‘I don’t know if I’ll be able, being so depraved a drunkard as I am.’
He only wished to fight and cultivate an anger toward me, thus alleviating his guilt, but I would not abet him in this. I returned to the lobby (the candle, I noticed on my way down, had remained lit, the match untouched), where I found the woman behind her desk, reading a letter and smiling. Apparently this note brought welcome news, for she was in better spirits because of it and she greeted me, if not warmly, then not nearly as coldly as before. I asked to borrow a pair of scissors and a looking glass and she did not answer but offered to cut my hair for fifty cents, assuming this was my reason for needing the tools. I declined with thanks, explaining about my stitches; she asked if she might follow to my room and witness the gory procedure. When I told her I had hoped to spend some time apart from my brother she said, ‘That I can understand.’ Then she asked where I was planning to perform my minor surgery; when I admitted I had not thought about this, she invited me into her quarters.
‘Haven’t you some other pressing business?’ I asked. ‘You hadn’t a moment to spare, earlier this morning.’
Her cheek flushed, and she explained, ‘I’m sorry if I was short with you. My help disappeared last week and I’ve been losing sleep hoping to keep up. Also there has been a sickness in my family that I have been anxious to know about.’ She tapped the letter and nodded.
‘All is well then?’
‘Not all but most.’ With this, she invited me behind her sacred counter and I followed her through the beaded curtain and into her private world. The beads felt lovely and tickling on my face, and I experienced a shudder of happiness at this. It is true, I thought. I am living a life.
Chapter 17
Her room was not the room I would have imagined, if I had had time to imagine her room, which I did not. But there were no flowers and niceties, no silk or perfume, no lady things hung with a lady’s decorative hand; there were no volumes of poetry, no vanity and brush set; there were no lace-edged pillows featuring heartening proverbs meant to calm the spirit in times of distress or else lead us through the monotony of endlessly redundant days with their succoring words and tones. No, her room was a low-ceilinged bunker, without any windows or natural light, and as it was located just next to the kitchen and laundry it smelled of grease and brown water and moldy soap flakes. She must have noticed my dismayed expression, for she became shy, and said quietly that she did not suppose I was impressed with her quarters; this naturally sent me falling over myself to praise the room, which I told her gave one the feeling of safety by way of impenetrability and also that it was perfectly private. She said my words were kindly spoken but not necessary. The room was lacking, she knew this, but she would have to put up with it for only a short while longer, for owing to the constant stream of prospectors she was doing a remarkable business. ‘Six more months, then I will move into the finest room in this hotel.’ The way she spoke this last sentence informed me it was a significant ambition for her.
‘Six months is a long time,’ I said.
‘I have waited longer for less.’
‘I wish there was some way I could hurry it along for you.’
She puzzled over this. ‘What a strange thing to tell a stranger,’ she said.
Now she guided me to a small pine table, propping a looking glass before me. My overlarge face leapt into view, which I studied with my usual mixture of curiosity and pity. She fetched me a pair of scissors and I took them up, holding the blades between my palms to warm them. Tilting the glass so that I could watch myself working, I snipped at the knotted stitching and began pulling away the black string from my mouth. It did not hurt but vaguely burned, as when a rope is run through your hands. It was too early to have removed the stitches and the string was coated in blood. I stacked the pieces in a pile at my feet and afterward burned these, as their smell was ungodly. Once this was finished I elected to show the woman my new toothbrush and powder, which I had in my vest pocket. She became excited by the suggestion, for she was also a recent convert to this method, and she hurried to fetch her equipment that we might brush simultaneously. So it was that we stood side by side at the wash basin, our mouths filling with foam, smiling as we worked. After we finished there was an awkward moment where neither of us knew what to say; and when I sat upon her bed she began looking at the door as if wishing to leave.
‘Come sit beside me,’ I said. ‘I would like to talk to you.’
‘I should be getting back to my work.’
‘Am I not a guest here? You must entertain me, or I will write reproachful letters to the chamber of commerce.’
‘Oh, all right.’ Gathering her dress in her hands as she sat, she asked, ‘What would you like to talk about?’
‘Anything in the world. What about the letter, the one that made you smile? Who in your family was sick?’
‘My brother, Pete. He was kicked in the chest by a mule but they tell me he’s healing nicely. Mother says you can make out the hoof shape quite clearly.’
‘He is lucky. That would have been a most undignified death.’
‘Death is death.’
‘You are wrong. There are many kinds of death.’ I counted them off on my fingers: ‘Quick death, slow death. Early death, late death. Brave death, cowardly death.’
‘Anyway, he’s weakened. I will send a letter inviting him to work with me.’
‘You are close with your brother?’ I said.
‘We are twins,’ she answered. ‘We have always had a strong connection. I think of him sometimes and it is just as though he is in the room with me. The night he was kicked I awoke with a red mark over my breast. I suppose that sounds odd.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘I believe I must have hit myself in my sleep,’ she explained.
‘Oh.’
‘Is that man upstairs really your brother?’
‘Yes.’
She said, ‘You two are very different, aren’t you? He is not bad, I don’t think. Perhaps he is simply too lazy to be good.’
‘Neither of us is good, but he is lazy, it’s true. When he was a boy he would not wash until my mother actually wept.’
‘What is your mother like?’
‘She was very smart, and very sad.’
‘When did she die?’
‘She did not die.’
‘But you said she was very smart.’
‘I guess I only meant—well, she won’t see us, if you want to know the truth. She is not happy with our work, and says she will not speak with us until we have found some other form of employment.’
‘And what is it you two do?’
‘We are Eli and Charlie Sisters.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh, my.’
‘My father is dead. He was killed, and deserved to be killed.’
‘All right,’ she said, standing.
I gripped her hand. ‘What is your name? I suppose you have a man already? Yes or no?’ But she was edging toward the door and said she had not a minute longer to spare. I stood and moved in close to her, asking if I might steal a kiss, but she claimed once again to be hurried. I pressed her for details in respect to her feelings for me, if in fact she had any; she answered that she did not know me well enough to say, and admitted a preference for slight men, or at least men not quite as heavyset as me. She was not saying it to be cruel but the effects of her words stung me, and after she stole away I stood a long while before her looking glass, studying my profile, the line I cut in this world of men and ladies.
Chapter 18
I avoided Charlie all that afternoon and evening. I returned to our room after dinner and found him sleeping, the morphine bottle toppled and empty on the floor. In the morning we ate breakfast together in our room, or he ate breakfast, as I had resolved to cease filling myself so gluttonously, that I might trim my middle down to a more suitable shape and weight. Charlie was groggy but glad, and wanted to make friends with me. Pointing his knife at my face he asked, ‘Remember how you got your freckles?’