The Two Hotel Francforts: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

has an English passport. And so in Bordeaux they could have boarded that ship if they’d wanted to—the one Churchill sent over to rescue the marooned Brits. They could have boarded that ship, in which case they’d be in London right now. Today. But they didn’t. And why? Because of the dog.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes! That’s it! The only reason! They don’t have any great yen to go to New York. She
told
me that—New York or London, it’s all the same to them. They’re nomads, she says. Yet they gave up the chance to sail to England, they put themselves through the hideous ordeal of getting all those visas and crossing Spain and coming here, and all because if they went to England, the dog would have to be quarantined. A fifteen-year-old dog! What do you think of that?”
    “Well—that they must really love that dog.”
    “Of course, I understand that for some women a dog can be a child substitute. Yet when you consider the circumstances—”
    “But Julia, it’s not as if their not going to England means that wecould have. You know perfectly well we couldn’t. They wouldn’t have let us on board.”
    “So you insist. You wouldn’t even try. How do you know they wouldn’t have?”
    “They know the law as well as we do.”
    “Even if we’d offered the captain money?”
    “An English captain? Please.”
    Her game having reached a stalemate, she gathered up her cards. “It just seems so unfair, that they should pass up a chance I’d kill for. And for the most ridiculous of reasons.”
    “Ridiculous to you, maybe.”
    “I challenge you to find a single person in Lisbon who wouldn’t agree that not going to England for the sake of a fifteen-year-old dog is ridiculous.”
    I didn’t answer that. I opened the window, which she had closed.
    “This room is filthy,” I said. “It stinks.”
    “The maid hasn’t been. The maids here are worthless—all they do is make the bed and change the towels, and that only when they feel like it. They don’t even pick up your clothes.”
    “And you can’t pick up your own clothes?”
    “Why should I? Why should I? We’re only here for another week. Ten days at the outside. I despise this hotel. I despise this city.”
    “Yet just this morning you were going on about wanting to stay here.”
    “Oh, I’d rather stay here than go back to New York, if it comes to it. Not that I have any choice in the matter. It seems I’m my husband’s slave.”
    “You’re not my slave. You can do whatever the hell you want.”
    “So what are you suggesting, that I stay on my own?”
    “Don’t be silly.”
    “No, I think that is what you’re suggesting. And you know what?I think it’s a fine idea. In fact, I can’t see any reason not to start packing right away, especially since you seem to find my personal habits so intolerable.”
    “I never said that.”
    “Well, don’t you worry. Soon I’ll be gone and you can keep the room just as tidy as you like.”
    “Julia, please—”
    “Excuse me.” She stood, pushed me out of the way, took her suitcase from the armoire, and began throwing into it all the clothes that were strewn about the room, the pots and jars, the solitaire cards, even the underwear hanging over the bath, though it wasn’t yet dry.
    “Julia, this is madness. You can’t stay here on your own. How will you live?”
    “I’ll get a job.”
    “But you don’t have papers. You can’t work without papers. And anyway, it’s not safe.”
    “It seems perfectly safe to me.”
    “For now, yes. But how long will that last? You’ve got to see, it could get terribly dangerous, even for us. Especially if we enter the war. In addition to which there’s the fact that you’re—”
    “What? Go on. Say it.”
    “All right. Jewish.”
    “And how are they supposed to find that out? It’s your name on the passport. Winters isn’t a Jewish name.”
    “Yes, but Julia, in Germany they’re making people
prove
they’re not Jewish. It could come to that