Page 9

Chapter Nine

In they came. The Germans, the Japanese, the Italians, the miscellaneous smaller factions that had little in common with each other besides not being German, Japanese, or Italian. After frenzied days of preparation, it was finally real. The Germans had just taken Benghazi; the Argyll Sutherlanders had bagpiped the British retreat from the Malay Peninsula; Royal Air Force flying ace R. R. S. Tuck—the luckiest pilot alive—had finally been shot down by the Nazis; prison workers in Wheeling, West Virginia, had found a mammoth skeleton while digging a new road for troops. And June Hudson had a hotel full of Axis diplomats.

The men came first, by foot, and lined up in the lobby to receive instructions and keys as the house Cadillacs left to make the first of many trips to retrieve wives, children, and luggage.

“Welcome to the Avallon,” Basil Pemberton addressed the gathered men. He had been nominated for the task of delivering the parameters of the stay for the same reason that June had hired him to do telephone registration. He had a round, plummy voice to match his round, plummy name (say it: PemmmBurrrTohn!). It classed up every conversation. “It is our pleasure to provide your lodging during this difficult time.”

Pennybacker had said June would feel better once they arrived, as they would be more like her usual guests than she thought, but, leaning back against the front desk, observing, she could see this was not entirely the case. About half the men standing, red-cheeked and clutching coffee cups, had the look of diplomats or foreign nationals with executive or elite status. The other half, who hung back tactfully, were clearly support staff. Drivers. Butlers. Cooks. Husbands of maids, secretaries, nannies. The first group paid close attention to Basil. The second group could not help but gawp at their surroundings. They tilted their heads back to look at the chandelier several stories overhead. They glanced over their shoulders at the rich paneling along the length of the front desk. They touched the shivering fronds of the royal palms beside the white sofas. They made eye contact with the quintet playing in the alcove. They started in surprise when her waitstaff moved quietly among them, refilling drinks and taking discarded glasses.

It put June in mind of when she’d first arrived at the Avallon; of when any new staff member came to the Avallon. Seeing the hotel for the first time was pleasurable for those who were already accustomed to indulgence. But for those who had come from ordinary lives—the Avallon was a religious experience. Several hours of each new staff member’s first day were dedicated to a thorough tour, so that they could ogle and gasp and, like June, fall in love.

June had expected to merely tolerate these enemy usurpers, but seeing these men marveling over the hotel just like all her new back-of-house arrivals made her unexpectedly tender toward them.

Yes , she thought, meet the Avallon .

Basil said, “After this little talk, you will check in with Mr. Benjamin Pennybacker, this gentleman to my left, and receive the keys to your suites, and our porters will be at your disposal. I apologize in advance for the inefficiency; unfortunately, there is only one of Mr. Pennybacker and many of you!”

Pemberton gave a plummy laugh. The diplomats knew they were meant to smile or laugh with him, so they did. The support staff did not, except for a few who realized too late and laughed too loud. Do you see that? Mr. Francis’s voice asked June. These are the subtle social transactions that keep those men firmly in their class. Is it that they didn’t find the joke funny? It wasn’t funny. It is not about that. It is about what was appropriate. A reciprocal smile or laugh was appropriate. The smile indicates they are grateful for him taking the time to explain the situation in a way that honors their status. The smile indicates this entire situation is a joke they are in on. The smile says they still have control. The men who didn’t smile have no control, so they will always have to serve those who do.

“While you are waiting,” Basil went on, “please check your pockets to make sure they are free of the items prohibited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Radios, weapons, and of course, any sensitive documents. It will be our pleasure to secure these items, and any other valuables you prefer to safekeep in our security boxes.”

Two members of the collected party weren’t men: a woman with shoulder-length red-gold hair and a girl with straight blond hair all the way down her back to the tops of her thighs. The woman must have been a diplomat’s wife. She had a regal bearing, which June knew from experience did not necessarily mean imperious, but rather elegant, tactful, mannered, warm. These days, kings and queens and princes and princesses were becoming diplomats themselves, representing the reticent ideal Mr. Francis tried to teach her.

The woman’s daughter (because she was clearly her daughter) did not quite match her. The girl stood quietly, but her gaze was too sharp when it landed on other people’s faces. She studied rather than observed, a difference the subject of such a gaze feels immediately. The girl had directed this stare at June in the driveway; she directed it at everyone around her now, eyebrows furrowed.

“The State Department asks that you limit your exploration to the areas indicated on the maps provided at Mr. Pennybacker’s table,” Basil went on. “All meals will be served in our world-famous Magnolia Dining Room, but you may also make use of our exceptional room service staff. The Avallon also has two tearooms and a pub available for refreshments outside mealtimes, although please do note that the State Department has asked everyone to be on their floors for the night by ten p.m. I also invite you to inspect the Avallon’s high-quality shopping arcade on the first floor; the shops will be open during normal business hours to serve you.”

The absurdity of this! In ordinary circumstances, diplomats were supposed to have complete immunity from both criminal and administrative interference, were not to be imprisoned, and were supposed to be free to travel, to hither, to thither. In these circumstances: they could shop.

“What hours are the bathhouses open?”

June did not catch which of the diplomats had asked the question.

Basil answered immediately, “I’m afraid the bathhouses are not currently open at this time. They are undergoing winter maintenance.”

He made eye contact with her. Pennybacker had said the bathhouses could remain off-limits as long as the Americans detained in Germany weren’t allowed to use the spa services there. Reciprocity. Of course, June’s diplomats already had access to the water; they had the fonts, bathtubs, and fountains. But that felt limited. Let the sweetwater have a minute or two to see how it felt about these people before she baptized them right at the potent springheads.

Basil continued: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation is permitting one newspaper; I encourage you to consider which publication you would prefer. For any questions related to your stay, I invite you to reach out to either Mr. Pennybacker or the two members of the Swiss liaison, who I understand will be here later today. For service-related questions, you may of course ask any of the fellows in gray and gold you see, and I would also like to take the opportunity to introduce you to June Hudson, our general manager; she is over there, waving at us. We are all privileged to make your stay a memorable one; again, welcome, welcome, enjoy yourselves!”

As the diplomats began to queue for Pennybacker, head waiter Sebastian Hepp sidled up to June, silently sliding his tray onto the front desk. His face was mottled from the winter cold, but his pleasant smile was still in place and would remain for his entire shift. In a very low voice, he asked, “How is it going so far, Hoss?”

June twitched her chin toward the woman with the red-gold hair. “Who is that woman, do you know?”

Most general managers would not have expected a waiter to know the identities of guests who had only just walked up the driveway, but at the Avallon, June had emphasized again and again the power of the guests’ names. Although she didn’t expect them to remember the names of everyone on the property as she did, she expected them to try. It turned out that this was a muscle that could be successfully trained; her staff impressed her every day.

“Sabine Wolfe,” Sebastian said. “The wife of Friedrich Wolfe, the German cultural attaché. And their daughter, Hannelore.”

Hannelore was a poetic name, even more poetic when Sebastian said it in his faint German accent.

“She’s unusual?”

Sebastian said, “She does not speak.”

“At all?”

“Her mother apologized for it. She says the girl has never said a word, but she does sing.”

June looked at the girl with new interest. Her keen study of other people felt different in light of this information. Her blue eyes took in everything about them, and for what? Not to use as social capital or in conversation. June was reminded a little of her own youth. She had been a listener, too, after all.

“Did you know Erich von Limburg-Stirum is here?” Sebastian added, boyish enthusiasm nearly breaking his whisper.

The celebrated trick pilot Erich von Limburg-Stirum stood in line with the other diplomats, a tall, towheaded young man with a face so inviting that one could be forgiven for thinking he was handsome. He seemed more American than the Germans around him; it took June a moment to realize it was because he smiled with his teeth. Pennybacker had told June that it was the pilot’s VIP status that had grounded him here; he had been invited on too many backstage tours of important airfields. Overnight, war had made this knowledge fraught. It was a story that stuck with her. Unlike the diplomats, who had knowingly chosen to represent their countries’ interests, Erich von Limburg-Stirum couldn’t have known he was flying directly into this fate.

The Avallon was not used to holding people against their will, or to unfairness. The sweetwater was very, very fair.

She said, “Don’t you fellas pester him.”

“Paul and I will be under the crack of his door in the night for his autograph,” Sebastian said, and she lightly hit him with the back of her hand.

“Get back to work, scoundrel,” June said. “Do you need anything from me?”

“For the Japs to tip. The Deutsch are laying it on like high rollers, but not a penny from the Pacific front.”

“Don’t pester them , either.”

“Hoss.” Sebastian put his hand to his chest, pretending to be wounded, and then whirled away with his tray.

The lobby was filling up with wives and children. The diplomats received their keys, shrugged off fur coats, and handed dog leashes to the runner boys. Three well-dressed members of the German legation observed some hooting lower-class Italian children with antipathy, a Japanese man and one of June’s waiters carried on an interminable bowing match in a social ouroboros neither seemed to know how to end, and an Italian maid wailed as porters tried to take her coat—unfamiliar with both English and upper-class hotels, she thought they were trying to confiscate it. It was chaos.

June resisted the temptation to dive in and deliver suggestions. She had trained them in this, after all, her beloved staff. She trusted them; they trusted her.

She gave to them: She ate with them each day in the canteen. She took part in the training of even the humblest of positions their first week. She made sure they were fed and well-slept, offering on-site barracks for the single staff and transportation from the town below for everyone else. She let them page through her ledgers full of task and guest lists and scan the accounts for waste. She was not coy about what it took to balance the waters beneath the hotel.

And they gave to her: their skills and energy, their loyalty, their acceptance of her principles. They proved over and over that, together, they accomplished something bigger than they could on their own. They let her be the Avallon with them. She was the mind and they were her arms and hands and fingers and legs and feet and toes. A single proud entity.

“Miss Hudson, good morning.”

A short Japanese woman addressed her. She was middle-aged but dressed like an older woman, in a cape and beret. She seemed to be the spokesperson for a trio of Japanese women; the other two stood off a few yards, pretending not to be watching June intently.

“Good morning,” June said.

“I am Sachiko Nishimura.”

Just like that, June found herself facing the wife of Takeo Nishimura, the now-infamous Japanese consul. Debate still raged in the staff canteen and the newspapers about whether the Japanese diplomats had been hoodwinked by their home country or whether they had been colluding with it, knowingly peddling lies of peace to a gullible America until Pearl Harbor. June hadn’t bothered formulating an opinion on the matter, but it was different when she was breathing the same air as someone directly involved.

“This is a beautiful hotel,” said Sachiko Nishimura.

“Thank you.”

“They did not tell us where we were going.” Sachiko’s accent was heavy, but her English was as effective as her fashion. “My husband, Takeo, was worried it would be a terrible place.”

She did not say because of what Japan has done , but of course that was the reason. Because of what her husband had done, possibly. Possibly, as June was lying in bed with Gilfoyle, murmuring about what sort of future they might have together, Sachiko and Takeo Nishimura were lying on two twin beds facing each other, murmuring about whose future they were about to destroy, planning the death of Toad’s hellion son.

June wasn’t supposed to know this much about Sachiko. It was, in fact, one of Mr. Francis’s most central and seemingly contradictory tenets: the staff was to thoroughly know the guests; the staff wasn’t to know the guests at all. This had been particularly important during the Depression, when people starved in town squares and a nickel sometimes literally represented the difference between life and death. If a wealthy couple known for their patronage of the arts came to the Avallon, it was appropriate for the staff to know that they were, say, benefactors of the American Numismatic Society and four wildlife preserves, and to engage them in small talk about rare coins and rarer bison. It was not appropriate to use this knowledge to solicit ordinary coins or to sell a painting one had done of bison. These notable guests had to feel both known and anonymous, freed from the envy and ulterior motives that existed for them outside the hotel. To have achieved notability but not be asked to perform it: that was a kind of luxury, too.

The tenet was just as important for notorious guests, of which the Avallon had its share, well before the Nishimuras arrived. June wasn’t a fool. The perfect guest was not necessarily the perfect human. Mr. Francis explained all this to her, but he hadn’t even finished before she understood the truth behind it. The Avallon simply couldn’t run without this division between identity and soul. The world cared about the guests’ identities. The Avallon could only care about everything else. The hotel wasn’t for those who deserved it. It was for those who came. The moment that illusion was broken, so, too, was the staff.

June schooled her thoughts.

Sachiko said, “We did not know we would be asked to leave the embassy on such short notice. We did not expect it to be such”—she faded a little—“a grand place. We did not bring everything we might need for such a place.”

Her eyes searched the gilded mirrors lining the walls, avoiding June’s gaze. Something was troubling her, something unspoken. Something that her status would not permit her to say directly. Not easily, anyway, not comfortably. It couldn’t be as simple as needing a hairbrush, a coat. Requests like that would be spoken as an order to one of the staff members. No, this was a matter that had to go to someone like June, someone with power of her own, someone who understood the language of discretion.

June listened to this silence between the words, testing it and then, all at once, put it together with Sebastian’s earlier comments. “Is there an issue with the tips?”

Sachiko’s expression lightened; thank goodness June had said it first, so she didn’t have to. “My husband has informed me that, in a beautiful hotel like this, there is a tradition of tips. Handsome tips. But our accounts have been frozen.”

June imagined the other woman’s relief when she realized they were not being taken to a prison or camp. Then she imagined the embarrassment that took its place once Takeo, well-traveled and well-versed in American ways, recognized the kind of hotel the Avallon was. Better for the staff to believe the Japanese knew about tipping, but weren’t able to, or for the staff to believe the Japanese were too ignorant to understand such an American expectation? Both options were humiliating.

June’s schooled empathy became more genuine.

“The staff know these are strange times, Mrs. Nishimura,” she said. “You won’t offend them. I’ll make sure they know the circumstances. And I reckon those Swiss fellers who are on their way can give you a hand with the accounts; they’re supposed to help with settling matters at the embassies.”

This was sufficient to clear all uncertainty from Sachiko’s face. She bowed to June. Behind her, when June caught the eyes of the other two women, they bowed, too.

Sachiko said, “I am not sure why, but it is very comforting to be cared for by a woman at one of these places, even though it is also surprising. Takeo thought—are you Francis Gilfoyle’s daughter?”

June was astonished.

But then it dawned on her: Sachiko Nishimura, despite speaking very good English, couldn’t hear June’s accent. Her mountaineer turns of phrase, her clipped vowels—they were just acceptable variations in a second language, not damning class markers audible from across a cocktail party. Was June Francis Gilfoyle’s daughter? Why not? In a world where her voice did not give her away immediately, she could have passed as a Gilfoyle for a very long time.

For a brief, luminescent moment, June imagined what these unspoken words would sound like spoken: Daughter-in-law, yes. I married Edgar, the eldest, but I was running the hotel before that. He handles the holdings in New York; I handle the hotel. We work well together; we grew up together.

Edgar’s fingers on her wrist. I think the world of you, June. God, this wanting.

“No,” June said. “I belong to the Avallon.”