and its warmth. He thought also of Madame Cottin, who had given him such good advice, in their trek today, about his feelings of guilt.

Madame Cottin’s ample flesh, released from the whalebone that dug into her after her heavy meal, was being tickled and poked by her two young friends, and she was threshing, crying and laughing as she fought to escape from their hands. Foolishly she had said she was ticklish, and they were taking full advantage. She was no match for a strong young man, let alone a young woman bearing down on her too. Once or twice she was almost free and off the bed, but each time the young man dug his thumbs into the tenderest part of her thighs, and she had to submit, lying
back panting. Then, while she was weak and off balance they caught hold of her legs and pulled them wide and she was shrieking and struggling again, and rumbling with laughter as they tickled her feet. The young man got between her legs and stopped her cries with his mouth, and she had to promise, in order to be able to breathe, to be a good girl and let him do it. She panted and laughed, more quietly, and her laughter faded into quick-taken breaths, through lips that gently smiled, or joined his in brief, swift kisses.

A stiff breeze tugging the hem of his military coat, Major Lionheart recalled other mass graves he had stood over, and all the letters he had had to write. As colour began to leave the sky and the day to darken under the mountain’s shadow, he believed he saw an orange grove floating down towards the lake; and roses too. The impression was strong enough for him to decide to mention it at his next meeting, planned for the next night. The roses matched oddly the vision of the rose seen by the elderly nurse. He had not paid much attention to that before, as she was very nearly in her dotage. He felt sorry for the quiet, sad, charming girl who was in her charge. But maybe she
had
seen a rose at sunset. The mountain spiderwort—that too was strange. Father Marek began to address the line of stiff, cold mourners, and the major turned his thoughts to the handsome young lieutenant, his nephew, who would be arriving on the first train tomorrow. They would have some good skiing. Up there was his favourite ski slope.

The universe, thought Bolotnikov-Leskov, is a revolutionary cell comprising one member: the perfect number for security. God, if he existed, would clench his teeth under the bitterest torture, and no word of betrayal would spring from his lips, because he would have nothing to betray, he would know nothing.

Only half listening to the mumbles of the priest, he looked down with curious dispassion at the coffin lid which hid from sight the naïve young woman who had shared his zeal; so dedicated, in fact, that often she had talked to him about the coming millennium even while they made love.

Cats, thought Enrico Mori, a violinist, have no one to read consoling lies over them. Cats know there is no resurrection, except in transplantation to my music. He stroked the head of the black cat who had followed them all the way from the hotel. She lay now, purring, in the arms of the cancer-troubled prostitute. He knew she was a prostitute because he had been entertained by her once when he was a music student in Turin. They had recognized each other on the first night, and the whore had flushed, and looked away.

Father Marek in his address was speaking about the shroud of Jesus, stained with His blood. The miraculous face was saying, Trust in me, I have borne for you the grave’s darkness and chill. Mori noticed that the pastor at the priest’s side was looking uncomfortable. Of course, he thought, he doesn’t like this talk of images.

As the pastor took up the service, reading the Protestant committal, Mori glanced down and to his right, where a tiny coffin lay. The weeping parents were throwing down flowers. Mori had met the little girl only for a few minutes; the girl had asked if she could try his violin. But they had made friends in those few minutes, and it had shocked him when he found that she had burnt to death.

He was amused, though, when the black cat sprang out of the prostitute’s arms and bolted down the path as if seven devils were after it. It was soon lost to sight, on the path back to the hotel. Summoned to vespers, thought Mori; for the bells of the
church that stood behind and above the white hotel had started to chime; the sound carried dimly across the lake, and a lone fisherman in the middle of the lake started taking off his hat. The mother of the little girl, to his right, crumpled to the ground, and, as if on cue, other women fainted in the line. That was the trouble with having a mixed funeral service, thought Mori: it went on too long, it was too great a strain.

A thunderclap smote in their ears, and Lionheart, looking up, knew that the end had come. He had heard even louder thunderclaps, in his time, and had threaded through safely; but now there was no escape. The mountain peak had dissolved, and giant boulders were rumbling down the mountainside. The mourners had broken into a sustaining hymn, and for a little while it looked as if the music was holding the boulders in mid-air. The ground was opening under their feet.

The young woman saw the mourners fall, one by one, into the trench, as if intolerable grief afflicted them, one by one. She watched as they twitched a little and the earth and rocks began settling on top of them. Darkness fell very suddenly that evening, and they lay, listening to the silence again after the thunderclap. Cold under the mountain’s shadow, the air was still warm around the white hotel, and they kept the window open. The lake drank the sunlight in one draught, and there was no moon to take its place. They all felt very thirsty, and the young man rang the bell for the maid. The little Japanese girl was startled when she saw three heads on the pillow, and they chuckled at her bewilderment. She brought them a litre bottle of wine and three glasses.

The full-bodied wine revived them. The experience had been unique, for all of them, and they talked about it happily. Madame Cottin was pleased to see the young lovers showing unharmed affection for each other by their kisses and playful nibbles.

Far from damaging their love, the experience had strengthened it; or so the young woman believed. Generosity always rewards the giver, and their kindness to the lonely, bereaved woman had drawn them closer to each other. So she felt happy. And her lover was happy because he lay snugly in between them, the tasty meat between two fresh slices of bread. He drank, lit a Turkish cigarette for Madame Cottin and gave it into her hand; lit another for himself, took a draw, exhaled with a sigh of pleasure, turned to give his mistress an affectionate kiss.

Madame Cottin envied them their firm young bodies, for at thirty-nine she knew she was well past her best. And the church bells, sounding as if they came from the room above, made her gloomier. Probably the most she could hope for, at her time of life, were a few brief adventures like this one; but for the most part, solitude. She reached for the wine bottle and poured herself another glass; but the wine stopped pouring when her glass was only half full. “Is this all there is?” she asked, apologetically.

“It’s all we know about,” said the young woman, in thoughtful tones. “It’s all we can be sure of. Fairly sure.”

Since they had finished the wine, the young man started fondling Madame Cottin’s plump, rather slack, breasts. Parting her thighs he clambered on to her again. The young woman offered her a nipple, because the wine had gone into milk and her breasts felt full and painful again. She took it into her mouth gratefully. At the same time he began to suck at her own breast, and the circle of pleasure was almost complete. The young man was very excited, very erect, and thrust so hard that Madame Cottin screamed; and, as she screamed, brought her teeth together and bit the young woman’s breast, drawing blood mingled with milk. It was late before Madame Cottin dressed and went back to her room. The hotel was dark, silent.

The dozing night porter was woken by the night bell. When he opened the door it was Bolotnikov-Leskov and Vogel; they slid in looking tired, unkempt and dirty. They each ordered a pot of coffee, a large brandy and a round of sandwiches to be sent to their rooms, and ordered their usual newspapers for the morning. Bolotnikov-Leskov gave Vogel a curt good night as they parted on the first floor. He did not even like the fellow, but they shared the same general principles in life. Besides, Vogel was a survivor, like himself, and such men are worth a thousand virtuous losers.

Towards evening of the next day he became restive, and suggested they get out of bed and take a walk up in the mountains. She felt tired, and would rather have taken a short stroll by the lake: perhaps with Madame Cottin. But he had in mind a bigger expedition, just the two of them.

He rang the bell, summoning the maid to bring tea and to open the curtains. Adjusting to the flood of sunlight, the young woman saw that the little Japanese maid had been crying. She inquired if anything was the matter, and the maid told her of the disastrous landslide that had buried the mourners. She was very upset because she had grown fond of the English major who was one of the victims. To her surprise, she had discovered that he had visited her homeland, and even knew a little of her language. Lonely, waiting for the arrival of his nephew, an army lieutenant, he had asked her to go with him on walks, during her hours of freedom in the afternoons. He had been very interested in her studies, and altogether had proved a kind, intelligent friend. She would miss him.

Grateful for the young woman’s sympathy, the maid excused herself for a few moments, and returned clutching to her heart a slim book, which she said the major had given her only yesterday, on their last walk together. The young woman took the book and saw, on the plain cover, “
Meadowsweet
, Poems by Harold Lionheart.” She flipped quickly through the twenty or so little poems in the volume, and gave it back, with a sympathetic nod. “It’s something to remember him by,” she said. The maid, her eyes moistening, opened the book at the title-page and handed it back. The young woman saw some lines of verse written out in copperplate, and signed “With love from Major Harold Lionheart.” The maid explained that she had spoken to him some little verses which she had been ordered by her teacher to write during her vacation. And yesterday, on taking him his morning tea, he had presented her with this book, his translations of her verses written out on the first page. She had been so touched she had burst into tears. The young woman read the copperplate lines: