The Little Hotel (16 page)

‘What is the use of my house? I built it to please him. He wanted a house in Basel near the Schutzmatt Park and I built it for him and he is afraid to live there because the Germans or the Russians can march into Basel in a minute. At the same time he does not want to transfer his practice to South America or the U.S.A.’

The Princess said: ‘Well, South America is good, there are so many skin diseases. But I met a doctor in New York, a very rich man, a friend of mine, who said nine-tenths of the babies in South America are diseased and should be gassed; he said the atom bomb wouldn’t do them the least harm; they should be exterminated. He toured South America and he was shocked. American science could do nothing for them. He is a splendid husband and father and he has seven children and knows what he is talking about.’

Lilia said: ‘I think that is cruel.’

The Princess said: ‘Oh, science is cruel; and this is a cruel age.’

Lilia said: ‘I call it a very cruel age; I never know where to turn. It is the communists who have driven us so far out of our old ways of thinking, and the blame is on them. I wish we could do to them what they do to others, take them out, stand them up against a wall and shoot them and then we should have some peace. After all, they set the pace; we are all hag-ridden.’

Mr Wilkins said: ‘Lilia, I think we need a little amusement. Let’s go to the Palace Splendide for a dance and a drink.’

‘Oh, let’s go to the Savoy Grand,’ said the doctor. He and Madame Blaise kept insisting that they should go to the Savoy Grand, and soon the whole party walked in under the elephantine portico, an old-fashioned structure with frowning front on the heights of Lausanne. They passed through various lobbies and a foyer, a long cocktail-room and past several bars at which American soldiers from Germany and local young folk were drinking, and pushed their way into a dining-room beyond the crowded dance-floor, a long high-ceilinged room with a few tables set for drinks for overflow guests, near the glass doors. Lilia said:

‘Oh, I hate anything artificial that reminds me of the East. What made the Aga Khan buy a whole block here? Why should he come here at all?’

But the others felt a certain thrill in spite of the miserable accommodation and a rather rude reception, because in this hotel lived several ex-kings. They laughed a little at the protocol difficulties of setting kings around one table, until someone said that each king ate separately in his room or suite to avoid such difficulties. Mrs Trollope said that she had come not long ago to see a crown prince aged nine and that she had bowed the knee and the prince had kissed her hand; and Madame Blaise mentioned a native prince she had met here. Whereupon Mr Wilkins said: ‘But what about us? What about the Archduke who lives in our hotel?’

The Pallintosts opened their eyes at this. Dr Blaise, smirking, said he had seen the Archduke that very afternoon. The Archduke was a member of the Jury (as he put it) in the Almanach de Gotha, he was in fact the Foreman of the Jury, he was, you might say, Exile Number One, the poorest and All-highest. ‘And he lives in our hotel?’ said Mrs Trollope.

‘The Archduke has sixteen quarterings; he represents Hapsburg, Dalberg, Hohenzollern, Wittelsbach, Orange, Lorraine, Anjou-Valois, Guelph-Wettin, Bourbon, Braganza, Vasa, Holstein-Vottorp-Romanov, Savoy, Jagiellon, Aragon, Isauris-Porphyrogenitus. If we had invited that nasty old man Herr Altstadt you met on the stairs and suspected of stealing a one-hundred-franc note, Mrs Trollope, we should have had this enormous company with us.’ The doctor laughed immoderately.

The Princess had lost all her vivacity at what she considered the doctor’s attack upon her position. ‘Doctor, how can you remember all that?’

‘Anyone who is jealous can remember it; and as I was only made by my wife’s money, as she mentioned, I am very jealous, and ironic too. I am a satirist of human nature, of which I have the worst opinion. Aristocracy takes its position by force. There is no quality of any kind in human nature. Human nature is invariably pleased by the feats of thieves, torturers, liars, more than by other qualities and frankly I think the muck-rakers and iconoclasts are absurd. To us murderers and robbers are gods. That is the history behind the Almanach de Gotha, and we creep and crawl before it.’

‘My goodness, you are a terrible cynic,’ said Mrs Pallintost.

‘Oh, let’s dance, Lilia,’ said Mr Wilkins.

‘Do you know what it is never to have had any happiness?’ said the doctor, grinning strangely at Mrs Pallintost.

Mrs Trollope had not heard Mr Wilkins. She remained in her seat, staring at the doctor with her black eyes wide open, bending forward so that her low-cut black lace dress showed her round breasts, with the skin long tanned and creased by tropic suns.

The waiter brought them the drinks asked for, whisky-and-soda and kummel. Suddenly the ‘cousins’ became different persons. They insisted upon better whisky and greater quantity, they wanted to see the labels. They said it was like old times and they went off to dance together in a pretty coupling, their faces lit up. Anyone could see that they were for a moment back in the East they had had together and that had now gone. Meanwhile, the gloomy Swiss couple drank kummel; and the doctor said:

‘I wish we could drop them and go home; I am tired of this farce.’

The Princess had gone to the powder-room and left Angel tied to her chair.

Ignoring the Pallintosts, Madame Blaise said: ‘You’ll have to pay this time.’

‘I know, but I managed him well, didn’t I? He’s not an Englishman of class and he didn’t dare countermand my orders.’

‘Who could have?’ said Madame Blaise, laughing.

‘I could have if it had been done to me,’ said the doctor. He leaned back and showed his somewhat rounded belly. ‘It was a good dinner; it did me good. But the best was the satisfaction I got out of leeching on to the little rubber salesman.’

‘Let’s leech all we can out of the damned ruined robber Empire and lick up the bloodspots. Little salesmen and their half-caste mistresses running here to be safe from doomsday and thinking themselves our equals.’

‘They are my equals; and doomsday always comes,’ said the doctor, laughing, with a sidelong glance towards his wife.

Madame Blaise said: ‘They’re rich. Between them, they have about one half of what I have command of: I mean the money in New York—’

‘You talk about that too much. People always guess where you got it.’

‘I got it from Nazis. Where are Nazis now? Dirt, filth. No one worries about that trash. It’s mine. Everyone’s against Nazis now. Once they were on top of the world and everyone was afraid of them. But it came to us, didn’t it; it came to us!’

The doctor made a sour face. ‘It came to you. What comes to me I have to earn.’

‘We’ll have to invite them back, you know.’

The doctor laughed. ‘Not to the same tune. I’ll invite them for the anniversary of the day I met you and we’ll give them lentil soup and cornmeal cakes. Isn’t that what you’re going to leave me?’

‘My money’s for my son.’

‘Your son! Your son is a fine specimen. He won’t live to get it. I’ll get it!’ And the doctor made a peculiar gesture, twisting his thumb and finger together and pulling sharply.

‘If you live to get it. Perhaps I should do something about that.’

‘Yes, you’re the active one,’ said the doctor grinning.

The dance-floor was crowded. Lilia and Robert circulated and had become graver, once alone. Robert said in a low voice:

‘That came a bit steep!’

‘The doctor was so rude. I think he’s a detestable character. I know why Gliesli lives away from him.’

‘I really thought he went out of his way to sting me!’

‘I am sure he did. I always think he has something up his sleeve. At first I liked him. He seemed so sweet to his wife; you remember, we said how attentive he was, always coming to take care of her, bringing her her medicine. We said, There’s a united couple. But now he gives me a cold turn. And he gives her her drugs: he rations her—that’s why she’s so dependent, when she’s so rich.’

‘Sh! He’s an old man who puts on wickedness because he’s tired and disappointed and he’s tired of her. But their manners are abominable. I hope we never go out with them again.’

‘But they’re sure to invite us back.’

‘Why must we accept?’

‘We live at such close quarters.’

‘That’s the trouble with these little hotels and pensions. You get too close to people’s skins.’

‘You couldn’t get too close to Madame Blaise’s skin. Do you know, I don’t think she ever gets fully undressed.’

He shuddered, ‘Lilia, don’t. But surely when he’s here—and he’s a doctor—’

‘Robert! But seriously, poor woman! She has not been near the doctor for over five years. She does not want him to guess that she is no longer a young woman. She says if he ever guesses that she has reached a certain age, he will leave her. And so she pretends to be afraid of catching cold. And then she thinks a bathroom used by other people or even a stair-rail is full of disease. The doctor has scared her. She protects herself by wearing three or four of everything, from the skin out. When she goes to bed she keeps on four suits of underwear, four pairs of wool stockings, she has two flannel nightgowns, a wool jacket, a dressing-gown with her head tied up in a shetland wool scarf. She has never taken a bath in the hotel. She keeps her windows locked. She won’t go into the hall without her fur coat. She isn’t happy with the doctor; and he can’t be happy with her.’

Robert wagged his head and sighed. Lilia said:

‘All through the winter she washes only her face and hands, for fear of colds.’

The music ceased and they returned to the table. Madame Blaise was saying to the Princess the things she always said to Lilia:

‘Shall I go and see my son? Do you think I can influence him? Shall I take a boat or a plane? What shall I say to my son to influence him? I am going to telegraph my son; what shall I say? How much do you think it costs? What shall I do with my money in the United States? How can I get it back?’

Mrs Pallintost was talking about some people they knew in Embassy circles.

‘My friends did not know quite what to do. They met these Russians and no one was talking to them and they felt, just out of pity, they should say something, and immediately they were invited to the Soviet Embassy. They were warned not to go, it would involve them; but they thought there might be a middle ground; and at the last moment they were told they would be compromised even if they stayed on the middle ground, so they refused and instead sent a Christmas card; and the Russian people sent them a silver rose-bowl. They were embarrassed and perhaps it was intended that they should feel embarrassed. My friends did not know what to do, but they compromised since they could not do nothing, by sending the Russians a pound of tea. You know Russians are immensely fond of tea.’

‘Well, I think that was rather nice,’ said Lilia.

‘Yes, but they have probably involved themselves.’

‘Oh, but how?’

‘Oh, you know they have card-indexes on everyone. But the chief thing was, they heard from the servants of people who knew servants of the Russian Embassy—’

‘Oh, so they have servants!’

‘Well, it was a governess there—’

‘Oh, so they have governesses too.’

‘She told them the complete agenda, how everything is to be done. Switzerland a focus, France to be invaded—’

‘Oh, Robert, what do you think of that? It’s true, for she heard it from this friend in the Diplomatic Service.’

Robert smirked. Having been on the commercial side all his life, he thought little of career diplomats. ‘Embassy servants don’t get that kind of news.’

Madame Blaise said: ‘I think they know what’s going on. At any rate I’m flying out to advise my son.’

The band was tuning up. The Princess sang ‘John Peel’ and Angel with her. Some people looked at them but the dancers were getting in their last dances. Most night-spots in Switzerland close at twelve and it was almost twelve.

On the drive home, through the silent well-lighted mist-filled streets and the country roads along walled gardens with mighty old trees, the Pallintosts following them in their little car, the headlights swinging along and around, they all felt pleasant; and for some reason the doctor offered to take Angel home with him to Basel when he went on Monday morning early. They would sell Angel to someone who would take him without a pedigree and the Princess was to get the pedigree eventually. The Princess was very happy.

They had to stop first at the Hotel Lake Terrace, a little hotel higher up the hill, where the Princess had just gone. Since the dog occupied a bed, the Hotel Swiss-Touring was charging the Princess double, not to mention the price for extra laundry. The Hotel Lake Terrace, almost empty, had agreed to take her and the dog for less. Mrs Trollope felt nervous. When they stopped in front of the Lake Terrace, she said she would go up for a little talk with the Princess.

‘Oh, do come home,’ said Mr Wilkins; but Mrs Trollope responded sharply and drily.

When they reached the Swiss-Touring, Mrs Pallintost and Madame Blaise went upstairs together. Mr Wilkins said: ‘Would you care to take a little walk? I thought the air in Lausanne fresh, but here it is like wine, it is full of ozone.’

The doctor said he was going to bed. Mr Pallintost said he always liked to walk before sleeping. He and Mr Wilkins took a few turns along several hundred yards of the lakeside promenade. They went through the park and approached the landing for the Evian boat. The lake was misty. Mr Wilkins said:

‘It is quite romantic here when the moon is out. You look opposite and you would say the mountains of the moon.’

‘I understand you’re going to Basel to visit your friends the Blaises? You might like to drive there in your own car.’

‘Dr Blaise has not mentioned that,’ said Mr Wilkins.

‘Your cousin was saying she might visit Basel to see Madame Blaise’s house. It seems Madame Blaise is thinking of returning home for a short visit.’

There was a brief pause. Mr Wilkins cleared his throat and said, in a delightful voice, ‘Yes, yes, she might do that. You see it is my cousin who is buying the car for me. She wants to make me a little present. She has extra Swiss francs lying about. We may as well see a bit of the country while we are here. We do not know where we shall be next year—we thought of the Côte d’Azur, Casablanca, South America.’