Hotel Silence

by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

  The woman says something and I sense the driver’s unease in his seat.

  He shakes his head.

  The woman addresses me for the first time.

  “Here people have buried sons, husbands, and fathers,” says the woman. “In many places fathers lie with sons, side by side, even three generations of men from the same family.” She says that war broke out between houses, between neighbours whose children were in school together, between work colleagues, between members of the chess club, between strikers and goalies on the soccer team. “On one side there was the family doctor,” she rattles off impassively, “on the other the plumber and singing teacher. Former choir members turned into enemies, the baritone on one side, the bass and tenor on the other.”

  She falls silent and gazes out the window.

  I wonder what the cabbie did to survive. Why isn’t he buried on the outskirts of the woods? Was he an executioner or a victim? Is he perhaps responsible for some freshly dug graves of fathers and sons? He is silent and seems to be concentrating on his driving.

  Shortly afterwards he starts talking again, but switches topics and says that before the war he drove various big stars to the health spa hotel, as he calls it.

  “Specially to rest and improve health.”

  He reflects a moment.

  “Like Mick Jagger, for example. The funny thing was,” he continues, “that they were playing ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’ on the radio at the same time. But he didn’t sing along. Jagger I mean.”

  He’s silent before picking up the thread again:

  “If it wasn’t him, it was someone very like him. With one eye brown and the other blue.”

  “Could it have been David Bowie?” I ask. They both look at me and the man gives it some thought.

  “Yes, now that you say it, it could have been David Bowie.”

  Now that he recalls it better, the driver thinks it might have been the song about a waiting starman in the sky that they were listening to, he and his passenger.

  “But he was shorter than I expected him to be,” he continues. Which didn’t surprise him because he had heard that famous people are smaller than you think. “People are either taller or shorter than you expect,” he adds.

  And while the driver was watching Mick Jagger or David Bowie through the rearview mirror, he noticed how he was moving his big lips to the song.

  “That sounds like Jagger,” I say.

  He nods.

  “Yeah, I’m sure it was one of the two.”

  The woman smiles. Is she smiling at me?

  Dusk is falling as we drive into the town under the bloody sky. The streets are narrow and cobbled and the car meanders on. My gaze shifts to a paved lane and I notice that there are large holes in the exposed pipes like flayed flesh.

  As the driver is taking the suitcases out of the trunk I notice that his left jacket sleeve, which had lain motionless in his lap, is empty.

  He raises the stump.

  “Land mine,” he says, and adds that he was lucky because he got away with losing his hearing in one ear and half an arm.

  “It makes all the difference to have kept my elbow.”

  Then he moves the hair off one ear with his whole hand and shows me the half-ear and the scar that stretches to his temple.

  “The rearview mirror helps me to understand what people are saying. I look and then I hear,” he adds.

  And me I think: I hear and see.

  As I’m walking through the entrance of Hotel Silence holding my toolbox, I hear him say:

  “You think air raids solve everything.” Although more to himself.

  II. SCARS

  Watching over everything is the silence, silence

  Although Hotel Silence has clearly pulled through the war reasonably unscathed, it still leaves a lot to be desired when compared to its online photographs. It’s as if all of its colours have faded, like a pale body that hasn’t seen the sun for a long time. A musty scent lingers in the air. I recognise the chandeliers on the ceiling but their light is dull and grey and lacks sparkle.

  The young man at the reception desk speaks English, like the driver, and could be about twenty years old, the same age I was when I started keeping a diary about cloud formations and the flesh. He’s in a white shirt and tie and sports long bangs, which every now and then he strokes to one side.

  We stand side by side for a very brief moment, the woman and I, like a couple checking into a hotel, then I take one step back with my toolbox. As the woman is filling out a form, I glance around. She and the young man talk in hushed tones.

  I immediately see that the hotel needs maintenance. In many places the paint is peeling and the ceiling shows signs of both dampness and damaged plaster. I wouldn’t be surprised if the building hasn’t been heated for a long time, it is not unlike returning to a cold summer house in the spring after a winter of heavy snow. This place should be aired and patched up here and there. I knock on the wall but can’t identify the type of wood. What kind of forests were we driving through? Redwood? The entrance hall also serves as a kind of lobby and what draws my attention is the large fireplace. It has been lit and the smell of smoke wafts through the air.

  Above the fire there is a painting of a forest, in the middle of which stands a leopard who gazes out of the picture while a hunter stares at the beast with a fearless glint in his eyes. The wild animal, though, looks like a fairly harmless feline with doll’s eyes.

  I notice the young man occasionally peeping at me as he attends to the woman. She doesn’t remove her sunglasses, so it occurs to me that she might have a migraine after her journey.

  Once the woman has vanished up the stairs with a key, the young man turns to me and leans over the desk, confidentially:

  “Movie star.”

  He seems to be wracking his brain.

  “What was the last movie she starred in again?” He thinks a moment. “Man with a Mission? No,” he corrects himself. “Wasn’t it Man without a Mission?”

  But then he’s not sure anymore and says she hasn’t been seen here on a big screen for a while.

  I’m asked to fill out several forms, which takes up considerable time, the questionnaire is similar to the one at the airport. Parents. Where were they born? Should I write Laxárdalur in the eastern district of Húnavatn in Mom’s column? Family status, children, next of kin, emergency number? Who should be called in the event of a mishap? I write Gudrún Waterlily Jónasdóttir and her phone number. He runs through the form to make sure I’ve filled in all the boxes.

  “They ask for your height,” he says, pointing at the page.

  I write one metre eighty-five.

  That should be useful when they’re making a box for me.

  “I would have guessed one eighty-three,” says the young man.

  He apologises for the paperwork, regulations that have to be followed. We’re alone, but he lowers his voice nonetheless and swiftly looks around.

  “We want to know what people are doing in the country.”

  He explains that this isn’t a big hotel, sixteen bedrooms in all, and only five being used at the moment.

  He then confirms what the cabdriver had said about the hotel having had no guests for many months and then suddenly three in the same week.

  “You, the lady, and the man,” he says, before adding that they heated my room earlier in the day.

  Next he unfolds a map and leans over it with a blue pen. He crosses out different areas, saying: ruins, gone. He then gets a red pen and draws circles on the map, saying land mines. Here and here. And here. Don’t go into the woods, don’t wander into fields. Avoid deserted areas. “Don’t step on anything here, here, here, and here,” he says. “Don’t go there or there. Or here. Don’t pick mushrooms. Plastic mines are dangerous because detectors can’t find them.”

  He hands me the key.

  “You’re in number seven.” And adds:

  “There is a curfew from eleven at night till six in the morning. El
ectricity is rationed and power is cut for six hours every day. Water is also rationed. If you want to take a shower, it has to be before nine in the morning, after that hot water is finished. And don’t be longer in the shower than three minutes, otherwise my sister has no shower.”

  I don’t ask him why his sister needs to shower in the hotel, but he volunteers an explanation regardless:

  “She works at the hotel, like me.”

  He hesitates.

  “In fact, you could say we pretty much run it.”

  He peers at the forms.

  “It says here you are staying for a week. The dining room is still closed, but we serve breakfast. There is also a restaurant down the road that is open if we let them know you are coming.”

  And another thing, if I need him I should ring the bell. But he is not always at the desk, because he is also busy with other tasks.

  When I booked the hotel online, there was some mention of ancient baths and a famous mosaic mural that were discovered when they were digging the foundations of the building, if I remember correctly.

  I ask the young man about the mural, whether it’s accessible.

  “I would love to see it,” I add. Suddenly the young man no longer understands English.

  “It’s connected to the hotel, is it not?” And I add—in an effort to jog his memory—that the subject of the mosaic is nude women.

  What had really attracted my attention, though, was the strange turquoise colour of the background, which was said to be attributable to an old stone quarry in the country. Unfortunately the young man is not aware of the existence of this mosaic or any other ancient ruins in the area. There must be some misunderstanding, he says, suddenly busying himself with the paperwork on the desk. It seems to be just two sheets.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  And is he not familiar with the ancient thermal baths in the hotel either? The mud baths?

  No, he has no recollection of them, but says he’ll make enquiries.

  As I’m walking up the stairs I hear the young man say without looking up:

  “Yes, and the elevator is broken.”

  On my way to the room it occurs to me that from now on I don’t have to say any more words than I want to, that I could shut up until the end of the world.

  Reached this precise point in life in room number seven

  The first thing I notice when I turn the key in the lock and switch on the light is the painting over the bed. It’s not unlike the forest picture in the lobby, except that instead of a leopard it’s a lion and, instead of the wild animal gazing out of the painting, the hunter and the animal are looking each other in the eye.

  The leafy wallpaper in the room is starting to peel in the corners.

  The room contains a desk and an armchair with carved legs and woven upholstery. A fresh bar of soap on the sink, wrapped in thin silk paper adorned with flowers, gives off an old Lux-like scent. The bedspread is covered with dust but the sheets underneath are clean.

  I lie on the bedspread in my clothes and turn on the bedside lamp. The bulb flickers a few times and then dies. I glance at my watch and see that there’s another hour before the power is cut off, so I fetch my screwdriver and flashlight and place them beside the lamp.

  I feel cold after the journey.

  I open the suitcase and arrange my belongings on the table, side by side. That doesn’t take long. I hang my red shirt in the wardrobe and place my sweater on the shelf beside it, and I keep my diaries on the table beside my toolbox. I haven’t come across a garbage can in this country yet. I have practically nothing. Nine things.

  Should I go to bed, should I brush my teeth?

  I unscrew the tap. At first it spurts sand, then a brown muddy liquid, and finally red water. The water is cold and without enough pressure to be able to take a shower. The noise from the pipes suggests they need to be examined.

  Creaking can be heard from the bed on the other side of the wall, someone is tossing and turning sleeplessly in the room next door, unless it’s the two of them, the woman and the other man, and they’re rubbing their sweaty bodies against each other. Is that a child’s voice I just heard? Is someone singing a lullaby?

  There is a slit between the blinds and outside the world is engulfed in total darkness. I hear the sound of a scooter being started and a buzz, which it occurs to me might be the singing of crickets. All of a sudden I think I hear rustling outside my door and then as if something were gently scratching it, from below. Finally, not a single other sound is heard.

  The only thing that keeps me awake is my own heartbeat under the water lily.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  It won’t be long now, though, before dead stillness reigns in my chest.

  It’s cold on top of the bedspread and it’s cold under the sheets and, at some stage in the night, I grope through the darkness to get my sweater in the wardrobe—I don’t expect to find a down quilt. As soon as I open the wardrobe door it comes off in my arms. I grab the flashlight and examine the joints, it would seem that the hinges were being held up by a total of two loose screws. I should have a box with the right screws and will fix it tomorrow. I put on the sweater Gudrún knitted for me and curl up under the sheets, a forty-nine-year-old foetus, isn’t it logical that I think of Mom?

  I turn the flashlight back on and reach for one of the notebooks that I open at random.

  At the top of a page in the middle of the book I’ve written the following in wavy blue handwriting: The human heart beats seventy times per minute. The bigger the creature is, the slower the heartbeat. An elephant’s heart beats twenty-three times per minute. Once a heart has beaten a certain number of times, it stops.

  Under his wings you will find refuge

  I wake up to a giant bird running in circles around the room, strenuously flapping its wings up and down, as if it were trying to take off in flight, but then he shoots through the door as quick as a flash and silently closes it behind him.

  It’s a child.

  Didn’t I lock the door? The lock is old, it might have jammed.

  I takes me a few moments to remember what part of the globe I’ve landed in. I try to guess the time from the light filtering under the curtains and look at my watch. I’ve slept for ten hours and still have words from my dreams hanging on my lips. It’s Mom talking to me:

  “Instead of putting an end to your existence, can’t you put an end to you being you and just become someone else?”

  A short while later there is a knock on the door and a young woman appears on the threshold. She is wearing a white turtleneck and skirt and might be the same age as Waterlily. I expect it’s the sister mentioned by the young man in reception and the thought flashes through my mind that she will probably be the one to discover me and inform her brother in the lobby, who will then call the police.

  The woman apologises for the disturbance and asks when I would like her to make the bed and whether I need anything. A clean towel? The hot water ration is actually finished for the day. It’s obvious that I’ve slept in my clothes and she scrutinises me. I also notice her scanning the room. The toolbox is open on the bedside table but her gaze freezes on the loose door leaning against the wardrobe.

  I stand up and say I’ll fix the door.

  “I’ll take care of it.” Yes, that’s how I put it.

  She watches me fetch the drill and box of screws and tells me that her brother had told her I was on vacation. I sense it’s really a question, the bit about me being on vacation. She looks at me, waiting for me to counter her assertion.

  “Yes, that’s right, I’m on vacation.”

  “Not much luggage, mister?”

  I explain to her that I’m only making a short stop.

  “I won’t be long,” I say.

  In fact, it’s written in black and white on the reservation that I’ll be staying for a week.

  I notice the curiosity in her expression and expect her to ask me what I’m doing with a drill on vacation. She doesn�
�t. Instead she repeats what her brother said the day before, that it’s kind of weird that they haven’t had guests for many months and then suddenly three in the same week.

  “So we hope the truce will last and that tourists will come back again. We need currency,” she adds.

  She stands watching me as I screw the door back into place. That’s quickly done. She tests the door with one hand and eagerly thanks me.

  The shirt I came with hangs on a wooden hanger inside the wardrobe.

  The door to the corridor is open and a brief moment later a short being appears. It’s a boy. He shoots past the woman with a towel tied around his shoulders, which he uses as a cape, and runs one circle around the room before vanishing again through the door, down the corridor.

  I sense her becoming insecure and she says something to the boy as he whizzes away.

  “He’s flying,” she says apologetically. “He doesn’t play with the other children.”

  Could this be her own child she’s brought to work? When it comes to it—once I’ve chosen the day—I’ll tell her she can’t bring the boy in. Let’s say Tuesday of next week. I could decide it here and now and it will be Tuesday of next week.

  I grab the opportunity and ask her straight-out:

  “Your son?”

  She nods and says the kindergarten is still closed, but that he should be starting school in the autumn.

  “If they’ve finished fixing the building,” she says, adding that she can’t bear the thought of leaving the child on his own, nor allowing him to play outside because he could wander into an area of land mines. Some are to be found on soccer fields and playgrounds.

  Not only do the young siblings have to run Hotel Silence, they also have to take care of a child.

  “We came here towards the end of the war,” she continues. This was the last stop. After this town it was just the ocean, she adds, and as she is talking, she tries opening and closing the wardrobe door several times.

  “If it is possible to talk about ending up somewhere,” she says, as if she were addressing the wardrobe.