New Yorker … well, never mind.’ He wasn’t going to explain The New Yorker magazine to a darkie
spear-chucker like me, you know.”
Delores laughed.
“‘But by the time I’d finished breakfast,’ he went on, ‘it began to seem more like it might be a novelette. And
then I started to work on it … rough out some ideas … and now . . .’ He gave out this shrill little laugh. ‘I don’t
think I’ve had an idea this good in ten years. Maybe never. Do you think it would be possible for twin brothers
– fraternal, not identical – to end up fighting on opposite sides during World War II?”
“‘Well, maybe not in the Pacific,’ I said. Another time I don’t think I would have had nerve enough to speak to
him at all, Delores – I would have just stood there and gawped. But I still felt like I was under glass, or like I’d
had a bit of nitrous oxide at the dentist’s and wasn’t quite out from under it yet.
“He laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard and said, ‘No, not there – in the ETO. And they’d
come face to face during the Battle of the Bulge.’
`Well, I guess that could be-‘ I started, but by then he was walking around the parlor again, fast, running his
hands through his hair and making it look wilder and wilder.
‘I know it sounds like Orpheum Circuit melodrama,’ he said, ‘some silly piece of claptrap like Armadale, but
the concept of twins … and it could be explained rationally … I see just how . . .’ He whirled on me. ‘Would it
have dramatic impact?’
“‘Yes, sir, everyone likes stories about brothers that don’t know they’re brothers, especially if they’re twins,’ I said.
‘Sure they do,’ he said. ‘And I’ll tell you something else-‘ Then he stopped and I saw the queerest expression
come over his face. It was queer, but I could read it letter-perfect. It was like he was waking up to do
something foolish, like a man suddenly realizing he’s spread his face with shaving cream and then taken his
electric razor to it. He was talking to a nigger hotel maid about what was maybe the best idea he’d ever had –
a nigger hotel maid whose idea of a good story was probably The Edge of Night or Search for Tomorrow .
He’d forgot me saying I’d read two of his books-”
“Or thought it was just a lie to flatter him and get a bigger tip,” Delores murmured.
“Yeah, or maybe that. Anyway, that expression said he’d just realized who he was talking to, that was all.
‘I think I’m going to extend my stay,’ he said. ‘Tell them at the desk, would you?’ He spun around to start
walking again and his leg hit the room service cart. ‘And get this out of here, would you?’
” ‘Would you want me to come back later and-‘ I started.
“‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he says, ‘come back later and do whatever you like. just be a good girl and take the cart and
go.’
I did just that, and I was never so relieved in my life as when the parlor door shut behind me. I wheeled the
room service trolley over to the side of the wall. He’d had juice and scrambled eggs and bacon. I started to
walk away and then I seen there was a mushroom on his plate, too, pushed aside with the last of the eggs and a little bit of bacon. I looked at it and it was like a light went on in my head. I remembered the mushroom
she’d given me – old Mama Delorme – in the little plastic box. Remembered it for the first time since that day.
I remembered taking it home, and finding it in my dress pocket, and where I’d put it. The one on his plate
looked just the same-old and wrinkled and sort of dried up, like it might be a toadstool instead of a mushroom,
and one that would make you powerful sick.
She looked at Delores steadily.
“He’d eaten part of it. More than half of it, I’d say.”