Alongside Night
179
Part Three
I think the most pitiable was a female Ghost…. This one seemed quite unaware of her phantasmal appearance. More than one of the Solid People tried to talk to her, and at first I was quite at a loss to understand her behaviour to them. She appeared to be contorting her all but invisible face and writhing her smokelike body in a quite meaningless fashion. At last I came to the conclusion—incredible as it seemed—that she supposed herself still capable of attracting them and was attempting to do so.
—C.S. LEWIS, The Great Divorce
180
Alongside Night
Alongside Night
181
Chapter 19
Shopping parcels notwithstanding, Elliot and Lorimer strode the three-quarter mile to the Hilton in close to fifteen minutes. They stopped at the hotel telephones, calling up the room number Al had given them, Elliot having decided that his father had a better chance of surviving his sudden appearance if given even momentary preparation. Losing his father a third time—especially from mere lack of social grace—was not a prospect he cared to face.
A tired voice answered on the fifth ring. “Yes?”
“Dad?”
A long silence followed. “What room did you want?”
“Dad, this is Ell. I’m calling from the lobby. Al told me where you were.”
There was no exclamation, only another long pause. “Your mother and Denise—?”
Elliot hesitated only briefly. “They’re not with me, Dad. Uh—
I do have a friend with me, though. Is it okay?”
“Bring your friend up with you.”
“We’ll be right up.”
After hanging up, Elliot told Lorimer, “He doesn’t sound well.”
“Are you sure you want me with you?” she asked.
“Now more than ever. Come on.”
In five minutes they were at the room. Elliot almost did not recognize his father. His eyes had bags under them, making him look years older than his actual forty-eight, and though Dr. Vreeland was wearing a jacket, it needed pressing, as did the rest of his clothes. Elliot thought his father looked like a physician who had been serving in a plague. The hotel room did not look much better, the bed unmade, half a dozen coffee 182
Alongside Night
cups strewn around. There had been visitors: ashtrays were filled with cigarette butts.
Elliot and Lorimer went in, Dr. Vreeland closing the door. Father and son looked at each other briefly, then, for the first time since Elliot had been a small boy, they hugged each other. Elliot’s father said, “You look older.”
“You look a little battle-scarred yourself.”
Dr. Vreeland smiled slightly, the tension broken. Elliot took Lorimer’s hand and guided her forward. “Dad, this is Lor.”
“I’m very honored to meet you, Dr. Vreeland,” she said. “I’ve learned a great deal from your books. Especially Weimar, 1923.”
Elliot looked at her with surprise but said nothing. Dr. Vreeland’s surprise was equally great. “Your study is economic history? I would have thought you too young to be in graduate school.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t even started college yet.”
“Then it is I who am honored to meet you,” said Dr. Vreeland.
“Weimar, 1923 was my doctoral thesis, and I have been repeatedly assured by colleagues even more verbose than myself that it is just about the most thoroughly unreadable piece ever written.”
Dr. Vreeland motioned them to sit around a coffee table in the corner, then apologized for the room’s condition, explaining that he had not allowed a hotel maid in for two days. “When was the last time you slept?” Elliot asked him.
“Oh, I was catching a short nap when you called up. I was awake most of last night, and I’m expecting a visitor shortly—
a business associate.”
“Dad, what went wrong? When I got back to the apartment, everyone was gone—the suitcases were gone. I thought you were all waiting at the rendezvous point and was heading there when two cops—FBI, I think—showed up at our apartment looking for me. I gave them the slip, but not before I heard Alongside Night
183
them say they had my family. I thought they’d gotten you all.”
Dr. Vreeland shook his head. “I left the apartment with the luggage, as planned, wearing a disguise Denise had designed. Very naturalistic—even close up—but I looked like Mephistopheles, a silver-gray wig, false beard, and mustache.”
Elliot smiled. “My sister has-always been somewhat melodramatic,” he explained to Lorimer. Dr. Vreeland nodded agreement, continuing, “I then drove to the airlines’ office on Forty-second Street to pick up our tickets and clearances. By the way, as it turned out, your trip wasn’t really necessary. I found time at six to check over with Dave Albaugh.”