Peter Geye - The Lighthouse Road

"Can't say," Odd said. " Three or four nights, anyway."

The man behind the desk checked the ledger again and said, "A suite is a must for your honeymoon." Now he raised his hand and snapped his fingers and the bellhop who had unloaded the cab stepped quickly to the desk. " Bring their bags to the Harbor Suite. Draw the curtains and turn down their bed."

The bellhop nodded and was gone with the rolling cart of their luggage.

The man behind the desk pulled his watch from his vest pocket, checked the time, and replaced the watch. "Will you be having a late dinner in the restaurant? Or would you like dinner brought to your suite this evening?"

Again Rebekah and Odd looked at each other. They must have appeared as children, so giddy were they.

Rebekah said, " Bring dinner up. Roast beef and potatoes and something sweet for dessert."

The man behind the desk leaned forward, glanced once in each direction, and whispered, " Would you fancy a bottle of champagne? To celebrate your nuptials?"

Rebekah's eyes spread wide and a broad smile came across her face.

"Very well," the man behind the desk said.

He had Odd sign the registry and snapped his fingers again. Another bellhop stepped to the counter. " Bring Mister and Missus Eide to the Harbor Suite. See that their needs are satisfied." Then to Odd he said, "I hope you enjoy your stay. If there's anything I can do — anything — please don't hesitate to ask." He handed the bellhop the key.

T he Harbor Suite was perhaps even more elegant than the hotel lobby. There were three rooms and a turreted sitting area overlooking Superior Street and the harbor below. An enormous four-poster bed covered in silk with a dozen pillows at its head filled the sleeping chamber. The bathroom was twenty feet square with a marble-topped table in the middle of it, a crystal vase with a hundred flowers sat atop it. The tub was claw-footed and cast iron and large enough to bathe a bear.

Rebekah moved from room to room with her finger pressed to her lip. She appeared to be levitating. He stood at the window in the turret, watching her, marveling at the contrast between this place and all the other places he'd ever been. He rolled a cigarette and stood there long enough to smoke it while Rebekah inspected every inch of the suite. As he stubbed the cigarette in an ashtray there was a knock at the door.

He crossed the room and opened the door. A waiter in a white coat pulled a linen-covered cart into the room. Two covered plates and a basket of bread sat on the cart. Odd's mouth started watering at the smell of it.

" Would you like me to set this in the sitting room?"

"Sure," Odd said.

"Over here," Rebekah corrected. She was sitting on a sofa with pink paisley pillows on it. "Put it on the table here." She patted the coffee table before her.

The waiter wheeled the cart across the suite and covered the coffee table with another linen. He set the plates of food on the linen, set silverware on either side of the plates, put the bread basket and a ramekin of whipped butter and bowls of salt and pepper on the table. From the second shelf of the cart, covered by the linen, he removed a silver bucket filled with ice and a bottle of champagne. There were two coupes in the bucket as well, and he set one before each plate on the coffee table. He uncorked the champagne and poured each coupe full and said, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, thank you," Rebekah said.

He bowed and was gone.

When the door closed behind him Rebekah stood up and said, "Look at this!"

"They think we're the king and queen of someplace," Odd said.

"You mean we're not?" Her smile was luminous.

"Let's eat some of that food." Odd sat beside her.

They removed the cloches in unison. On each plate was a slab of roast beef and a crock of au gratin potatoes, a pile of broccoli florets, and a sprig of parsley. Before Odd picked up his knife and fork he lifted his champagne and raised it before him as he'd seen folks in the Traveler's Hotel saloon do. He looked at Rebekah with all the earnestness he could muster and said, "This is it, Rebekah. This is the first night of our happiness. The first of a million." He chinked the rim of his glass against hers and drained it. "Now," he said, "I aim to fill my belly up with this here plate of food."

Rebekah didn't say anything, only sat there beaming, sipping her champagne. Odd cut into the roast beef, sprinkled the forkful of meat with salt and pepper, and started eating.

"We've never had anything like this. Not once," Rebekah said, looking around. "All those nights in your fish house, sitting on fish boxes." She shook her head. "I can't believe it."

Odd said, "I told you so."

Rebekah finished her champagne and poured them each more. Odd quaffed his between a bite of potatoes and meat.

"You're supposed to sip it," Rebekah said.

" These glasses are nothing more than thimbles," Odd said. "I can't help it."

She smiled. She could not stop smiling.

"Ain't you gonna eat?"

"I can't eat right now."

So Odd ate alone, first his plate of food, then half of hers. Rebekah nibbled on a crust of bread, birdlike. They talked and laughed and behaved exactly as if they were on their honeymoon. When they finished the bottle of champagne, Odd fell back on the couch, unbuckled his belt, and let out a deep and satisfied breath.

"I never ate so much food in my life."

Rebekah put her hand on his taut stomach. "If anyone ever deserved a feast, it was you," she said.

"Why'd I deserve a feast?" he said, taking her hand in his.

She spread her free hand before her. "For this. For all of this. For having courage." She took her hand from his and ran it through his messy hair. "How in the world did all this happen?" she said.

Instead of answering he stood up, went into the bathroom, and plugged the drain in the tub. He turned the hot water on and from a bottle on the edge of the tub poured bubbles into the rising water. He went back to Rebekah, took her hand, and led her to the tub. There he left her, walking backward from the room as she undressed slowly, for his benefit, and stepped into the steaming bath.

He returned a couple of minutes later, naked himself, two cigarettes smoking in his mouth, a flask of whiskey and the ice bucket in his hands. There were two crystal glasses beside the bathroom sink, and he filled them with ice from the bucket. He poured the whiskey over the ice and set the glasses on the edge of the tub and took one of the cigarettes from his mouth and handed it to Rebekah.

"I'm about as foul as a man can get, sweetheart."

Rebekah took a long drag from her cigarette and as she exhaled said, "Well, then, I suggest you join me in here."

He had one foot in the tub before she finished talking.

For a long time they sat in the tub without speaking. They finished their cigarettes and Odd drank his whiskey and they rested their heads on the porcelain, the steam from the bath soaking the mirror above the sink. Odd was a kind of happy he'd never been before, loose after the champagne and whiskey, his gal there in the city with him, in the tub, with no more need to speak. He felt the fatigue from the last four days' labor seeping out of his back and shoulders and into the bath water. He hadn't known, hadn't ever even suspected, that this feeling was in the world to be had.

Rebekah, though, was growing distant. As they sat in the tub she was reminded of the baths she used to take with Thea— with Odd's mother — and the weight of those memories, of all their implications, was drowning out the pleasure of being where she was with him. She realized, also, that their lives in Duluth would not be roast beef and honeymoon suites all winter long. Odd was a fisherman, after all, and even if he was flush now, as he claimed to be, he couldn't afford this forever. They'd end up in some tenement with noisy neighbors and the rank smell of sauerkraut in the halls. She remembered that from Chicago even if she remembered nothing else.