He was in his bathing trunks. On his feet were the “low-quarters” he had been discharged in. He had not had time, so anxious was he to get away, to buy other shoes, not even the sneakers appropriate for afternoon climbs like this one on the high hill behind Bieberman’s.
He had lost interest in the hike. He turned his back on the sandy, rock-strewn path that continued on up the hill and into the woods he had promised himself to explore, and he looked down to see where he had come from. Below him was the resort. He had never seen the place from this vantage point, and its arrangement in the flat green valley struck him as comic. It looked rather like a giant fun house in an amusement park. He had the impression that if he were to return to his room he would find, bracketed in heavy yellow frames, mirrors that gave back distorted images. In the trick rooms, constructed to defy gravity, he would have to hang onto the furniture to keep from falling. He looked at the fantastic spires that swirled like scoops of custard in cups too small for them, and he pictured Bieberman climbing at sunset to the top of these minarets to bellow like a clownish muezzin to the wayward guests. He saw the beach umbrellas, bright as lollipops, on the hotel lawn. They were like flowers grown grossly out of proportion in a garden.
He grinned, shifting his gaze from the hotel grounds and letting it fall on his own body. It rested there a moment without any recognition and then, gradually conscious of himself, he stared, embarrassed, at his thighs, which exposure to the sun had failed to tan deeply. He traced his legs down past bony kneecaps and hairless shins and mocked in silence their abrupt disappearance into the formal shoes. Why, he was like someone come upon in the toilet. The fat thighs, the shiny pallor of the too-smooth legs, like the glaucous sheen on fruit, betrayed him. He seemed to himself clumsy and a little helpless, like old, fat women in camp chairs on the beach, their feet swollen in the men’s shoes they have to leave untied, the loose strings like the fingers they lace protectively across their busts.
Just what was he really doing at Bieberman’s, he wondered. He could write off his disappointment as an experience of travelers who, having left the airport in their hired cars, and spoken to clerks about reservations, and made arrangements for the delivery of bags, at last find themselves alone in strange cities, bored, depressed, sleepless in their rented beds, searching aimlessly for familiar names in the telephone directory. But what, finally, was he doing there at all? He thought of the other people who had come to the hotel and had to remind himself that they did not live there always, had not been hired by the hotel as a kind of folksy background, a monumental shill for his benefit. They were there, he supposed, for the access it gave them to the tennis court, the pool, the six-hole golf course, the floor show “nitely,” the card tables, the dining room, each other. And he, fat-thighed lover, abandon bent, was there to lay them. Fat chance, Fat Thigh, he thought.
He wondered whether to start up the path once more, and turned to estimate the distance he had yet to travel. He looked again below him. He saw the drained pool. A little water, like a stain on the smooth white tile, still remained at the bottom. Some reflected light flashed against his eyes and he turned, instinctively shielding them with one cupped palm.
“I didn’t think you’d see me,” someone said.
Preminger stepped back. He hadn’t seen anyone, but assumed that the boy who was now coming from within the trees that bordered the path had mistaken his gesture as a wave and had responded to it.
“If you’re trying to hide,” Preminger said, “you shouldn’t wear white duck trousers. Law of the jungle.” The bare-chested boy, whom he recognized as the lifeguard, came cautiously onto the path where Preminger stood. Preminger thought he seemed rather shamefaced, and looked into the green recess from which the boy had come, to see if perhaps one of the girls from the hotel was there.
“I wasn’t hiding,” the boy said defensively. “I come up here often when I’m not on duty. I’ve seen you down there.”
“I’ve seen you too. You’re the lifeguard.” The boy looked down. They were standing in a circle of sunlight that seemed, in the woodsy arena, to ring them like contenders for a title of little note. He noticed uncomfortably that the boy was looking at his shoes. Preminger shuffled self-consciously. The boy looked up and Preminger saw that his eyes were red.
“Have they been talking about me?” the boy asked.
“Has who been talking about you?”
The boy nodded in the direction of the hotel.
“No,” he said. “Why?” He asked without meaning to.
“Mr. Bieberman said I shouldn’t hang around today. I didn’t know anywhere to come until I remembered this place. I was going all the way to the top when I heard you. I thought Mr. Bieberman might have sent you up to look for me.”
Preminger shook his head.
The boy seemed disappointed. “Look,” he said suddenly, “I want to come down. I’m not used to this. How long do they expect me to stay up here?” For all the petulance, there was real urgency in his voice. He added this to the boy’s abjectness, to his guilt at being found, and to the terror he could not keep to himself. It wasn’t fair to let the boy continue to reveal himself in the mistaken belief that everything had already been found out about him. He didn’t want to hear more, but already the boy was talking again. “I’m not used to this,” he said. “I told Mr. Bieberman at the beginning of the summer about my age. He knew I was sixteen. That’s why I only get two hundred. It was okay then.”
“Two hundred?”
The boy stopped talking and looked him over carefully. He might have been evaluating their relative strengths. As though he had discovered Preminger’s weakness and was determined to seize upon it for his own advantage, he looked down at Preminger’s knees. Preminger felt his gaze keenly.
“Does anyone else know?” Preminger asked abruptly.
“Mrs. Frankel, I think,” he said, still not looking up.
Preminger shifted his position, moving slightly to one side. “She’ll be going home today,” he said. “I saw her this morning. She didn’t say anything.” He did not enjoy the cryptic turn in the conversation. It reminded him vaguely of the comical communication between gangsters in not very good films. A man leans against a building. Someone walks past. The man nods to a loitering confederate. The confederate lowers his eyes and moves on.
He made up his mind to continue the walk. “Look,” he said to the boy, “I’m going to go on up the path.” Having said this, he immediately began to move down toward Bieberman’s. He realized his mistake but felt the boy staring at him. He wondered if he should make some feint with his body, perhaps appear to have come down a few steps to get a better look at some nonexistent activity below them and then turn to continue back up the path. The hell with it, he thought wearily. He could hear the boy following him.
Some pebbles that the boy dislodged struck Preminger’s ankles. He watched them roll down the hill. The boy caught up with him. “I’m going down too,” he said, as though Preminger had made a decision for both of them. The path narrowed and Preminger took advantage of the fact to move ahead of the boy. He moved down quickly, concentrating on the steep angle of the descent. Just behind him the boy continued to chatter. “He needed someone for the season. It was the Fourth of July and he didn’t have anyone. I got a cousin who works in the kitchen. He told me. Mr. Bieberman knew about my age. I told him myself. He said, ‘What’s age got to do with it? Nobody drowns.’ I had to practice the holds in my room.” The path widened and the boy came abreast of him. He timed his pace to match Preminger’s and they came to the bottom of the hill together.