It was said of Tignor that he trusted no one.
It was said of Tignor that he’d once killed a man. Maybe it was self-defence. With his bare hands, his fists. A tavern fight, in the Adirondacks. Or had it been Port Oriskany, in the winter of 1938 to 1939 during the infamous brewery wars.
“If you’re a man, you don’t want to mess with Tignor. If you’re a woman…”
Rebecca smiled thinking But he wouldn’t hurt me. There is a special feeling between him and me.
It was said that Tignor wasn’t a native of the region. He had been born over in Crown Point, north of Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, his ancestor was General Adams Tignor who had fought to a draw the British general John Burgoyne, in 1777, when Fort Ticonderoga was burnt to the ground by the departing British army.
No: Tignor was a native of the region. He’d been born in Port Oriskany, one of a number of illegitimate sons of Esdras Tignor who was a Democratic party official in the 1920s involved in smuggling whiskey from Ontario, Canada, into the United States during Prohibition, gunned down in a Port Oriskany street by competitors in 1927…
It was said of Tignor that you must not approach the man, you must wait for him to approach you.
31
“Somebody wants to meet you, Rebecca. If you’re the ”black-haired Gypsy-looking chambermaid‘ who works on the fifth floor.“
This was the first Rebecca heard, that Niles Tignor was interested in her. Amos Hrube with his smirky, insinuating smile.
Later that day, Mulingar, beefy and mustached, bartender in the Tap Room. “R’becca! Got a friend who’d like to meet you, next time he’s in town.”
It was Colleen Donner, a switchboard operator at the hotel, a new friend of Rebecca’s, who made the arrangements. Tignor would be in town the last week of October. He would be staying at the hotel for just two nights.
At first Rebecca could not speak. Then she said yes, yes I will.
She was sick with apprehension. But she would go through with it. For she loved Niles Tignor, at a distance. There was no man Rebecca had loved in all her life, and she loved Niles Tignor.
“Only I know. I know him.”
So she consoled herself. In her loneliness, she was fervent to believe. For Jesus Christ had long since ceased to appear to her, wraith-like and seductive in the corner of her eye.
Since leaving Miss Lutter, Rebecca had ceased to think of Jesus Christ, altogether.
Let the girl go, fucker.
I’ll break your ass.
This loud furious voice she heard almost continuously. In her thoughts it was always present. Cleaning rooms, pushing her maid’s cart, smiling to herself, avoiding the eyes of strangers. Miss? Miss? Excuse me, miss? But Rebecca was courteous and evasive. All men she kept at a distance as she kept her distance from all hotel guests, including women, whom she could not trust, in their authority over her. For it was the prerogative of any hotel guest to accuse any member of the staff of rudeness, poor performance, theft.
Let the girl go…
She was dreamy, and she was agitated. She was unaccountably excited, and she was stricken with an almost erotic lassitude. She had never been involved with any boy or man, until now. At the high school, there had been boys who were attracted to her, but only crudely, sexually. For she’d been the gravedigger’s daughter, from outside Milburn. She’d been a Quarry Road girl, like Katy Greb.
When she thought of Niles Tignor, she felt a cruel, voluptuous sensation pass over her. Of course, she hadn’t known his name at the time he had entered Baumgarten’s room and yet somehow she had known him. She wanted to think that they had exchanged a glance at the time. I know you, girl. I have come here for you.
That day, a Friday in October 1953, Rebecca worked her eight-hour shift at the hotel. Not tired! Not tired at all. Returned to Ferry Street, bathed, shampooed her hair, brushed and brushed her long wavy hair that fell past her shoulders, halfway down her back. Katy gave her a tube of lipstick, to smear on her mouth: bright peony-red. “Christ, you look good. Like Ruth Roman.” Rebecca laughed, she had only a vague idea who the film actress Ruth Roman was. She said, “”Ruth‘-“Rebecca.” Maybe we’re sisters.“ She wore a lime-green sweater that fit her bust tightly, and a gray flannel skirt that fell to mid-calf, a ”tailored“ skirt as a salesgirl at Norban’s described it. LaVerne gave her a little silk scarf to tie around her neck, such ”neckerchiefs“ were in vogue.
Stockings! Rebecca had a pair without a run. And high-heeled black leather shoes, she’d bought for $7.98, for the occasion.
She met Colleen outside the rear entrance of the hotel. As employees, they would not have dared to enter through the lobby.
Colleen scolded, “Rebecca! Don’t look like you’re going to some damn funeral, try to smile. Nothing’s gonna happen to you, you don’t want to happen.”
It was early evening, and the Tap Room was beginning to fill. At once Rebecca saw Niles Tignor at the bar: a tall broad-backed man with peculiar, nickel-colored hair that seemed to lift from his head. He surprised her, for he stood at the bar with other, ordinary men.
She stared, suddenly frightened. It was a mistake, meeting him. Here was not the man she remembered, exactly. Here was a man whose booming laughter she could hear across the room, above the din of men’s voices.
He was talking with the men at the bar, he’d taken not the slightest interest in Colleen and Rebecca who were approaching slowly. The symmetry of his face seemed wrong, as if the bones beneath the skin had been broken, and one side had set higher than the other. His skin looked heated, the hue of red clay. He was larger than Rebecca remembered: his face, his head, his shoulders, his torso that resembled a barrel in which the staves were horizontal and not vertical, a rib cage dense with muscle. Yet he wore a sport coat, dull gray with darker stripes, that fitted him tightly in the shoulders. He wore dark trousers, and a white shirt open at the throat.
Rebecca was pulling at Colleen’s arm, weakly. But Colleen, trying to get the attention of her friend Mulingar, behind the bar, pushed her off.
It was a mistake, yet it would happen. Rebecca felt the crust of lipstick on her mouth, bright and smiling as a clown’s mouth.
Tignor was a man to hold the attention of other men, you could see. He was telling a story, just concluding a story, the others listened intently, already beginning to laugh. At the ending, which might have been unexpected, there was explosive laughter. Six, seven men including the bartender were gathered around Tignor. At this moment, Mulingar glanced around to see Colleen and Rebecca, girls alone in the Tap Room, amid so many men, and beginning to draw attention. Mulingar winked at Colleen, and signaled her to come closer. He leaned over to speak into Tignor’s ear, smiling his sly, lewd smile.
Tignor, however, broke off his conversation with the other men, and turned to see them. Immediately, smiling, his hand extended, he approached them.
“Girls! H’lo.”
He was squinting at them. At Rebecca. The way a hunter squints along a rifle barrel. Rebecca who was smiling felt a rush of blood into her face, a hemorrhage of blood. Only dimly could she see, her vision was blurred.
Colleen and Niles Tignor spoke, animatedly. Through the roaring in her ears Rebecca heard her name, and felt the man’s grasp, tight, very warm, gripping her hand and releasing it.
“”R’becca.“ H‘lo.”
Tignor escorted the girls to a booth in another part of the tavern, where it was quieter. Close by was a large fieldstone fireplace in which birch logs were burning.