Javier Montes - The Hotel Life

What stopped me was the waiter returning. He set the cup on the table and poured in a splash of milk, raising and lowering the small pitcher with odious expertise. Old Pedro said nothing. Or not to me at least, because to the waiter he said, “Here’s for the coffee,” and handed him a few coins. Then he looked back at me.

“Best separately, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t drag my eyes off him. I found myself incapable of getting up and walking out.

“And go back to the writing, she says, she misses your column.”

Another silence fell after that. Old Pedro took a sip of coffee, started, blew on the edge of the cup, brought it back to his lips, slurped briefly, brought it down to the table, and regarded me, eyebrows arched quizzically as before. He seemed to consider that some kind of response from me was due. And truthfully, I myself felt compelled to say something. Not for his sake — for mine. To utter some sound at the very least.

“Uh-huh.”

Old Pedro weighed this up and decided it would do.

“And she’s not wrong, either. I should know. Take it from me, I’ve been in this business long enough. Sure, it’s got its rewards. Not just the money, mind you, though there’s that too. You travel a lot. Yeah, it’s worth it.”

Old Pedro peered at me as though trying to read my response in my eyes, as though written across my forehead was the whole, all-encompassing, definitive tally of how worthwhile (or not) everything will have been when the final day of reckoning comes around.

“Still, it’s tiring. To be honest, it wears you out in the end. Everything does. This does too. Wears you out.”

He had picked up the banana absentmindedly, and was now softly banging it against the edge of the table. I think that’s what I found more insufferable than anything. Neither of us spoke. He gave it one last bang, harder than before, and got to his feet.

“So there we are. I have to go. But I’m telling you: honestly, it’s better if you just let it drop.”

He was already on his way out. I watched him as he left. Suddenly, he turned around and retraced his steps back to the table.

“Umbrella.”

I found myself smiling in response to the pally grin he threw me as he picked up the umbrella from the floor beside his chair. Some time later, I don’t know how long, I realized I was still smiling into the void.

I was soaked through when I got back to the hotel just now. I roamed the streets for hours, with no sense of direction or time. The old man from this morning was not at his post. In his place was a young kid who looked like his grandson; the two shared a family resemblance, although this one was taller and his eyes were different, almost unpleasantly green. He held out the key before I’d told him my room number. The old man must have told him about me. Or I might be the hotel’s sole guest, even though we’re in high season. Perhaps I am the hotel’s high season.

Another trait he shared with his probable grandfather was a knowing smile, a smile convinced that the most anodyne pronouncement conceals an infinity of meanings.

“Here you are. Room six.”

I thanked him and headed for the hallway leading to my room. The boy spoke to my back without raising his voice, as if I were still standing in front of him.

“Excuse me.”

I didn’t turn around at once. In truth, I was tempted to pretend I hadn’t heard. The boy addressed me again.

“Excuse me.”

When I faced him, he had the smile on.

“My father told me that you’re looking for a woman. Maybe I can help.”

I felt my pulse quicken. That’s how I knew that everything I’d been telling myself over and over again all those hours, through all those streets, was a lie. I hadn’t given up at all. I thought: this kid knows her. He may even have posed for her, he’s just her type. He’ll be able to tell me where she is. Maybe she was already regretting not coming to see me. After all, she must be bored out of her skull with no other company than old Pedro. And her job was tiring, old Pedro had said so — it wears you out.

“Really?”

The boy grinned complacently at the eagerness in my voice.

“I think so.”

“Do you know her?”

“I know lots of good-looking women. Many as you like. All you gotta do is choose.”

I felt a sharp pang in the pit of my stomach.

“They can even go to your room.”

I turned away. I didn’t want him to see my scowl of sheer rage.

“No thanks. That’s not what I’m after.”

I took a few steps down the hallway. The kid piped up again.

“Is it boys you’re after? I know some of those too.”

I couldn’t help turning round, already anticipating the smirk of innuendo he would be wearing. This time I forced myself to smile back.

“No, not boys either.”

I got as far as the door to my room with no further remarks from him. I paused, my key in the lock. Once again, I mutinied against the idea of remaining this way forever, never knowing whether I had truly done all that I could. I’ve never known when to call it a day. I prefer to push on until circumstances themselves force me to stop. I went back to the desk. Funny to think how so recently, in the other cities, I’d been too embarrassed to ask the other receptionists about her.

“Actually, maybe I am.”

The kid smiled at me. In fact, I don’t think he’d stopped smiling.

“You bet.”

We heard the front door open and we both turned to see the old man from this morning come in. Not all that old, apparently, since the kid who turns out to be his son can’t be past his early twenties. The boy straightened his face and bent his head to study the only sheet of paper lying on the counter. He spoke to me through his teeth without looking up at me.

“I’ll come up later and we’ll talk.”

I nodded, a gesture that also served to greet the old man as he shuffled up to the desk and returned my nod in silence.

I’ve sat down on the edge of one of the four beds to write. Here I am again, in a hotel, waiting for a visitor. I imagine she must have spoken to old Pedro by now. Snitches and weirdos , she had said. I hate to think that I’ve managed to insert myself into either category, or both at the same time. A peeping Tom, maybe. She said that, too. And she could be right. But I’m beginning to want to stop being one. I’m fed up with how action and company always slip through my fingers just when they come within reach.

When all is said and done, I think to myself, it was she who invited me to see what there was on her side of the door. I wonder if I’ll be able to make her see that, by doing so, she shouldered a responsibility that it’s high time she lived up to. She’ll disagree, of course, and won’t admit the slightest responsibility of any kind. I am curious, however, to see just how she’ll wriggle out of it — and get rid of me, no doubt, in the same stroke.

The boy took his time coming up. I fell into a doze on the bed while I was waiting. When he knocked on the door, I woke with the feeling that it must be almost sunrise. I looked at my watch and found that twenty minutes had gone by. I sat up and beat at the bedspread to smooth it down.

“Yes?”

The door wasn’t bolted, and the boy stepped inside with an admirable air of assurance; he touched a finger to his conspiratorial smile to request a silence that spared us any further standing on ceremony. He gave my shoulder a quick squeeze as he passed by my side, in a forced show of complicity that matched his smile. All highly annoying, really. He inspected the room, hands on his hips, as if he had never set foot in it before. Then he let himself fall onto one of the beds with a sigh of exaggerated tiredness and turned his perpetual smile on me once more.