Javier Montes - The Hotel Life

I would have liked to ask her why, but I didn’t feel I had the right to — nor would she have been obliged to answer. Or would she? She had the opposite effect on me to my neighboring columnist: with her, I wasn’t sure if we had established the necessary trust. She spoke first.

“Are you with the police?”

I smiled. If I had been offended that she had taken me for a snitch before, I ought to be even more put out now. But the question amused me.

“No.”

“And you’re not the hotel security guard?”

I looked down and was pleased to find a rock-solid alibi.

“I’m not even wearing shoes.”

We looked at each other and laughed a little.

“Well, be careful. A glass got broken and there are pieces of it on the floor. I had to put shoes on myself.”

She spoke with tentative good-will. I ventured a little more.

“I’m here to review the hotel.”

I regretted it the moment the words were out of my mouth. It sounded forced, and I thought it unlikely she would tolerate that sort of pseudo-friendliness. And perhaps it would be worse if she did. I never talk about my work with strangers. It only leads to stupid conversations. I feared I would now be the one who had to put together some tedious explanation.

“To review it?”

She didn’t give me time to resign myself to answering, hardly even to nod.

“What’s your byline?”

I wasn’t expecting that. Perhaps that’s what it would always be like, talking to her. She reminded you that almost everything people say to each other is nothing but a mechanical testing of the waters. When she heard my name, she leaned back, grinning.

“Oh, of course it is. I read your column. I’ve even followed a few of your recommendations.”

I remember very well that it was then that she started to speak to me like an equal. And that I felt a prick of foolish pride even a little more intense than usual.

“Oh really?”

And at the same time, I started to feel impatient. A conversation like that was absurd given the context. I know myself well, and I’ve learned to resign myself to the fact that well-aimed questions and witty parries only occur to me after the horse has bolted. But even now, I can’t think of a topic of conversation that wouldn’t have been ridiculous at that moment. I didn’t know what I had gone in there to talk to her about. I had no reason to stay in that room. I didn’t want to stay, and I didn’t want to leave. I’m not surprised now that I started to feel faintly irritated — not with her, but with myself.

I looked at the furniture again, at the camera, at the little empty bottles. I couldn’t see a speck of broken glass. She got up and closed the window slowly. She no longer seemed in a hurry.

“And what are you going to say about this one?”

“I’ll say they ought to have better soundproofing.”

The joke came out of the blue. It told itself, really. I can’t even claim I said it to see her reaction. Although it was interesting to watch it, anyway. She turned around quickly. For a brief second, her eyes smiled as they had earlier. It flattered her to smile like that, in a negative image of my page neighbor: her mouth serious, and all her intention in her eyes. She made no comment.

“Well, you’ve already seen what I do.”

I pretended to go along with the joke. It was easier to say it jokingly.

“Porn?”

She laughed, and I assumed — wrongly — that that would be her whole reply.

“That’s right. Well, almost.”

She spoke seriously, almost pensively. Without defiance. I could see that it was now she who feared the string of irksome questions — she looked at her hands, adjusted a switch on the camera that didn’t need adjusting. The bathroom door creaked open. We both turned around as the boy walked in wearing his towel. She seemed thankful for the interruption. I was glad that something had happened, too, that the boy had come in. But before it was too late, I gave her a protesting look. I wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t going to ask her stupid questions, either. Now I think my look may have had a pleading edge to it.

We stayed like that for a long second and a half. (Were we understanding each other? Or am I imagining all that now?) And then she looked over at the boy, who was standing by the door.

“Sorry. I’m just gonna get dressed and I’ll go.”

The boy brushed past without looking at me on his way over to the bed. He fished a pair of pants out of the tangle of sheets. Then he knelt down and felt along the floor under the mattress. He brought out some underpants, shook them, and after a lot of fussy maneuvering managed to put them on before taking off his towel. Up close and in profile he was less bulky than I’d thought.

She held out his shirt to him with one hand.

“I’ll finish up with you in a moment.”

The other man appeared in the doorway and took me completely off guard. I’d forgotten that he was also in the room. It quickly became clear that I was the odd one out here. It was as though common sense had walked in, leaned against the doorframe, and given me a knowing look. I almost jumped up out of my armchair. The woman was looking for something in the drawers of the bedside table.

“Well, I’ll be going.”

She turned around, and it almost seemed she had forgotten about me. She smiled with only her mouth.

“To tell you the truth, I can’t even offer you a drink.”

She nodded toward the empty minibar. I would have enjoyed getting to turn down an invitation to stay.

She was looking at the man. When I turned around, I caught him making an impatient gesture.

“OK, well, good night.”

The boy didn’t even look up from his position on the edge of the bed; he was utterly absorbed in the task of tying the laces on his sneakers. I think there was something unnatural about how natural he was: he combined rudeness, awkwardness, and an anxious, shy desire to cover his tracks.

I brushed past the other man on my way to the door. He didn’t move or bother to hide his disparaging look. When I was in the entryway, I heard her voice again.

“But if you haven’t drunk all of yours yet, you can invite me over to your room.”

I stood very still, focused on concealing the fact that I’d been caught off guard again.

“I say your room because the hotel bar’s a bit depressing … funereal, as you might say.”

And I had said it. Or thought it, at least. And written it down in this very notebook, I now see on rereading. She must have seen in my face that my guard was down, because she smiled a little. It was a serious joke, apparently.

“Then I can tell you more about all this.”

For the second time, this woman was saving me from my desolate room, from the hypocritical top sheet turned down on one side of the bed. She didn’t wait for me to reply.

“Great. I’ll be right over.”

She smiled and continued rummaging in the drawers. The boy was just about finished putting his clothes on: a baggy T-shirt covered his chest, stomach, and belly button in turn. It bore the serious, utterly incongruous logo of an insurance company. The other man still said nothing. I threw him the most insolent “See you later” I could muster and closed the door behind me.

The Hotel Life

Tunnel in time or bottomless pit? Riding on the prestige of illustrious guests past can be risky. This week we travel south with our critic for an emergency visit to the Reina Amalia Hotel .

THE SCOTTISH POET’S ROOM

Time and hotels are pitted against each other in a game we don’t understand. The rules must be complicated. We don’t live long enough to earn the right to play, or to develop the perspective necessary to take the upper hand. We know they’ve always been betting against each other, but only they know what the stakes and conditions are .