TOURIST ATTRACTIONS Read online

  I didn't picture the alcohol-fragranced young man with a two-day beard, leaning on the end of the counter and talking in French to the barefoot pasty blonde chick with a nose ring. Or the dreadlocked white girl wheedling in a heavy, unfamiliar accent (which I later learned was South African) that she was not smoking in the rooms, honest. The female hostel employee talking to her, planting a confrontational hand on her hip, had an Australian accent like the guy behind the counter.

  The Australian behind the counter could not assist us at once, because he was trying to help a pair of Japanese travelers who had just come in. They barely spoke English, and the fellow's broad accent wasn't helping.

  After waiting beside them and listening to the confused exchange for a minute, Laurence contributed a sudden phrase in Japanese. He had learned it in high school, and practiced it with some foreign colleagues of his father's. The two Japanese kids beamed and started nodding at him.

  Laurence asked them something else, then said to the Aussie, "They want to know if there's a place to store their luggage."

  The light dawned on the Aussie's face. "Ah, right!" he said. "Thanks, mate. Yeah, there's lockers upstairs, but you've got to pay for 'em. There's closets in the rooms, but it's first-come first-serve."

  Laurence translated this as well as he could, and the Japanese folks consented and paid their fees, and hauled their stuff up the stairs.

  "Show-off," I muttered as we took their space at the counter.

  "Nah, man, that was great!" the friendly Australian said. "Hey, you want a job here?" He grinned at Laurence.

  "I'll consider it. Er, we have reservations..."

  They conferred about this; we were finally located in the logbook. "Okay, I put you all four in number 17, on the third floor," he said.

  "All four of us?" we echoed.

  "Yeah, the rooms sleep eight to twelve; this one's a twelver."

  "There are...twelve...people in our room?" Laurence asked quietly.

  The Aussie, who didn't know that quietly was a dangerous tone from Laurence, answered, "Yeah, twelve when we're full-up; tonight only ten. Right, so that's seven pounds a night each, and Sunday's free if you stay six days in a row." He noticed our less-than-chipper faces, and added, "You won't find cheaper out there."

  The dismay was overwhelming, but we weren't about to go gallivanting out into the rain again with all our luggage.

  "Whatever; I'm too tired to argue," said Laurence. He unfolded some Scottish bank notes and paid the fee. "That's for tonight," he told us. "You can pay me back." And he hefted his suitcases and trudged up the stairs.

  "Confusing building," I commented as we climbed to the third floor.

  The staircases zigzagged up and up, and each floor had an unnecessarily high ceiling, but not much living space. It seemed that in the U.K., you didn't rent one level of a building; rather, you rented a vertical slice of the whole thing. We went through about four swinging doors before we were in the third floor corridor, and at the end of the hall was a set of stairs that went up and then stopped at a blank wall.

  "Obviously remodeled," Eileen said. "The outside of the building was just like the rest of the neighborhood: Georgian, you know; couple hundred years old. But they must have cleared the insides and divvied it up. I wonder what it used to be."

  "Don't know, but if it's 200 years old, someone probably died here," said Sharon. "You'll probably be able to see ghosts in our very room."

  Our very room, number 17, had no lock on the door.

  "Bad sign number one," Laurence muttered.

  Inside, it was about the size of a large classroom, and painted in a pale greenish shade, with fluorescent tube lights on the high ceiling. These buzzed when Eileen hit the switch, and we all looked up and cringed.

  "What a waste of potential chandelier space," she said.

  Sets of bunk beds were parked around the walls, along with two inadequate wardrobes. Clothing was already spilling out of these, and open suitcases on the floor were clearly being lived out of. A stuffy smell of over-breathed air and cigarette smoke clung to the draperies, which were also in cheap scholastic style: thick and brownish.

  They had told us there was no smoking allowed in the rooms, but this rule was obviously not followed, given the lingering smell and the unclean cereal dish on the windowsill holding several extinguished butts.

  I thought of sharing even a one-room mobile home with Tony, as a married couple in rural America, and I whimpered at how attractive it seemed in comparison to this. In fact, as we dispersed among the beds and put our stuff on the floor, I was really starting to feel sick.

  In a last-minute effort to recover, I went to the window, hoping to God it would open so I could breathe some fresh air. I shoved aside the curtain and tugged at the handle on the window, which not only opened but had no screen.

  Suicide was not discouraged here, either, I decided, peering down at the traffic and concrete four stories below. (What they called the third floor was actually the fourth, in American terms. They called the ground Floor Zero, not Floor One.)

  A few deep breaths of the cool rain-cleaned air made me feel better. Then I lifted my eyes from the traffic to the view above: a line of pointed church spires and buildings crammed together in European style marched up a steep slope, with green trees growing in a park below. I stuck my head out the window and leaned as far as I could to see around the edge of our building.

  Sure enough, there at the top of that slope was Edinburgh Castle, gray and grandiose in the rain clouds.

  Okay, so the view was nice.

  "I'm going to take a nap," Sharon yawned, behind me.

  "Me too," murmured Eileen. She had taken the bunk above Sharon.

  I drew my head back in and said, "Same here."

  On the bunk below mine, Laurence was already breathing like one deep in slumber, covered in the blue comforter ( duvet, they called it) that the hostel provided.

  With the relief that comes of having arrived at your destination, no matter what you have ahead of you, I removed my shoes, climbed the ladder to my bed, buried myself in the comforter, and fell asleep.

  Chapter Three

  The First Evening

  When I woke up, it was dark outside, but our overhead lights were still on. A blond-haired boy, perhaps 19 years old, was getting something from the closet, trying not to make too much noise. He smiled at me when I raised my head, then closed the wardrobe doors and left the room without saying a word.

  I sat up and stretched, feeling much better. He had been strikingly pretty. Probably American, though, and I didn't come to Scotland to hang out with Americans.

  It was 7:30 p.m., according to my watch. I swung my legs onto the ladder and prepared to get down. There was a dough-faced girl with earphones on, sitting cross-legged on the floor across the room, reading what looked to be a Bible.

  I jumped to the floor and smiled timidly at her. She glanced up at me, her scowl deepened, and she went back to her reading.

  Sharon and Eileen were not in their bunks anymore, but Laurence was still in his. He woke up when I landed on the floor beside him. He turned onto his back, stretched, and looked at me with amused annoyance.

  "Where are my glasses?" he yawned.

  "How am I supposed to know?" I sat down on the carpet to put my shoes on.

  "Never mind. I found them."

  "How are you feeling?" I asked.

  He pushed off the blanket, and sat on the edge of the bed, scratching his scalp and considering the question. "Starving," he finally said.

  "Me, too. Come on; let's see if there's food downstairs."

  On the door we found a note that read: Laurence Eva: We went grocery shopping, so there's food in the kitchen in a basket with our names on it. Help yourself. We're up at the castle looking for ghosts. -E. S. 5:30

  Laurence detached the note and said, "Bless those girlies. See, I knew your little sister was good for something."

  The kitchen, which was big but drafty, had shelves pac
ked with plastic baskets, in which the hostel residents stored their food and labeled it with their names. There were five knee-high refrigerators under the counter, similarly packed and claimed.

  "Backwards country," Laurence said. "Would it have been so hard to get one large fridge, instead of raiding a dormitory for five dinky ones?"

  I ignored that, for I was busy climbing onto the wide windowsill to look out at the street.

  Black taxicabs and red double-decker buses and funny small British cars went speeding around the narrow streets, their lights reflected in the shop window displays. The rain had stopped, but the streets were still shining wet under the city lights. Pedestrians walked in a steady stream, window-shopping and talking with friends, or just going home on their own. Above it all, Edinburgh Castle glowed in subdued floodlights up on its rock, like the pride of the city that it was.

  "So, Eva, does this turn you on?" Laurence asked.

  I looked over to find him holding up a box of oatmeal, which featured a ruggedly handsome man in a kilt and a white undershirt, flexing his bicep under the weight of a shot put. I giggled.

  "I'll take that as a yes." He set the box down and continued going through our basket of groceries. "Canned soup. Hmm. This might have to do. I really dislike canned, but it's too late to make it from scratch."

  I came over to look at the food supply. "You're just going to have to live like common people, Laurence."

  "Never! Ooh, neat...the kind of stove you have to light with a match. But do we have a match?"

  We located a sparker tool, like the kind they provided in high school chemistry, and five minutes later were sitting down with tin bowls of hot leek-and-potato soup.

  "Ever notice," Laurence commented, "how after you're sick, everything you eat has a faint aftertaste of vomit to it?"

  "Thank you, Laurence. That's appetizing."

  "Well, it does." He ate another spoonful nonetheless. "So when are you going to go out and find a job lap-dancing for Scottish laddies?"

  "You know, you don't have to take every opportunity to imply that I'm a slut."

  "Yes, I do. It's what I'm here for."

  I stirred my soup, irritated. "I'm going job-hunting tomorrow, to answer your question."

  "You might try the military academy. That's probably where the studly men in kilts hang out."

  "Look. Just because you don't like Tony doesn't mean you have to constantly suggest that I'd cheat on him."

  His blue eyes widened in innocence. "I didn't say anything about Tony. Or cheating."

  "Yes, but I do have a boyfriend, and you do know that, and you keep suggesting that I'm about to jump some Scottish boy. Of whom I've met none."

  "I'm just making conversation. And by the way, I like Tony. We get along fine."

  This was true, of course. "You shouldn't," I grumbled. "I don't see why you do."

  "Well, make up your mind: should I like him or shouldn't I?"

  "It's just--you're a science guy; he's a religion guy. You're polar opposites. I don't see why you claim to get along."

  "We're not different in every way. We can both discuss things intelligently. That's why we get along: it's a good debate. Anyway, science and religion aren't incompatible."

  I decided not to fight. "I guess what I really don't understand is why Tony and Eileen don't get along. They're both believers in a lot of stuff we can't see."

  He chuckled. "On that ground, might as well ask why the Jews and the Muslims don't get along."

  "True..."

  "See," Laurence continued, "Tony believes in Eileen's ghosts, but he's not sure they're from God. And Eileen is so hysterically anti-religion that even Tony has to be a little offended. After all, she considers him a mindless follower. Personally, I think, with what she sees, she ought to be more considerate toward people's faith."

  "Should she, though? Most of them are mindless followers; you have to admit that. And I still don't see why a scientist like you is soft on religion."

  "It comforts people," he said. "And if religion's so awful, tell me again why you're dating an altar boy?"

  I tilted my bowl to drink the last of the soup, and told him, "Shut up."

  We got another dose of religion, though, when we returned to our room. The dough-faced girl had removed her earphones, and was folding laundry. Laurence, reluctantly polite, struck up a conversation by saying, "Excuse me, what do the washing machines cost downstairs?"

  She glowered at us. "You have to buy tokens at the front counter. They're a pound each." American accent.

  "Oh," he said. "Thank you." He lifted a swift eyebrow at me and turned away, but I decided to make a better attempt at it.

  "I'm Eva," I said to her. "And this is Laurence. We just got in today."

  "I know." She shook a towel open with a snap, and folded it. "I'm Cathy. I've been here three weeks."

  "Oh. Do you work in town?" I asked.

  "I'm on a mission."

  I wasn't quite sure what to say to that, but Laurence, at the window, contributed, "C.I.A.?"

  "Christian Life Church," she snapped.

  "I always preferred them to the Christian Death Church," he mused.

  "Don't mind us," I said quickly, with a pacifying smile. "Jet lag."

  But Laurence was interested now. He strolled over with his hands in his trouser pockets, and said, "So you're here to convert the heathens of the Scottish youth hostels?"

  Cathy obviously wasn't sure if he was making fun of her. She sounded wary when she answered, "It's more of a retreat. A personal journey; finding Christ."

  Laurence appraised the fluorescent lighting on our high green-painted ceilings. "Hmm. I suppose if he hung out with prostitutes and money-lenders, he might consider unwashed Euro-trash tourists as well."

  She matched some pink socks, and said defensively, "It's true they're heathens. Most of them hate the Church."

  "The Catholic Church?" I said, innocently. Usually when people say "the Church," that's what they mean.

  But Cathy stepped back in horror as if I'd offered her a raw beating heart. "The Papists? No!"

  I was too confused to take it further. "Oh." I turned to Laurence. "Um, I was thinking I'd go up to the castle and look for Eileen and Sharon. Want to come?"

  But he hardly looked at me. The prospect of a terribly easy debate had seduced him. "So," he said to Cathy, "what exactly are the sins of these heathens? I can guess a few, certainly..."

  I took my raincoat and slipped out of the room as Cathy began reeling them off. ("They fornicate, they use drugs, they abuse their bodies which are the temples of God...")

  Laurence would make short work of her, I had no doubt. He respected religion when it was civilized, but bizarre zealots of any persuasion gave him a rash. I had to feel a little sorry for Cathy, who would preach passionately for at least the next fifteen minutes before she realized that Laurence was baiting her for his own amusement.

  On the street outside it was cool and breezy, and smelled just like the autumn night air in any given city in America. It was a little disappointing to think that rain could smell the same everywhere. But I was rudely reminded that I was no longer in America when I tried to cross a street, and nearly got run over by cars coming down what I still perceived as the wrong side of the road.

  I got safely across when the light changed, and proceeded down Princes Street, the main shopping drag that ran parallel to the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile, in turn, was a narrow street running along the crest of the hill, with Edinburgh Castle at the high end and Holyrood Palace at the low, and scores of medieval stone buildings packed in between.

  Princes Street Gardens, the vale of green below Edinburgh Castle's towering rock, lay in a formidable swath between Princes Street and the castle. At that hour the Gardens were dark, and a spiked iron fence kept me from getting in. I kept walking and looking sideways at the castle to see if there was a more direct route up there.

  But as it turned out, I didn't have to worry. Sharon and Eileen soon appe
ared on the sidewalk ahead of me. They were in fine spirits, coats open to the cool air, and they actually started skipping when they spotted me. I glanced hastily around to make sure no one was watching. When they reached me, with squeals of Eeeee-vah! , I put my hands on their shoulders to keep them down.

  "Stop it, you guys; we look like tourists," I said.

  "We are tourists!" Sharon said.

  "Well, it's not something to be proud of."