Atdtda37: Under different management, natch, 1043-1045

[Paul Nightingale]

The previous section ends with Lew acknowledging 'the ol' RJ'; the hotel is
now 'even more of a wreck than he remembered', empirical evidence
undermining his recollection. For Lew, then, the new section is a trip into
the past, as it is for Emilio subsequently ('where we stayed on our
honeymoon', 1044). However, the opening lines also invoke the future,
offering the knowing reader a position from which they are able to look back
on 'the days just before the earthquake' (1043). Emilio will then become a
knowing reader of events in Jardine's room: the section will end with his 'I
want to start forgetting this soon as I can' (1045). When he first appears,
Emilio recalls the hotel, albeit reluctantly ('Thought I'd never have to see
this place again', 1044), which attitude follows the earlier reference to
'old Californian money, a relentlessly unacknowledged past' (1043): from
capitalism's desire to live in a permanent present to, in the role of a
comic subplot, the husband's disenchantment with marriage.

Further, if this take on Santa Barbara as the past offers one view of
suburban life, we might recall 'the remote and horrible town of Stuffed
Edge' (609), where Lew '[finds] a prospect bleak and hushed, all but
unmodified by vegetation' (610). In particular, 'Elflock Villa [is] a
semi-detached residence of singular monstrosity' and representative of
anything but 'old ... money'. Moreover, Santa Barbara's failure to, so to
speak, keep up might be indicated by the 'kid who must have been on summer
vacation' (1043): as an amateur gatekeeper he cannot compare to Lew's
receptionists, 'three layers of security' in the bureaucratic structure
described on 1040.

The reader has followed Lew; his investigation has given us access to Santa
Barbara, all of which might encourage an attempt to share his pov. However,
any such identification might be challenged, at the outset, by reference to
events yet to take place; and then, on the following page his interpretation
of Emilio's attitude ('Let me guess ...' etc, 1044) is found wanting. In
this scene, Lew ceases to be the investigator as at Stuffed Edge: at the
bottom of 1043 he readily gives up on trying to read Jardine's room and
calls Emilio (on whose ability to read history into the image, cf Merle's
'mission to set free the images not just in the photographs he was taking,
but in all that came his way ...' etc, 1037). Down 1044 Lew's presence at
the scene has become redundant: having assisted Emilio by placing the towel
over the mirror he 'kn[ows] better than to hover'. Measuring the time he
spends waiting for Emilio 'as housekeepers work their way down the line
toward him' might then have something to do with the amount he expects to
pay Emilio. By the end of the section Lew is an employer, even haggling with
his employee: for Emilio, the informal cash payment will leave no trace.


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