The Two Hotel Francforts: A Novel by David Leavitt Read Free Book Online

one, and God knows, there are thousands of hotels in New York. Yet somehow the manager was expecting her, knew her name, and told her that he had no rooms. Horrified, she fled to another hotel—and here too the manager was expecting her, knew her name, and told her that he had no rooms.
    This episode Julia interpreted as follows: her mother, having foreseen which hotels she was going to try—having foreseen this even before Julia had tried them—had telephoned to warn the managers that her daughter was on the way, and that she was not about to pay her bill.
    I laughed. I suggested this was silly.
    Julia was not amused.
    “Perhaps she employs spies,” I said.
    “She doesn’t need to,” Julia said.
    I decided that I would go to see her mother myself. I would tell Mrs. Loewi that I intended to marry her daughter no matter what. Even without the family’s blessing, I would marry her. Even if they disowned her, I would marry her. I did not tell Julia about this plan. I knew she would try to stop me. At the Loewi apartment, an elderlymanservant showed me into the dining room. Though the room overlooked Central Park, the curtains were drawn, as if to prove that a view was something the family could afford to ignore. The table was long, with ornate and uncomfortable chairs. Mrs. Loewi was waiting for me. She struck me as an exceedingly old-fashioned lady, with manners that dated, like her clothes, from the last century. She sat at the head of the table. I sat directly to her right. We drank tea. All through my speech, she kept her plump hands folded in front of her. Her face was impassive. At last I stopped speaking. A few seconds passed, and then she said this one clear sentence: “I beg you to reconsider.” That was all. Her voice was higher than I had expected, less forceful, more girlish. I waited for something more. Nothing came. I was taken aback. I had expected demurrals, threats, at the very least the offer of a bribe that I could gallantly refuse—instead of which, here was this one brief advisory, uttered dispassionately, as if from a sense of duty. Eventually I stood. She stood. Upright, she was even shorter than Julia, though stouter. She might have come up to my elbow. She led me to the door, where she shook my hand. For the first and only time, I looked into her eyes. And what did I see there? Compassion. Relief. A smidgen of cunning.
    In the vestibule, I called for the elevator. On the way down, the attendant gave me what I considered an impertinent look. In the lobby the doorman, having ushered me into the revolving door, pushed it so hard that I stumbled out the other side. I would have fallen had a passerby not caught me. I was sure it was deliberate. I did not, however, go back in and punch the doorman in the jaw. Instead I hurried away. I headed south, toward my own apartment, where Julia awaited me.
    It was then, for the first and only time, that I doubted my soon-to-be wife. I doubted her so much it frightened me—I mean the
doubt
frightened me, not the thought that was its impetus: that shemight be a liar and a fraud. For it’s never the facts, is it? It’s always the doubt … And so we disregard every warning sign, no matter how blatant, rather than let anything interfere with our getting what we want—which makes us all liars and frauds …
    Then I got to the apartment—and there she stood, my Julia, vivid in her wrath and dread, braced for the worst. For somehow or other—maybe from the doorman or the manservant—she had found out what I’d been up to. “What lies did she tell you about me?” she asked. By way of reply, I shut her mouth with my lips. I assured her that it didn’t matter, that all would be well. By now Harry had finagled the position in Paris for me—not with much confidence, he made clear. He didn’t trust Julia. He said she rubbed him the wrong way. Nor should I imagine that the job in Paris would be a cakewalk. I was on probation. My boss there would report