Charles Baxter - Gryphon - New and Selected Stories

At the hotel, he was met by a representative of the automobile company, a gray-haired man with thick glasses who, to Anders’s surprise, spoke rather good Swedish. Later that afternoon, and for the next two days, he was taken down silent carpeted hallways and shown into plush windowless rooms with recessed lighting. He showed them his slides and metal samples, cited chemical formulas, and made cost projections; he looked at the faces looking back at him. They were interested, friendly, but oddly blank, like faces he had seen in the military. He saw corridor after corridor. The building seemed more expressive than the people in it. The lighting was both bright and diffuse, and a low-frequency hum of power and secrecy seemed to flow out from the ventilators. Everyone complimented him on his English. A tall woman in a tailored suit, flashing him a secretive smile, asked him if he intended to stay in this country for long. Anders smiled, said that his plans on that particular point were open, and managed to work the name of his hotel into his conversation.

At the end of the third day, the division head once again shook Anders’s hand in the foyer of the hotel lobby and said they’d be getting in touch with him very soon. Finally free, Anders stepped outside the hotel and sniffed the air. All the rooms he had been in since he had arrived had had no windows, or windows so blocked by drapes or blinds that he couldn’t see out.

He felt restless and excited, with three days free for sightseeing in a wide-open American city, not quite in the Wild West but close enough to it to suit him. He returned to his room and changed into a pair of jeans, a light cotton shirt, and a pair of running shoes. In the mirror, he thought he looked relaxed and handsome. His vanity amused him, but he felt lucky to look the way he did. Back out on the sidewalk, he asked the doorman which direction he would recommend for a walk.

The doorman, who had curly gray hair and sagging pouches under his eyes, removed his cap and rubbed his forehead. He did not look back at Anders. “You want my recommendation? Don’t walk anywhere. I would not recommend a walk. Sit in the bar and watch the soaps.” The doorman stared at a fire hydrant as he spoke.

“What about running?”

The doorman suddenly glanced at Anders, sizing him up. “It’s a chance. You might be okay. But to be safe, stay inside. There’s movies on the cable, you want them.”

“Is there a park here?”

“Sure, there’s parks. There’s always parks. There’s Belle Isle. You could go there. People do. I don’t recommend it. Still and all you might enjoy it if you run fast enough. What’re you planning to do?”

Anders shrugged. “Relax. See your city.”

“You’re seeing it,” the doorman said. “Ain’t nobody relaxed, seeing this place. Buy some postcards, you want sights. This place ain’t built for tourists and amateurs.”

Anders thought that perhaps he had misunderstood again and took a cab out to Belle Isle; as soon as he had entered the park, he saw a large municipal fountain and asked the cabbie to drop him off in front of it. On its rim, children were shouting and dangling their legs in the water. The ornamentation of the stone lions was both solemn and whimsical and reminded him of the forced humor of Danish public sculpture. Behind the fountain he saw families grouped in evening picnics on the grass, and many citizens, of various apparent ethnic types, running, bicycling, and walking. Anders liked the way Americans walked, a sort of busyness in their step, as if, having no particular goal, they still had an unconscious urgency to get somewhere, to seem purposeful.

He began to jog, and found himself passing a yacht club of some sort, and then a small zoo, and more landscaped areas where solitaries and couples sat on the grass listening to the evening baseball game on their radios. Other couples were stretched out by themselves, self-absorbed. The light had a bluish-gold quality. It looked like almost any city park to him, placid and decorative, a bit hushed.

He found his way to an old building with a concession stand inside. After admiring the building’s fake Corinthian architecture, he bought a hot dog and a cola. Thinking himself disguised as a native — America was full of foreigners anyway — he walked to the west windows of the dining area to check on the unattached women. He wanted to praise, to an American, this evening, and this park.

There were several couples on this side of the room, and what seemed to be several unattached men and women standing near the open window and listening to their various earphones. One of these women, with her hair partially pinned up, was sipping a lemonade. She had just the right faraway look. Anders thought he recognized this look. It meant that she was in a kind of suspension, between engagements.

He put himself in her line of sight and said, in his heaviest accent, “A nice evening!”

“What?” She removed the earphones and looked at him. “What did you say?”

“I said the evening was beautiful.” He tried to sound as foreign as he could, the way Germans in Sweden did. “I am a visitor here,” he added quickly, “and not familiar with any of this.” He motioned his arm to indicate the park.

“Not familiar?” she asked. “Not familiar with what?”

“Well, with this park. With the sky here. The people.”

“Parks are the same everywhere,” the woman said, leaning her hip against the wall. She looked at him with a vague interest. “The sky is the same. Only the people are different.”

“Yes? How?”

“Where are you from?”

He explained, and she looked out the window toward the Canadian side of the Detroit River, at the city of Windsor. “That’s Canada, you know,” she said, pointing a finger at the river. “They make Canadian whiskey right over there.” She pointed at some high buildings and what seemed to be a grain elevator. “I’ve never drunk the whiskey. They say it tastes of acid rain. I’ve never been to Canada. I mean, I’ve seen it, but I’ve never been there. If I can see it from here, why should I go there?”

“To be in Canada,” Anders suggested. “Another country.”

“But I’m here, ” she said suddenly, turning to him and looking at him directly. Her eyes were so dark they were almost colorless. “Why should I be anywhere else? Why are you here?”

“I came to Detroit for business,” he said. “Now I’m sightseeing.”

“Sightseeing?” She laughed out loud, and Anders saw her arch her back. Her breasts seemed to flare in front of him. Her body had distinct athletic lines. “No one sightsees here. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

“Yes. The doorman at the hotel. He told me not to come.”

“But you did. How did you get here?”

“I came by taxi.”

“You’re joking,” she said. Then she reached out and put her hand momentarily on his shoulder. “You took a taxi to this park? How do you expect to get back to your hotel?”

“I suppose”—he shrugged—“I will get another taxi.”

“Oh no you won’t,” she said, and Anders felt himself pleased that things were working out so well. He noticed again her pinned-up hair and its intense black. Her skin was deeply tanned or naturally dark, and he thought that she herself might be black or Hispanic, he didn’t know which, being unpracticed in making such distinctions. Outside he saw fireflies. No one had ever mentioned fireflies in Detroit. Night was coming on. He gazed up at the sky. Same stars, same moon.

“You’re here alone ?” she asked. “In America? And in this city?”

“Yes,” he said. “Why not?”

“People shouldn’t be left alone in this country,” she said, leaning toward him with a kind of vehemence. “They shouldn’t have left you here. It can get kind of weird, what happens to people. Didn’t they tell you?”