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“Other times,” she said, “you will have to rent a hotel room. The children will be here.”
Other times.…
“Now,” she said, “I’ll call you a taxi.” They went into the salon and she dialed a number, spoke quickly for a moment, waited a little while, said, “Très bien,” hung up. “The taxi will be here in five minutes,” she said. Before she opened the front door for him they kissed, a long, grateful, healing kiss. “Good night, Rodolfo,” she said. She smiled, a smile he knew he would remember for a long time.
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The taxi was waiting for him when he got down to the street, its diesel motor making it sound like a launch waiting to put out to sea. Voyages.
“L’hôtel Negresco,” Rudolph said as he got in. When the taxi started, he looked back at the house. It was imperative for him to be able to find it again, to recognize it in his dreams. When they got to the Negresco he made sure he was not run down as he crossed to where his car was parked. Then, at the wheel of his rented car, he drove slowly and very carefully on the deserted road along the sea to Antibes.
When he reached the port he slowed down even more, then abruptly swung the car into the parking lot and got out and walked along the quay to where the Clothilde was berthed in the silent harbor. There were no lights to be seen on the Clothilde. He didn’t want to wake Wesley or Bu
He had acted almost automatically, not asking himself why he was doing this. The pull of the oars against his shoulders and arms gave him a sober pleasure, and the sigh of the small bow wave against the sides of the dory seemed a fitting music with which to end the night.
The city of Antibes, looming shadows, with a light here and there, receded slowly as he headed toward the red and green lights that marked the cha
Being alone on the dark surface of the water was a benediction to him and the blinking lights of the harbor entrance comforted him, with their promise of safe anchorages. Grief was possible here, but also hope. “Thomas, Thomas,” he said softly as he went out into the sea and felt its gentle swell lift the dory. He remembered, as he rowed, all the times they had failed each other, and the end, when they had forgotten the failures or at least forgiven them.
He felt tireless and serene, alone in the dark night, but then he heard the coughing of a small fishing boat putting out to sea behind him, one small acetylene lamp at its bow. The fishing boat passed near him and he could see two men in it staring curiously at him. He was conscious of how strange it must look to them, a man in a dark business suit, alone, headed out to sea at that hour. He kept on rowing until they were out of sight, then let the oars dangle and stared up at the starlit sky.
He thought of his father, that enraged and pitiful old man, who had also rowed in darkness, who had picked a night of storm for his last voyage. Suicide had been possible for his father, who had found the peace in death he had never achieved in life. It was not possible for him. He was a different man, with different claims upon him. He took one long, deep breath, then turned the dory around and rowed back to the Clothilde, his hands burning.
Quietly, he tied up to the Clothilde’s stern, climbed the ladder and went ashore. He put on his shoes, a rite observed, a ceremony celebrated, and got into his car and started the engine.
It was past three in the morning when he got to the hotel. The lobby was deserted, the night concierge yawning behind the desk. He asked for his key and was turning toward the elevator when the concierge called after him. “Oh, Mr. Jordache. Mrs. Burke left a message for you. You are to call her whenever you get in. She said it was urgent.”
“Thank you,” Rudolph said wearily. Whatever it was, Gretchen would have to wait until morning.
“Mrs. Burke told me to call her when you got in. No matter what time.” She had guessed he would try to avoid her, had taken steps to make sure he couldn’t.
“I see,” said Rudolph. He sighed. “Call her, please. Tell her I’ll come to her room as soon as I look in on my wife.” He should have stayed the night in Nice. Or rowed till dawn. Faced everything in daylight.
“One more thing,” said the concierge. “There was a gentleman here asking for you. A Mr. Hubbell. He said he was from Time Magazine. He used the telex.”
“If he comes here and asks for me again, tell him I’m not in.”
“I understand. Bo
Rudolph rang for the elevator. He had pla
“Yes, dear.” He sighed. He had hoped she was asleep. He went into her room. She was sitting up in bed, staring at him. Automatically he looked for a glass or a bottle. There was no glass or bottle and he could tell from her face she hadn’t been drinking. She looks old, he thought, old. The drawn face, the dull eyes over the lacy nightgown made her look like a malicious sketch of the woman she would be forty years from now.
“What time is it?” she asked harshly.
“After three. You’d better go to sleep.”
“After three. The consulate in Nice keeps odd hours, doesn’t it?”
“I took the night off,” he said.
“From what?”
“From everything,” he said.
“From me,” she said bitterly. “That’s become quite a habit, hasn’t it? A way of life with you, wouldn’t you say?”
“Let’s discuss it in the morning, shall we?” he said.
She sniffed. “You stink of perfume,” she said. “Shall we discuss that in the morning, too?”
“If you wish,” he said. “Good night.”
He started out of the room. “Leave the door open,” she called. “I have to keep all avenues of escape open.”
He left the door open. He wished he could pity her.
He went into his bedroom through the salon, closing his own door behind him. Then he unlocked the door that led from his room into the corridor and went out. He didn’t want to have to explain to Jean that he had to see Gretchen about something that his sister thought was urgent.
Gretchen’s room was down the corridor. He went past the pairs of shoes left out by the guests to be shined while they slept. Europe was on the brink of Communism, he thought, but shoes were still shined by future commissars, budding Trotskies, between midnight and six each morning.
He knocked on Gretchen’s door. She opened it immediately, as though she had been standing there, alerted by the concierge’s call, as though she couldn’t bear to wait the extra second or two it would have taken her to cross the room and confront her brother. She was in a terry cloth bathrobe, light blue, the blue almost identical with the blue of the dress Jea