Editor’s Note: This is the fourth installment of Sonia Pilcer’s The Last Hotel: A Novel in Suites. Look for it every Friday. Of this work, the author Hilma Wolitzer has observed: “‘The Last Hotel’ is a 20th Century ark filled with survivors of history and gentrification. Sonia Pilcer brings them all vividly to life with gentle wit and a generous heart.” To read previous installments, click here.
Lobby
Saul Ehrlich sat with the New York Times spread out on the table in the lobby, eagle-eyeing stock listings. He kept a school notebook, in which he noted his stocks’ performance.
When residents greeted him on their way to work, Saul grunted, “What?” not looking up from his newspaper. Then he stood up, followed them out through the glass vestibule and leaned in the doorway.
“Have a good day, Saul.”
“What’s so good about it?” he answered, then grumbled to himself. “Americans. They’re like children.”
Saul had a whole category of things that in his mind he called American Stupidity. This included smile buttons, baseball games with grown men running around in circles, and Coca-Cola.
As he returned to his seat, he noticed the tall Samoan man, Duc Christian, Suite 64 – he checked his list — slink past him. The young man, well over six and a half feet, stumbled toward the elevator. As he pressed the button, he leaned unsteadily against the door. “Long night,” he mumbled.
He had told Saul that he worked at a place called Studio 54.
Rachel Weinstein, Suite 42, hobbled out of the elevator in her high heels. Her perfume nearly overpowered him. The silly woman flashed a smile, batting fake eyelashes at him.
“The bathroom faucet is still leaking,” she told Saul.
“Henry didn’t fix it yet?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll be out for a few minutes,” she said, walking out.
Saul tapped his foot impatiently. “Henry! Where is he? I haven’t seen him all morning.” He stood up. “Henry!” he screamed into the stairwell. His voice echoed. “HENRY! Where are you?”
Saul pressed the elevator button with the heel of his hand. “He’s never around when you need him,” he mumbled. “Probably up to no good.”
When the elevator door opened, he stomped out. “Henry! Where are you? HENRY!” He walked through the basement.
A wrapped-up hose hung on the brick wall, which was painted a sickly green. Saul passed the Elevator Machine Room. The motor rumbled as the drive whirred. Next door, the Boiler Room had a large sign: NO ADMITTANCE. When he opened the door momentarily, the furnace belched loudly, a flame rising in its belly. He slammed the door shut.
These were the guts of the hotel. Huge pipes and ducts hung from the ceiling. Clusters of wires twisted along the walls leading to fuse boxes with rows of control switches. Noisy florescent lights buzzed. In the trash area, newspapers and magazines were stacked in one corner, the garbage in black bags nearby. What a stink! Saul held his nose. He opened the door to the storage room, crowded with residents’ bicycles, lamps, and old pieces of furniture. He’d have to clear out all this junk one of these days, before the next inspection.
As a boy, the cellar in his family’s house terrified him. Wooden barrels of potatoes and onions stored under the stairs grew fingers that reached out to choke him. He coughed from the dust. When he turned on the lights, he often surprised rats at a feast. All around him, the stench and slime of decomposing life.
Saul pressed the doorbell of Henry’s apartment for several moments, then turned the knob. “Henry!”
He had a good life. Henry lived rent free and got a decent salary. Residents gave him tips, too. Still, he was never around when you needed him. “Are you in there? HENRY!” he screamed.
A dark-skinned, matronly woman with a huge bosom rushed to the door, wiping her hands on her apron. “Please, Mr. E! You’ll awake the dead!”
“Where is he?” Saul demanded.
“You get a stroke if you keep this up,” Bessie scolded. She was a nurse aide at Roosevelt Hospital.
Saul peered into their apartment. The oil paint in the kitchen shone from grease. No matter how much Bessie cleaned, fumes from the basement coated the walls. Saul could see into the living room, the old couch and chairs, the spindly standing lamp that he’d given them. That’s when he noticed a framed photograph of their sons.
Saul knew Henry’s boys. When they were younger, they used to operate the manual elevator. That was before the partners insisted Saul replace the elevator with a new automatic one. Two years ago, Henry Jr. had died in a shoot-out in the subway station at 155th Street. The middle son, Nathan, stole from the building. Saul had to throw him out. The youngest, Harrison, went to high school, but was already up to no good.
“If you must know,” Bessie told him. “He’s sitting on the toilet.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as he needs, Mr. E,” Bessie said. “My husband works for you, but he’s not your slave.”
“Well, tell him I’m waiting for him.”
“He knows,” she said. “Everyone in the hotel knows already.”
“Hrmph,” Saul grumbled, crossing his arms. “Tell him to check the board.”
Closing the door behind him, Saul pressed the elevator button. Just then, Henry’s door opened. He rushed out, adjusting his belt. “Sorry, Mr. E,” he said.
“You got stomach problems?” Saul asked.
“No, I’m fine.”
“What’s the matter?” Saul asked. If Henry wasn’t smiling, his dark face filled with shiny, white teeth, something was wrong.
“Nathan,” Henry said grimly.
“That good-for-nothing junkie,” Saul said.
“He’s my son.” Henry shrugged. “What can I say?”
“What did he do this time?”
“He took the TV while I was out,” Henry said, shaking his head. “He tried to do that last week, but I gave him a twenty dollar bill when Bessie wasn’t looking.”
“Gevalt! “ Saul said. “I told you to call the police. They’ll take care of him.”
“I can’t, Saul,” Henry said. “He’s the only one I have left.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll ask Fred from Suite 62 to get you a small black and white,” he said. “He finds everything on the street.”
“Thanks, Mr. E,” Henry said.
“You got to do something about your son,” Saul said. “Talk to that social worker again.”
Henry had worked for Saul for over eighteen years. Saul remembered when each of his sons was born. He loved Henry and trusted him more than almost any other living being. He paid for his family’s health insurance and Henry’s life insurance, but he couldn’t protect him from his own sons.
“I know,” Henry said sadly.
They were almost the same age. One, a Polish Jew, who stood over six feet, his hair still dark and glossy. The other, a gentle, grey-haired black man from Georgia, who could fix anything. Both had problems with their children. Saul’s daughter didn’t talk to him unless she needed something.
“Have you seen Leah?” Saul asked.
“Not since the last time I told you about,” Henry said.
Two months ago, Saul had installed her in the hotel since she had nowhere else to live, having been thrown out by her last ‘friend.’ Since that time, he had tried to talk to her, but she walked away. She pretended not to be there when he stopped by.
“I don’t see her, Mr. E. She must keep strange hours.”
He shrugged. “Children. They make you love them when they’re little so they can break your heart when they grow up.”
“I could knock on her door.”
“Never mind. Enough talk. Get to work!” Saul started yelling. “Suite 42 has water leaking from her faucet.” He pointed to the board.
There in black and white: BATHROOM FAUCET, SUITE 42 was chalked in Saul’s jagged handwriting on the blackboard. “That’s Mrs. Weinstein. The one, you know –”
“I’ll just get my tools, Mr. E.”
“And don’t spend too much time there either.”
“Sure, Mr. E,” he said. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”
Entering the elevator, Saul muttered, “He tells me not to worry. If I don’t worry, who should?”
As he walked out, Amber was waiting for the elevator. She smiled her Rita Hayworth smile. “Hi, Saulie.”
He nodded to her. Amber Adams, Suite 52. A regular American beauty with long legs and golden red hair like silk.
“Who’s the new guy?” she asked. “Very tall, long black hair?”
“Oh, that’s Duc. He’s from Samoa.”
“Somalia?”
“No, Samoa. South Pacific Ocean.”
“Bali Hai…” She sang out the opening. “He’s gorgeous!”
“Suite 64. Next door to that meshugenah, Fred.”
“You’re a sweetheart!” she called out to him as she ran out the door, heels clacking.
Truth be told, Saul loved every moment of being Manager of the Last Hotel. He had escaped the bondage of a textile factory in Leonia, New Jersey, for the relative ease of a clean shirt job where he mostly sat on his tuches.
His father had worked at the Grand Hotel on Piotrovska, the fanciest boulevard in Lodz. He had watched as he registered guests in his careful, tiny script. Marek carried luggage, opened doors, delivered room service, and received tips. Saul had loved the lobby atmosphere. People in and out all day, leaving suitcases covered with stickers from foreign countries. When he touched them, it was as if he could feel the air from the exotic places. Barcelona, Prague, Paris. That was before his father was fired. And the trouble began. And it got worse. His sisters forced at gunpoint to drown in the Baltic Sea. His baby brother suffocated. He hastily shut that door. Firmly.
Now he sat at his desk like none of it ever happened. How could Saul have imagined that he might one day sit in the lobby of a hotel on 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue, which he part-owned. Well, ten percent plus five percent for management.
There were 35 apartments in the hotel. Suites, they were called. Each one had a brass plate on the door with its number. They’d always been called suites.
Most residential hotels in the neighborhood had fancy names. The Regency. The Oliver Cromwell. The Franconia. What Saul called the Greener ‘Think Yiddish, Dress British’ school. A few men who knew each other from Poland, some having survived the same ghettos and concentration camps, many who came on the same boat to America, scraped their savings – maybe ten thousand dollars each — and since the West Side was considered a war zone, picked up these dollhouses for a dime.
He had wanted to name it Hotel Lodz, after his beloved city. The other partners were against it.
“How can you even? Your neighbors collaborated with the Germans!” Heniek had demanded.
“I like the sound of Hotel Lodz,” Saul said.
“Americans can’t even pronounce it,” Janusz said. “Have you ever heard how they say swastikas?”
He shook his head.
“Swat-stickers.”
“Sounds too greener, frankly,” Bolek added in his fake British accent.
“Vot?”
“Like we just got off the boat and can’t speak Yinglish.”
“We did just get off the boat, Bolek. We were on the same boat, in case you don’t remember.” Saul raised his voice. “Out of respect.”
“What’s to respect? They turned us over to the Germans and stole our apartments.”
“I still can’t get my father’s stocks out of the Polish bank vaults,” Janusz added.
“You know how many generations my family lived in Lodz?” Saul said. “My grandfather started our dry goods store from nothing. My father worked at the Grand Hotel on Piotrovska.”
“And didn’t they kill him and take the store?” Heniek asked.
Victor Last, with 40%, had been silent until then. “Okay, we’ll call it the Last Hotel. After my Father, may he rest in peace.”
As the elevator door was about to shut, Henry rushed in, carrying his metal toolbox.
“Rachel Weinstein in Suite 42,” Saul barked, pressing the elevator button. The elevator door opened at the first floor. Saul stomped out. Henry continued to the fourth floor.
At 6:00, Saul locked his safe and his office, and left for the day. Nothing kept him an extra minute away from his Luba. They were newlyweds! The word amused Saul. They had only been married two years.
Saul found the Sofa Club gathering in the lobby.
“Gold is selling at $137 an ounce,” Lenny said. “If you have the dough, you should buy some.”
“When I listen to a loudmouth like you, I’ll have to get my head examined,” Saul answered.
“Just what I read in the paper.”
“Don’t you have a home to go to?” Saul admonished. “Shlemiels.” He hid a grin in his cheek.
* * *
Next week: Stay tuned for The Sofa Club.
Sonia Pilcer is the author of six novels including The Holocaust Kid. The Last Hotel will be published in December by Heliotrope Books, available at Amazon.com. Visit Sonia Pilcer’s web site here.
