Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [24]
—Would you like one?
A man had emerged from the hospital and taken up a position a few feet to his right. It was one of the surgeons—the chief specialist who had performed the reconstructive surgery. Poised and friendly, he couldn’t have been more than forty-five years old. He must have been in between procedures because his smock was spotless. In his hand was a cigarette.
—Thanks, he said, accepting the offer for the first time in years.
An acquaintance had once remarked that if he ever quit smoking, he’d remember the last one better than all the rest. And it was true. It was on the platform of Providence Station, a few minutes before he’d boarded the train to New York. That was almost four years ago.
He put the cigarette to his lips and a hand in his pocket for his lighter, but the surgeon had beat him to it.
—Thanks, he said again, leaning toward the flame.
One of the nurses had mentioned to him that the surgeon had served in the war. He had been a young internist stationed near the front lines in France. You could tell. It was in his bearing. He looked like a man who had gained confidence through exposure to a hostile environment; like one who no longer owed anything to anyone.
The surgeon eyed him thoughtfully.
—When was the last time you went home?
When was the last time I went home, he thought to himself.
The surgeon didn’t wait for an answer.
—She may not come to for another three days. But when she does, she’ll need you at your best. You should go home and get some sleep; have a good meal; pour yourself a drink. And don’t worry. Your wife is in excellent hands.
—Thank you, he said.
A new taxi pulled up and took its place at the back of the line.
On Madison, there would be a line of taxis just like this one idling in front of the Carlyle. On Fifth Avenue, there would be another line in front of the Stanhope. In what city in the world were more taxis at your disposal? At every corner, at every awning they waited so that without a change of clothes or a second thought, without a word to anyone, you could be skirted away to Harlem or Cape Horn.
—. . . Though she’s not my wife.
The surgeon took his cigarette from his mouth.
—Oh. I’m sorry. A nurse led me to believe . . .
—We’re just friends.
—Why yes. Of course.
—We were in the accident together.
—I see.
—I was driving.
The surgeon said nothing.
A cab pulled away and the line of cabs advanced.
Oh—I’m sorry—Why yes—Of course—I see.
SPRINGTIME
CHAPTER FIVE
To Have & to Haven’t
It was an evening in late March.
My new apartment was a studio in a six-story walk-up on Eleventh Street between First and Second avenues. It looked out into a narrow court where the laundry lines were pulleyed between the windowsills. Despite the season, gray sheets floated five stories above the frozen ground like drab, unimaginative ghosts.
Across the court an old man in his underwear wandered back and forth in front of his window with a skillet. He must have been a janitor or a watchman because he was always frying meat fully dressed in the mornings and eggs in his skivvies at night. I poured myself a taste of gin and turned my undivided attention to a worn pack of cards.
On something of a whim, I had spent fifteen cents on a primer for contract bridge and it had quickly earned its keep. Any given Saturday, I could play from reveille to taps. I would deal out the deck at my little kitchen table and move from chair to chair so that I could play each of the four positions in turn. I invented a partner in the north seat—an aristocratic Brit whose reckless bidding complemented my cautious inexperience. Nothing pleased him more than to raise my bid injudiciously, forcing me to play a doubled game in a minor suit.
As if in response, the personalities of East and West began to assert themselves: On my left sat an old rabbi who remembered every card and on my right a retired Chicago mobster who remembered little, sized up well, and occasionally slammed through sheer force