Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [96]
Drawn by other photographs, I continued past the staircase to the western end of the hall. The very last room was the one that Tinker had claimed. He was sleeping in the bottom of a bunk bed! There was a book on his bedside table too. With Hercule Poirot whispering in my ear, I ventured quietly in and picked it up. It was Walden. A five of clubs marked the reader’s progress—though from the colors of the underlinings you could tell it was at least a second reading.
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, , and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. . . .
The ghost of Henry David Thoreau frowned upon me, as well he should. I returned the book, tiptoed to the landing, and headed down the stairs.
I found Tinker in the kitchen frying ham and eggs in a big black skillet. Two places were set at a small kitchen table with a white enamel top. Somewhere in the house there must have been an oak table for twelve, because this little one couldn’t handle more than a cook, a governess, and three of the Wolcotts’ grandchildren.
Tinker’s outfit was embarrassingly similar to my own—khaki pants and a white shirt—though he was wearing heavy leather boots. After serving up the plates, he poured the coffee and sat across from me. He looked well. His skin had lost the pampered tan of the Mediterranean, taking on a rougher hue, and his hair had curled with the humidity of summer. The fact that his beard was a week old was to his advantage—having outgrown the appearance of a hangover but having yet to reach that of a Hatfield or McCoy. His demeanor reflected that same unhurried state that I had heard on the phone. He grinned at me as I ate.
—What? I said finally.
—I was just trying to picture you as a redhead.
—Sorry, I laughed. My redhead days have come and gone.
—It’s my loss. What was it like?
—I think it brought out the Mata Hari in me.
—We’ll have to lure her back.
Once we’d finished, cleared, and cleaned, Tinker slapped his hands together.
—What do you say we go for a hike?
—I’m not the hiking sort.
—Oh, I think that’s exactly what you are. You just don’t know it yet. And the view of the lake from Pinyon Peak is breathtaking.
—I hope you’re not going to be this insufferably upbeat all weekend. Tinker laughed.
—There’s a risk of it.
—Besides, I said, I didn’t bring any boots.
—Ah! So that’s it, is it?
On the other side of the family room, he led me down a hall past a billiard room and swung open a door with a flourish. Inside was a muck room with slickers on pegs and hats on shelves and boots of all shapes and sizes lined along the baseboard. From Tinker’s expression you would have thought he was Ali Baba revealing the riches of the forty thieves.
A trail behind the house led through a grove of pines into a deeper wood of oaks or elms or some other towering American timber. For the first hour, it was a gradual incline and we walked shoulder to shoulder through the shade at an easy pace, conversing like friends from youth for whom every exchange is an extension of the last, regardless of the passage of time.
We talked about Wallace, echoing each other’s affection for him. We also talked about Eve. I told him about her escape to California, and with a friendly laugh he said the news was surprising right up until the moment you heard it. He said that Hollywood had no idea what it was in for, and that within the year Eve would be either a movie star or a studio chief.