Irwin Shaw - Nightwork

That evening I dined alone, late. I had seen Flora Sloane, in a blazing evening gown, at a distance, sweeping off to her party with a group of people, some of whom I recognized, some of whom I didn’t, anyone of whom might have my seventy thousand dollars in the bank. If Flora saw me, she gave no sign. I took my time over dinner, and, when I went up to my floor, I deliberately avoided asking for my key at the desk. The corridor on which my room was located was empty, but after a moment I spied the night maid coming out of a room farther down. I stepped in front of the Sloanes’ door and called to the maid. “I’m terribly sorry,” I said, moving heavily toward the woman on my crutches, “but I seem to have forgotten my key. Will you let me in, please?” I had never seen her before.

She took a key out of her apron pocket and opened the door. I said thank you and went in, closing the door behind me. The room had already been made up for the night, and the bed was turned down, two bedside lamps softly lit. The scent of Flora Sloane’s perfume was everywhere. Except for that, it could have been any room in the hotel. I was breathing heavily, moving with care. I went over to the big wardrobe and opened the door. Women’s clothes. I recognized various dresses, ski outfits. I opened the next door. A long array of suits, stacked shirts. On the floor six pairs of shoes. The brown shoes Sloane had warn on the train were the last in line. I bent down clumsily, nearly toppling, and picked up the right shoe. Then I sat on a little straight-backed chair and took off my right shoe. My left foot was encased in plaster. I tried to put my foot into the brown shoe. I could hardly get halfway in. It must have been two sizes smaller than mine – size eight. I sat there for a moment, holding the shoe in my hand, staring at it numbly. I had wasted almost a week, precious time, and a small fortune, on a false trail, I was sitting like that, in the softly lit room, stupidly holding the shoe in my hand, when I heard the rattle of a key in the door. The door opened and Bill Sloane, dressed for traveling and holding a small bag in his hand, came into the room.

He stopped when he saw me and dropped the bag. It made a small, luxurious thump on the thick carpet. “What the hell…?” he said. He didn’t sound angry. He hadn’t had time to be angry.

“Hello,” I said foolishly. “Hello, Bill. I thought you were in Zurich.”

“I’ll bet you did.” His voice was beginning to rise. “Where the hell is Flora?” He switched on the overhead light, as though his wife might be lurking in the shadows.

“She went to a party.” I didn’t know whether I ought to get up or stay where I was. Getting up presented problems, with the cast and my stockinged foot.

“Went to a party.” He nodded grimly. “And what the fuck are you doing in here?”

“I forgot my key,” I said, realizing as I said it how improbable the whole scene was. “I asked the maid to open the door to my room and I wasn’t looking…”

“What’re you doing with my shoe?” Each question was an arc on a constantly rising curve.

I looked at the shoe as though I had never seen it before. “I honestly don’t know,” I said. I dropped it to the floor. “The watch,” he said. “The goddamn watch.” I looked at it automatically. It was ten minutes past ten. “I know where you got that goddamn watch.” There was no mistaking the menace in his tone now. “My wife. From my stupid, goddamn wife.”

“It was … well… a kind of private little joke.” Nothing in my life until then had prepared me for a situation like this, and I realized bitterly that my improvisations at the moment were far from brilliant.

“Every year she gets a crush on some idiotic ski teacher and she gives him a watch. For openers,” he said. “Just for openers. So – this year, you’re elected. This is her year for amateurs. The St Moritz Open.”

“It’s only a watch, Bill,” I said.

“She’s the shiftiest little bitch in the business,” Sloane said, looming over me. “And I thought, well, this year, finally, she’s out there with someone I can trust.” He began to cry. It was terrifying.

“Please, Bill,” I pleaded. “Don’t cry. I swear nothing’s happened.” I wished I could explain to him that I hadn’t had the slightest twinge of sexual desire or the least hope of consummation in the last seven days.

“You swear,” he growled, weeping. “You swear. They all swear.” With a surprisingly swift movement he bent and grabbed my arm and yanked at it. “Give me back that goddamn watch, you son of a bitch.”

“Of course,” I said, with considerable dignity. I unclasped it and gave it to him. He glared down at it, then strode over to the window, opened it, and hurled the watch out into the night. I took advantage of his trip to get up and balance on my crutches. He wheeled and came back to me, very close to me. I could smell the whiskey on his breath. “I ought to hammer you into the deck. Only I don’t hit cripples.” He kicked my cast, not very hard, but enough to make me teeter. “I don’t know what the fuck you were doing in here and I don’t want to know. But if you’re not out of this hotel and out of this town by tomorrow morning, I’m going to have you thrown out bodily. When the Swiss police get through with you, you’ll be sorry you ever saw a mountain.” He swooped down again and grabbed my single shoe from the floor and swept across the room with it and threw it out of the window after the watch. It was the weirdest act of revenge I’d ever heard of. He was still weeping. There was no doubt about the fact that, appearances to the contrary (all that telephoning in the morning and all that bridge), he was linked with a high and unusual passion, for a man of his age and temperament, to his wife.

He was seated, like a great tragic bear, his head bent into his hands, sobbing, as I left the room on my crutches.

The next morning, early, I was on the train to Davos. Davos is a ski resort some two hours away from St Moritz, famous for long runs that I had no intention of exploring. I had begun to hate winter and the sight of ruddy, happy faces, the sound of boots on snow, the tinkle of sleigh bells, the bright colors of ski caps. I yearned for the comfort of soft Southern weather, a climate where decisions could be put off until tomorrow. Before I bought my ticket at the railroad station, itself a loathsomely picturesque structure on the valley floor, I had played with the idea of surrender, of heading for Italy, Tunisia, the Mediterranean coast of Spain, in one last destructive splurge. But the first train into the station was going in the direction of Davos. I had taken it as an omen and, helped by a porter, had clambered aboard. I was doomed for the winter to cold country.

The train wound its way through some of the most magnificent mountain scenery in the world, soaring peaks, dramatic gorges, high spidery bridges across foaming streams. The sun shone brightly over it all in a clear blue sky. I appreciated none of it.

When I reached Davos I got into a taxi and went directly to the hospital and had the cast taken off my leg, resisting all attempts by two doctors to have me X-rayed. “Just when and where, sir,” one of the doctors asked, as he saw me hop jauntily off the table, “was this cast put on?” “Yesterday,” I said. “In St Moritz.”

“Ah,” he said, “St Moritz.” He and the other doctor exchanged significant looks. Obviously they would never choose St Moritz for medical attention.

The younger of the two doctors accompanied me to the cashier’s desk at the door to make sure I paid for the operation. One hundred Swiss francs. A bargain. The doctor watched me puzzled as I opened the big bag that I had left at the entrance and took out a sock and a shoe and put them on. As I went out the door, carrying my bags, I was sure I heard him say, “Amerikanish,” to the cashier, as though that explained all eccentricities.