Javier Montes - The Hotel Life

I searched my memory: I couldn’t recall hearing any noise from the floor above me until now. None of the banging and stomping, furniture-dragging or marble-rolling that always end up making their way through from upstairs in hotels and houses (and that goes for the quietest and most sound-proofed, and even the uninhabited ones).

She finally thanked the person she was speaking to and hung up.

“Excuse me. Where were we?”

She didn’t give me time to reply, but went straight on to suggest an appointment for the following day, after lunch, in a nearby café.

“Well, it’s not exactly a café.”

It also served food, and apparently, it’s very well known. She told me the name assuming I’d have heard of it. But she didn’t seem surprised when I told her I didn’t know the place.

“OK, just ask. I don’t know the address, but I’m sure you can find someone to tell you.”

I was taken aback. Throughout this search, I’d never doubted that I would be the one going to see her. Out of a convoluted desire for symmetry or simply a habit picked up on the job, I had imagined our second meeting would take place in private, in another room at another hotel. I couldn’t work up the courage to ask her where she was staying and find out if we really were neighbors again in this one. I agreed to everything and she promptly hung up, having managed not to be friendly for a moment.

Well, at least it was interesting, even thrilling, to hear how she spoke to her aspiring models. She behaved exactly as I’d imagined she would, in fact.

But that only occurs to me now. I didn’t have time to think anything then, because the telephone in my room suddenly blared, making me jump. I picked up in full knowledge that it would be her voice on the other end of the line, handing down the summary judgment and the final sentence without any right of appeal.

But no — it was reception calling. A hurried, unprofessional voice confirmed that there was a strike and offered alternative lodging in a choice of different hotels. I declined, though they were plainly unhappy to be stuck with me, and hung up almost rudely. I wasn’t going to lose sight of her now that she was, conceivably, so near. If anything, this phone call struck me at the time as proof that she really was up there, treading the floor above my head. It must have been they who interrupted our conversation earlier, to offer the same thing to her.

I inhaled deeply and thankfully — I realized I’d been holding my breath. Feeling light-headed, I tried to steady myself by double-checking the furniture, the not-yet-unmade bed, the street beyond the window. Everything was still in its place. That was something, but not enough to make me feel better. Yes, things were still in their place, but there seemed no way to transfer a little of my vertigo off onto them, to discard them like the old newspaper or empty bottles in this room and walk out without a backward glance. I felt these things leering at me, while the backdrop of cars and traffic lights ignored me like a man condemned. All a wild exaggeration, of course. But at that moment, the imminence of the make-or-break encounter hung over me fearfully, and more fearful yet were the hours I still had to get through in the meantime.

It hit me that I’d always relied on the idea of acting surprised when we finally met. But I’d pushed things, I’d cheated. The phone call had put me in a tight spot and there was no good way out. In the café, I’d have to own up to my lie. I wouldn’t even have to speak — the minute she saw me in the doorway or waiting at a table, just exactly in the last place in the world I was supposed to be, the game would be up. Simply by seeing me there, all my crazy tricks, my schemes, my whole senseless quest would be exposed to her.

I had no way of knowing how far her sense of humor might stretch. Worse, I suspected it would only be all the more crushing if she took the whole thing as a joke.

As it turned out, I wasn’t able to wait a moment longer to find out. Before I could think twice, I was calling the receptionists I’d just hung up on. They took forever to answer, and sounded pretty grumpy when they did. There were strange noises in the background: yelling and whistling and banging on pots and pans. I almost shouted my request to be put through to the room exactly above mine. I had to repeat it twice; first they didn’t hear, then they didn’t understand. They laughed. Then for the first time in all my years in the trade, a receptionist hung up on me.

I rushed out of my room and sprinted for the elevators, dodging the plates and cushions strewn along the hallway. I wasn’t the first, either, judging by the broken crockery and coffee stains on the carpet and the baseboards. The elevators weren’t working. Their little call lights blinked in distress and one of the automatic doors yawned rhythmically, opening and closing in front of the empty cabin. I didn’t fall for the trap — I dashed up the emergency stairs two at a time. The sound of a chorus of throats bellowing out slogans in ragged unison rose up through the stairwell from below.

One floor up, however, all was quiet. It seemed to belong to a different hotel, one where the universal peace of collective bargaining reigned. A very solemn elderly couple stood motionless in front of the elevators, as if they didn’t see the distressed flashing of the luminous panels, or were completely undistressed by it. There were no obstacles to negotiate in this hallway, and every door was shut. I walked along trying to calculate the approximate position of the room above mine. I arrived at a door exactly like the rest. The last digit of the number on the lintel matched. I didn’t have the same luck as in the Imperial: this time there was no crack to spy through. When I finally raised my hand to knock, I had to resist the urge to beat down the door.

In fact, I produced a series of surprisingly decorous knocks. Rather like her own from the night she returned my visit. No sound from within. After a minute, I spoiled the effect with a fresh onslaught, a much louder and frankly boorish bout with both fists.

No response. The absolute silence disoriented me. Perhaps my room wasn’t right under this one, after all. I seized on a last, wild resort. It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, though now I can see it was the brainwave of one who has lost his head: I took out my cellphone, dialed the number from the ad, and waited to hear the ringtone behind the door. I even went so far as to press my ear to the wood. I didn’t care how pitiful it would look if she did finally open up.

But nobody answered, and no telephone rang anywhere. Or rather, one must have been ringing in some inaudible or, in reality, unimaginable location: the place where she might be listening to it without picking up, at the center of a labyrinth through which no thread could guide me in this world of wireless telephony. The provider’s automatic answering message kicked in, and I hung up. It seemed she would even deny me the consolation of hearing her recorded voice.

I went down the emergency stairs very slowly, one by one. The noise from the protests was still coming up from the lobby. I didn’t run into anything or anyone on the way back to my room — the elderly couple weren’t even posted in front of their elevator anymore.

I no longer have the energy to leave my room. To help me get through the night, I have to remind myself that all is not yet lost, that I’ll see her tomorrow. It’s odd how the prospect of our appointment can serve to torment or comfort me in equal measure. As dusk closed in, I looked out the window to see a long straggle of guests laden with luggage, a lumbering exodus of men and women, old people and children, trudging forth from the hotel. A sea of photographers and curious onlookers parted before them on the sidewalk. The staff on the picket lines didn’t lift a finger to help; they brandished placards and chanted slogans. At first they had chanted a cappella (and at the tops of their voices). Now that an accompaniment of tambourines and friction drums has struck up, they sound a bit more festive.