trader?’ I was on the verge of dozing off. I really ought to go up to my room, I thought. Take a shower and go to sleep, but I was afraid of the thoughts that would descend on me once I was alone.
Olivier laughed.
‘Not everybody believes that, but Patrick thought it was logical. The slave trader was another side of the poet, a shadow, or some sort of innate soul that most people didn’t want to acknowledge, though he did exist, believing in his own superiority.’ He touched the little cross he wore around his neck, sliding it back and forth on its chain. ‘I don’t know if I’m explaining things very well.’
‘You speak fantastic English,’ I said, trying to picture Patrick sitting here having an intense discussion. Slave trade or slavery was clearly the red thread. But I realized that I was much too tired to think.
Olivier kept on talking about Patrick, praising his French pronunciation, which was unusually good for an American. Patrick had studied French in high school and continued taking classes at Columbia University. He was practically in love with the language. Whenever he had the chance, he’d bring home DVDs of French films, but I’d always fall asleep watching them.
‘Did he have any visitors while he was staying here?’ I asked.
‘Yes. It’s well known that he had a relationship with the poet Verlaine.’
‘No. I mean Patrick.’
The clerk looked away, still fingering his silver cross. ‘There are so many people coming and going …’
Suddenly I’d had enough of all this small talk. It was now or never.
‘My husband didn’t come back to New York,’ I said. ‘No one has heard from him since he checked out of this hotel. That’s why I’m here.’
Olivier stood up abruptly and stared at me. I could feel my anxiety rising. By tomorrow word would have spread through the entire hotel, and then it was just a matter of time before something appeared in the newspapers too. And the man and woman in the Peugeot would be back.
‘Please don’t say anything to anyone. He’s probably on the trail of some big story, and that’s why we haven’t heard from him.’ I lowered my voice. ‘Do you remember him getting a phone call, late at night, on a Friday, almost two weeks ago? Were you working that night?’
Olivier frowned and then nodded hesitantly. ‘Yes, I was here. And I do remember it. The man who called sounded very upset. But I don’t know what it was about. I just connected him to room 43. I thought it might have something to do with Monsieur Cornwall’s job.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve always dreamed of writing.’
‘Do you know where the man was calling from?’ I asked. ‘Could you find out?’
‘No. To do that, we’d have to contact the phone company. And I think the police would have to be—’
‘Never mind,’ I said. Asking the police to trace a call from one of Patrick’s sources was definitely out of the question.
‘Could you help me make a reservation at the Taillevent for tomorrow?’ I said. ‘There are a few things I want to check on at the restaurant.’
‘Certainly.’ Olivier went behind the counter, tapped the keyboard to wake up his computer, and then found the home page of the restaurant. Photographs appeared on the screen. The price of dinner was 140 euros.
‘That’s crazy,’ I said.
‘Lunch is cheaper,’ said Olivier. ‘It’s only 80 euros.’
Only, I thought. But I asked him to make a lunch reservation for the next day. On my way upstairs I happened to think of something, and turned around.
‘By the way,’ I said. ‘Make the reservation under the name Alena Sarkanova.’
The desk clerk looked up.
‘That was my maiden name,’ I told him.
Alena Sarkanova had nothing to lose. She managed fine on her own. Didn’t go begging for love. That’s who I was before Patrick. After we got married I shed my old name like a snake sheds its skin.
I got into the shower and let the hot water run down my body. Sarkanova was my mother’s surname. I had no idea what my father’s name was. I didn’t even know if he was alive. Mama had never wanted to talk about him, and by now she’d been dead for years.
On several occasions I’d rummaged through her papers, looking for a name, a photograph. Anything that might prove it was him I took after. I never found anything. She had erased him from her life. As a teenager I had fantasized that he was searching for me all over the world. One day a letter would arrive. Or I’d see a missing person notice on TV. One day he’d be standing at the front door, telling me how he’d risked his life to escape the Iron Curtain and find his beloved daughter.
‘Stop those stupid fantasies of yours,’ shouted my mother. I could still hear her voice ringing in my head. ‘He ran off. Don’t you get it? Because he didn’t want to take care of a fucking kid.’
‘That’s not true!’ I screamed back at her. ‘He ended up in prison. You told me that yourself.’
‘Lies,’ she muttered. ‘Lies, all lies.’
‘At least tell me his name,’ I pleaded.
‘Then you’ll just try to find him,’ she said.
‘How could I do that if he died in prison?’
‘We don’t know if that’s what happened.’
‘But that’s what you told me.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
We went around and around. I no longer knew what she’d said or what I’d imagined. I had only one clear memory from my childhood in Prague.
I’m sitting on the steps outside a door, and I’m three years old. It’s evening. A single lamp is shining from a post, turning the yard a murky greyish yellow. There are no sharp contours. A few trash cans nearby, and an old bicycle leaning against the wall. My legs and hands are freezing. I’m just sitting there, wearing thin, light blue pyjamas and brown shoes with laces. Mama is calling me from the stairwell. ‘Come in now, girl,’ she shouts. ‘If you don’t come inside, I’m going to lock the door and you’ll have to stay out there all night.’
But I don’t go inside because I’m waiting for Papa.
Then I hear her footsteps. They’re echoing, becoming an entire flock of footsteps, and the door behind me opens and Mama grabs my arm hard, lifting me up. I’m dangling in the air like a rag. ‘Come inside this minute,’ she yells.
I kick and squirm to get free, crying ‘Ne, ne.’ I shout, ‘I have to wait for Papa. He’ll be here soon.’
‘Look at me,’ she bellows, but I squeeze my eyes shut. ‘He’s not coming back,’ she says. ‘Don’t you understand?’ And then she drags me up the steps, making my legs thump against the stone floor. The sound of the door slamming reverberates in the stairwell.
And
