Disturbed by Her Song Read online

  I made the bed again, and went along to the bathroom, which lay another floor down. Only the cold tap would run, though the hot made urgent chugging noises. I did the best I could with myself, then went back all the way downstairs.

  The bar, where I was to begin, was in the charge of a tall, thin woman. She sat in a sort of open kiosk to one side sewing things, which changed color over the days and nights, from white to red to grey, but which even so never revealed their intentions. To me they looked most like bags for octopuses. Nevertheless, despite the octopus bags, she kept her scalpel of an eye on the room, calling out with no warning, in a shrill voice, either to me or the male waiter: “Window table wants serving. Make haste with the coffee.” Such things. The customers, who came and went from the street outside, or ambled in from the hotel itself, tipped her in preference to us, and I saw the loot always go directly into her pocket. Her name was Mademoiselle Coudeban.

  At intervals I was retrieved from the bar to wash up dishes or floors, scrape potatoes and peel onions, or pour boiling water on beetles below the sinks. After a day or two, I was also sent to lay tables, and next carry plates into the restaurant, under the large, chilly eyes of the Chief Waiter.

  At six, midday and seven in the evening, I ate in the kitchen, at one edge of a littered table. These meals were gratis, but consisted of soup, bread, and sometimes cheese. Three chambermaids also came down to feed in this way, but they were given pieces of pies or meats already prepared for the paying customers. I was obviously too new for this treat.

  The chambermaids questioned me eagerly. I was a fresh face, and apparently they longed to hear of other venues. But I didn’t make the grave error of saying I had come from anywhere fascinating. I made myself as dull as possible. Nor would I take sides in their instantaneously conjured arguments. Soon they were offended with me and left me alone, only murmuring the odd sulky slight behind their hands.

  Black Eyed Susan, however, did not appear in the kitchen, nor any other place. All that first day, evening and night, until I was cast out of the bar at two in the morning, part of me was alert as a pair of raised antennae. But there was no trace of her at all. Finally I asked Jean, the bar waiter, if anyone else worked in the hotel, aside from the people I had seen. He answered me that of course no one else was there, what did I expect, in winter?

  When at last I crawled upstairs that first night-morning, washed in the cold water, and went to my icy little room, no one was there either.

  I hadn’t put anything out in the room myself, partly for fear the few things I had might be stolen. The space looked miserly empty, and quite frozen in the snow-light from beyond the window. All that day the snow had descended, and been tramped for proof into the hotel. Now the town lay like a white desert. A scatter of lights burned on in distant white humps that might be houses, or only hills. Far above a scornful moon loitered in the clearing sky. Dogs barked to each other and fell silent. Cars had been banished from the roads.

  The hotel however snuffled in its half-sleep. And all around a muffled roaring blew about, which might be the hot water pipes of the heating system, which worked, doubtless, everywhere but in my room.

  I knew I’d better go to bed. Tomorrow I must find more blankets and perhaps an old-fashioned stone hot water-bottle.

  Under the cold sheet I lay rigid, tempted to snivel at my plight, which was all my own fault anyway. But sleep overtook me before tears could. I woke at a quarter to six to the alarm call of someone thumping on my door.

  “Are we on fire?” I shouted. “Go away.”

  “Such impertinence!” shouted back Madame Ghoule.

  It turned out it was her duty to arouse from slumber all the girls who worked at The Queen. Having herself retired to bed at ten-thirty, I’m sure she sadistically enjoyed her morning task.

  Days and nights passed then in this way. It was true I learnt the names of the three maids – Sylvie, Claude and Jasmine. I was also propositioned by one or two male customers in the bar, evaded them, and was told off by Mademoiselle Octopus – whether because she thought I’d said yes, or because I refused, I wasn’t quite certain.

  The snow remained on the town, sealing us in a white envelope of inertia.

  On my fifth evening, I saw the man from the upper corridor, the one whose door I had knocked on, and who had flown up honking for beer like a desperate goose.

  He draped himself at the bar counter, and peered at Jean, who was presiding over the bottles of absinthe and cognac.

  “Say, Jeanot, I want to ask you something.”

  “Yes, Monsieur?” Jean was always polite to guests.

  “It’s a bit tricky. You see, there is a woman I clapped eyes on, up in the top corridor. A real—” he lowered his voice to protect the room, though not myself, who was stood there not two feet from him – “eyeful. A stunner. Could be from Paris. Thick brown hair tied back very neat, and a brownish skin. Black eyes. Black as coal. And a figure – well. And her legs, Jeanot. What legs those are. It was the other day when I came out to see about that beer you forgot to send me up—”

  “Most regrettable, Monsieur—”

  “Never mind that. I’m standing in the corridor, ready to come downstairs after my drink, and there was this piece of delight, slinking along the corridor. And she had on a uniform, like your girls wear who tidy the upper floor bedrooms.”

  “Yes, Monsieur,” said Jean, patiently.

  “Well, I’ve never seen her before, and as you know, I’ve stayed at The Queen in the past. So I wondered who she might be? And believe me, Jeanot, old chap, I’d like to know.”

  “No one, Monsieur,” said Jean. “There’s no woman works here of that description.”

  “A guest then?”

  “No, Monsieur. We have, at present, no women guests staying at the hotel.”

  Monsieur of the Beer drew back. He scowled. Then turned on me. “You then. If he won’t say, you tell me. Who is she? I’ve only spotted her once. But that was enough.”

  I knew who he must mean, for the one he had detailed was none other than the woman I had seen on my first morning, after Madame Cora had grabbed me.

  I said, “I don’t know who you refer to, Monsieur.”

  “Oh, is it some shit of a conspiracy? Why? I’ve had half the other girls in this rat-hole. So why clam up over this one? Aren’t I good enough now? Money not good enough?”

  “Please, Monsieur,” said Jean, “you are upsetting the other customers.”

  “Fuck the other customers. Come on, Jeanot. Is she your fancy piece? I doubt it.”

  The other denizens of the bar were actually quite enjoying this theatre. But at that instant, Mademoiselle Octopus, who had been absent from the room, sailed in at the doors. She loomed over the Beer Monsieur and said, in a scratchy cruel little voice, “Where are your manners? Where do you think this is? Have I to have you ejected?”

  And to my amazement, the riotous Monsieur Beer subsided, blushing and begging her for leniency.

  At that moment too a flock of would-be drinkers entered from the street, their shoes and boots thick to the ankle in white. As I hurried to serve them I thought, with vague wonder, Black Eyed Susan doesn’t exist – yet two of us have seen her. She must be a ghost.

  Obviously it was unreasonable that I should call her Susan. But I’d lived, even then, in England long enough a while, the phrase had sprung to my mind.

  Having decided she must be a ghost, I felt I should at least reorganize her name. And so she became Suzanne des Yeux Noires.

  That night the Patron of the hotel came into my room.

  I had just staggered in from work and the night was young, only twelve-thirty this time, for the bar (which operated by some autonomous law regulated only by how many heavy drinkers were present) had closed up early.

  “Well, now,” said the Patron. “Here I am.”

  I looked at him, displeased yet neutral.

  He said, “Is this the dungeon they’ve given you? Poor little girl. What a nasty sty
– and so cold. Have you turned the radiator off?”

  “It doesn’t work,” I sullenly told him.

  “Dear God. You’ll catch pneumonia. Well, well,” he rambled on, idling round the room, as if examining my personal clutter and knick-knacks, of which, as I’ve said, I had few and displayed none. “What was your name again? Estelle, was it?” When I couldn’t be bothered to correct him, he cogitated “No, no, that’s wrong. Is it Estrellya, then?”

  I said, gently, “Monsieur, please excuse me, but I’m very tired. I have to be up before six tomorrow.”

  “Of course, of course. Well, well,” he said. He sat down on the bed, and gradually began to undo his shoes.

  In bemused horror I watched this procedure, which was followed soon enough by an unknotting of his tie, a removal of his coat and waistcoat.

  All the while he went on speaking.

  “No, it’s not Estrellya, is it? Estina. That was it? No? No, no. You see, my grandmother still believes I must want young women. She has always thought this, but in fact,” he rolled his eyes at the ceiling, from which icicles might well be hanging, “in fact I married young only from duty. My wife died long ago. My mother lived longer, but then she too died. My grandmother still lives, voraciously. Well. So it goes. So it goes.”

  By now he had divested himself, not only of his previous character, but also of all his clothing aside from his shirt. Bulbous hairy legs, veined like the best marble, protruded beneath, also there sometimes showed the soft beak of his penis, which lay innocently already sleeping. He got up again, pulled wide the bed, and quickly coiled himself into it.

  He was entirely asleep in seconds. The room rattled at his baritone snores.

  I, like the fool I was, stood there in my dark uniform dress, very like, I thought, that which Suzanne des Yeux Noires had worn, save hers, (despite Monsieur Beer’s mention of legs) had seemed rather longer, almost to her slender ankles.

  What now?

  After ten minutes of standing – my room did not provide a chair – I let myself back out of the door. I poised in the corridor, which was really warmer than my room, though lit only by the snow moon at the window, considering that the dark hairs I’d found on my pillow were really not so very long, and might have belonged to the Patron (the musk of violets being probably only my imagination), and that maybe the man often slept in that bed.

  It was odd. But I have met – had met even then – so much oddity.

  While I was stuck there in the corridor, wondering if I should now creep down to the kitchen and sleep Cinderellerishly in the grease by the ovens, another door opened far up the passage.

  Someone stole out, voluptuously stealthy in her nightgown, her hair undone and lying loose all around her, like a soft silver mist.

  “Oh, has that pig gone in your room? What a pig. Come with me. It’s freezing out here.”

  She took me by the hand and led me, in a daze, along the passage and into her own chamber. It was Sylvie.

  Ah, what a transformation she’d achieved. Admittedly, her radiator worked, but all else was due to her, or so I guessed. Her bed was heaped with a glorious patchwork quilt, made of rather map-shaped pieces, colored blue and scarlet, amber and ivory. Rugs massed on the floor. Thick curtains of a dense indigo masked the icy unfriendliness of the outer streets, and her overhead lamp, though unlighted, had a shade like a lace birdcage. Meanwhile a stand of candles blazed on a table near the bed, and here too were spread cosmetics, mirrors, sweets, a bottle of wine even, and two polished glasses.

  “Do you like my room?” asked Sylvie, like a clever child.

  “Very much.”

  “I’ve been here three whole months. You have to do something, don’t you?” I looked at her in a bedraggled way. Laziness, or some other worse element, tended to make me always feel I had better do nothing. But I nodded. She said, “Let’s have a glass of wine. You can share my bed if you like. Look, it’s huge. And we’re just two little girls, aren’t we?”

  We had the wine. I’d thought she hadn’t liked me. And besides she might turn like milk in the morning. But milk keeps better in winter.

  I undressed behind a bird-painted screen she had, and put on one of her nightgowns. I undid my hair. Next we were in the bed, which was warm from her occupancy.

  “Shall I blow out the candles?” she said. She looked playful.

  “Yes,” I said.

  In the dark there was a brief pause, during which my blood hummed like a hive of bees. She was less than my hand’s length from me.

  Then she moved up close to my side.

  “We’d better stay together, or we’ll be cold.”

  “Yes.”

  “What fine hair you have, Esther. Oh dear, so sorry, I never meant to touch you there.”

  “That’s all right, Sylvie.”

  “Oh! There. I’ve done it again. What will you think?”

  “Well, perhaps...”

  “Really? Oh!” Now more genuinely, “Oh – that’s – wonderful—”

  I felt over every inch of her through the nightgown, which presently anyway we took off, and next mine.

  She had that smooth deep skin from the south, heavy and satisfying as treacle. Her hands and elbows were rough, but all the rest glided. Her breasts had centers like the smooth pink sweets on the table. I sucked them until I thought they might explode like sherbet bonbons in my mouth, and Sylvie yelped softly, pulling my hair. The core of her tasted of the sea, and had the texture of firm plums. The urge to bite her was nearly unbearable, so I bit her stomach all along its curve, leaving little marks to remind her in the morning. Before returning into the depths of the sea-plum.

  She wouldn’t let me make her come though, not like that. I had to lie over her, pressing her down, staring at her eyes in the dark which it seemed to me was total, thanks to the thick curtains. Our hands twisted and spasmed. At the last glorious seconds she became all I’d ever wanted. But thank God, once we had fallen together like a collapsing fan, silently screaming into each other’s flesh, she became again only a charming companion in a bed warm as toast.

  “That was lovely,” she whispered as we turned over to sleep, spine to spine, her buttocks couched in the small of my back. “And I knew you would.”

  “How?”

  “Just something. You know Madame was like that once? Or so they say.”

  “Madame – which Madame? Madame Ghoule?”

  But Sylvie slept, her appetite appeased for now.

  I lay awake about twenty minutes, curious, almost happy.

  And long before the sadist battered on the door at a quarter to six, Sylvie and I had woken once more, and once more coupled, twining as if we had slept away our bones.

  “Yes, Madame!” called out Sylvie however, at the appalling knock. I of course kept quiet.

  And through the door Madame Ghoule declared, “You must wake that new one, that Estette. I have been unable. My God, how she snores—”

  A delicious time then, after all, at The Queen. Sylvie and I. We would meet almost every night when our work was done. I bought her a few flowers and cakes, cheap beads, a comb for her hair, proper tribute, and all I could afford, smuggled in wrappers or under my outdoor coat. The town, still floured with the now-decaying snow, opened up its shops for me. By day she and I would pretend we didn’t care for each other much, and sometimes she would say something faintly disparaging about me to one of the others, loud enough I couldn’t fail to hear, and then she’d wink at me. At night, between the sessions of sex, she would mock the other girls. I told her to be careful, to be wary.

  I didn’t love her. It was more enchanting than that.

  Love can be a shackle so loaded with its own imprisoning power; it hauls you to the ocean’s floor and throttles you there. But this was that other sort of love, honorably ancient as dust, and light as the opening spray of champagne that, once left, soon invisibly dries.

  Did I then think of the other one, the ghost, Suzanne? Yes. Now and then. Involved in this un
expected romp, that gave me besides a warm bed, and even demonstrated for me the way to make the hot water come in the bathroom (Sylvie beating with a broom-handle on the tap) that also managed to see me given slices of meat in the kitchen, and other delicacies (by telling the contra-suggestive cook I should on no account get anything of the sort), even so, unforgivably (or inevitably perhaps, if I’m honest), some part of me was still glancing round to find the pain, the elation, of an unrequited obsession, therefore the black-eyed arrogance of Suzanne, the ghost.

  To that end, I began to seek out Madame Cora, the grandmother of the peculiar Patron.

  After all, that first morning, it was she who had yanked me up into the corridor where I’d seen Suzanne. And surely, if Monsieur Beer had beheld the apparition too, Madame Cora must likewise have done so. (To approach Monsieur himself had been out of the question. Following his outburst in the bar and the Octopus intervention, he’d fled the hotel the next day.)

  Madame Cora, though, was a handier proposition. She dined almost every evening at eight o’clock in the dining room, where I was by now nearly always expected to assist in the service of guests.

  Normally the Chief Waiter tended to Madame Cora, but once I had made up my mind, which took, I admit, two or three weeks, I slipped between them like a narrow knife.

  “Good evening, Madame. We have an excellent fish tonight.”

  “What do you say?”

  “An excellent fish. The cook has prepared it carefully and several people are praising it. I hope you’ll like it, Madame. May I bring you a fresh carafe of water? This one has a fly in it.”

  She stared into the carafe, which had nothing in it but the water. She said, “Very well. What’s your name?”

  “Esther, Madame. We met on my first day at the hotel.

  “Est,” she said, looking at her first course, a sort of mushroom creation, which she’d broken but not eaten. “The East.”

  The Chief Waiter was there. He leaned over us. To me he said, “What are you doing here? Table seven wishes the roast chicken with sauce.”