When the bridge game broke up and the Prince came by and looked into the Ritz, Thomas Hudson asked him to have a glass of wine before he went to bed and he liked the Prince more than ever and felt a strong kinship with him.
He and the Baron had got off the ship at Marseilles. Most of the others were going on for the rest of the cruise, which finished at Southampton. In Marseilles he and the Baron were sitting at a sidewalk restaurant in the Vieux Port eating moules marinés and drinking a carafe of vin rosé. Thomas Hudson was very hungry and he remembered that he had been hungry most of the time ever since they had left Haifa.
He was damned hungry now, too, he thought. Where the hell were those servants? At least one should have shown up. It was blowing colder than ever outside. It reminded him of the cold day there on the steep street in Marseilles that ran down to the port, sitting at the café table with their coat collars up eating the moules out of the thin black shells you lifted from the hot, peppery milk broth with hot melted butter floating in it, drinking the wine from Tavel that tasted the way Provence looked, and watching the wind blow the skirts of the fisherwomen, the cruise passengers and the ill-dressed whores of the port as they climbed the steep cobbled street with the mistral lashing at them.
“You have been a very naughty boy,” the Baron had said. “Very naughty indeed.”
“Do you want some more moules?”
“No. I want something solid.”
“Shouldn’t we have a bouillabaisse, too?”
“Two soups?”
“I’m hungry. And we won’t be here again for a long time.”
“I should think you might be hungry. Good. We’ll have a bouillabaisse and then a good Châteaubriand very rare. I’ll build you up, you bastard.’”
“What are you going to do?”
“The question is what are you going to do. Do you love her?”
“No.”
“That’s much better. It is better for you to leave now. Much better.”
“I promised to spend some time with them for the fishing.”
“If it were the shooting it might be worthwhile,” the Baron had said. “The fishing is very cold and very unpleasant and she has no business to make a fool of her husband.”
“He must know about it.”
“He does not. He knows she is in love with you. That is all. You are a gentleman so whatever you do is all right. But she has no business to make a fool of her husband. You wouldn’t marry her, would you?”
“No.”
“She couldn’t marry you anyway and there is no need that he should be made unhappy unless you are in love with her.”
“I’m not. I know that now.”
“Then I think you should get out.”
“I’m quite sure that I should.”
“I’m so glad that you agree. Now tell me truly, how is she?”
“She’s very well.”
“Don’t be silly. I knew her mother. You should have known her mother.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“You should be. I don’t know how you got yourself mixed up with such good dull people. You don’t need her for your painting or anything like that, do you?”
“No. That’s not the way it’s done. I like her very much. I still like her. But I’m not in love with her and it’s getting very complicated.”
“I’m so glad that you agree. Now where do you think that you will go?”
“We’ve just come from Africa.”
“Exactly. Why don’t you go to Cuba for a while or the Bahamas? I could join you if I get hold of any money at home.”
“Do you think you will get any money at home?”
“No.”
“I think I will stay in Paris for a while. I’ve been away from town for a long time.”
“Paris isn’t town. London is town.”
“I’d like to see what’s going on in Paris.”
“I can tell you what’s going on.”
“No. I mean I want to see the pictures and some people and go to the Six-Day and Auteuil and Enghien and Le Tremblay. Why don’t you stay?”
“I don’t like racing and I can’t afford to gamble.”
And why go on with that? he thought now. The Baron was dead and the Krauts had Paris and the Princess did not have a baby. There would be no blood of his in any royal house, he thought, unless he had a nosebleed sometime in Buckingham Palace, which seemed extremely unlikely. If one of those boys did not come in twenty minutes, he decided, he would go down into the village and get some eggs and some bread. It is a hell of a thing to be hungry in your own house, he thought. But I’m too damned tired to go down there.
Just then he heard someone in the kitchen and he pushed the buzzer that was set in the underside of the big table and heard it burr twice in the kitchen.
The second houseboy came in with his faintly fairy, half Saint Sebastian, sly, crafty, and long-suffering look and said, “You rang?”
“What the hell do you think I did? Where is Mario?”
“He went for the mail.”
“How are all the cats?”
“Very well. Without news. Big Goats fought with El Gordo. But we treated the wounds.”
“Boise looks thin.”
“He goes out much at night.”
“How is Princessa?”
“She was a little sad. But she eats well now.”
“Did you have difficulty getting meat?”
“We got it from Cotorro.”
“How are the dogs?”
“All of them are well. Negrita is with puppies again.”
“Couldn’t you keep her shut up?”
“We tried but she escaped.”
“Has anything else happened?”
“Nothing. How was the voyage?”
“Without incident.”
As he talked, irritated and short as always with this boy who he had let go twice but had taken back each time when his father had come and pled for him, Mario, the first houseboy, came in carrying the papers and the mail. He was smiling and his brown face was gay and kind and loving.
“How was the voyage?”
“A little rough at the end.”
“Figúrate. Imagine it. It’s a big norther. Have you eaten?”
“There’s nothing to eat.”
“I brought eggs and the milk and bread. Tú,” he said to the second houseboy. “Go in and prepare the caballero’s breakfast. How do you want the eggs?”
“As usual.”
“Los huevos como siempre,” Mario said. “Was Boise there to meet you?”
“Yes.”
“He has suffered very much this time. More than ever.”
“And the others?”
“Only one bad fight between Goats and Fats.” He used the English names proudly. “The Princessa was a little sad. But it was nothing.”
“¿Y tú?”
“Me?” He smiled shyly and very pleased. “Very well. Thank you very much.”
“And the family?”
“All very well, thank you. Papa is working again.”
“I am glad.”
“He is, too. Did none of the other gentlemen sleep here?”
“No, They all went into town.”
“They must be tired.”
“They are.”
“There were calls from various friends. I have them all written down. I hope you can recognize them. I can do nothing with the English names.”
“Write them as they sound.”
“But they do not sound the same to me as to you.”
“Did the Colonel call?”
“No sir.”
“Bring me a whisky with mineral water,” Thomas Hudson said. “And bring milk for the cats, please.”
“In the dining room or here?”
“The whisky here. The milk for the cats in the dining room.”
“Instantly,” Mario said. He went to the kitchen and came back with a whisky and mineral water. “I think it is strong enough,” he said.
Should I shave now or wait until after breakfast? Thomas Hudson thought. I ought to shave. That’s what I ordered the whisky for, to get me through the shaving. All right, go in and shave then. The hell with it, he thought. No. Go in and do it. It’s good for your damned morale and you have to go into town after breakfast.
Shaving, he sipped the drink halfway through lathering, after lathering, and during the process of relathering, and changing blades three times in getting the two-week stubble off his cheeks, chin, and throat. The cat walked around and watched him while he shaved and rubbed against his legs. Then suddenly he bounded out of the room and Thomas Hudson knew he had heard the milk bowls being put down on the tiled floor of the dining room. He had not heard the click himself nor had he heard any calling. But Boise had heard it.
Thomas Hudson finished shaving and poured his right hand full of the wonderful ninety-degree pure alcohol that was as cheap in Cuba as miserable rubbing alcohol in the States and doused it over his face, feeling its cold bite take away the soreness from the shaving.
I don’t use sugar, nor smoke tobacco, he thought, but by God I get my pleasure out of what they distill in this country.
The lower parts of the bathroom windows were painted over because the stone paved patio ran all around the house, but the upper halves of the windows were of clear glass and he could see the branches of the palm trees whipping in the wind. She’s blowing even heavier than I thought. There would almost be time to haul out. But you can’t tell. It all depends on what she does when she goes into the northeast.
It certainly had been fun not to think about the sea for the last few hours. Let’s keep it up, he thought. Let’s not think about the sea nor what is on it or under it, or anything connected with it. Let’s not even make a list of what we will not think
