Howard Norman - I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place

Some days, when Isador was out visiting one of his old cronies from the hotel world or at a movie matinee, I’d work on a brochure at his kitchen table. In late March or early April, I was organizing notes for a brochure about Germany and fell asleep with my head down on the table. When I woke, Isador was watching television and it was nearly time for me to begin my shift at the hospital, so I quickly gathered up my papers and rushed out, scarcely saying goodbye, a little irritated that Isador hadn’t woken me earlier, since he knew my work schedule quite well. Anyway, it wasn’t until I returned to my apartment the next morning that I examined the notes I’d taken and saw Isador’s contribution. Vertically in the margins and between my written lines in a loose-leaf notebook, Isador had provided additions, emendations, and, in bold capital letters, queries such as WHY HAVE YOU NOT MENTIONED WHAT HAPPENED AT TREBLINKA AND AUSCHWITZ? Among my notes for transportation: YES THE TRAINS ALWAYS RUN ON TIME IN GERMANY. Alongside my notes for climate: GERMAN WINTERS ARE COLD AS HELL — DON’T LIE TO INNOCENT TRAVELERS! I never spoke to Isador about this.

Jean got a windfall in that an airline became a very lucrative client. And one afternoon, after she had given my brochure on Spain her final approval, she said, “I paid off your debt to the auction house and hope you’ll come to work for me full time. I can find more things for you to do than write brochures. Besides, the brochures are mostly written for this season.”

“That is the kindest thing I ever heard, but—”

“Look, you’re a mess. Everybody can use some help now and then. You’re not so special.”

“No, I know that. I just wish you hadn’t paid off my debt, Jean. I can’t let you. Now I’m indebted to you. Just take it out of my paycheck.”

“It wasn’t a bribe. Just say thank you. And I’m giving you a small bonus for all your good writing. I only had to change a comma here and there, and maybe take out some adjectives. I’ve already received compliments on the Holland brochure, you should know. I’ve been approached by a publisher about a full-blown travel guide. Would that interest you to work on with me?”

“I haven’t been anywhere.”

“Look, you could start with the pages about Halifax. You could start there.”

“I never thought of that.”

“See how well we’re already working together?”

The guidebook never materialized. Though I did take on more hours and a variety of new tasks at the travel agency, for some reason I didn’t give up my janitorial work. Ellen had gotten well enough to leave the hospital, and Jean was spending more and more time away from the office. There was another employee, Bettina, who was about forty but referred to herself as “a local girl.” She had indeed been born and raised in Halifax. Bettina ran the day-to-day operation. She went to lunch with prospective clients and fielded telephone calls. I had no deep interest in the travel business, but it was work and I was grateful for it.

One evening at dinner, Isador said, “Even if your Mathilde showed up every time, those goddamn séances don’t make for much of a social life.” I think he wanted me to appreciate his little joke. “Aren’t there any attractive nurses you could go to the movies with or something? You mope around and sleep in the lobby. This is not healthy.”

I had no argument there. My social life consisted mostly of dinners with my uncle at the hotel, and with Jean at her house on Sundays. Sometimes Jean and her “paramour,” Gus, went out to the movies and I’d watch TV with Ellen, who would regale me with observations about the nurses and doctors she’d known those months she spent in the hospital. She spared no one her harsh and witty judgments. It cracked me up when she said, “Sorry, sometimes I use adult language.” She also admitted to stealing lipstick from the pocketbook of one of the night nurses. She had a tutor, Grace Eversall, whom Jean hired to get Ellen up to speed in math and social studies, as Ellen had missed so much school. Jean blatantly suggested that if I didn’t already, then I should have designs on Grace, who was a student at Dalhousie University. “She told me she’s interested,” Jean said.

The next Sunday we were together with Ellen, and while Jean prepared dinner in the kitchen, I looked more closely at Grace and let it register how beautiful she was. When Ellen dozed off on the couch after a game of checkers, Grace asked where I lived. But I was so reliant on the belligerent, and to a great extent fraudulent, contingencies of mourning, where I could just as easily have provided Grace with a simple street address, I responded with cruel obtuseness, going into too graphic detail of my relationship with Mathilde, such as it was, or how I wanted to selectively remember it. Grace calmly listened, cool and collected, then said, “I’m so sorry she died. That’s really sad. But you know what? I think I once saw you two together. She had on a very cool leather jacket. At first I envied that you were so unusual a couple, you know? I mean, she was so exotic-looking. Honestly, my girlfriends and I wondered what she was doing with you. But after a while I noticed neither of you looked very happy. I’m pretty sure it was you two. You used to hang out at the café right near Dalhousie, right?”

Late one afternoon, I was visiting Isador in his hotel room. He said, “Saturday, do you want to take a drive with me up to Truro? We could spend the night. I’ll pay for everything.”

“Izzy, what’s in Truro that could possibly interest you? You don’t even like sitting in a car. And you’d miss your regular Saturday-night chess with the retired bellman. I don’t get it.”

He fumbled around, rearranging items in his small refrigerator, then said, “I just thought it’d be good to get out of Halifax for a night.”

“You look like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar.”

“I never liked candy.”

“Well, I’m not going to Truro. The place sounds dull as dishwater.”

“Where will you be, then? Saturday.”

This dance went on in fits and starts all through dinner. Finally I said, “What’s all this about Saturday night, Izzy?”

“There’s another auction in the hotel.”

“I get it. You’re being protective of me. You think if I drop by to watch you playing chess, I’ll see the auction and make the same mistake all over again.”

“That sort of thing has been known to happen.”

“I’ll stay a million miles away. What’s being auctioned?”

“I only noticed some bird pictures again. Drawings. Paintings. Like last time. Maybe more of a hodgepodge than last time. I don’t poke my nose into the auction business. But since it’s in the hotel here, I’m apprised.”

“I took somebody’s Saturday shift at the hospital.”

“I understand.”

“Okay, then. Are you having any dessert?”

The auction began at eight-fifteen on the dot. There had been a small reception beforehand, which attracted a crowd of about fifty people. I had called in sick to work. I hoped that Mr. McKenzie didn’t stop by for a drink at the hotel or come in for dinner with his family. Probably nothing to worry about there. I sat in the back row. After the usual introductory rules and niceties, the first item was put on the block: a rare print called Black-tailed Gannet, which Edward Lear had drawn for John Gould’s Birds of Europe. Reading from a note card, a different auctioneer than last time said, “To inaugurate today’s proceedings, we have Black-tailed Gannet, until recently in private hands. We will accept bids starting at fifteen hundred dollars.”

There must be a phrase in the vernacular of obsession to define my actions. Repetition compulsion might come close — there certainly was repetition; there certainly was compulsion. But let me put it this way: the winning bid was $2,250, and had there been the same auctioneer as last time, I might have been recognized and tossed out of the room. The difference this time was, thanks to Jean paying off my debt, I had enough in savings to take Black-tailed Gannet home to my apartment. Now I owned Laughing Gull and Black-tailed Gannet.