Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Lived High

It's mighty heavy." "How long have you been working here, Rupert?" "Twenty years next March. Good job! Meet lotsa people. And I get an apartment in the basement thrown in." "What will you do if they tear down the building?" "Go on unemployment. Go on welfare, I reckon, if I can't find work. I'm fifty-six." Qwilleran had a long wait for Amberina, but the time was not wasted. While standing at the front door he watched a circus parade of tenants and visitors corning in and going out. He tried not I to stare at the outlandish clothing on the young ones, or the pathetic condition of some of the old ones, or the exotic beauty wearing a sari, or the fellow with a macaw in a cage.

When two well-dressed young men arrived, carrying a small gold tote bag from the city's most exclusive chocolatier, he watched them go to the burnished bronze door and ring for the private elevator, and he began to conjecture about the "Countess." The mysterious seventy-five-year-old who was visited by men wearing dinner jackets or bearing gifts sounded like Lady Hester Stanhope in Kinglake's Eothen, a book he had been reading aloud to the Siamese.

Lady Hester lived in a crumbling middle-eastern convent, subsisting on milk and enjoying the adulation of desert tribes.

Was the Countess the Lady Hester of the crumbling Casablanca?

His flights of fancy were interrupted when Amberina came running down the hall. "Sorry I'm late. I lost my contact lens, and I couldn't seem to get myself together." He said, "Who are the well-dressed men who ride up and down on the Countess's elevator?" "Her bridge partners," she explained. "She loves to play cards." Amberina had changed since their last meeting three years before. Her strikingly-brunette hair was a different color and a different style-lighter, redder, and frizzier. She had put on weight and her dimples were less beguiling. He was disappointed, but he said, "Good to see you again, Amberina. You're looking great!" "So are you, Mr. Qwilleran, and you look so countrified!" He was wearing his tweed coat with leather patches and his chukka boots.

They left the building and zigzagged down the broken marble slabs with care. "These steps should be repaired before someone trips and sues the Countess," he remarked.

"No point in making repairs when the whole place may be torn down next week," she said with a touch of bitterness. "We're all keeping our fingers crossed that nothing terrible will happen. Mary says the city would love it if the elevator dropped and killed six tenants, or a steam boiler blew up and cooked everyone on the main floor. Then they'd condemn the place and start collecting higher property taxes on a billion-dollar hotel or something. I do hope your people decide to buy the Casablanca, Mr. Qwilleran." Now they were strolling down Junktown's new brick sidewalks, recently planted with small trees and lighted with old-fashioned gaslamps.

Qwilleran said, "This is exactly what C. C. Cobb wanted three years ago, and the city fought him every step of the way." The jerry-built storefronts that previous landlords had tacked on to the front of historic town-houses had been removed. One could never guess where the old fruit and tobacco stand had been, or the wig and fortune-telling shop.

New owners had miraculously restored the original stone steps, iron railings, and impressive entrance doors. A brightly lighted coffee house occupied the premises of the former furniture-refinishing shop in an old stable, now named the Carriage House Cafe.

"Tell me about this restaurant we're going to. What is Roberto's?" Qwilleran asked.

"You know - don't you? - that Robert Maus wanted to open a restaurant when he gave up the law business. Well, he went to Italy and worked in a restaurant in Milan for a year. When he came home he was cooking Italian and had changed his name to Roberto." "I hope he didn't change his last name to 'Mausolini.' " Amberina let out an involuntary shriek. "Wait till Mary hears that! She won't think it's funny. She's very serious, you know." "I know. So is he." "Well, anyway, he opened this Italian restaurant in one of the old townhouses - Mary talked him into it, I think - and he lives upstairs. I've never eaten there - too expensive - but Mary says it's fabulous food." "Everything Robert prepares is fabulous. Will he be there tonight?" "You're supposed to call him Roberto, Mr. Qwilleran. No, he's off on Sundays, and they're closed on Mondays, but he personally supervises the kitchen five nights a week. Imagine! A law degree! And he's cooking spaghetti!" An unobtrusive sign on the iron railing of a townhouse announced "Roberto's North Italian Cuisine." As they climbed the stone steps Qwilleran knew what to expect. He had lived in Junktown long enough to be familiar with old townhouses. Even though they became rooming houses they had high ceilings, carved woodwork, ornate fireplaces (boarded up), and gaslight chandeliers (electrified)-all of these in various degrees of shabbiness. With Robert Maus's taste for English baronial he would add red velvet draperies and leather chairs studded with nailheads. Ecco! North Italian!

Qwilleran was shocked, therefore, when they entered the restaurant. The interior had been gutted. Walls, ceiling, and arches were an unbroken sweep of smooth plaster in a custardy shade of cream. The carpet was eggplant in hue; so was the upholstery of the steel-based chairs. Silk-shaded lamps on the tables and silk-shaded sconces on the walls threw a golden glow over the cream-tinted table linens.

Before he could splutter a comment, a white-haired woman armed with menus approached in a flurry of excitement. "Mr. Qwilleran! Do you remember me? I'm Charlotte Roop," she said in a reedy voice.

She had been his neighbor three years before on River Road - a strait-laced, spinsterish woman obsessed with crossword puzzles - but she had changed drastically. Where was her disapproving scowl? Her tightly pursed lips? Had she had a face-lift? Could she possibly have found love and happiness with a good man? Qwilleran chuckled at the idea.

Instead of her usual nondescript garb smothered in costume jewelry, she was wearing a simple beige dress with a cameo at the throat - a cameo brought from Italy by her new boss, Qwilleran assumed.

"Of course I remember you!" he exclaimed. "You're looking... you're looking... What's a six-letter word for beautiful?" "Oh, Mr. Qwilleran, you remembered!" she cried with pleasure, adding in a lower voice, "But I don't do crossword puzzles anymore. I have a gentleman friend." She flushed.

"Good for you! He's a lucky fellow!" Miss Roop touched the cameo self-consciously. "I'm the one who's lucky. I have a lovely apartment at the Casablanca and a lovely job with our wonderful Roberto. Let me show you to our best table." "This is a handsome place," Qwilleran said.

"Very warm, very friendly, yet surprisingly modern." "Roberto wanted it to be the color of zabaglione. He brought Italian artisans over to do the plastering." She handed them menus and recommended the tagliatelle con salmone affumicato and the vitello alla griglia. Her boss, always a perfectionist, had coached her on the pronunciation. She added, "Roberto wishes you to be our guests tonight.

Would you like something from the bar?" Considering Miss Roop's former attitude toward anything stronger than weak tea, this was a right-about-face. She suggested Pinot Grigio as an aperitif. Amberina shrugged and accepted. Qwilleran asked for mineral water with lemon.

Meanwhile, a waiter displaying professional ‚clat draped napkins across their laps - heated napkins.

"Real flowers," Amberina whispered as she fingered the rosebuds in a Venetian glass vase. "I wonder how many of these vases they lose." There was little general conversation as they adjusted to the elegance of the room and the awesomeness of the menu. Finally she said, "Tell me honestly, Mr. Qwilleran. What do you think of the Casablanca?" "It's a dump! Does anyone really think it's worth restoring? Does anyone think it's even possible to restore such a ruin?" "SOCK is positive," she replied earnestly. "Mary Duckworth and Roberto are officers, and you know they don't waste their time on a lot of baloney. They've had an architect make a study for SOCK, and he knows exactly what has to be done and how to do it and how much it will cost. I don't have the exact facts, but Mary can fill you in on that stuff." "Where is she?" "Right now she's flying back from Philadelphia. There was a big antique show there, and she took a double booth.