The desk attendant was more than happy to tell me. “It was a Saturday night, and the hotel was busy. The film in the cinema was letting out, and the mayor and his wife were leaving a dinner in the ballroom, just there,” he said, pointing to a stanchioned-off set of doors at the back of the lobby. “And as they were passing the staircase, the Fox stumbled around the turn in the stairs—you see it there? And that is when we all saw him. Not a stitch of clothes.”
“He was wearing black socks,” the other attendant reminded him in a heavy Romanian accent.
“Ah, yes,” Andrei said, grinning. “Fox in socks. And drunk as a skunk.”
“Oh God,” I whispered.
“He was shouting like a maniac. No one could understand him, and he is such a large man, and so—how do you say?”
“Hairy,” the other attendant provided.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Like a great big bear,” Andrei said.
“Like a bear,” I repeated. “Indeed.”
“People were screaming and running from him,” Andrei said, smiling as if he was remembering it fondly. “And then... the mayor and his wife were in his path, and he tripped over the last stair and knocked over the mayor’s wife. She fell on the floor. That is when he got sick.”
For the love of Pete...
The other attendant said, “The mayor’s wife fainted but was otherwise unhurt. The mayor threatened legal action against the Fox—and the hotel.”
“But it was all fine,” Andrei said, waving his hands. “Because that is when we found out it was not just the whiskey, but also thesirop de tuse—cough suppressant? The medicine. He had mixed the two. It was potent. He was not himself.”
“And the reason he was coming to the front desk was because he’d accidently locked Jean-Bernard in the en suite inside his room,” the other attendant added. “We called a doctor and a locksmith.”
“He had much regret when he sobered up the next day,” Andrei said. “And because we smoothed everything over with the mayor—”
“And the police.”
“And hotel management,” Andrei said. “Well, that is why my wife has a new refrigerator.”
“And why the city has a new copper statue of a goddess in Ci?migiu Gardens that is modeled on the mayor’s wife.”
I tried to make my smile match the desk attendants’, smiles that conveyed we were all broad-minded enough to laugh at my father’s foibles, ha ha, ho ho, isn’t this a riot?
After a few more chuckles, other guests came to the desk, and the embarrassing story finally got buried. We left instructions with Andrei to let us know immediately when my father arrived—and I left further instructions requesting as many Romanian newspapers as they could find. Then we exited the lobby and took the elevator to the fifth floor.
“Sorry about all that. But I did warn you that you didn’t want to know,” Huck murmured, looking down at the floor of the elevator, arms crossed.
“Ugh. Why is my father such an embarrassment? High as a kite on cough suppressant and whiskey... He’s lucky he’s not dead.”
“Bigger question is, how does he fall in a puddle of his own sick but everyone here still adores him?”
A conundrum for the ages. My poor mother would be humiliated if she were still alive. I could almost feel her rolling in her grave.
Huck sighed heavily, and we were lost in our own thoughts until we made it to our floor and unlocked the door to our hotel room.
Accommodations at Hotel Regina were perfectly fine: pristine white duvets, crown molding, fresh flowers on a desk, and a wingback chair for reading. A bit cramped for two people, though there were indeed two beds and a balcony to make it feel roomier. Better than the train compartment, at least.
I set down my satchel and tried to ignore the en suite bathroom, because all I could picture was Jean-Bernard locked inside while my lunatic of a father was running around in the nude downstairs. Jean-Bernard must have wanted to strangle him; he was the epitome of class and sophistication. Come to think of it, he was my father’s opposite, and I had no idea how they’d been able to keep their friendship going without one of them ending up strangled or threatening a lawsuit.
I pulled open the room’s terrace door and looked over a wrought-iron Juliet balcony. Sunshine peeked out of a raincloud and shone over the rain-slicked boulevard, where cars sped several floors beneath us. A thousand painted signs hung over the sidewalks, pointing the way to cinemas, restaurants, cheap hotels, and grand theaters—Bucharest’s version of Broadway. I wondered if Father had taken the time to see any of it when he was here, or if he’d just spent all his time researching Vlad Dracula’s ring and ruining the Fox family name.
I supposed I’d find out soon enough. After all, Father could show up any minute. Then he could explain everything to us, and we could tell him about Mr. Sarkany, and all of this mess would start to make sense.
But he didn’t show up.
