Winter Kept Us Warm. Anne Raeff

      She was at the reception desk. “Ulli,” he said, and when he reached the desk, he was out of breath.

      “Isaac,” Ulli said. “Come, sit down.” She led him to a sofa in the lobby. His breathing was deep and phlegmy.

      “I’m fine,” he insisted. “It sounds worse than it is. Asthma.”

      “It’s back?”

      “Yes, for about twelve years. It happened right after I retired, but the medications are much better now. I hardly notice it, really.”

      “It’s good to see you, Isaac,” she said, sitting down beside him and putting her hand on his shoulder, letting it rest there, asserting the gravity of the moment. “Welcome to the Hotel Atlas.”

      He smiled, remained very still. Her hand felt as if it were touching his skin directly. He wanted to reach up and take her hand, but that would have been too much. After all, he had just shown up, and she had had no time to prepare for his arrival. Yet she seemed calm. He realized then that he had hoped she would not be. Had he expected her to cry, to embrace him—not just lay her hand on his shoulder as if she were comforting him, though he had not asked her for comfort? But he had not come all this way to be angry. He smiled, and she smiled back.

      “The girls?” Ulli asked.

      “Simone and Juliet are well,” he said without further elaboration.

      “They are well,” Ulli repeated. She took a deep breath and let go of Isaac’s shoulder. “And to what, then, do I owe this honor?” she asked. He could still feel her hand on his shoulder, though he knew she had removed it. Like a phantom limb, he thought.

      “It’s been almost forty years. It’s just too long,” Isaac said, turning toward Ulli. “You look the same,” he said, though this was neither true nor what he had wanted to say. She looked like Ulli, but she was old now. Her eyes were still that same husky blue, but they seemed as if they were covered with gauze. He wondered whether that was how the world looked to her now, as if she were seeing it through a fine curtain.

      “Yes,” she agreed. “It’s been too long. Did you fly into Rabat?” she continued.

      “Yes, and I took the train.”

      “I could have sent a car, you know,” she said.

      “But then it would not have been a surprise,” Isaac said. “And anyway, I like trains, especially now that flying is so unpleasant. Even now, two years after nine-eleven, it’s always code red.”

      “The first few months after the attacks, people just stopped coming to Morocco. I thought I might have to close the hotel, but I guess people can’t live in fear forever, so now things are finally getting back to normal. Before the attacks, at this time of year I wouldn’t have had a room for you.”

      “I’m sorry. I should have called, let you know I was coming. It was presumptuous of me to think there would be a room,” Isaac said.

      “Nonsense. We would have figured something out. But you must be tired, exhausted.” She was in hospitality mode now, the hotelier, the keeper of clean rooms and comfortable beds.

      “It would be nice to wash up.”

      “Let me take you to your room, then. You can shower, rest. Would you prefer a room facing the courtyard or the street?” Ulli said this all in one breath, as if she were afraid he would disappear, walk out, find another hotel before she could finish.

      He wanted a room looking out onto the street, facing the morning sun. He wanted to watch people come and go. He wanted the sun to burst in through the window in the morning.

      “In the morning the sun is encouraging. By the afternoon we wish we could shoot it out of the sky,” Ulli said.

      She showed Isaac to his quarters.

      “I could never have imagined a more perfect room,” he said, pulling the curtains aside.

      “All the rooms are painted a different color—tangerine, light blue, ochre, watermelon, avocado, terra-cotta,” she explained. “When you open the curtains and the sun floods in, it’s quite impressive.”

      “The tile work is magnificent.” He pointed at the rug. “And this is beautiful.”

      “It’s a Berber rug. I don’t know why they’re not more appreciated in the rest of the world. Do you know that some of the fancy hotels here have wall-to-wall carpeting in the rooms? Anyone who prefers that to tiles and rugs shouldn’t bother coming to Morocco.”

      “I’ve never liked fancy hotels—all those columns and fountains and obsequious staff. This is so much better.”

      “Thank you, Isaac,” Ulli said.

      “It must be a lot of work, running such an establishment,” Isaac said.

      “Yes, but it keeps me active. I have found in my dotage that I am not good at relaxing. Even when I first started the hotel, I pictured myself dozing off in my chair in the afternoon sun, but there is really no time for dozing here. There’s always something to be done: windows to wash, floors to scrub, carrots to peel, figures to add. So I work just as hard as my employees. I know they find me a little odd. In Morocco, the boss doesn’t clean toilets and iron. But I would rather make beds or scrub bathtubs than sip sugary tea and stare out at the street.”

      “I would make a good bellhop, you know. I could wear a fez. I always wanted to wear a fez.”

      Ulli laughed. “I thought you don’t approve of obsequiousness.”

      “Does wearing a fez make one obsequious?” Isaac asked.

      Ulli laughed again. “Come to think of it, you wouldn’t look bad in a fez.” She went to the window and pulled it wide open. “Come,” she said. “If you lean way out, you can see a patch of the medieval wall.”

      “I see it,” Isaac said. “Remember that time we ate snow from the windowsill?”

      “With spoons,” Ulli said.

      “That was Leo’s idea,” Isaac said, regretting it immediately. He had not wanted to bring Leo up so soon, before she even had a chance to get used to his presence.

      “Yes,” Ulli said, pulling her head back into the room, but he kept his out for a few more moments, letting the hot, dry air fill his lungs.