is a matter that will be mended in due time,” I rejoined archly. “Are you coming?”
“Say, I wonder if they have a washroom.”
“you are not going there,” I said Firmly. “It is sure to be a vile place. Do come on.”
She was on the whole an obedient little girl and I kissed her in the neck when we got back into the car.
“Don’t do that,” she said looking at me with unfeigned surprise. “Don’t drool on me. You dirty man.”
She rubbed the spot against her raised shoulder.
“Sorry,” I murmured. “I’m rather fond of you, that’s all.”
We drove under a gloomy sky, up a winding road, then down again.
“Well, I’m also sort of fond of you,” said Lolita in a delayed soft voice, with a sort of sigh, and sort of settled closer to me.
(Oh, my Lolita, we shall never get there!)
Dusk was beginning to saturate pretty little Briceland, its phony colonial architecture, curiosity sops and imported shade trees, when we drove through the weakly lighted streets in search of the Enchanted Hunters. The air, despite a steady drizzle beading it, was warm and green, and a queue of people, mainly children and old men, had already formed before the box office of a movie house, dripping with jewel-fires.
“Oh, I want to see that picture. Let’s go right after dinner. Oh, let’s!”
“We might,” chanted Humbertknowing perfectly well, the sly tumescent devil, that by nine, whenhis show began, she would be dead in his arms.
“Easy!” cried Lo, lurching forward, as an accursed truck in front of us, its backside carbuncles pulsating, stopped at a crossing.
If we did not get to the hotel soon, immediately, miraculously, in the very next block, I felt I would lose all control over the Haze jalopy with its ineffectual wipers and whimsical brakes; but the passers-by I applied to for directions were either strangers themselves or asked with a frown“Enchanted what?” as if I were a madman; or else they went into such complicated explanations, with geometrical gestures, geographical generalities and strictly local clues (…then bear south after you hit the court-house…) that I could not help losing my way in the maze of their well-meaning gibberish. Lo, whose lovely prismatic entrails had already digested the sweetmeat, was looking forward to a big meal and had begun to fidget. As to me, although I had long become used to a kind of secondary fate (McFate’s inept secretary, so to speak) pettily interfering with the boss’s generous magnificent planto grind and grope through the avenues of Briceland was perhaps the most exasperating ordeal I had yet faced. In later months I could laugh at my inexperience when recalling the obstinate boyish way in which I had concentrated upon that particular inn with its fancy name; for all along our route countless motor courts proclaimed their vacancy in neon lights, ready to accommodate salesmen, escaped convicts, impotents, family groups, as well as the most corrupt and vigorous couples. Ah, gentle drivers gliding through summer’s black nights, what frolics, what twists of lust, you might see from your impeccable highways if Kumfy Kabins were suddenly drained of their pigments and became as transparent as boxes of glass!
The miracle I hankered for did happen after all. A man and a girl, more or less conjoined in a dark car under dripping trees, told us we were in the heart of The Park, but had only to turn left at the next traffic light and there we would be. We did not see any next traffic lightin fact, The Park was as black as the sins it concealedbut soon after falling under the smooth spell of a nicely graded curve, the travelers became aware of a diamond glow through the mist, then a gleam of lakewater appearedand there it was, marvelously and inexorably, under spectral trees, at the top of a graveled drivethe pale palace of The Enchanted Hunters.
A row of parked cars, like pigs at a trough, seemed at first sight to forbid access; but then, by magic, a formidable convertible, resplendent, rubious in the lighted rain, came into motionwas energetically backed out by a broad-shouldered driverand we gratefully slipped into the gap it had left. I immediately regretted my haste for I noticed that my predecessor had now taken advantage of a garage-like shelter nearby where there was ample space for another car; but I was too impatient to follow his example.
“Wow! Looks swank,” remarked my vulgar darling squinting at the stucco as she crept out into the audible drizzle and with a childish hand tweaked loose the frock-fold that had struck in the peach-cleftto quote Robert Browning. Under the arclights enlarged replicas of chestnut leaves plunged andplayed on white pillars. I unlocked the trunk compartment. A hunchbacked and hoary Negro in a uniform of sorts took our bags and wheeled them slowly into the lobby. It was full of old ladies and clergy men. Lolita sank down on her haunches to caress a pale-faced, blue-freckled, black-eared cocker spaniel swooning on the floral carpet under her handas who would not, my heartwhile I cleared my throat through the throng to the desk. There a bald porcine old maneverybody was old in that old hotelexamined my features with a polite smile, then leisurely produced my (garbled) telegram, wrestled withsome dark doubts, turned his head to look at the clock, and finally said he was very sorry, he had held the room with the twin beds till half past six, and now it was gone. A religious convention, he said, had clashed with a flower show in Briceland, and”The name,” I said coldly, “is not Humberg and not Humbug, but Herbert, I mean Humbert, and any room will do, just put in a cot for my little daughter. She is ten and very tired.”
The pink old fellow peered good-naturedly at Lostill squatting, listening in profile, lips parted, to what the dog’s mistress, an ancient lady swathed in violet veils, was telling her from the depths of a cretonne easy chair.
Whatever doubts the obscene fellow had, they were dispelled by that blossom-like vision. He said, he might still have a room, had one, in factwith a double bed. As to the cot
“Mr. Potts, do we have any cots left?” Potts, also pink and bald, with white hairs growing out of his ears and other holes, would see what could be done. He came and spoke while I unscrewed my fountain pen. Impatient Humbert!
“Our double beds are really triple,” Potts cozily said tucking me and my kid in. “One crowded night we had three ladies and a child like yours sleep together. I believe one of the ladies was a disguised man [my static]. Howeverwould there be a spare cot in 49, Mr. Swine?
“I think it went to the Swoons,” said Swine, the initial old clown.
“We’ll manage somehow,” I said. “My wife may join us laterbut even then, I suppose, we’ll manage.”
The two pink pigs were now among my best friends. In the slow clear hand of crime I wrote: Dr. Edgar H. Humbert and daughter, 342 Lawn Street, Ramsdale. A key (342!) was half-shown to me (magician showing object he is about to palm)and handed over to Uncle tom. Lo, leaving the dog as she would leave me some day, rose from her haunches; a raindrop fell on Charlotte’s grave; a handsome young Negress slipped open the elevator door, and the doomed child went in followed by her throat-clearing father and crayfish Tom with the bags.
Parody of a hotel corridor. Parody of silence and death.
“Say, it’s our house number,” said cheerful Lo.
There was a double bed, a mirror, a double bed in the mirror, a closet door with mirror, a bathroom door ditto, a blue-dark window, a reflected bed there, the same in the closet mirror, two chairs, a glass-topped table, two bedtables, a double bed: a big panel bed, to be exact, with a Tuscan rose chenille spread, and two frilled, pink-shaded nightlamps, left and right.
I was tempted to place a five-dollar bill in that sepia palm, but thought the largesse might be misconstrued, so I placed a quarter. Added another. He withdrew. Click.Enfin seuls.
“Are we going to sleep inone room?” said Lo, her features working in that dynamic way they didnot cross or disgusted (though plain on the brink of it) but just dynamicwhen she wanted to load a question with violent significance.
“I’ve asked them to put in a cot. Which I’ll use if you like.”
“You are crazy,” said Lo.
“Why, my darling?”
“Because, my dahrling, when dahrling Mother finds out she’ll divorce you and strangle me.”
Just dynamic. Not really taking the matter too seriously.
“Now look here,” I said, sitting down, while she stood, a few feet away from me, and stared at herself contentedly, not unpleasantly surprised at her own appearance, filling with her own rosy sunshine the surprised and pleased closet-door mirror.
“Look here, Lo. Let’s settle this once for all. For all practical purposes I am your father. I have a feeling of great tenderness for you. In your mother’s absence I am responsible for your welfare. We are not rich, and while we travel, we shall be obligedwe shall be thrown a good deal together. Two people sharing one room, inevitably enter into a kindhow shall I saya kind”
“The word is incest,” said Loand walked into the closet, walked out again with a young golden giggle, opened the adjoining door, and after carefully peering inside with her strange smoky eyes lest she make another mistake, retired to the bathroom.
I opened the window, tore off my sweat-drenched shirt, changed, checked the pill vial in my coat pocket, unlocked the
She drifted out.