They sipped the champagne. There was a diagonal red line on the label. Boylan made an approving face. “One can always be assured of the best in Nellie’s place,” he said. “She would be hurt if she knew that I called her establishment a brothel. I think she thinks of it as a kind of salon where she can exercise her limitless sense of hospitality for the benefit of her many gentlemen friends. Don’t think all whore houses are like this, pet. You’ll only be in for a disappointment.” He was still smarting from the tussle over the bottle and he was getting his own back. “Nellie’s is one of the last hangovers from a more gracious era, before the Century of the Common Man and Common Sex engulfed us all. If you develop a taste for bordellos ask me for the proper addresses, pet. You might find yourself in terribly sordid places otherwise, and we wouldn’t want that, would we? Do you like the champagne?”
“It’s all right,” Gretchen said. She seated herself once more on the bed, holding herself together rigidly.
Without warning, the mirror lit up. Somebody had turned on a switch in the next room. The mirror was revealed as a one-way window through which Boylan and Gretchen could see what was going on next door to them. The light in the next room came from a lamp hanging from the ceiling, its brightness subdued by a thick silk shade.
Boylan glanced at the mirror. “Ah,” he said, “the orchestra is tuning up.” He took the bottle of champagne from the bucket and came over and sat down on the bed beside Gretchen. He set the bottle on the floor next to him.
Through the mirror, they could see a tall young woman with long blonde hair. Her face was pretty enough, with the pouting, greedy, starlet expression of a spoiled child. But when she threw off the pink, frilly negligee she was wearing, she revealed a magnificent body with long, superb legs. She never even glanced toward the mirror, although the routine must have been familiar to her, and she knew she was being watched. She threw back the covers on the bed and let herself fall back on it, all her movements harmonious and unaffected. She lay there, waiting, content to let hours go past, days, lazily allowing herself to be admired. Everything passed in utter silence. No sound came through the mirror.
“Some more champagne, pet?” Boylan asked. He lifted the bottle.
“No, thank you.” Gretchen found it difficult to speak.
The door opened and a young Negro came into the other room.
Oh, the bastard, Gretchen thought, oh the sick, revengeful bastard. But she didn’t move.
The young Negro said something to the girl on the bed. She waved a little in greeting and smiled a baby-beauty-contest-winner’s smile. Everything happened on the other side of the mirror in pantomime and gave an air of remoteness, of unreality, to the two figures in the other room. It was falsely reassuring, as though nothing serious could happen there.
The Negro was dressed in a navy-blue suit and white shirt and a dotted red bow-tie. He had on sharply pointed light-brown shoes. He had a nice, young, smiling “Yes, suh” kind of face.
“Nellie has a lot of connections in night clubs up in Harlem,” Boylan said as the Negro began to undress, hanging his jacket neatly on the back of a chair. “He’s probably a trumpet player or something in one of the bands, not unwilling to make an extra buck of an evening, entertaining the white folk. A buck for a buck.” He chuckled briefly at his own mot. “You sure you don’t want some more to drink?”
Gretchen didn’t answer. The Negro started to unbutton his pants. She closed her eyes.
When she opened her eyes the man was naked. His body was the color of bronze, with gleaming skin, wide, sloping muscular shoulders, a tapering waist, like an athlete at the height of training. The comparison with the man beside her made her rage.
The Negro moved across the room. The girl opened her arms to receive him. Lightly as a cat, he dropped down onto the long white body. They kissed, and her hands clutched at his back. Then he rolled over and she began to kiss him, first on the throat, then his nipples, slowly and expertly, while her hand caressed his mounting penis. The blonde hair tangled over the coffee-colored gleaming skin, went down lower as the girl licked the tight skin over the flat muscles of the man’s belly and he tautened convulsively.
Gretchen watched, fascinated. She found it beautiful and fitting, a promise to herself that she could not formulate in words. But she could not watch it with Boylan at her side. It was too unjust, filthily unjust, that these two magnificent bodies could be bought by the hour, like animals in a stable, for the pleasure or perversity or vengeance of a man like Boylan.
She stood up, her back to the mirror. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” she said.
“It’s just beginning, pet,” Boylan said mildly. “Look what she’s doing now. After all, this is really for your instruction. You’ll be very popular with the …”
“I’ll see you in the car,” she said, and ran out of the room and down the stairs.
The woman in the white dress was standing near the hall doorway. She said nothing, although she smiled sardonically as she opened the door for Gretchen.
Gretchen went and sat in the car. Boylan came out fifteen minutes later, walking unhurriedly. He got into the car and started the motor. “It’s a pity you didn’t stay,” he said. “They earned their hundred dollars.”
They drove all the way back without a word. It was nearly light when he stopped the car in front of the bakery. “Well,” he said after the hours of silence, “did you learn anything tonight?”
“Yes,” she said. “I must find a younger man. Good night.”
She heard the car turn around as she unlocked the door. As she climbed the stairs, she saw the light streaming from the open door of her parents’ bedroom, across from hers. Her mother was sitting upright on a wooden chair, staring out at the hallway. Gretchen stopped and looked at her mother. Her mother’s eyes were those of a madwoman. It could not be helped. Mother and daughter stared at each other.
“Go to bed,” the mother said. “I’ll call the Works at nine o’clock to say you’re sick, you won’t be in today.”
She went into her room and closed the door. She didn’t lock it because there were no locks on any of the doors in the house. She took down her copy of Shakespeare. The eight one-hundred-dollar bills were no longer between Acts II and III of As You Like It. Still neatly folded in the envelope, they were in the middle of Act V of Macbeth.
Chapter 5
There were no lights on in the Boylan house. Everybody was downtown celebrating. Thomas and Claude could see the rockets and roman candles that arched into the night sky over the river and could hear the booming of the little cannon that was used at the high-school football games when the home team scored a touchdown. It was a clear, warm night and from the vantage point on the hill, Port Philip shimmered brightly, with every light in town turned on.
The Germans had surrendered that morning.
Thomas and Claude had wandered around town with the crowds, watching girls kissing soldiers and sailors in the streets and people bringing out bottles of whiskey. Throughout the day Thomas grew more and more disgusted. Men who had dodged the draft for four years, clerks in uniform who had never been more than a hundred miles away from home, merchants who had made fortunes off the black market, all kissing and yelling and getting drunk as though they, personally, had killed Hitler.
“Slobs,” he had said to Claude, as he watched the celebrants. “I’d like to show ’em.”
“Yeah,” Claude said. “We ought to have a little celebration of our own. Our own private fireworks.” He had been thoughtful after that, not saying anything, as he watched his elders cavorting. He took off his glasses and chewed on an earpiece, a habit of his when he was preparing a coup. Thomas recognized the signs, but braced himself against anything rash. This was no time for picking on soldiers and any kind of fight, even with a civilian, would be a wrong move today.