Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [53]
Outside the hotel, the top-hatted doorman was helping a dashing pair into a cab. When they pulled away, he turned and caught my eye. He doffed his cap politely and stood back at attention—not bothering to signal the next cab in line. He had been doing his job too long to make an amateurish mistake like that.
When I got back to my apartment building, you could tell it was Wednesday because the blushing bride in 3B was running roughshod over her mother’s Bolognese. When she had transcribed the recipe, she must have written two heads of garlic instead of two cloves, because we’d all be wearing her home cooking for the rest of the week.
Letting myself in, I stood for a second at the kitchen table and sorted through my mail. At first glance, the selection looked as measly as usual, but tucked between two bills I found an airmail envelope, robin’s egg blue.
The handwriting was Tinker’s.
After rummaging, I found some unfinished wine and sampled it straight from the bottle. It tingled on the tongue like Sunday communion. I poured a glass, sat at my table and lit a cigarette.
The stamps on the envelope were English. One was the head of a statesman engraved in purple and the others were motorcars engraved in blue. It seemed like every country in the world had stamps of statesmen and motorcars. Where were the stamps of the elevator boys and hapless housewives? Of the six-story walk-ups and soured wine? I tamped out my cigarette and opened the letter. It was written on the tissue favored by Europeans.
Brixham, England, June 17
Dear Kate,
Every day since we sailed, one of us has remarked “Katey would love that!” Today it was my turn. . . .
In a nutshell, the letter described how Tinker and Eve, having decided to drive along the coast from Southampton to London, had ended up in a little fishing village. While Eve was resting in the hotel, Tinker went for a walk and at every turn saw the steeple of the old parish church, the tallest building in town. Eventually, he circled his way toward it.
Inside, the walls were painted white—like in a whaling church in New England.
In the first pew a mariner’s widow sat reading the hymnal. While well in the back, a bald-headed man with the physique of a wrestler wept beside a basket of berries.
Suddenly, a group of girls in uniform burst through the door laughing like gulls. The wrestler leapt up and chided them. They crossed themselves in the aisle and ran back outside as the bells overhead began to ring . . .
Really. Is there anything nice to be said about other people’s vacations? I balled up the letter and threw it in the trash. Then I picked up Great Expectations and turned back to Chapter XX.
My father was never much one for whining. In the nineteen years I knew him, he hardly spoke of his turn in the Russian army, or of making ends meet with my mother, or of the day that she walked out on us. He certainly didn’t complain about his health as it failed.
But one night near the end, as I was sitting at his bedside trying to entertain him with an anecdote about some nincompoop with whom I worked, out of the blue he shared a reflection which seemed such a non sequitur that I attributed it to delirium. Whatever setbacks he had faced in his life, he said, however daunting or dispiriting the unfolding of events, he always knew that he would make it through, as long as when he woke in the morning he was looking forward to his first cup of coffee. Only decades later would I realize that he had been giving me a piece of advice.
Uncompromising purpose and the search for eternal truth have an unquestionable sex appeal for the young and high-minded; but when a person loses the ability to take pleasure in the mundane—in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath—she has probably put herself in unnecessary danger. What my father was trying to tell me, as he neared the conclusion of his own course, was that this risk should not be treated lightly: One must be prepared to fight for one’s simple pleasures and