'I might well apply,' Abel said. 'It was kind of you to think of me. Why doesn't your boyfriend apply?'
'Oh, no, he's far too junior to be considered; he's only a waiter in the dining room with me.'
Suddenly Abel wanted to change places with him.
'Shall we have dinner?'he said.
'I'm not used to eating out,' Zaphia said. She gazed at the menu in indecision. Abel, suddenly aware she still could not read English, ordered for them both.
She ate with relish and was full of praise for the indifferent food. Abel found her uncritical enthusiasm a tonic after the bored sophistication of Melanie. They exchanged the history of their lives in America. Zaphia had started in domestic service and progressed to being a waitress at the Stevens where she had stayed put for six years. Abel told her of all his experiences until finallyshe glanced at his watch.
'Look at the time, Wladek,' she said, 'it's past eleven and I'm on first breakfast call at six tomorrow!
Abel had not noticed the four hours pass. He would have happily sat there talking to her for the rest of the night, soothed by her admiration which she confessed so artlessly.
'May I see you again, Zaphia?' he asked, as they walked back to the Stevens arm - in - arm.
'If you want to, Wladek.'
They stopped at the servants' entrance - at the back of the hotel.
'This is where I go in,' she said. 'If you were to become the assistant Manager, Wladek, you'd be allowed to go in by the front entrance.'
'Would you mind calling me Abel?'he asked her.
'Abel?' she said, as if she were trying the name on like a new glove. 'But your name is Wladek.'
'It was, but it isn't any longer. My name is Abel Rosnovski.'
'Abel's a funny - name, but it suits you,' she said. 'Thank you for dinner, Abel. It was lovely to see you again. Good night.'
'Good night, Zaphia,' he said, and she was gone.
He watched her disappear through the servants' entrance, then he walked slowly around the block and into the hotel by the front entrance. Suddenly - and not for the first time in his life - he felt very lonely.
Abel spent the weekend thinking about Zaphia and the images associated with her - the stench of the steerage quarters, the confused queues of immigrants on Ellis Island and, above all, their brief but passionate encounter in the lifeboat. He took all his meals in the hotel restaurant to be near her and to study the boyfriend. He came to the conclusion that he must be the young, pimply one. He thought he had pimples, be hoped he had pimples, yes, he did have pimples. He was, regrettably, the best - looking boy among the waiters, pimples notwithstanding.
Abel wanted to take Zapl - da out on Saturday, but she was working all day.
Nevertheless, he managed to accompany her to church on Sunday morning and listened with mingled nostalgia and exasperation to the Polish priest intoning the unforgotten words of the Mass. It was the first time Abel had been in a church since his days at the castle in Poland. At that time he had yet to see or endure the cruelty which now made it impossible for him to believe in any benevolent deity. His reward for attending church came when Zaphia allowed him to hold her hand as they walked back to the hotel together.
'Have you thought any more about the position at the Stevens?' she enquired.
'I'll know first thing tomorrow morning what their final decision is.'
'Oh, I'm so glad, Abel. I'm sure you would make a very good assistant manager.'
'Thank you,' said Abel, realising they had been talking at cross purposes.
'Would you like to have supper with my cousins tonight?' Zaphia asked.
'I always spend Sunday evening with them.'
'Yes, I'd like that very much.'
Zaphia's cousins lived right near The Sausage itself, in the heart of the city. They were very impressed when she arrived with a Polish friend who drove a new Buick. The family, as Zaphia called them, consisted of two sisters, Katya and Janina, and Katya's husband, Janek. Abel presented the sisters with a bunch of roses and then sat down and answered, in fluent Polish, all their questions about his future prospects. Zaphia was obviously embarrassed, but Abel knew the same would be required of any new boyfriend in any Polish - American household. He made an effort to play down his progress since his early days in the butcher shop as he was conscious of Janek's envious eyes never leaving him. Katya served a simple Polish meal of pierogi and bigos which Abel would have eaten with a good deal more relish fifteen years earlier. fie gave Janek up as a bad job and concentrated on making the sisters approve of him. It looked as though they did. Perhaps they also approved of the pimply youth.