“You are quite right, of course,” he said. “But I am not a salesman. I was only doing a favor for a relative.”
“That’s different,” said Ilina and jumped up. “You should have said so. Ivan, we all need to drink to a pledge of friendship. I’ll call… no, I’ll go get it myself. You two can have a talk, I’ll be right back.”
She ran out of the room, banging the door.
“A fun girl,” said I.
“Yes, extremely. You live here?”
“No, I’m a traveler, too… What a strange idea your relative had!”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Who needs Devon in a resort town?”
Oscar shrugged.
“It’s hard for me to judge; I’m no chemist. But you will agree that it’s hard for us to comprehend the actions of our fellow men, much less their fancies… So Devon turns out to be — What did you call it, a res…?”
“Repellent,” I said.
“That would be for mosquitoes?”
“Not so much for as against.”
“I can see you are quite well up on it,” said Oscar.
“I had occasion to use it.”
“Well, well.”
What the devil, thought I. What is he getting at? He was no longer staring at the wall He was looking me straight in the eyes and smiling. But if he was going to say something, it was already said.
He got up.
“I don’t think I’ll wait any longer,” he pronounced. “It looks like I’ll have to drink another pledge. But I didn’t come here to drink, I came here to get well. Please tell Rimeyer that I will call him again tonight. You won’t forget?”
“No,” I said, “I won’t forget. If I tell him that Oscar was in to see him, he will know whom I am talking about?”
“Yes, of course. It’s my real name.”
He bowed, and walked out at a deliberate pace, ramrod-straight and somehow unnatural-looking. I dipped my hand in the ashtray, found a butt without lipstick, and inhaled several times. I didn’t like the taste and put out the stub. I didn’t like Oscar, either. Nor Ilina. And especially Rimeyer -
I didn’t like him at all. I pawed through the bottles, but they were all empty.
CHAPTER FOUR
In the end I didn’t wait long enough to see Rimeyer. Ilina never came back. Finally I got tired of sitting in the smoky, stale atmosphere of the room and went down to the lobby. I intended to have dinner and stopped to look around for a restaurant. A porter immediately materialized at my side.
“At your service,” he murmured discreetly. “An auto? Bar? Restaurant? Salon?”
“What kind of salon?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“A hair-styling salon.” He looked at my hairdo with delicate concern. “Master Gaoway is receiving today. I recommend him most strenuously.”
I recollected that Ilina had called me a disheveled perch and said, “Well, all right.”
“Please follow me,” said the porter.
Crossing the lobby, he opened a wide low door and said into the spacious interior, “Excuse me, Master, you have a client.”
“Come in,” replied a quiet voice.
I entered. The salon was light and airy and smelled pleasantly. Everything in it shone — the chrome, the mirrors, the antique parquet floor. Shiny half-domes hung from the ceiling on glistening rods. In the center stood a huge white barber chair. The Master was advancing to meet me. He had penetrating immobile eyes, a hooked nose, and a gray Van Dyke.
More than anything else he reminded me of a mature, experienced surgeon. I greeted him with some timidity, He nodded and, surveying me from head to foot, began to circle around me. I began to feel uncomfortable.
“I would like you to bring me up to the current fashion,” said I, trying not to let him out of my field of view.
But he restrained me gently by my sleeve and. stood breathing softly behind my back for a few seconds. “No doubt! No doubt at all', he murmured, then touched me lightly on my shoulder. “Please,” he said sternly, “take a few steps forward — five or six — then turn abruptly to face me.”
I obeyed. He regarded me pensively, pulling on his beard.
I thought he was hesitating.
“On the other hand,” he said, “sit down.”
“Where?” I said.
“In the chair, in the chair.”
I lowered myself into its softness and watched him approach me slowly. His intelligent face was suddenly suffused with a look of profound chagrin.
“But how is such a thing possible?” he said. “It’s absolutely awful.”
I couldn’t find anything to say.
“Gross disharmony,” he muttered. “Repulsive… repulsive.”
“Is it really that bad?” I asked.
“I don’t understand why you came to me,” he said, “since you obviously don’t place any value at all on your appearance.”
“I am beginning to, from this day on,” I said.
He waved his hand.
“Never mind… I will work on you, but…” He shook his head, turned impulsively, and went to a high table covered with shiny devices. The back of the chair depressed smoothly, and I found myself in a half-reclining position. A big hemisphere descended toward me from above, radiating warmth, while hundreds of tiny needles seemed to sink into the nape of my neck, eliciting a strange combination of simultaneous pain and pleasure.
“Is it gone yet?” he asked.
The sensation abated.
“It’s gone,” I said.
“Your skin is good,” growled the Master with a certain satisfaction.
He returned with an assortment of the most unlikely instruments and proceeded to palpate my cheeks.
“And still Mirosa married him,” he said suddenly. “I expected anything and everything, except that. After all that Levant had done for her. Do you remember that moment when they were both weeping over the dying Pina? You could have bet anything that they would be together forever. And now, imagine, she is being wed to that literary fellow.”
I have a rule: to pick up and sustain any conversation that comes along. When you don’t know what it’s all about, this can even be interesting.
“Not for long,” I said with assurance. “Literary types are very inconstant, I can assure you, being one myself.”
For a moment his hands paused on my temples.
“That didn’t enter my head,” he admitted. “Still, it’s wedlock, even though only a civil one… I must remember to call my wife. She was very upset.”
“I can sympathize with her,” I said. “But it did always seem to me that Levant was in love with that… Pina.”
“In love?” exclaimed the Master, coming around from my other side. “Of course he loved her! Madly! As only a lonely, rejected-by-all man can love.”
