Scarf
Umbrella
Glasses
Wedding ring
Passport
Pen
Screwdriver
It doesn’t say anything about one’s self, I say to myself.
I reckon I can learn five new phrases per day.
In a week’s time, I’d have thirty-five phrases. How many words does one need to survive?
It’s as if I could hear Mom: “Words can be misunderstood in so many ways. Look at your father, for example.”
Fifi says he has been gathering information, but no one knows exactly who attacked me.
“Some people thought you were working for a man—called Williams,” he says. The information is confusing and contradictory. There has also been mention of the women I’ve been working for. For free. Some people are dissatisfied about that, as had been pointed out to me the other day.
“They feel it’s not fair,” he repeats.
Finally, he heard that I provoked the assailant by looking him in the eye—right into his pupils—when I met him.
“We don’t do that here,” he says.
“We do that where I come from,” I say.
We look into the eyes of the people we meet on the street. Otherwise we don’t know whether we’re supposed to greet them or not.
Before Fifi leaves, he digs into the breast pocket of his chequered shirt and pulls out a pair of sunglasses.
“These are from the storage room,” he says, handing them to me. I try them on.
The price tag is still on.
“Pilot,” he says. “To shield your swollen eyes.” He hesitates.
“I can’t read books anymore,” I hear him say. “When I was a boy I read a lot, but then I stopped with the war.”
He hesitates again.
“It takes only one sentence to blow up a village. Two sentences to destroy the world.”
He doesn’t say I’ve seen it all, my father with a bullet hole in his head and my sister’s son being born in a musty basement.
He adjusts his cap.
And another thing, yes. He found four boxes of spare tiles in the ancient baths and was wondering if I could use them in the house I’m fixing up for the women.
“That house is also for you,” I say. “And for Adam.”
“Yes, that you’re fixing for the women, me, and Adam.”
I still exist
I’m still here
I open the diary and rapidly skim through densely written pages until I reach blank sheets at the back. I leave a gap of one page after the last entry, which I made some twenty-seven years ago: She will survive me. Next I grab the pen with “Hotel Silence” inscribed on it and at the top of the page write the date: May 29. Followed by: For Waterlily.
I know I can choose among thirty-three letters, which is more than in most other languages. I start with two sentences:
I still exist.
I’m still here.
And then add another:
I’m trying to understand why.
What more can I write? Should I describe the sky, say that I wake up at night and that black trees wrestle with the black sky, that the moon is bigger than it is back home, that I have started to look at myself in the mirror? That I read poetry? That half of what I eat are things I’ve never eaten before?
I take a moment, then continue:
The water is as red as when a bloody shirt is rinsed in a bathtub.
That’s a total of fifteen words.
I add another three words: Everything dusty grey.
And then a whole sentence in the line below:
Yesterday for dinner there were big potatoes with the meat (like the ones that your granny boils with goulash), grown in fields where there are no land mines.
Finally:
Need screws?
Cross that out:
Need screws?
I skip the spare parts.
All of a sudden May is standing at the door and she asks what I’m writing.
“Are you writing a story?” she asks.
“You could say that.”
“What happens?”
“I haven’t decided it all yet.”
“Does someone die?”
“Only the old people. Everyone dies in the right age sequence.”
“Good.”
She puts down a towel.
“I don’t fear the night anymore,” I hear her say as she closes the door behind her.
I wait for the world to take on a form
Fifi informs me that someone is asking for me downstairs.
It’s the owner of the restaurant, who has turned up with my thuggish assailant. The men have positioned themselves by the sunglasses stand. I also notice that an inflatable tiger has been added to the hotel shop since yesterday.
“It was a misunderstanding” is the first thing the restaurant owner says.
The thug remains silent. He’s wearing a leather jacket over a patterned shirt and has an earring in one ear.
The owner pushes him aside.
“He says he’s sorry,” he continues. The brute has a sullen expression that betrays no sign of remorse.
“He’s not going to do it again.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“He wants to show you something. You need to follow him.”
Should I follow my assailant? Follow him down a twisted alley?
“No, I’m in no mood for that.”
“You won’t regret it. He wants to make up for this misunderstanding.”
“No, I’m not interested.” And I add that I’m busy. Which happens to be true. I’m reading Dorothy Parker’s biography, What Fresh Hell Is This?
“He’s going to get furniture for the house you’re working on. You said the women needed furniture.”
I mull on this. We need furniture for three floors, seven women, three children, and one brother.
“What do you say about that?” he continues.
“Nothing.”
“Would you be willing to consider it?”
The restaurant owner drags me over to the fireplace. We stand by the forest landscape painting, or under it, to be precise; from this perspective, the light falls on the canvas differently and I notice that the tree trunks in the foreground of the picture are withered on one side.
“You’ve demonstrated that you are a real man,” he says, slapping a hand on my shoulder.
He nods towards the thug. As far as I can make out, he’s trying out sunglasses in the mirror. Fifi is keeping an eye on him but also keeps us in view.
“He said you weren’t afraid.”
I think quickly. My head is still full of stitches.
“A man must forgive,” says the restaurant owner, and adds that what they’re talking about is a warehouse, full of furniture, which is about to be torn down to build a pharmaceutical factory. It so happens that he knows the contractor supervising the project. The furniture has piled up in the warehouse, rescued from here and there when ruins were being cleared or abandoned houses were emptied. It contains more or less a full inventory of household items.
“My acquaintance needs to get rid of it before the bulldozer drives over it. You’re welcome to take anything you want. It would have been quickest to set it all on fire, but the contractor didn’t get the permit from the town,” he concludes.
He lowers his voice and takes me by the arm.
“I’ve heard there’s some fine bits of furniture between the piles. Quality stuff. Recliners with footrests.”
I give it some thought. I see that my assailant is looking in the mirror with a price tag dangling between his eyes.
“Nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” I say. “On the dot.”
CHOIR BOY
The assailant shows up punctually at nine and waits in the lobby. The top four buttons of his shirt are undone, flashing his tanned chest, and he’s wearing the mirrored sunglasses that he bought the day before and doesn’t remove, despite the dim light. Fifi seem
s apprehensive and asks to come with us, but I decline the offer and follow the thug.
The warehouse is located on the outskirts of the town, and on the way my escort repeats that this has all been a misunderstanding.
I’m in no mood to discuss the issue and point out that, if he wants to talk to me, he’ll have to take off his sunglasses.
He immediately complies.
“Call me Bingo,” he says.
When he pulls back the sliding door of the warehouse, it turns out to be crammed with furniture and personal items that have been thrown together haphazardly.
Entire lives, I think to myself.
“The place has been combed for explosives,” he says before we step inside.
The warehouse looks like something between a flea market and a furniture storage room and, surprisingly, most of its contents seem to be in decent enough shape. Other things can be fixed or modified. It’s no problem to make some legs for a tabletop or to revamp furniture, that’s where I’m on home ground.
“People have been using this as firewood,” he says, pushing aside half a chest of drawers.
Should I tell him I don’t feel like talking? That I’d be grateful to spend this time together in silence?
I need furniture for three floors and start collecting items for the bottom floor. I drag out a teak dining table and two armchairs and start looking for chairs to fit the table.
“I need a moving van,” I say, fishing out another table, a desk lamp, and a standing lamp. I mentally count the number of beds that are needed and try to imagine where the furniture could go.
Bingo says he can get a van and a buddy to assist with the carrying.
He helps me move wardrobes and a crib for the infant in the group to the entrance. There I gather the furniture. I only have to say the word and he does it for me without question. It’s obvious that he is used to obeying orders. I manage to find beds for all the occupants of the house, although the mattresses are ruined and need to be found somewhere else. On the other hand, May had said she could get some old but decent enough duvet covers at the hotel, which she was going to take with her to the house. I step between the items and point: this, this, and this. Yes, that desk and that swivelling chair over there. I also pick up a few bicycles.
Bingo lifts up a birdcage and I shake my head.
“There’s stuff there from apartments that foreigners left behind when they fled the country,” says my henchman, who is now sitting in an armchair with his feet on a table. I notice a valuable antique chair, but don’t bother telling him. I signal him to stand up.
I’m at the very back of the warehouse searching for another wardrobe when I spot a patterned rug that has been thrown over something. When I lift it, I discover a stack of tins of paint. I inspect them and see that they are unopened.
Bingo follows me, flabbergasted.
“That must be from some building supplies store, stock that ended up here,” he concludes. “If we’d known, we could have sold it.”
He pulls out a penknife and prises open one of the tins.
I pick out the tins and open them, one by one.
“This one, this one, and this one,” I say, and he stacks them by the furniture.
I search for varnish.
“I need sandpaper, brushes, and varnish,” I say.
That way I could start working on the floors next week.
He gets down on all fours and rummages through the stock of tins, moving his lips as he reads the labels. Meanwhile, I grab four rolls of leaf-patterned wallpaper.
As we’re leaving and Bingo is about to slide the door closed, I spot a record player just by the entrance. It’s on the floor under a table and, at first glance, seems to be undamaged. I lift the lid and examine the needle. Despite five years of warfare, air raids, melted asphalt, and shredded flesh, the needle seems to be intact. I look around. It figures, a few feet away lies a box with a substantial vinyl collection. I quickly browse through the records, which include some fine recordings with Maria Callas and Jussi Björling. There’s Franz Liszt’s Dance of the Dead and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and there’s also a Bowie collection, Liza Jane and Can’t Help Thinking About Me and Never Let Me Down. I pull one record out of its sleeve and it’s unscratched.
I signal to my henchman that I’m taking the turntable with me to the hotel and that he is to carry the record collection.
“I’ll come back with the ladies tomorrow,” I say.
We still need kitchen fixtures and other furniture. Would they want a bookcase?
Bingo takes his role seriously and walks ahead of me, clutching the LP collection in his arms. He moves with slow, cautious steps to ensure his precious cargo doesn’t stir. When we reach the hotel, I tell him he can put the box down. It has stopped raining and I notice a flowerpot has been installed by the entrance.
“I used to sing in a choir before the war,” he says suddenly from where he is standing on the hotel steps. “Baritone.”
May’s words echo in my mind: “Every man has killed here.”
“Yes, I used to sing in a choir myself,” I say. That’s actually where I met my wife—ex—in the choir.
I could have added: “I didn’t really exist yet back then.”
What if he answered: “And now? Do you exist now?”
The land that flows with milk and honey
Fifi has news. Good news.
“We’ve got our first reservations,” he says. “Three, to be precise, though not until next month.”
And that’s not the only piece of good news because the archaeologists he was telling me about will be arriving in two weeks’ time.
“They’ve confirmed. And reserved a room. So things are starting to move,” he adds.
He stands by the computer in a semi-uniform: a white shirt and tie, but torn jeans and canvas sneakers.
“Just trying to look the part,” he says to explain the tie.
He says one of May’s friends in the house is going to take care of the cooking when they open the restaurant.
“My sister has organised it all.”
To celebrate the news, May’s friend is in the hotel kitchen as we speak, boiling beef that will soon be ready.
“It’ll be a change from my pea soup,” Fifi adds.
He turns the computer so that I can see the screen and says he’s adjusting their website, which hasn’t been updated since before the war.
“We emphasise the baths and the fact that all our rooms have their own character. How do you like it?”
“Nice.”
He says there’s something he’d like my opinion on. Since it is now clear that their aunt won’t be coming back, he and his sister have been thinking about changing the name of the hotel. They have a few possible names in mind.
How do I like Blue Heavens Hotel? Or Hotel Blue Sky Unlimited? Another possibility might be Paradise Lost Hotel.
“What do you think?”
“Isn’t Hotel Silence just fine?”
There is a long pause.
“Yes, maybe we should stick to silence,” he says, slipping his headphones back over his ears.
With a shimmering sky on the eyelids
Twelve days have passed and the actress has returned.
I meet her on the stairs and I feel as if I’d stumbled on a slightly electrified fence.
I observe her. She seems depressed and serious.
“How was the trip?” I ask.
“Everything is in ruins,” she says. “The community’s entire infrastructure has been destroyed.”
I’ve got a swollen cheekbone, bloodshot eyes, and a white bandage over my eyebrow. She looks worried.
“I heard you were attacked,” she says.
“Yes, somebody doesn’t like me taking a vacation here.”
“Are you okay?”
And she raises her hand, slowly, as if she were about to touch the wound, but then just keeps it suspended in the air, close to my face, as if she were about t
o stroke my cheek, but then just as suddenly allows it to sink again.
“It’s nothing to be worried about,” I say. “The guy who attacked me used to sing in a choir,” I add.
She stares at me as if trying to solve a riddle.
“I also heard that you’ve been helping women. People talk.”
“Yes, I’m helping them fix up a house.”
She takes a deep breath.
“Every woman has lost someone, a husband, a father, a son, or brothers. Children have lost fathers or older brothers. Those who survived have lost arms, legs, or some other body parts.”
“Did you find the locations for the documentary?”
“The women are cautious and don’t want to talk about what they’ve been through. They don’t want to be interviewed. They’re tired. They’re trying to understand what happened.”
She pauses.
“Then a generation will grow up without any memory of it. Then there’ll be the danger of a new war.”
She falls silent.
“That won’t be for another ten years yet, though,” she adds, “because that’s how long it takes to create a new generation of men.”
Then she takes on a distant air and her voice changes, as if she were tired.
“Towards the end there were more mercenaries, some kind of private army working for security corporations. They directly participated in the attacks. People can’t win a war without the involvement of private security services. They pay huge sums. They’re the same companies that manufacture the weapons, produce the mercenaries, and work on the reconstruction after the war. Now these same entities are building drug companies and pharmacies everywhere. They ask if people have headaches and give them aspirin. They say that no one should have to feel pain.”
“But the script?”
She doesn’t answer the question, but says she’s finished doing what she intended to do.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” she says, looking me straight in the eye. “So this is my last day.”
She smiles.
At me.
The last day also means the last night.
“I’ll come to you tonight,” I say without any preamble.
A coat of flesh
Hotel Silence Page 14
