Mr. Gwyn

by Alessandro Baricco

  I wouldn’t know what…

  Tell me about your work.

  It’s not very fascinating as a subject…

  Try.

  I sell scales.

  Go on.

  There are a lot of things to be weighed, and it’s important for them to be weighed accurately, so I have a factory that produces scales, of all types. I have eleven patents, and… I’m going to call the clerk.

  No, please, he hates me.

  Stay down.

  If I stay down I’ll throw up.

  Sit up, then. That is, I mean…

  Do you make money selling scales?

  In my opinion you should…

  Do you make money selling scales?

  Not much.

  Go on, don’t think about me.

  I really should go.

  Do me a favor, keep talking for a little while. Then go.

  I used to make a fairly good living, until some years ago. Now I don’t know, I must have made a mistake somewhere, but I can’t seem to sell anything anymore. I thought it was my salesmen, so I started going around myself, to sell, but in fact my products aren’t popular anymore, maybe they’re old-fashioned, I don’t know, maybe they cost too much, in general they’re very expensive, because everything is made by hand—you have no idea what it means to obtain absolute accuracy when you’re weighing something.

  Weighing what? Apples, people, what?

  Everything. From scales for goldsmiths to ones for containers, we make everything.

  Seriously?

  That’s why I have to go, today I have an important contract to negotiate, I really can’t arrive late, my company is at stake, if this doesn’t go right… Damn!

  Shit.

  I’ll take you to the bathroom.

  Wait, wait.

  Oh, no!

  Shit.

  I’ll go get some water.

  I’m sorry, really, I’m sorry.

  I’m going to get some water.

  No, stay here, please.

  Here, you can clean it up with this.

  How embarrassing.

  Don’t worry, I have children.

  What does that have to do with it?

  Children often throw up. Mine, anyway.

  Ah, I’m sorry.

  So it’s not a big deal to me. But now it would be better to go to your room.

  I can’t leave this mess here…

  Then I’ll call the clerk, you go up to your room. You have a room, right?

  Yes.

  Then go. I’ll take care of this.

  I’m not sure I remember the number.

  The clerk will tell you.

  I don’t want to see the clerk, he hates me, I told you. Don’t you have a room?

  I?

  Yes.

  I just left it.

  Take me there, please.

  I told you that I just left it.

  Well, what’s the matter, did you burn it down? It must still be there, no?

  Yes, but…

  Do me a favor, take me up, then I’ll stop bothering you.

  I would have to get the key back.

  Does that seem to you something so unreasonable?

  No, of course not.

  Do it, then, please.

  If really… I mean…

  You are truly kind.

  All right, come on.

  My shoes.

  Yes, your shoes.

  What floor is it on?

  Second. Let’s take the elevator.

  I’m sorry to leave all this mess…

  Don’t think about it.

  Now it’s going a little better, you know?

  Good. But you need to rest. Come…

  I haven’t forgotten anything?

  Come.

  What’s this damn perfume in the elevator?

  Lily of the valley and sandalwood.

  How do you know?

  They’re my hobby. Perfumes.

  Really?

  Yes.

  You sell scales and after dinner you fool around with perfumes?

  More or less.

  Do you make them?

  I’ve tried. It’s not easy. I study others’.

  You ought to make them.

  Here we are, we’ve arrived.

  You’re an odd type.

  Maybe. This way.

  You took the key, right?

  Yes.

  I’m sorry. I always think that everybody is incompetent, like me.

  Don’t worry.

  But a person who makes scales isn’t likely to be incompetent, right?

  Improbable, let’s say.

  Right.

  Please, come in.

  What a gorgeous room!

  They’re all the same, to tell you the truth.

  How can you be sure?

  I’ve been coming to this hotel for sixteen years. The bathroom is over there. I’ll leave the key here, I’ll take care of explaining everything to the clerk. Now I really have to go.

  You’re going?

  Yes, I’m going. You don’t have a room here, right?

  Excuse me?

  You came in and said, “Gorgeous room,” but if you actually had a room here you would know that it’s just like yours. They’re all the same.

  Is detective work also a hobby of yours?

  No. I pay attention to details. I make scales. You came into this hotel but you don’t in fact have a room in this hotel.

  You’re going?

  Yes, of course. I’d just like to be sure that…

  I came in because I like hotel lobbies, at night. And this one is beautiful, did you notice? Not too much, not too little. I’ve come here other times, that’s why the clerk hates me.

  And if you hadn’t met me?

  I really have to go to the bathroom. Do you have a toothbrush and toothpaste?

  Now it’s really gotten late for me…

  I know, just lend me a toothbrush, what does it cost you?

  A toothbrush?

  Calm down, hasn’t anyone ever asked to borrow a toothbrush?

  No one who has just vomited!

  Oh, that.

  Yes, that.

  Will you give it to me or not?

  Take it, also the toothpaste. Here. Don’t make too much of a mess, please, if you like have a good sleep and then leave everything in order. I have to come back to this hotel. Goodbye.

  Nice, walnut toothpaste.

  It’s not walnut.

  It’s written on it, walnut.

  That’s the brand. The flavor is in small writing, at the bottom.

  Oh, well, all right. And what were you doing downstairs?

  What?

  What were you doing downstairs, sitting by yourself in an armchair at four in the morning? If you were in such a hurry, why were you there?

  I wasn’t in such a big hurry, now I am.

  All right, anyway, you were there, what were you thinking about? Do you mind if I brush my teeth while you tell me?

  I don’t think I’ll tell you a thing.

  Why?

  I don’t even know you.

  Oh, that.

  Yes, that.

  It looks like no one ever came into this bathroom. What is it, you use the towels and then fold them all very neatly? In a hotel? You know, there are people who are paid to do that.

  I don’t…

  Do you make the bed, too?

  I imagine that’s my business.

  All right, all right. It’s good, this toothpaste. What is it, raspberry?

  Currant, with a touch of anise.

  Mmm… Good.

  They also make it without the anise, but it loses a lot.

  Inexcusable.

  I didn’t fold the towels. It’s that I didn’t use them. I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t sleep. I sat all night in that chair, with the light turned low. Then at four I came down to the lobby. Now I really have to go. It was a pleasure to meet you. Please leave the room before ten. Goodbye.

 
What the hell are you doing? Hey! Come back here! I say, does it seem right to behave with…

  Don’t shout, you’ll wake everybody up.

  Then come back here!

  Let’s not make a scene in the corridor, please.

  Fine, let’s do it in the elevator.

  You’re barefoot, the foam from the toothpaste is coming out of your mouth, and downstairs there’s a clerk who wouldn’t be happy to see you in that state.

  If that’s it your shoes are full of vomit.

  No!

  Come, I’ll clean them.

  Oh no, no!

  Stop shouting, you’ll wake everybody up.

  But see if…

  Come on, like a good boy. Take off those shoes. Not like that!

  I have to untie them!

  I’ll do it, sit there. Since you were there all night, in that chair, a minute more or less…

  Very witty.

  Goodness, how disgusting…

  Forget it, please.

  I wouldn’t dream of it. I threw up, I clean up. Here, done.

  Where are you taking them?

  A nice washing…

  No, not in water!

  Why? You’ll see, it works.

  I have to put on those shoes, will you tell me how the hell—

  Would you answer?

  What?

  The telephone, the telephone’s ringing.

  Who the hell—

  Answer.

  But I’m not in this room, that is…

  Do I have to answer?

  No!

  Look how clean they came out. Now a nice drying with the dryer…

  Hello?… Yes, it’s me… No, I didn’t have an accident, I came back up to the room for a moment… Oh, that, yes… I didn’t feel well… No, much better, I’m sorry about the carpet… If there’s something to pay… No, I insist… I’m coming down now… No, really, I don’t need anything… I’m coming down now… Yes, thank you, you’re very kind… Thank you.

  Who was it?

  I have to go, right away.

  Who was it?

  The night clerk. Where are the shoes?

  I hate that man.

  Give me those shoes.

  I wouldn’t dream of it. Sit there a moment and I’ll dry them.

  I have to go. Now!

  What manners! Take them if you want them so much.

  I told the clerk that it was me, downstairs, who… Just do me a favor and don’t let anyone see you leave. Damn, they’re wet…

  Why don’t you forget it?

  Yes, I’ll go out barefoot, a fine idea.

  I mean, why don’t you forget the whole thing, the contract, the scales, everything.

  What the hell are you talking about?

  How old are you?

  Me?

  You, yes.

  Forty-two.

  You see, you’re young enough to leave everything.

  What do you mean?

  Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of it. Leaving everything and starting all over from the beginning. It wouldn’t be bad, would it?

  You’re crazy.

  But the woman said that a lot of people dream of starting over again, and she added that in that there was something moving, not crazy. She said that in fact almost no one, after all, really starts again from the beginning, but one has no idea how much time people spend fantasizing about doing it, and often while they’re right in the middle of their troubles, and the life they would like to leave. She had once had a child and she recalled distinctly the anguish that gripped her every time she was alone with him, when he was little, and then the only thing that worked was to think seriously of leaving and starting over again. She planned where to leave him, the child, and already knew how she would do her hair and where she would go to look for a job, to start again. One thing that made her feel better immediately was to think of how she would spend the evenings then, and the nights. She would pass entire evenings eating on the couch, and others she would go out and go to bed with a man, she would do it with great confidence, then get up from the bed and take her things, without a regret. She said that by the sole fact of thinking all this something inside her dissolved and a serenity possessed her, as if she really had resolved something. She then became much sweeter with the child, and suddenly luminous, and maternal. The child realized it, he felt it, like a little animal, and in her arms his movements became slower, and his gaze curious. Everything seemed to go much better, like a charm. She added that she was seventeen at the time. While she was telling all this, the woman had taken off her evening dress, first unzipping the zipper at the back and then, shifting it slightly off her shoulders, letting it fall. Since the dress was silk, it crumpled on the floor in a shining, light bundle, from which she emerged with a tiny step, first one foot, then the other. Although she was now in underpants and bra she continued to talk, taking no notice of it, and betraying no intention other than to complete a gesture she had decided to make. She picked up the silk bundle and as she was telling how later, years later, she was in fact separated from that child, she placed it on a chair and went over to the bed. Still talking, she pulled down the red bedspread and at that the man grimaced slightly, as if he had been stung. But she paid no attention, she took a barrette out of her hair and slid between the sheets, which was the thing she had perhaps been thinking of, with great desire, from the moment she entered the room, probably to find a form of refuge, or gentleness, childlike. She unhooked the bra, threw it in a corner of the room, arranged the pillow, and then pulled up the sheet, up under her chin. She was telling what had happened to her once in a kind of placement office, and she still couldn’t believe it. It was a thing that had to do with starting over again. She hoped that the man would understand, but it wasn’t easy to get an idea, because the man stood listening, without making a sign, one hand gripping the handle of a small suitcase. His feet were in the wet shoes. Every so often he moved them, because of the irritation. At a certain point he asked the woman how she had had a son at seventeen. That is, if she had chosen to have him, or it had simply happened. The woman shrugged. It’s not a nice story, she said, and long ago I decided not to remember it anymore. It can’t have been very easy, to forget it, the man observed. Again the woman shrugged her shoulders. I turned the page, she said. The man looked at her for a while, then asked her if she had started over, in the way she dreamed of, with the child in her arms. Yes, the woman answered, and you know what I understood? The man didn’t answer. I understood that you never truly change, there’s no way to change, the way you are as a child you are your whole life, it’s not to change that you start over again. Then what for, asked the man. The woman was silent for a moment. She hadn’t realized that the sheet had slid down, below her breasts, or she didn’t care. Maybe it was what she wanted. She started over again in order to change tables, she said. One always has this idea of having happened into the wrong game, and that with the cards we have who knows what we could have done if only we had been sitting at a different card table. She had left the child with her mother and had started over with another city, another profession, another way of dressing. Probably she also wanted to leave behind a few things that it wasn’t possible to put in place. Now she could no longer remember exactly. But certainly she was tired of losing. As I told you, she added, it’s impossible to change your cards, all you can do is change your card table.

  Did you find yours? the man asked.

  Yes, the woman answered confidently. It’s a disgusting table, everyone cheats, the money is dirty, and the people are worthless.

  How marvelous.

  I couldn’t be too fussy, with the cards I hold.

  Like?

  I’m imprecise, not very intelligent, and too mean. And I’ve never finished a thing in my life. Is that enough for you?

  What do you mean by “mean”?

  I don’t care about seeing people suffer. Sometimes I like it. Sit down, it’s annoying, your standing there, please.

 
Now I truly have to go.

  On the bed. Sit on the bed. You can stay there at the end if it bothers you to get close.

  It doesn’t bother me, it’s that I have to go.

  Like that, good.

  A moment, then I really have to go. Just tell me how you’re going to leave here, tomorrow.

  What?

  Tomorrow morning, if they see you.

  What do I know? I’ll make up something. That you picked me up last night and this morning you vanished, taking my wallet. Things like that.

  Very kind of you.

  Don’t mention it.

  In fact you have no idea how little it matters to me.

  Really?

  Really.

  That is, you’re pretending?

  Pretending what?

  To be someone who cares what they think of him in a hotel. A half-wit of that type.

  No, I really am. It’s that now I’m late.

  Don’t be like that, I was joking, I won’t get you in trouble, they won’t see me leave, if there’s one thing I know how to do it’s leave a hotel without anyone noticing, believe me. I was joking.

  It’s not that.

  Then what?

  Nothing. It’s that it’s late now.

  For what?

  Forget it.

  Is it so important, this work thing?

  I should have gone earlier. It’s that I couldn’t get out of that chair.

  Maybe you didn’t want to.

  That’s also possible. But it would be extremely illogical for someone like me.

  You never do things that are illogical?

  No.

  Never a mistake?

  Many, but never illogical.

  There’s a difference?

  Obviously.

  Give me an example.

  I would have a perfect one, quite recent, but believe me, it’s not something to talk about now.

  You smiled.

  What?

  It’s the first time you’ve smiled since we met. You have a lovely smile, you know?

  Thank you.

  You ought to do it more often, I mean smile, it gives you that melancholy air that appeals to women.

  Are you coming on to me?

  Now then!

  I’m sorry, it was a joke.

  A joke. I hope you can do better.

  Yes, I can do better, but not tonight, I’m sorry.

  What is there about tonight?

  It’s the wrong night.

  You’re here, chatting, with a naked woman in the bed, what’s wrong about it, apart from the deplorable absence of alcohol, I mean.

  If you like there should be a minibar somewhere.