like a husband and wife, but like a man and a woman who didn’t like each other much playing at it for an afternoon. And of course he’d heard stories. What the hell, I decided; we’re comrades and business partners, Marc and I, and we’re drunk besides. So I told him about Ninna and the men, and why I wouldn’t go back now. He listened and nodded.
“You say she’s a Dane?”
“Born in Copenhagen. Her old man got into some sort of a scrape and had to leave, ended up in Columbus, Ohio, operating a photographer’s studio. That’s where I met her. I was learning the trade from the old man.”
“Why’d you marry her in the first place?” he asked.
“I was twenty, the war was over, and she was a big, healthy, pretty gal. Her old pa had a little money, too. Next thing I knew little Clyde was on his way and I was still working as her pa’s helper, tending bar after hours, working those kinds of jobs and trying to figure out something more promising.”
Marc handed me back the bottle. “Woman’s infidelity is so much more treacherous than man’s. Why do you suppose that is?”
“I haven’t been living the monastic life myself since I left the farm.”
“Still, she’d forgive you for it, wouldn’t she? But you can’t forgive her. It’s a different sort of treachery. Different in kind, not degree.”
I just nodded. We finished the bottle and left it standing there on the unvarnished parquet next to the crates, from which we then rose. Upright he proved to be drunker than I’d thought, and he nearly crashed to the ground stepping down from the veranda onto the lawn. Theirs was a large property and there was no one about as we crossed it, Marc veering from left to right and holding both arms out for balance, as if he were feeling about for a railing on either side. Abruptly he slowed and then stopped, and I stepped aside, having seen it happen a time or two tending bar. He knelt and spewed, finishing with a noise I first thought to be a whimper of self-pity, but which quickly revealed itself as laughter.
“I trust,” he said, “that my regurgitation will remain a confidential matter.” He kept laughing, and I helped him to his feet and we ambled over the lawn and crossed Seward and First Streets to the hotel.
There in their rooms Maggie sat waiting for Marc. The roughhewn sitting room was even more overstuffed than it had been at Christmas, its plain wooden walls completely obscured by furnishings too elegant for it by half; presumably the bedchamber beyond was similarly jammed. It wasn’t nearly enough to furnish the house they were building, though, and I had been told that there were three times this much houseware in storage and at least that much on order from back east. It was cramped, but the dry warmth emanating from the stove, specially installed for them, was deeply satisfying to a man who slept in a converted hayloft.
Maggie clucked at our drunken state and we helped Marc to bed, where he immediately began to snore. She stepped outside the door with me when I took my leave and whispered to me in the dark hallway.
“I hope you enjoyed yourself,” she said.
“Sorry about this,” I said, mistaking her quiet tone for one of reproach. “Didn’t realize how soused he was until he tried to walk.”
“That’s all right. Marc doesn’t really take much time for his own pleasure, he can get drunk once a year if he wants to.”
She was giving me that look, the one that made me feel certain the man we’d just put into bed wasn’t her husband at all; I just nodded, afraid that if I spoke I’d say something foolish. “Good night,” I managed to stammer, and I carefully picked my way down the staircase. I didn’t hear the latch of their door click shut until after I was out of her sight.
Several days hence I was invited to join the Levals in their suite for an afternoon’s entertainment, and I found that young Gleason was again available to stand in my stead at the booze wagon
“You say she’s a Dane?”
“Born in Copenhagen. Her old man got into some sort of a scrape and had to leave, ended up in Columbus, Ohio, operating a photographer’s studio. That’s where I met her. I was learning the trade from the old man.”
“Why’d you marry her in the first place?” he asked.
“I was twenty, the war was over, and she was a big, healthy, pretty gal. Her old pa had a little money, too. Next thing I knew little Clyde was on his way and I was still working as her pa’s helper, tending bar after hours, working those kinds of jobs and trying to figure out something more promising.”
Marc handed me back the bottle. “Woman’s infidelity is so much more treacherous than man’s. Why do you suppose that is?”
“I haven’t been living the monastic life myself since I left the farm.”
“Still, she’d forgive you for it, wouldn’t she? But you can’t forgive her. It’s a different sort of treachery. Different in kind, not degree.”
I just nodded. We finished the bottle and left it standing there on the unvarnished parquet next to the crates, from which we then rose. Upright he proved to be drunker than I’d thought, and he nearly crashed to the ground stepping down from the veranda onto the lawn. Theirs was a large property and there was no one about as we crossed it, Marc veering from left to right and holding both arms out for balance, as if he were feeling about for a railing on either side. Abruptly he slowed and then stopped, and I stepped aside, having seen it happen a time or two tending bar. He knelt and spewed, finishing with a noise I first thought to be a whimper of self-pity, but which quickly revealed itself as laughter.
“I trust,” he said, “that my regurgitation will remain a confidential matter.” He kept laughing, and I helped him to his feet and we ambled over the lawn and crossed Seward and First Streets to the hotel.
There in their rooms Maggie sat waiting for Marc. The roughhewn sitting room was even more overstuffed than it had been at Christmas, its plain wooden walls completely obscured by furnishings too elegant for it by half; presumably the bedchamber beyond was similarly jammed. It wasn’t nearly enough to furnish the house they were building, though, and I had been told that there were three times this much houseware in storage and at least that much on order from back east. It was cramped, but the dry warmth emanating from the stove, specially installed for them, was deeply satisfying to a man who slept in a converted hayloft.
Maggie clucked at our drunken state and we helped Marc to bed, where he immediately began to snore. She stepped outside the door with me when I took my leave and whispered to me in the dark hallway.
“I hope you enjoyed yourself,” she said.
“Sorry about this,” I said, mistaking her quiet tone for one of reproach. “Didn’t realize how soused he was until he tried to walk.”
“That’s all right. Marc doesn’t really take much time for his own pleasure, he can get drunk once a year if he wants to.”
She was giving me that look, the one that made me feel certain the man we’d just put into bed wasn’t her husband at all; I just nodded, afraid that if I spoke I’d say something foolish. “Good night,” I managed to stammer, and I carefully picked my way down the staircase. I didn’t hear the latch of their door click shut until after I was out of her sight.
Several days hence I was invited to join the Levals in their suite for an afternoon’s entertainment, and I found that young Gleason was again available to stand in my stead at the booze wagon
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