MATADOR
Louie Roulanne exploded through two big doors into the immense dining hall. Holding the doors wide with dramatic pause he stood on the plush red carpet at the top of three inner stairs. "She comes!" he cried. "The Hydra! She comes!"
Spederov froze at his waiter’s station, a cigarette hung from his mouth. "Damn," he said and ash dropped to the carpet.
Thomas Jenkins sat holding up a fork to admire its sparkle in the wide gleam of summer sunlight through the tall windows. He set the fork in the open drawer of his waiter's station and looked sideways along the aisle to Spederov's station. Then he turned casually to watch Roulanne, who had released the doors and dropped to one knee with a hand clutched at his breast, the other arm flung wide.
"We are doomed," Roulanne moaned loudly, lowering his head with great finality. He raised his head. "Thomas. You are doomed." Laughter from the ten waiters and their busboys was the nervousness of uncertainty.
"To hell with her, Thomas," Spederov said. "Let the beast have her way tonight. Then we'll get drunk."
Louie waded through the chairs surrounding white linen-covered tables. "Oui, mon ami. We will get drunk tonight because we have good reason. I assure you." He pulled a chair aside from one of Jenkin's tables and sat and tapped his index finger lightly on the cloth. Gerhardt and Hunt and Champney and the other waiters and their busboys were taking chairs on the periphery of Jenkins's tables. Jenkins prepared himself for some great practical joke. Then he saw Phillipe, his sixteen-year-old busboy, hanging back. He was pale and obviously upset. The dining room staff waited for Louie's expose and Spederov's side comments and Jenkins education in a quietness that reminded Jenkins of a wake he had once attended.
"She is called The Hydra, Thomas," Louie began, "Because her wrath can be as many as the courses of the meal. Every waiter you see here has been terrorized by her scorn. One of us she even quartered as early as the salad."
Spederov sneered.
Louie leaned forward. "There are only a few who have served as far as the coffee, before The Hydra reared her ugly head. I am one of them." He stared down at the table cloth and then disturbed the place setting, removing the napkin from under the silverware to dab at the perspiration on his brow. "She strikes with the fury of the demon possessed," he said and used the napkin to wipe his palms. "God and all of the angels and all of the seraphim know the coffee is never hot enough. I tell you it is better to suffer her wrath in the earlier courses and become accustomed to it in the presence of the other diners." He was speaking to the suffering of his own
recollection. "By the end of the meal the nerves are fragile and uncertain. One imagines light at the end of darkness and dares to hope. It is evil to destroy hope. I tell you it is evil that every waiter should be terrorized by that, that - ""Beast," Spederov interjected.
"Monster," Louie concluded.
"Well," Jenkins said, with his mind's eye on Phillipe. "I think you're being hard on the lady."
"Sacre bleu, mon ami," Louie exclaimed. "She tears the heart out."
"And she has no right," Spederov added.
Jenkins and the others watched Spederov and waited but it was Louie who spoke. "She was a Parisian at the time of the invasion. Her husband fought the Fascists while she escaped to Brittany. They reunited and fled to England where Sir Charles was honored. Life was merciful. She has forgotten."
"I doubt it," Jenkins said. "There must be a reason."
"Ah, oui, it is a generous thought, mon ami. But reasons are of no use when you are being scorned in the midst of a dining hall crowded with guests."