Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje [42]
What he wanted was to simply look at that face that he couldn’t read at all. That face, the blond hair. It wasn’t the beauty, it was the variousness. Maybe in Vienna the woman might go unnoticed, but in Santa Maria she was this panther who came in and fit herself somehow between that chair and table near him every Monday and Friday, opposite a man who perhaps was an amateur magician in this semi-suburban California town—who sawed her in half in some unhealthy bar down the road. She leaned forward to whisper to the friend, or whatever he was.
Cooper went back to his room at the Santa Maria Inn, curious about her interests. He had to admit to himself that he knew nothing about her. He had not even caught the timbre in her voice. He simply arrived for dinner faithfully at eight o’clock before driving to his card games. And he ate those Spenser steaks cooked on the swimming-pool-sized outdoor grill at the back of Jocko’s—a medieval scene—the t-shirted staff guiding the meat with giant tongs. Then he played cards until three in the morning, as the twelve-ounce steak digested slowly within him.
One night he looked up and she was there, sitting alone. As his head rose, she turned towards him, and without thinking he gestured a greeting with his hand. She acknowledged it and he sat there not knowing what to do. Normally he would glance at the couple, who were so engrossed in conversation they were never aware of him. She moved her fork around, on and off the place-mat, which gave diners a history of the restaurant. Cooper’s eyes skimmed his own placemat. The saga had begun in 1886, when Emery Knotts opened a saloon. One of his eight sons was ‘Jocko’ Knotts, whose wife was the region’s first telephone operator. They had children called Pookie, Jissy, Noonie, and Beagle, they had white lightning during Prohibition, slot machines throughout the forties, and a card room for poker. ‘It was not unheard of for people to travel hundreds of miles to get to Jocko’s,’ the placemat read. ‘For years there was a monkey in the bar.…’
So—may I join you? She stood and brushed her skirt. He said nothing while she sat down opposite him.
Where’s your friend? he asked.
Oh, who knows. He probably won’t be here. She was still settling in. Her clear voice was inches away from him. There was an absence of perfume on her. A strange first reaction, but in most card lounges women were encased in it and men had their talcums and sprays.
She was mouthing something to herself, a little prayer or a chant perhaps. He would discover this was a habit. But now, this first time, he sat forward, quizzical, as if missing something she was trying to impart. ‘As I was motivatin’ over the hill … I saw Maybelline in a Coupe de Ville.’
I’m sorry?
Chuck Berry …
I played cards with him once, Cooper told her, when she’d identified the source of her lyrics.
Did he beat you?
No. He paused, to break it gently. No, I skunked him. He was not too bright about the game.
Who else?
Who else famous?
She nodded.
Oh, I don’t know. No one else. He had come across no one else as important as the singer and writer of ‘Maybelline’ in the card halls. As far as he knew, he had not dealt a pair of aces to Alfred Brendel.
They spoke haltingly, unable to find a subject that allowed a wide field of conversation. She said nothing about the relationship with her usual dinner partner, though she mentioned that he owned a hardware store. She was reading books on science, but no longer had a university connection. She travelled a lot. Her dad had been in the army, but she didn’t see him anymore. ‘I’ll have a Spenser,’ she told the waitress. And a glass of wine? She shook her head, she didn’t drink. Cooper had already noticed that. They threw little clues back and forth across the table until about nine-thirty, when he announced he had to go.
Oh.
Card game at the Guadalupe Dunes, west of here, with