“A QUIET ROOM WITH A VIEW” was published in 1964. It takes place in a retirement home. I remember reading this story as it poured out of Avram’s typewriter, and loving it. There is a wonderful description of a chicken thigh as the tastiest part of the chicken, and lovely descriptions of buttery mashed potatoes and hot apple turnovers, too. How we laughed when we read the story aloud—it must have been just before dinner. In 1964, the grim reality of living in a retirement institution seemed very far away. The years passed, and Avram’s health declined, until he too was confined temporarily in a retirement facility. Then the laughter faded, and the dark side of this warm yet chilling story became very real.
—GD
Precisely at midnight, as always, in a predestined order and immutable sequence, Mr. Stanley C. Richards was awakened to the tortures.
Midnight. The bells in the Cathedral began to toll—twelve strokes. At one, Mr. Richards awoke and was reminded of where he was (which meant he was also reminded of where he was not), sighed, gripped the covers.
At three, Mr. Nelson Stucker awoke, quite obviously not reminded of where he was or was not, and began to call the name of his dead wife.
At seven, Mr. Thomas Bigelow, snatched from slumber by the uncertain cries of Mr. Stucker, began to cough. He coughed whenever he was awake—long, slow, deep, ropy, phlegmy, chest-rattling coughs; during the day, as if ashamed, he preferred to keep out of earshot—at the far end of the garden, in the nearby park, in an unfrequented chapel in the Cathedral, even (in bad weather) in the basement; but at night, poor man, where could he go?
And at the stroke of ten, Mr. Amadeo Palumbo, jolted from dreams of the dank little fruit and vegetable store where he had been busy and happy for forty years, jolted into remembrance that not only the store but the very building had been torn down to make room for a housing project which had no need for fruit and vegetable stores—Mr. Palumbo moaned out his woes and grief and loneliness in the language of his childhood. “Oh, Gesu-Mari’!” he keened. “Oh, San’ Giussep’, San’ Giacom’!”
And so, by twelve, by the last stroke of the chimes, a stroke echoing infinitely in the clamoring darkness, the tortured pattern of the night was established forever.
The nights seemed to last forever, there in that room under the eaves of the old building full—overfull, in plain fact—of old men and old women.
Bedtime was at half-past ten, and at half-past ten the four old men in the attic room overlooking the airshaft sank quickly enough into slumber, tired out by the fatigue of having lived through another day. But by midnight they were all near the surface again.
It wasn’t, really, that the chimes were noisy or unpleasant. On the contrary, they were soft melodious chimes, world-famous, as was the Cathedral itself—to which the Alexandra Home for Aged Couples and Elderly Men was attached by some loose denominational ties. It wasn’t, really, the chimes so much that awakened Mr. Stanley Richards, who had lived within sound of church bells before and could easily have slept through them. It was the sure awareness of what was yet to come that killed his slumbers at the sound of the first stroke.
It was Mr. Stucker who was unused to the sound of chimes. Mr. Stucker was very old indeed, and while he knew well enough in the daytime that he was a widower and had been one for many years, he forgot it in the night-time—forgot it again and again and again. Shallow sleep vexed by slight cause, he knew only that he was awakened to find himself not in the double bed in which most of the nights of his life had been passed. He found himself in a strange bed now, without the proper presence of his wife from whom he had not been parted for a single day or single night until parted by her death—death which he could not, or would not, remember in the darkness.
So—
Dong. Dong. Dong.
And—
“Henny?” called old Stucker. “Henny? Hen-ny?” And, finally frightened, louder and louder, “Henny, Henny!”
Thus awakening Mr. Bigelow, in the next bed, to his ungovernable and shameful coughing—coughing which only grew worse as he tried to stop it. Poor, coughing Mr. Bigelow! Where could he go and hide his cough in the cold and hostile night?
So, in a matter of seconds, Mr. Bigelow woke up old Amadeo—who knew on the instant exactly where he was, and where he was not, and why, and that he could never return—never!—to the nice cool basement store, with a coolness so good for the beautiful fruit, the lovely vegetables, and the sweet familiar smell of them, and the familiar customers whom he had served for more than a generation in the old neighborhood (faults and all) which had been—ah, fatal change of tense!—more than a home. His life—gone, gone forever—urbanly renewed into a giant complex of giant boxhouses, with no crowded streets, no saloons, no restaurants, no little candy stores, no pushcarts—and no basement fruit and vegetable store for Amadeo Palumbo.
“Oh, Gesu,” he wept. “Oh, Santa Mari’…”
And so the cycle would go throughout the whole night. Mr. Richards was not bothered by chimes, he missed no wife, he had no cough, he mourned for no lost occupation or familiar home or place. He wanted only to sleep, and he could not sleep because his roommates could not let him.
* * *
“WAKE UP! WAKE up there, Richards. You getting senile or something, falling asleep while people are talking to you?” Mr. Hammond shook him into wakefulness.
Mr. Richards snapped his head up. Smiled. “Sorry for that,” he said.
“Not very polite, in my opinion,” grumbled Mr. Hammond.
“Now, Harry—” his wife said.
“Don’t you Now, Harry me, Alice!”
They were all in the sun parlor at the front of the first floor. Mrs. Hammond smiled over her knitting. Mr. and Mrs. Darling looked distressed. “Senile” was not a nice word at the Alexandra Home. Mr. Hammond grunted, creased his newspaper.
“That’s a habit I got into many, many years ago,” Mr. Richards began.
“What, falling asleep when people are talking to you?” Hammond wouldn’t let go.
“No, taking cat naps. Many times we’d have to march all night through the jungle, and then, in the daytime, set one man on guard, and the rest of us would just fall down and curl up, sleep for oh not more than five or six minutes, then jump up and start marching again.”
Mr. and Mrs. Darling stopped looking distressed and started looking interested. Mrs. Hammond paused in her knitting. Her husband unfolded his paper again and said, “Man writes here—as I was saying, Richards, before you fell asleep on me—man writes here—”
But Mr. Darling was evidently not interested in what a man wrote there. His eyes wider than before, he leaned forward and asked, “Was this when you were fighting the Bolivians in that Grand Shako War, Mr. Richards?”
Once again, firmly and loudly, rattling his paper, Mr. Hammond said, “Man writes here that—”
But Mr. Darling, even louder, said, “Hey, Mr. Richards? Fighting the Bolivians?”
With an apologetic smile to Mr. Hammond, who scowled, Mr. Richards said, “Well, point of order, Mr. Darling. In the Gran Chaco War I was fighting with the Bolivians. Against the Paraguayans. By that time the cat nap habit had been established for many years, far as I was concerned, and I taught it to my men. Nicaragua, fighting the bandit Sandino—Venezuela, trying to overthrow the tyrant Lopez—” He chuckled, as if reminded of something.
Mr. Darling, his face now bright with vicarious enjoyment, said, “Hey, Mr. Richards? What—?”
Asking the pardon of the ladies for telling a slightly improper story (the ladies at once assumed an expression both surprised and insistent), but reminding them that the Latin race had different customs from our own, Mr. Richards proceeded to inform them that Lopez, though never married, had had many children.
“Oh, for goodness sake!” said Mrs. Hammond.
“Well, I never!” said Mrs. Darling, a featureless, dumpy woman, though inoffensive enough; but Mrs. Hammond was a very good-looking person, her skin still firm and pink and her snow-white hair neatly set.
Tyrant though he was, Lopez was nevertheless in his own way a sort of what-you-might-call a gentleman, and he had legally acknowledged all his natural children (as the expression goes), and had them legitimatized. One day Colonel Lindbergh flew down to Venezuela and was met at the airport by President Lopez and a number of his children, who presented Colonel Lindbergh with a bouquet of flowers.
Lindbergh took the bouquet and asked, “Are they natural?”
And Lopez had replied, “Yes—but legitimate!”
Mr. Hammond snorted, amused despite himself. Mrs. Hammond laughed softly. Mrs. Darling sat absolutely impassive, while her husband smiled and awaited more, obviously not realizing that the anecdote was completed. So Mr. Richards explained, “Lindbergh meant, were the flowers natural flowers or artificial flowers. But Lopez, when he heard him say, ‘Are they natural,’ thought he was talking about the children; so…” Finally getting the point, Mr. Darling laughed and laughed and wiped his eyes.
“Well, well, you certainly have led an interesting life,” he said. “How many wars you been in, anyway, might I ask?”
Mr. Richards smiled, shook his head. “I really couldn’t say. Some of them weren’t big enough to count as wars, I suppose—”
Mr. Darling started counting on his fingers. “You were in the First Balkan War, I believe you said? Yes; and the Second Balkan War, too, right? Against those Turks—terrible people they must have been in those days. And the First World War, and the Chinese Revolution, and helping the Polish fight for the independence from the Russians and—” He lost track and began to renumber his fingers.
Giving his newspaper one final slap before thrusting it into his pocket, Mr. Hammond said, “I suppose you call yourself a Soldier of Fortune?”
“Well, I—”
“Well, it seems to me—it seems to me, Richards—you were nothing more than just a plain hired killer!”
Mr. Darling’s mouth went round. Mrs. Hammond cried, “Harry.”
“A mercenary, a killer, that’s all!”
“Harry, shame on you!”
Mr. Richards hesitated, but before he could speak, Mrs. Darling did. Her mind moved slowly, very slowly, and when a word or reference entered, it often took several minutes for the effect to become visible. “Mr. Richards,” she said now, oblivious of her husband’s shock, his friend’s embarrassment, Mr. Hammond’s anger, or Mrs. Hammond’s indignation, “I want to ask you something: did those Turkish men really have all those wives locked up in a harmen, like they say, or is that only a story? I would like to know.”
His face clearing, Mr. Richards was ready to answer, but he was forestalled by the canny Mr. Hammond who said, “Chicken for dinner today.”
Instantly forgetting all about every Turk who ever lived, about wives, harmens, and all, Mrs. Darling said, “Chicken for dinner?”
Pursing his lips and nodding deeply, Mr. Hammond said, “Yup. Chicken for dinner. A nice chicken thigh, hmm, Mrs. Darling?”
Eagerly and with animation she said, “Oh, yes, I always say that there is nothing like a chicken thigh because the back is too bony and the breast is too rich and the leg has all those grizzles on it and as for the wing—well, it has hardly anything on it; but the thigh—I always say the thigh is just right.”
“Well, now, look here, Mr. Hammond,” Mr. Richards began; but Mr. Hammond, who had been through this battle before, wasn’t ready to retreat.
“Yes, you’re absolutely right, Mrs. Darling,” he said. “A nice chicken thigh with a brown crust on it and maybe some mashed potatoes on the side, eh? Wouldn’t that just touch the spot?”
She had been listening and nodding and smiling; now she exclaimed, “Why, that’s just what I always say, yes. A brown crust on it and mashed potatoes, why—Edgar always used to love the way I made my mashed potatoes, didn’t you, Edgar? Edgar?”
Edgar Darling reluctantly shifted his attention from Mr. Richards. Wars! Revolutions! Soldiers of Fortune! Latin Dictators with natural children! And then—right here and now—an insult! Still looking eagerly at his adventurous friend, he began to swivel around to face his wife. “Hey, Mabel? What—?”
“Didn’t you used to love the way I made my mashed potatoes? Mr. Hammond was just saying, oh, a nice chicken thigh with a brown crust and some nice mashed potatoes would just touch the spot right now, and I was telling him how you used to love the way I made my mashed potatoes. The way I made them was,” she explained to the smiling, interested Mr. Hammond, “after I mashed them I used to put in a little milk and a little buttermilk, too, and salt and pepper and a nice big lump of butter. Edgar used to say, You sure don’t stint or skimp on the butter, do you, Mabel, and I’d say, No, I don’t believe in it and meanwhile I’d be frying a nice onion chopped up fine and then I’d mix it all together and, oh, Edgar, he just loved it! Didn’t you, Edgar? We had such a nice home,” she added, her mood suddenly destroyed.
“The Turks—”
“An apple turnover is very nice,” Mr. Hammond observed.
Old Mrs. Darling’s mouth, which had begun to quiver, slowly began to smile. “Yes,” she said. “I always say that a nice apple turnover is very nice, provided the crust,” she said earnestly, “the crust is flaky, and the way to make a nice flaky crust is that you take—”
* * *
LATER IN THE afternoon the sun was overcast and many of the residents who had been on the sun porch went into the lobby to sit near the coal fire or went into the music room to watch television. A number of people were taking naps in their rooms, among them Mr. Harry Hammond.
Mrs. Alice Hammond came into the lobby from the elevator and looked around. Stanley C. Richards was sitting at one end of a sofa, gazing at the play of colors among the glowing coals in the grate. He seemed depressed. She sat down next to him, and he looked up. He smiled, but only for an instant.
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Hammond. Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Richards. It’s gotten quite misty out, I see.”
“Yes. Yes. Quite misty,” he agreed absently.
“Of course, now it’s just making everything dark and dull outside, but this morning—were you up early this morning? Did you notice from your window how enchanting it was—the view of the Cathedral and the Park, with that very nice light mist over everything?”
He smiled, rather wryly, but again his smile did not last. “Afraid not, Mrs. Hammond. My window doesn’t have a view of anything except the airshaft.”
“Oh, that’s a pity. We have such a lovely view, and it’s so nice and quiet, too. Well … And I am sorry that I never got to hear your answer to Mrs. Darling’s question about the Turkish women, either.”
“In the harmen?”
“In the harmen.”
Their eyes met, sharing the joke for a moment. Then she looked down, fumbled for her knitting, and said, “I’m afraid Harry wasn’t very nice to you this morning. We had quite a quarrel about it—the biggest one we’ve had since the one we had about the cemetery. Do you know about that one?”
She was surprised he didn’t—she thought everyone in the Home knew about it. Many members of Mrs. Hammond’s family and many of her friends were buried in Greenlawn Cemetery. It was quite a ride by public transportation, true, but there was a nice clean coffee shop only a block from the grounds, where you could stop and have a cup of tea and a piece of cake.
And Greenlawn was so beautiful.… Not that she wouldn’t want to go if it weren’t; that made no difference. Family was family, and friends were friends, and you didn’t stop caring for them just because they were gone, did you? What harm was there in going once a month—or even once a week—to pay your respects? To take a few flowers, to find comfort in how nicely everything was kept, to say a little prayer from the heart—was there anything wrong in that?
“None that I can see, Mrs. Hammond.”
“Nor I. But—Harry. He won’t go, he just will not go, and he won’t let me go, either. Oh, not that he ever says, ‘I forbid you to go’ or anything like that. But he gets so nasty, so unpleasant, and he carries on so whenever I so much as mention it that—well, much as I want to, I don’t go. Not any more. And it’s the same way about funerals. He won’t go. Last month a very old and dear friend of ours passed on. We were indebted to her for many kindnesses. And she had asked me to take charge of the funeral arrangements—that is, everything was paid for—things like the flowers and the hymns and the guest list and things like that.
“I don’t mind saying that in the past I did take care of such arrangements for the funerals of various friends and relatives—I liked to see that everything was carried out nicely. It’s the last thing, almost, that you can do, you know. But Harry wouldn’t let me. ‘Jenny asked me to, Harry,’ I said. ‘She was your friend, too. Who else helped you with those Liberty Bonds, and took such a loss, too, if not Jenny?’ I asked him. But he said she wouldn’t know the difference and he got so angry he worked himself into one of his attacks and so of course I couldn’t take care of any arrangements and so it was all left to strangers.… I hope you don’t mind my telling you all this?”
It was not often that Mr. Richards had occasion to talk to Mrs. Hammond alone, and he found that he enjoyed her company. Perhaps her current conversation was not the most cheerful imaginable, but it was appropriate for a person of a respectable age to think about. And certainly it was preferable to listening to endless monologues about gall bladders and mashed potatoes and the ingratitude of children or how old Mr. X had (supposedly) cheated old Mr. Y at checkers or what a fine woman the late Mrs. A, B, or C had been. No, Mr. Richards didn’t mind.
And then she absolutely astonished him.
“Harry is so resentful about you,” she said, “because your life is so much richer than his.”
“What?” He was dumbfounded.
“Oh, yes.” Her clear blue eyes looked at him candidly. “You’ve been everywhere and you’ve done everything and he hasn’t been anywhere and he hasn’t done anything. He wouldn’t have known what an adventure looked like. Harry spent all his life working for various linen importers. There is nothing duller in this world, believe me. So he has nothing to look back on and nothing to look forward to. That’s why he is so angry when people would rather listen to you tell about your different military experiences fighting for Liberty in foreign countries than to hear him talk about what he read in the paper about the tariff. And I hope you’ll forgive him for that terrible thing he said to you this morning.”
No better than a killer …
* * *
AFTER MRS. HAMMOND had left, reluctantly, to visit ancient Mrs. Hannivan, the Home’s only centenarian, who was in her room and feeling poorly and had asked especially for Mrs. Hammond—after she had left, a thought occurred to Mr. Richards which was very attractive to him: namely, that Mr. Harry Hammond wasn’t the only one who could take a nap. Stanley C. Richards could take one, too, if he liked, and at the moment he liked to very much. He got up and went to the elevator.
He felt very tired. Last night his roommates had been even noisier than usual; tonight might be no better. There was no possibility of finding another room—there simply were no vacancies (as Mrs. Fisher, the Home’s director, pointed out when he spoke to her). And as for any of the single men in the other rooms changing with him—why should any of them be so foolish? They knew very well why he wanted to swap. The only possibility was if one of them should die. Old Tom Scorby had a bad heart. Mr. Kingsley could barely shuffle one foot ahead of the other. Mr. Manning—
Stanley C. Richards reproached himself for such a gruesome notion. The elevator got to the top floor (hottest in summer, coldest in winter) and he went to his room. He almost smiled in anticipation of his waiting bed as he opened the door.
But someone was sitting on his bed.
Mr. Harry Hammond.
* * *
MR. HAMMOND STARTED, jumped a little bit, on seeing him. His expression had been pensive, but now he smiled.
“This is an unexpected pleasure,” said Mr. Richards.
“You think so? Glad you think so.” Hammond chuckled. “Just my little joke. Don’t mind me.”
Mr. Richards said he wouldn’t, only—“I was planning to take a nap, and you’re sitting on my bed.”
Elaborately, his guest rose, walked over to the nearest chair, waved Richards to the vacated bed. “But before you go to sleep,” he said, “I have an apology to make. Yes, sir,” he said contentedly, “I did you wrong this morning. What I called you, I mean. I take it back. I take it all back, Richards, every bit of it.”
Mr. Richards sat down slowly on his bed and looked at his tormentor. After a moment he said, “Thank you.”
Mr. Hammond waved his hand, widened his smile. “I would like to get some information. I’m sure you can tell me. You tell everybody a lot of—well, a lot of things. You’ve been telling it to us for—oh, eight years now, isn’t it? That you’ve been here? Yes, eight years. I admire the way you talk—your command of the language. It just flows out of you, you’re so eloquent. You’re a regular Old Man Eloquent, aren’t you?”
Mr. Richards was puzzled, not so much by his guest’s manner which was plainly hostile, but by his purpose. “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” he said. “What was the information you wanted?”
“Which side were you on,” Mr. Hammond asked carefully, “in the First Balkan War, if I might inquire?”
“The Greek side. Why?”
“When was this? The First Balkan War, I mean?”
Mr. Richards frowned. “Oh … 1912, 1913. Shortly before the First World War. Why do—”
“And you were in the Second Balkan War, and the First World War, and the Polish-Russian War, and various Chinese Revolutions, and all those different Latin American Revolutions, and—oh, yes!—let us not forget that Gran Chaco War between Bolivia and Uruguay in—”
“Paraguay—”
“Paraguay, sorry. In—?”
“The Thirties sometime. Frankly, I don’t remember exactly any more. I could look it up for you. What’s all this about, Mr. Hammond?”
In a low, intense voice, as filled with hate and venom as was his face, Mr. Hammond said, “You’re a liar.”
Richards got up. “I don’t know what you want out of me,” he said. “I think you’re a pretty lucky fellow. You’ve got a lovely, intelligent wife. You’ve got a nice big room all to yourselves, a quiet room with a view, where it’s peaceful at night. I’ve got nobody. What—”
“You don’t deserve to have anybody. You’re a liar. Spent twenty-five years as a Soldier of Fortune all over the world, did you? Did you? Why, you—”
“Get out of here, Mr. Hammond.”
Scrambling to his feet, Mr. Hammond headed for the door, his face scowling. He turned around and said, “But I’ll fix you! I’ll show you up for the bluffer and the four-flusher you are!” He took something from his pocket, held it up. It was a watch. “You left this in the downstairs Men’s Room when you washed your hands for lunch. And I found it!” He dangled it triumphantly.
It was too far away to be seen clearly in the dwindling light. But its owner did not have to see it clearly to know what was engraved on the back.…
Mr. Hammond had left, was punching the elevator button in the hall, but his parting words still rang in Mr. Richards’s ears: “Wait till they see this! Wait—”
Another voice came faintly up the shaft. “Can’t take you now, we’ve got the food carts to take care of.” The sick and bedridden were being served their suppers earlier than the other residents, as usual.
Mr. Hammond’s feet went slap-slap-slapping toward the stairs. Suddenly Mr. Richards ran out, ran after him. Hammond turned around, his face becoming defiant.
Richards grabbed for the watch, but Hammond quickly pulled away his hand. For a few seconds they stood there, face to face. Many thoughts ran through Mr. Richards’s mind. Then he came to a decision. With one abrupt and utterly effective movement, he pushed Mr. Hammond down the stairs.
Mr. Hammond fell down, fell forward, his mouth open on a long, long sound which never became a word. He landed with a dull noise, and continued falling, limbs quite loose, stair after stair, until he rolled to a stop at the bottom of the landing.
Mr. Richards was right after him. The watch was still ticking. As Mr. Richards looked almost incuriously at the dead man’s face, he had time for a brief reflection.
Naturally, it would be a shock to Mrs. Hammond. But her bereavement would not be without compensations. She would not have to put up with Harry Hammond’s selfishness and vile temper any longer. There would be a funeral, and she could make all the arrangements to her heart’s content—flowers, hymns, guest lists, everything.
And henceforth she could visit Greenlawn Cemetery as often as she liked. There would be one more grave to which she could bring flowers and see that everything was nicely cared for, one more well-kept grave over which she could say a little prayer. And then, afterward, have a cup of tea in the nice clean coffee shop nearby.
Of course, there was bound to be a certain amount of loneliness at first. She would feel it, she was bound to, particularly when she was by herself in the Hammond double room—the one with the lovely view. The nice quiet one, where no old men cried out, no old men coughed forever, no old men moaned aloud the whole sleepless night through.
Moving very quickly, Mr. Richards swept up the watch and put it in his pocket. Later, he would have the back replaced. It would not do—it would never, never do—to have anyone else see the words engraved there, words he knew by heart.
Half a Century of Faithful Service
1900–1950
Stanley Carl Richards
Accounting Dep’t, Walton & Co.
Mr. Richards lifted his head. “Help!” he shouted. “Help! Somebody get a doctor, quick! Mr. Hammond fell down the stairs!”
Feet came running, voices were loud, but Mr. Richards scarcely heard them. What would a proper interval of time be? Three months? Six? He would let events take their course.
Now that he was sure, he could be patient. It would not be long. She would be lonely all by herself in that pleasant double room, that quiet room with a view. He knew, already, what his opening words would be. “Mrs. Hammond—Alice.” That was a nice name. It fitted her. “Alice—do you think you could bring yourself to marry a killer?”