“Why don’t you just tell me who this is and leave the cockroach stuff out of it,” Rothman said in a patient voice, wanting to slam the phone down. But the man abruptly hung up before he could.
The big black crane with the little green house attached was still emerging from both sides of Madeleine’s head. The words SAINT HYACINTHE were written along one armature.
“You look shocked,” she said. Then suddenly she said, “Oh no, oh shit, shit.” She turned toward the window and put her hands to her cheeks. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “It was Jeff, wasn’t it? Shit, shit, shit.”
“I didn’t admit anything,” Henry said, and felt immensely irritated. Loud pounding would commence immediately from out in the hall, he supposed, then shouting and kicking, and a terrible fistfight that would wreck the room. All this, just moments before he could make it to the airport. He considered again that he hadn’t admitted anything. “I didn’t admit anything,” he said again and felt foolish.
“I have to think,” Madeleine said. She looked pale and was patting her cheeks softly, as if this was a way of establishing order inside her head. It was theatrical, he thought. “I just have to be quiet a moment,” she said again.
Henry surveyed the cramped, odorless little room: the cluttered bed with the silver breakfast utensils, the crystal bud vase with a red rose, the dresser and the slightly dusty mirror, the armchair with a blue hydrangea print; two reproductions of Monet’s Water Lilies facing each other on featureless white walls. Nothing here foretold that things would work out perfectly and he would make his flight on time, or that none of that would happen. Here was merely a venue, a voiceless place with nothing consoling about it. He could remember when rooms felt better than this. Coming to Montreal had been peculiarly pointless — a vanity, and he was trapped in it. He thought what he often thought at moments when things went very bad — and this seemed bad: that he overreached. He always had. When you were young it was a good quality, it meant you were ambitious, headed upward. But when you were forty-nine, it wasn’t very good.
“I have to think where he might be.” Madeleine had turned and was staring at the phone as if her husband were inside it and threatening to burst out. It was one of those moments when Madeleine was not how she appeared: not the formal, reserved girl in Gibson Girl hair, but a kid in a bind, trying to dream up what to do. This was less intriguing.
“Maybe the lobby,” Henry said, while thinking the words: Jeff. A man lurking in the hall outside my door, waiting to come in and make mayhem. It was an extremely unpleasant thought, one that made him feel tired.
The telephone rang again, and Henry answered it.
“Let me speak to my wife, cockroach,” the same sneering voice said. “Can you pull out of her that long?”
“Who do you want?” Henry said.
“Let me speak to Madeleine, prick,” the man said.
The name Madeleine produced a tiny upheaval in his brain. “Madeleine’s not here,” Henry Rothman lied.
“Right. You mean she’s busy at the moment. I get it. Maybe I should call back.”
“Maybe you’ve made a mistake here,” Henry said. “I said Madeleine’s not here.”
“Is she sucking your dick,” the man said. “Imagine that. I’ll just wait.”
“I haven’t seen her,” Henry went on lying. “We had dinner last night. Then she went home.”
“Yep, yep, yep,” the man said and laughed sarcastically. “That was after she sucked your dick.”
Madeleine was still facing out the window, listening to one half of the conversation.
“Where are you?” Henry said, feeling disturbed.
“Why do you want to know that? You think I’m outside your door calling you on a cell phone?” He heard some metal-sounding clicks and scrapes on the line, and Jeff’s voice became distant and unintelligible. “Well, open the door and find out,” the man said, back in touch. “You might be right. Then I’ll kick your ass.”
“I’ll be happy to come talk to you,” Henry said, then stopped himself. Why say such a stupid thing? There was no need. He caught himself in the mirror just then, a large man in shirtsleeves and a tie, with a little bit of belly. It was embarrassing to be this man. He looked away.
“So, you want to come talk to me?” the man said, then laughed again. “You don’t have the nuts.”
“Sure I do,” Henry said miserably. “Tell me where you are. I’ve got the nerve.”
“Then I will kick your ass,” the man said in a haughty voice.
“Well, we’ll see.”
“Where’s Madeleine?” The man sounded deranged.
“I have no earthly idea.” It occurred to Henry that every single thing he was saying was a lie. That he had somehow brought into existence a situation in which there was not a shred of truth. How could that happen?
“Are you telling the truth?”
“Yes. I am,” he lied. “Now, where are you?”
“In my fucking car. I’m a block from your hotel, asshole.”
“I probably can’t find you there,” Henry said, looking at Madeleine staring at him. He had things back under control, or nearly. Just like that. He could tell in her expression — a pale face, with bleak admiration in it.
“I’ll be at your hotel in five minutes, Mr. big man,” Madeleine’s husband said.
“I’ll wait for you in the lobby,” Henry said. “I’m tall, and I’ll be wearing—”
“I know, I know,” the man said. “You’ll look like an asshole no matter what you’re wearing.”
“Okay,” Henry said.
The husband clicked off.
Madeleine had taken a seat on the arm of the blue-hydrangea chair, her hands clasped tightly. He felt a great deal older and also superior to her, largely, he understood, because she looked sad. He had taken care of things, as he always had.
“He thinks you’re not here,” Henry said. “So you’d better leave. I’m going to meet him downstairs. You have to find a back door out.” He started looking around for his suit coat.
Madeleine smiled at him almost wondrously.
“I appreciate your not telling him I’m here.”
“You are here,” Henry said. He forgot his coat and began looking for his billfold and his change, his handkerchief, his pocketknife, the collection of essential objects he carried. He would check out later. All of this was idiotic now.
“You’re not a bad man, are you?” she said sweetly. “Sometimes I’ll be alone, or I’ll be waiting for you, and I’ll just get mad and decide you’re a shit. But you really aren’t. You’re kind of brave. You sort of have principles.”
These words — principles, brave, shit, waiting — for some reason made him feel unexpectedly, heart-poundingly nervous, precisely when he didn’t want to feel nervous. He was not supposed to be nervous. He felt very large and cumbersome and almost frantic in the room with her. Not superior. He could just as easily start shouting at her. The fact that she was calm and pretty was intolerable.
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” he said, thinking again and suddenly about his suit coat, trying to calm himself.
“Yeah, sure,” Madeleine said, and reached to the side of the blue chair for her purse. She felt inside for keys without looking and produced a yellow plastic-springy car key loop, which seemed to make her stand up. “When will I see you?” she said and touched the bushed-up back of her hair. So changeable, he thought. “This is a little abrupt. I’d pictured something a little more poignant.”
“It’ll all be fine,” Henry said and manufactured a smile that calmed him.