The Hothouse by the East River Read online

  ‘Well, we haven’t seen it all yet,’ says the Princess.

  ‘It can’t go wrong,’ Garven says emphatically to Elsa. ‘I’m wild about it. I’m …’ He stops as he sees her shadow moving beside her as she turns to adjust more comfortably her voluminous white furs. Paul, noticing Garven’s sudden silence, looks towards Elsa, too. He sees that she has on. her lap the large crocodile leather bag. ‘I thought you said that bag was Poppy’s,’ he says.

  ‘So it is.’

  “Well, it’s unsuitable. Vulgar. But anyway, you just don’t look at all right, so what does the handbag matter? It’s been embarrassing for Garven and me. Let alone Pierre.’

  The lights dim — Elsa settles back in. her seat among the white fox furs and Garven once more shifts his mesmerised stare to watch the curtain rising.

  The scene is the traditional Never-Never Land, the island of Lost Boys. Garven breathes heavily with psychological excitement as Lost Boys of advanced age prance in fugitive capers with the provocative pirates, then hover over the crone Wendy. Enter, Peter Pan. At this point Elsa stands up and starts throwing squelchy tomatoes one after the other at the actors. One soft tomato after the other she brings out of the big crocodile bag. The tomatoes land fairly accurately. Her principal aim seems to be Peter Pan played by Miles Bunting, on whose head Elsa lands two large tomatoes, and on whose retreating back she lands one.

  The curtain. is urgently brought down, and meantime a certain pandemonium has broken out. A man behind Elsa climbs over the seat and pulls at her hair. A woman clutches Elsa’s jewelled necklace. Garven is trying to drag the Princess away from the scene while Paul is doing his best to explain to Elsa’s attacker that his wife is of delicate temperament.

  Suddenly out of nowhere, as if wafted through the air like Peter Pan. and Tinkerbell themselves, the police are on the spot. The people at the back begin to leave the theatre, but those at the front are caught up in a general riot in which many members of the audience, assuming that some group of justified political contestors is responsible for the tomato-throwing, hurl insults at the police. Three policemen fight their way to the front where Elsa is on the floor being shouted at by the man who had come from behind her.

  Elsa looks up at the officers of the law. ‘I’m the mother of the author,’ she says, and is duly rescued, bearing the Princess with her. Paul follows humbly, explaining that he is the father. Numerous hippies and Negroes and bearded scholars, various taxpaying residents of Greenwich Village and other members of the audience, including Garven, who are trapped in the front two rows, are arrested and taken away by the police in a large van.

  Outside the theatre, Paul is saying wildly to a police officer, ‘Those people are not real. My son, my wife, my daughter, do not exist.’

  ‘No?’ says the policeman.

  Elsa is meanwhile sitting with the Princess on a sofa in a little room off the foyer, awaiting the arrival of safe transportation.. Elsa checks her jewellery and finds all pieces intact, as also does the Princess.

  ‘Such a wild crowd,’ says the Princess. ‘These days one isn’t safe anywhere. One can’t even go to the theatre in peace.’

  ‘I quite agree,’ says Elsa.

  VI

  ‘Go back, go back to the grave,’ says Paul, ‘from where I called you.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ Elsa says. ‘It was you with your terrible and jealous dreams who set the whole edifice soaring.’

  ‘You’re not real. Pierre and Katerina don’t exist.’

  ‘Don’t we?’ she says. ‘Well then that settles the argument. Just carry on as if nothing has happened all these years.’

  He puts down the newspaper he has been holding. He says, ‘The headline reads, “Offbeat Production Peter Pan Ends in Tomato Throwing”. You’ve ruined Pierre’s show. Your own son’s show.’

  ‘If Pierre doesn’t exist and I’m dead,’ she says, ‘I don’t see how I could have ruined his show. Use your logic.’

  ‘Read the paper yourself. See the headlines. You know it was you who threw the tomatoes.’

  ‘I know,’ she says, ‘and I stopped the show. Tell Garven to bring some more coffee.’ She hands him the coffee-pot from the breakfast tray. He takes it and stands staring at her, adjusting the tie-belt of his dressing-gown. She says, ‘But I wasn’t to blame for the big blackout in. 1965. You were so sure it was me. But then you saw in the papers that it was someone who forgot to shove in a plug or put on a switch or something when. he went off duty. So you see, you can be wrong about me, Paul. You can. make mistakes. You can be mistaken about anything.’

  He goes to the kitchen. with the coffee-pot and can be heard speaking to Garven. Their voices can be heard, conversing there. The words are undiscernible but the sounds are of an unusual accord. It is like the conversation of men who have shared a house for years and are used to each other’s ways; the tones of voice do not reach very high or low registers; there is here and there a little force behind a phrase, as of indignation or resentment, quickly followed by an equal, altogether acquiescent response. The voices lower, as in confidential exchanges. It is like the distant sea. The voices trail away as in. reciprocal exasperation.. Elsa, in the drawing-room, trails her shadow in the morning light, to the telephone table. She sits beside it, staring reflectively, and when. Garven and Paul arrive with the coffee, wearing on their faces identical expressions, they find her in that position.

  Garven carries a tray on which are a plate of curly buns, a dish of butter, a dish of marmalade, three breakfast plates and an extra coffee-cup and saucer. Paul carries the percolator.

  ‘I’m going to have my breakfast here with you,’ Garven says. ‘We have to talk.’

  ‘Would you mind fetching a duster?’ Elsa says. ‘The phone’s dirty. Black marks round all the numbers. You have to remember to dust in between the crack with the edge of the cloth. It looks awful.’

  Paul puts out one hand reassuringly towards Garven and with the other hand removes his clean. white handkerchief from his pocket and gives it to Elsa. ‘Clean it with this,’ he says.

  She slides the edge of the handkerchief into the dusty crevices of the dialling disc and slides it round the surface of the numbers. ‘It must seem funny to you,’ she says, not speaking specially to either of them, ‘to see this deadly body of mine in full health, dusting the dust away.’

  Paul takes the tray and moves it to a table further away from her as if she might continue, so spoiling his breakfast. Garven joins him.

  ‘I’d like some coffee, now,’ Elsa says, casting aside the handkerchief. She starts to dial a number. Paul pours her coffee and brings it over to her while she speaks into the telephone. ‘Oh halo, is Miss Hazlett at home?’ she says.

  Paul moves back to his breakfast while Elsa puts her hand over the telephone and says to him, ‘It’s a man.’ She uncovers the speaker and says, ‘I’m her mother, Countess Janovic-Hazlett. Who are you?’

  ‘Elsa!’ says Paul. Elsa looks away from the phone and says without covering it, ‘She’s got a man there, at this hour of the morning. He’s the one called Merlin.. Do you remember Merlin, the boy she brought home in the summer?’ She directs her mouth once more to the receiver and says, ‘I didn’t recognise your voice, Merlin. I thought it was Gene or Harry. They’ve been currently staying to breakfast with Katerina. Tell her I called.’ She clicks the receiver-rest with her finger then starts to dial another number.

  Garven says, ‘I’m going to reconstitute my Institute of Guidance. I’m going back to pick up where I left off.’ He butters his roll and Paul butters his. They eat, they sip their coffee, in unison..

  ‘Halo,’ says Elsa. ‘This is the Countess Janovic-Hazlett calling. I want to talk to Mr Mueller alias Kiel.’

  ‘Elsa!’ says Paul.

  ‘Mr Mueller,’ Elsa repeats. Then after receiving the reply, she says, ‘Why isn’t he in? It’s after nine-thirty and the store opens at nine. Have him call me. Countess Janovic-Hazlett. It doesn’t matter how you spell it; he’ll
know who it is.’ She puts down the receiver.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she says. ‘Why do you keep interrupting me?’

  ‘You mustn’t call yourself Countess like that.’

  ‘Well, it’s your title.’

  ‘Do you have a title?’ says Garven to Paul.

  ‘My father was an Englishman,’ Paul says.

  Elsa says, ‘This particular title is inherited from his mother. By special dispensation of Elizabeth of Hungary.’

  ‘Well, I gave it up,’ Paul says. ‘At least, I never even. took it on.’

  ‘His mother called herself Countess.’

  ‘In Montenegro,’ says Paul, ‘you are noble if you own two goats on a mountainside. My mother didn’t even have that. Only debts.’

  “Well, I’m calling myself Countess,’ says Elsa.

  ‘This is America,’ Paul says.

  ‘Let her call herself Countess,’ Garven says. ‘If it makes her feel good why shouldn’t she call herself Countess?’

  ‘It’s outrageous,’ Paul says, ‘starting all that up again now.’

  ‘Long live the outrage!’ Elsa says. ‘Long live the holy outrage. I sold Katerina to Mueller for fifteen hundred dollars one night and cheap at the price.’

  ‘She doesn’t know what she’s saying,’ says Paul to Garven..

  Elsa goes to the window and moves her chair to look out on the East River, taking the telephone with her on the long wire. ‘Nothing but drizzle and sour soot,’ she says, looking out.

  Paul pours a second coffee for himself and Garven. ‘More coffee, Elsa?’ he says.

  ‘I took Katerina to Mueller’s apartment on West Thirty-third,’ she says. ‘Katerina was curious about him, she’d heard so much from you, that he was Kiel, Kiel, Kiel. So we went along, and he prepared a dinner in the kitchen. He asked Katerina to help him and while she was there I slipped away. So Katerina stayed on for dinner and stayed all night. I made him give me seven hundred and fifty beforehand and seven hundred and fifty afterwards, he was so keen to sleep with Katerina. She tosses in with everybody, so why not him? Then she said she caught the clap from him. What a lie! I don’t get fifteen hundred from everyone she sleeps with.’ She dials a number.

  ‘Poppy?’ she says. ‘Well, Poppy,’ she says, ‘Good morning, how are you? … Do you know the latest, Paul says I’m not real. He says I died long ago. That means that you’re dead too, and Katerina and Pierre were never born. It means that Garven isn’t real, either, else how could he have been my Guidance Director for a year and a half and my butler for all these months? Just think of Pierre’s friends and Katerina’s friends, just think of Paul’s awful little analyst, Annie Armitage, and his colleagues; and my money isn’t real either. What did you think of the review of Pierre’s play? — The review in this morning’s paper isn’t real and the play wasn’t real, of course, but—’

  Paul has grabbed the telephone from her and speaks into it to Princess Xavier. ‘Poppy,’ he says, ‘Elsa isn’t herself this morning, that’s all … No, I don’t think she should talk any more, Poppy … No, I don’t think I should put her back on, really, Poppy…. ‘Well, Poppy, it’s up to you … Yes, of course, darling, you’re real. Here’s Elsa.’ He hands Elsa the phone.

  She looks out of the window at the East River and continues, ‘I think they want me back in the nut-house, Poppy … Yes, you’re quite right … ‘Well, you know what I thought of the play, I demonstrated, didn’t I? I have a right to demonstrate as much as anyone else. All right, Poppy … All right, yes, we’ll talk later. ‘Bye.’

  She puts down the telephone and says, ‘Poppy thinks you should go to the nut-house, not me.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything about nut-house,’ Paul says.

  ‘I was talking to Garven.’

  ‘I’m quitting,’ Garven says, gathering up the breakfast tray. ‘Getting booked into the police office for you is asking too much. Last night was too much.’

  Paul follows him into the kitchen and again the men’s voices can be heard. They are discussing. Elsa starts singing to herself, as if unable to explain the reason for her sadness; the voice is small, the notes true. Her shadow spreads from her chair across the carpet in the weak light and, although at this hour of the morning it happens to fall at precisely the correct angle relative to the risen sun, it will certainly continue to fall in this direction. all day, wherever she may be.

  The telephone rings. It is Katerina. ‘Oh, it’s you. ‘says Elsa. ‘Good morning; I called you … Yes, I know it’s Merlin you’ve got there, he told me. I thought Merlin was Pierre’s boy. ‘With a name like that he should be. Your father’s in the kitchen discussing me with Garven, they’re like a couple of disgruntled parlourmaids this morning. Yes, I saw the review … What do you mean.? … Yes, of course it was me who threw the tomatoes. I didn’t like the play. I knew before I got there I didn’t like it … Well, I’m glad you see my point of view. Garven got taken to the police station and they released him at two o’clock in the morning, so I don’t see what he’s got to gripe about. I pay him a fortune. He says he’s quitting. I wish he would … No, I haven’t heard from Pierre, I expect he’s bored with the whole thing already. Now your father tells me I’m not real, I died one time and he brought me back from the grave … Yes, but he’s said it before and now he’s starting again … Well, it’s only the eighteenth of the month, what do you do with your money? All right, but you should make do with your allowance. All these men, one after the other. Don’t any of them have any money? It isn’t the money I mind, it’s the principle…. You mean today? No, I can’t. I’ll call you later and let you know. You could pick up the cheque; I’ll leave it downstairs if I’m going out. I’ll call you later. ‘Bye.’

  Paul comes back, followed by Garven.

  Elsa says, ‘I just spoke to Katerina. Did you hear the conversation either of you?’

  ‘No,’ says Garven.

  ‘No,’ says Paul. ‘Why?’

  ‘I just wondered if I was real, that’s all. Imaginary people can’t very well have telephone calls outside of their owners’ imagination.’

  ‘Who said you were imaginary?’ Paul says. ‘I wish you were imaginary.’

  ‘Oh, good. Now we’re all real, then?’

  He looks at her shadow. ‘You’ve become real. That’s the trouble,’ says Paul.

  ‘Paul’s at the end of his tether,’ Garven says, ‘and no wonder.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he go to the clinic for a rest?’ Elsa says.

  ‘We were thinking, Elsa, that you might think of taking a cure in a better little clinic, much better, that I know of right here in Manhattan where you can be near everyone, and the children can pop in and see you every day. Paul can pop in. You would be free to come and go as you pleased. At any minute you could just check out if you didn’t like it.’

  ‘I don’t need a rest,’ Elsa says. ‘I have a nice comfortable home. What do I need a clinic for?’

  ‘Free,’ says Garven, ‘to leave whenever you pleased, and—’

  ‘Except that there would be difficulties if I did. Once in, you would be able to bring your cooked-up evidence to persuade me to stay voluntarily or else be committed to an asylum for the mad. I remember my former analyst, the last time, at that place on Long Island. He kept on saying, “It’s either here or Bellevue, Elsa.” Never again, thanks. Anyway, he died in a car crash. Served him right.’

  ‘Elsa!’ says Paul. ‘It was a tragedy. A very fine analyst.’

  ‘He never noticed my beautiful shadow.’

  ‘Why should he notice it? People don’t look at shadows. It was just by chance that Garven—’

  ‘Oh, no, it wasn’t by chance,’ Garven says. ‘I’m unusually observant, remarkably so, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s what I mean, Garven,’ says Paul.

  Garven says, ‘Anyone who had that shadow pointed out to them — anyone responsible in the field of para-psychology, for instance, would be inclined to agree that Elsa should be detained for
observation.’

  ‘I know,’ says Elsa, ‘that there’s a fortune in my shadow. But it’s speculative. Happily for me I’ve got money that isn’t speculative, it’s real. I can buy anyone off, including you.’

  ‘It’s too hot in here,’ Paul says. ‘I’m going to get these radiators fixed so we can live in a more moderate temperature.’

  The telephone rings. Elsa answers it. ‘Halo. Oh, it’s you. I rang you at the store but you hadn’t come in. Where are you calling from? … Really? Why? … ‘Well, I’ve been having a little chat with my husband and my butler. My husband still thinks you’re Helmut Kiel, the spy. I must say you look remarkably like the man. Except that it was back in 1944 when we knew him and you would have aged since then, wouldn’t you? My husband thinks I had an affair—’

  ‘Elsa!’ says Paul.

  ‘My husband is really a Count,’ Elsa continues. ‘My butler thinks I’m mad and he threatens to leave. What are you doing tonight?’

  Paul grabs the phone from her hand and bangs it down on the receiver.

  ‘Garven,’ says Elsa, ‘pick up the newspaper from the floor. It looks untidy. The cleaning woman isn’t coming today so you’ll have to cope by yourself. I’m going out. I have to take the jewellery back to Van Cleef’s.’

  ‘Back in 1944,’ Paul says, ‘you were sweet and rather gentle.’

  Shadowed by her shadow she walks across the carpet. Soon she can be heard opening and shutting drawers in her dressing-room, and finally, with business-like footsteps, she leaves the apartment by the East River where Garven and Paul remain alone in the stupefying hot air of the winter morning.

  ‘You know,’ says Garven, watching Paul as he sits with the newspaper in his hand, ‘you’re an interesting man, Paul. You could be a study in yourself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Paul says, looking up. He’s starting on me, he tells himself in his panic. Now he’s on to me. ‘Let’s continue to concentrate on. Elsa,’ Paul says. ‘She’s our problem. One thing at a time. As we were saying, there in the kitchen, she’s her own worst enemy, and the best thing for Elsa would be a totally new environment. She—’