Please Write for Details (36 page)

They went out into the hall. Mary kissed John goodbye. Then John and Barbara drove up into the mountains, and from the high curves they could look down into the lovely morning bowl of Cuernavaca, and they saw El Hutchinson, like a slightly soiled, little cardboard toy in the sunlight.

Torrigan got up at noon. Hang-over banged in his head like an endless succession of oil drums rolling down concrete stairs, and like trunks being moved in the attic. He looked upon the world with that bleak and weary pessimism of the person who, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, has been released from the hospital with the kindly admonition to try to look upon the bright side of things. In his slow accomplishment of his morning routines he attempted to arm himself against a hostile world,
but he had the feeling there was artillery just over the hill, zeroed in on the base of his brain. He put on fresh khaki shorts, slipped his bare feet into sandals from the public market, and pulled a white T-shirt on over his head.

He went tentatively out into the corridor. As he shut his room door a woman turned and looked at him and walked slowly toward him. She wore a white robe with small red buttons from throat to hem. It was a little too short for her and a little too full for her at shoulders, bust and hips.

“Theah you are, dearie. I’m in a bit of a flap.”

He yanked open the squeaky drawer of a mental file, fumbled for a soiled card. Something about this item in a strange room, talking and talking, wearing a blue towel. Margot. And it was connected with the dull ache on the left side of his jaw.

“Good morning, Margot.”

She peered at him. “You really look undone, ducks. This is a problem of clothing. I borrowed this thing. Simply crawling with all these ghastly little buttons.”

“Where are your clothes?”

“I should say one could expect them to be in the room of that dreary little mannequin with the curly yellow hair. And my purse too. But which room?”

“Oh, that’s up around the corner and down about three doors.”

“Would you please come with me, dearie? You were so wonderfully efficient when he became so sticky.”

“Margot, I was pretty well loaded. I’m not too clear about some of the details.”

She sighed. “It was ineffably dreary. I was so terribly anxious to get away from that squatty little Shane person, that I let the blond one entice me to his quarters. I sometimes feel I entice too readily, you know. After we had disrobed, it turned out he was of no use whatsoever. And he had some madly hysterical story about it being the fault of some hotel maid person who apparently had been pursuing him. The entire tale made no sense, and he was horribly upset, weeping and carrying on. I had no intention of remaining there with him, but he wouldn’t let me leave. He seemed to become violent, and you can take my word, Gambel dear, I’ve had quite my share of violent little men of late. I panicked and screamed out, and the scream startled him enough so that I was able to pull free of him and canter to the door and get it open. One seldom sees
nude women scampering down hotel corridors with howling, blubbering little men in hot pursuit, but you, you perfect darling, were on hand and you rose to the occasion splendidly.”

“I did?”

“You tripped him sprawling and found a nearby door unlocked and bundled the lady in distress into the room and locked the door. We had great fits of laughter while he pounded his poor little fists on the door, bawling threats and obscenities. When he finally trundled away, you crept out and brought back a pair of great walloping drinks for us.”

“You sat in that wicker chair wearing a blue towel and you told me about the American major who ruined your life.”

“Yes, ducks! You do remember. You were terribly sweet, you know. And all my brave plans to reward you came to absolutely nothing when suddenly I was so exhausted I couldn’t hold my head up. Apparently some woman lives in that room. I found this little robe. Now I would like my clothing, Gambel dear.”

He went with her to Klauss’s room. He knocked loudly.

“Who is it?”

“Torrigan.”

“What do you want?”

“There’s some clothes and a purse in there, Klauss. Let’s have them. The lady wants them.”

“Just a minute.”

They waited. Margot smiled her thanks at Gam. Suddenly the door was yanked open. A wad of fabric was hurled out. It disintegrated in the air and fell gently in a shower of tiny, wispy fragments. A purse struck the opposite wall with considerable force, bursting its clattering contents onto the tiles. Two shoes followed, with equal force. The door was slammed shut.

Margot dropped to one knee and picked up a handful of the fragments of fabric. She stared up at Gam with awe and tears of anger. “Absolute scraps!” she said. “My lovely dress and slip and bra and panties and hose. It must have taken him hours and hours. The man is absolutely mad!” She reached and picked up a shoe, threw it aside. “He even slashed the shoes to ribbons.”

“I guess you hurt his feelings.”

They gathered the contents of the purse and put those articles not damaged beyond repair into it.

“He’s a monster,” she said. “He’s sick. He needs help. What
shall I do for clothing? I could send someone to my home, of course, to bring clothing back here. I have closets and closets of things. But it would look queer, don’t you think? Make a very poor impression on my staff.”

“What room did you sleep in?”

“That one.”

“Oh, Mary Jane’s room. Must be her robe. You go back in there and I’ll find her. She must have some stuff she can lend you.”

“You’re sweet,” she said. “I must say you Americans have exciting parties.”

Gam found Mary Jane in the dining room, sitting alone and drinking coffee. When he sat down with her, she gave him an opaque glare. “Did you happen to save my life last night?”

“Let me think. Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Today I wonder why you bothered. But thanks.”

“Quite all right.”

“I’m depressed. Bits is gone. Park is gone. Now John has left for good.” She explained the circumstances. Then Gam gave a slightly edited version of Margot’s plight. Mary Jane got up wearily and went off to help her. Gam poured himself some coffee. There was a somnolent air about the hotel, a brooding silence. Mary Jane came back with Margot in fifteen minutes. The coffee had made Gam feel minutely better. Margot had been outfitted in a pale-blue denim wraparound skirt, a white short-sleeved cardigan, straw sandals.

She did not feel up to breakfast either. She had coffee with them from a fresh pot brought by a grim-eyed Esperanza.

“I’m so grateful, dear,” she said to Mary Jane. “I’ll see that these things are returned veddy quickly.”

“No rush,” Mary Jane said morosely.

“I must go now,” she said. “Could some sort of transportation be arranged?”

“We’re kind of running out of automobiles around here,” Mary Jane said.

“I don’t want to be any more bother, really.”

“I’ll see if I can line up the red bus,” Gam said. He went and found Miles who found Fidelio and told him that if he was incapable of driving the bus, he was fired. With a great and heroic effort, like the hero of a Western movie dragging himself through the badlands, Fidelio made it to the bus and sat slumped over the wheel, breathing audibly.

Gam went in and told Margot her transportation was ready. She smiled at him and said, “I have a great high wall around my place to keep out the infields. And quite a lovely little pool. And a crowd of little people who scuttle about bringing cold drinks. I should like you to come home with me, ducks.” She turned to Mary Jane and with much less enthusiasm said, “You too, of course, dear, if you’d care to.”

“No, thanks,” Gam said.

“No, thanks,” Mary Jane said.

Margot pouted at Gam. “I really must have made myself terribly unattractive last night.”

“You were just nifty.”

“But I will see you some time, lover? Soon?”

“I suppose it’s possible,” he said. Margot stood up and looked down at him with eyes and mouth of stone, turned and left. After they heard the bus clatter out, Gam sighed.

“Well, well, well,” Mary Jane said acidly.

“What’s your trouble?”

“Just intrigued. You intrigue little old me.”

“Maybe I’m complicated.”

“You go around beating all the bushes in a very heavyhanded way, trying to find some gal to be your real close buddy buddy, and then when a languid, sexy, rich, titled dish like that falls into your lap, you brush her off.”

“Kindly get off my back, child.”

“You didn’t even make the usual pass at me last night.”

“I apologize.”

“Class this afternoon, Teach?”

“Oh, dear God,” he moaned. She got up, gave his beard a small affectionate tug, chuckled at him and walked away, leaving him alone with his coffee and the silence and the dusty patterns of sunlight on the floor of the empty room.

The four officials in their old Packard and their shiny blue suits arrived at three o’clock that afternoon, arousing Miles from his siesta. He scowled at them. The spokesman, Mr. Lopez, said, “It is here the temporary permit, dear sir, but there can be more difficulties, I am sorry. The regulations are of the utmost complication.” He smiled his broad, loving smile. “There is administrative expenses. Many pesos, dear sir. Or the school must be boarded closed.”

It would have been difficult for them to have approached Miles Drummond at a less opportune time.

“It is almost impossible to continue?” he asked.

“It is most difficult, dear sir.”

Miles matched his smile. “Then let us say it is impossible.”

The officials glanced at each other. This did not seem to be the same man they had talked to last time.

“I am not clearly understanding,” Señor Lopez said.

“It’s easy. It is impossible to continue. So I will not continue. I cannot pay the fines. I will go to jail. Let me pack a bag and I will go right now.”

Lopez smiled nervously, “But dear sir, it is only a matter of pesos. From a place of such profit.”

“Hah!”

“Only perhaps … five hundred pesos only for administrative expensiveness.”

Miles stood up. “I will pack.”

“Dear sir, perhaps it could be done with more cheapness, because you are a friend of Mexico.”

Miles took out his wallet. He took two fifty-peso notes and placed them in front of Lopez. Lopez stared at them with the troubled smile of a man who does not quite catch the point of a joke. His shoulders lifted slowly and fell. He reached out and took the notes. “The expensiveness will be handled at a loss to the administrators,” he said.

They shook hands all around and walked out, arguing softly among themselves, leaving the large florid permit, ablaze with stamps, on Miles’s desk. Miles tottered back to bed.

At the same time the four men were leaving Miles’s apartment, John Kemp was taking his leave of Barbara. His flight had been announced. They had talked long and honestly. They would write to each other. When she was finished at Cuernavaca, she would fly home. When he had the firm functioning with sufficient smoothness, and if it was agreeable to her at that time, he would come and meet her parents. By then they would know if she would return with him. She did not know if it would ever be possible. But she would be honest with him in any event.

He walked out with her and kissed her by the gate and went on alone. He waved from the top of the steps. She watched until the plane was a tiny silver glint in the north, high above
brown hills. She dried her eyes and blew her nose and drove with great caution back to El Hutchinson.

At last that interminable Wednesday ended. Park and Bitsy reached Acapulco in the torrid, sticky dusk. Dinner at El Hutchinson was a small and nearly silent conclave of the survivors of fiesta. The staff began again, with great reluctance, to shoulder their lightened duties. The hard rain came down at nine and lasted until nearly midnight. The thunder clanged off the hills and the lights went out. And lightning danced blue on the dead faces of the sleepers.

The nuptial fiesta of the Cuernavaca Summer Workshop at El Hutchinson had certain short-range traumatic effects of a certain predictability. Of more interest were the long-range effects.

There was, for example, the transformation of Fidelio Melocotonero. It was Mary Jane’s theory, as expressed to Torrigan, that Fidelio ever since birth had been handicapped by the non-functioning of some small and essential gear and pinion assembly in his head. Something had failed to mesh, and the inoperative parts had rusted in place. The beating had effected repairs, and she cited as an example the common knowledge that when a piece of apparatus refuses to function, it can often be repaired quickly by a brisk kick.

Torrigan, in rebuttal, pointed out that Fidelio had begun to show unmistakable signs of an emotional involvement, and it was well known that love could work miracles.

At any rate, during the few days of his painful convalescence it gradually became apparent to all that Fidelio had changed. His heavy expression of sullen apathy and indifference was gradually replaced by a look of polite attention, almost of alertness. He held his head high and walked with a detectable briskness. He kept himself and the red bus cleaned, brushed
and well-maintained. He took over from Alberto the task of keeping the other vehicles glossy. He developed the knack of appearing when he was needed, eliminating the previous necessity of an average twenty-minute search to find out where he was dozing. His driving improved. At some implausible place in town he purchased himself a used yachting cap, restored it to black, gold and white brilliance, and wore it behind the wheel with an uncompromising jauntiness.

When the true owner of the red bus tried to cancel the rental arrangement with the school, Miles Drummond, in the process of dissuading him, learned the reason for the attempted cancelation. Fidelio had suddenly ceased to be the sweetheart of the owner’s daughter, a rather squatty and torpid young girl with a large red mouth whose name was Anita. It was observed that Fidelio made himself smilingly available for any kind of kitchen and janitor service.

Also noted was his dogged progress in an unexpected direction. After completely ignoring the changed Fidelio at first, Esperanza Clueca began to permit herself to speak to him when necessary, though with a grimness and a cold reserve. And, in time, after walking a dozen yards behind her when she left work, he was able gradually to decrease the distance until he was permitted to walk with her to her family hut. It was not long before Esperanza began to permit herself to smile at him.