Angels in Heaven

hotel right around the corner from the bistro, whither we proceeded
smartly. In we went, and Benny requested a half an hour please and handed over
some pesos and ordered some drinks and got handed in return three large and
fluffy towels right out of a soap powder commercial, and we followed an ancient
bellboy down a corridor to baño number two, which he unlocked for us. He
led the way into a tiled room that had slatted wooden benches on two sides and
then withdrew gracefully. We all turned our backs politely on one another,
undressed, and then wrapped our anatomies in towels. When I turned around, I
exclaimed, “Doris! All your hair’s fallen off!”
    “It was a wig, stupid,” she said,
rubbing one hand over her almost bald dome. “Francis, my stylist, dig, at
Sassoon’s, said I’d completely totaled my hair with all that shit I’ve been
putting on it, so it had to come off.”
    “Francis said that, did he?” I said.
“Hmm. But I love the Yul Brynner look, it’s so you. It’s true it might be
considered a soupçon passé, but don’t worry, it’ll grow out in a year or two.”
    “That’s more than I can say about
yours,” she said.
    “Oh, come on, you two,” said Benny.
“Walk this way.”
    “If I could walk that way, I’d save a
fortune on talcum powder,” Doris said. Sometimes the kid surprised me.
    We followed him into the steam part
of the steam baths, a small room that was off the front room and also tiled,
and also with two wooden benches. Benny turned the handle on the bottom of the
steam pipe and an awful lot of very hot steam is what we were immediately in
the midst of, trying to breathe. And after a few minutes of steam came the
dream— a gorgeous pool next door, done in three levels, into which fresh
greeny-blue water was gushing.
    Every inch of the room and the pool
was covered with decorative tiles—birds, flowers, greenery, butterflies—it was
mind-boggling. I tried not to think of poor Billy and his once-a-week cold
shower.
    “Just one thing, Sara,” I said
sternly, gingerly testing the water with one big toe. “And I mean this
sincerely—no splashing.”
    “Of course not,” she scoffed. “What
do you think I am, a kid?”
    How long do you think it took from
the time I finished enunciating the word splashing for the first
freezing tidal wave, sent my way courtesy of the queen of the twerps, to drench
me and my towel completely? Well, the speed of H 2 O may not be quite
as rapid as the speed of light, but it isn’t far behind either.
    So we larked about and drank our
drinks, which had mysteriously appeared on a tray inside the front door, and
got steamed up again and then cold again, and a good time was had by all.
    Afterward, much refreshed, we took
our customary coffees at the café in front of our hotel, positively glowing
with good health and clean pores. Then I let Benny beat me in two games of
chess up in his room, played on his midget magnetic traveling set; then I let
Montezuma take his excruciating revenge one more time; then Mrs. Daniel’s
little boy went bye-byes. I hated that stupid pathetic set of Benny’s, it was
so small that even with glasses on, you could hardly tell which men were which.
I was just about to invent the world’s most innovative chess move since the
Queen’s Gambit when the sandman took me far, far away.
    The following morning, not too early
as mornings can go sometimes, like on farms, in hospitals, and in prisons, we
had our breakfast coffees in the hotel dining room for a change, dawdled around
a bit, did a bit of shopping and this and that, and almost went for a ride on
one of the brightly painted horse-drawn hansom cabs that cruise the avenues
looking for unwary tourists, and then we all dropped by the office to say buenos
días to the portero, drop off the hammocks, return his toolbox, and
at least try to look like a going concern. I checked out the phones and the
intercom; they all worked. Doris checked out the toilet down the hall and
reported it worked.
    At noon Benny took himself off in the
car on his errand. I gave Doris one of the postcards I’d purchased earlier, and
told her to be a good girl and drop a line to her folks and I would be a good
boy and write my mom. Doris obliged, but with a somewhat faraway look on her
face. She put her pen down abruptly.
    “What’s the plural of metamorphosis?” she said.
    “I don’t even know what the singular
is,” I said. “ ‘So, Mom, having wonderful time, wish you were