Story

6

"We'd just had a fight," Lewis said. "We didn't have many, and when we had one I was usually wrong. This time it was because I fired one of the maids. She was just a girl from the country around Malaga. I can't even remember her name anymore, but she was a crank, or so I thought." He cleared his throat and leaned toward the fire. "The reason was that she was all caught up in the occult. She believed in magic, evil spirits-Spanish peasant spiritualism. That didn't bother me enough to fire her, even though she spooked some of the help by seeing omens in everything. Birds on the lawn, unexpected rain, a broken glass-all omens. The reason I fired her was that she refused to clean one of the rooms."

"It is a pretty damn good reason," Otto said.

"I thought so too. But Linda thought I was being hard on the girl. She'd never refused to clean the room before. The girl was upset by the guests, said they were bad or something. It was crazy."

Lewis took another slug of the brandy, and Otto added a branch to the fire. Flossie came nearer and lay with her hindquarters close to the flames.

"Were these guests Spanish, Lew-iss?"

"Americans. A woman from San Francisco named Florence de Peyser and a little girl, her niece. Alice Montgomery. A cute little girl about ten. And Mrs. de Peyser had a maid who traveled with her, a Mexican-American woman named Rosita. They stayed in a big suite at the top of the hotel. Really, Otto, you couldn't imagine people less spooky than those three. Of course, Rosita could have kept the suite clean and probably did, but it was our girl's job to go in there once a day and she refused, so I fired her. Linda wanted me to change the schedule around and let one of the other girls do it."

Lewis stared into the fire. "People heard us fighting about it and that was rare too. We were out in the rose garden, and I guess I yelled. I thought it was a matter of principle. So did Linda. Of course. I was stupid. I should have switched the schedule like Linda wanted. But I was too stubborn-in a day or two, she would have swung me around to her point of view, but she didn't live long enough." Lewis bit off a piece of the sausage and for a time chewed silently without tasting. "Mrs. de Peyser invited us to dinner in the suite that same night. Most nights we ate by ourselves and stayed out of people's way, but now and then a guest would invite us to join them for lunch or dinner. I thought Mrs. de Peyser was extending herself to be gracious, and I accepted for us.

"I should not have gone. I was very tired-exhausted. I'd been working hard all day. Besides arguing with Linda, I had helped load two hundred cases of wine into the storeroom in the morning, and then I played obligation games in a tennis tournament all afternoon. Two doubles matches. What I really needed was a quick snack and then bed, but we went up to the suite around nine. Mrs. de Peyser gave us drinks, and then we had arranged with the waiter that the meal was to be brought up around a quarter to ten. Rosita would serve it, and the waiter could go back to the dining room.

"Well, I had one drink and felt woozy. Florence de Peyser gave me another, and all I was fit for was trying to make conversation with Alice. She was a lovely little girl, but she never spoke unless you asked her a question. She was suffocated by good manners, and so passive that you thought she was simple-minded. I gathered that her parents had shunted her off onto her aunt for the summer.

"Later I wondered if my drink had been drugged. I began to feel odd, not sick or drunk exactly, but dissociated. Like I was floating above myself. But Florence de Peyser, who had given us a jaunt on her yacht-well, it was just impossible. Linda noticed that I wasn't feeling well, but Mrs. de Peyser pooh-poohed her. And of course I said I felt fine.

"We sat down to eat. I managed to get down a few bites, but I did feel very light-headed. Alice said nothing during the meal, but looked at me shyly from time to time, smiling as if I were an unusual treat. That was not how I felt. In fact, it may have been only alcohol on top of weariness. My senses were screwy-my fingers felt numb, and my jaw, and the colors in the room seemed paler than I knew they were-I couldn't taste the food at all.

"After dinner, her aunt sent Alice to bed. Rosita served cognac, which I didn't touch. I was able to talk, I know, and I may have seemed normal to anyone but Linda, but all I wanted to do was get to bed. The suite, large as it was, seemed to tighten down over me-over the three of us at the table. Mrs. de Peyser kept us there, talking. Rosita melted away.

"Then the child called me from her room. I could hear her voice saying 'Mr. Benedikt, Mr. Benedikt,' over and over again, very softly. Mrs. de Peyser said 'Would you mind? She likes you very much.' Sure, I said, I'd be happy to say good night to the girl, but Linda stood up before I could and said, 'Darling, you're too tired to move. Let me go.' 'No,' said Mrs. de Peyser. The child wants him.' But it was too late. Linda was already going toward the girl's bedroom.

"And then it was too late for everything. Linda went into the bedroom and a second later I knew something was horribly wrong. Because there wasn't any noise. I had heard the child half-whispering when she called to me, and I should have heard Linda speaking to her.

It was the loudest silence of my life. I was aware, fuzzy as I was, of Mrs. de Peyser staring at me. That silence ticked on. I stood up and began to go toward the bedroom.

"Linda began to shriek before I got halfway. They were terrible shrieks… so piercing…" Lewis shook his head. "I banged open the door and burst in just as I heard the noise of breaking glass. Linda was frozen in the window, glass showering all over. Then she was gone. I was too shocked and terrified even to call out. For a second I couldn't move. I looked at the girl, Alice. She was standing on her bed with her back flattened against the wall. For a second-for less than a second-I thought she was smirking at me.

"I ran to the window. Alice started sobbing behind me. It was much too late to help Linda, of course. She was lying dead, way down on the patio. A little crowd of people who had come out of the dining room for the evening air stood around her body. Some of them looked up and saw me leaning out of the broken window. A woman from Yorkshire screamed when she saw me."

"She thought you had pushed her," Otto said.

"Yes. She made a lot of trouble for me with the police. I could have spent the rest of my life in a Spanish jail."

"Lew-iss, couldn't this Mrs. de Peyser and the liddle girl explain what really happened?"

"They checked out. They were booked for another week, but while I was making statements to the police, they packed up and left."

"But didn't the police try to find them?"

"I don't know. I never found them again. And I'll tell you a funny thing, Otto. The story has a joke ending. When she checked out, Mrs. de Peyser paid with an American Express card. She made a little speech to the desk clerk too-said she was sorry to go, that she wished she could do something to help me, but that it was impossible, after the shock she and Alice had had, for them to stay on. A month later we heard from American Express that the card was invalid. The real Mrs. de Peyser was dead, and the company could not honor any debts on her account." Lewis actually laughed. One of the sticks in the fire tumbled down onto the coals, showering sparks out over the snow. "She stiffed me," he said, and laughed again. "Well, what do you think of that story?"

"I think it is a very American sort of story," Otto said, "You must have asked the child what happened- at least what made her stand up on the bed."

"Did I! I grabbed her and shook her. But she just cried. Then I carried her over to her aunt and got downstairs as fast as I could. I never had another chance to talk to her. Otto, why did you say it was an American sort of story?"

"Because, my good friend, everyone in your story is haunted. Even the credit card was haunted. Most of all the teller. And that, my friend, is echt Amerikanisch."

"Well, I don't know," said Lewis. "Look, Otto, I sort of feel like going off by myself for a little while. I'll just wander around for a few minutes. Do you mind?"

"Are you going to take your fancy rifle?"

"No. I'm not going to kill anything."

"Take poor Flossie along."

"Fine. Come on, Flossie."

The dog jumped up, all alertness again, and Lewis, who was now really unable to sit still or to pretend in any way that he was unaffected by the feelings which had sprung out at him from his memories, walked off into the woods.