The Hotel Capital
is only for the rich. For them there are porters in uniforms, long-legged, tailcoated waiters with Spanish accents; for them the silent lifts with mirrors on all sides; for them the brass door handles which must never be allowed to show any fingerprints, the door handles which are for this reason polished twice a day by the petite Yugoslav woman; for them the carpeted stairs to be used only in case they should be assailed by the claustrophobia of the lift; for them huge sofas, heavy quilted bedspreads, breakfasts in bed, air conditioning, towels whiter than snow, soaps and beautifully scented shampoos, toilet seats of real oak, new magazines every morning. It is for them that God created Angelo of Soiled Linen and Zapata of Special Orders, for them the chambermaids in white and pink uniforms, scurrying along the corridors, myself among them. But perhaps to say ‘myself’ is already to say too much; not much of myself is left when, in the little service room at the end of the corridor, I put on a striped apron while, at the same time, taking off my own colours, my body smell, my favourite earrings, my warpaint make-up and high-heeled shoes. At the same time I take off my exotic language, my strange name, my sense of humour, my face lines, my taste for food not appreciated here, my memory of small events—and I stand naked in this pink and white uniform as if emerging from the sea mist. And, from this moment on,
The whole of the second floor of the hotel is mine
every weekend, that is. I start here at eight o’clock and I don’t have to hurry since, at eight o’clock, all the rich people are still asleep. The hotel snuggles them inside, rocking them gently, as if it were a big seashell in the world’s depths and they the precious pearls inside it. In the distance the traffic awakens and the underground train makes the grass tremble gently at its tips. A cool shadow lingers in the hotel’s yard.
I come in through the back door and immediately I become aware of strange intermingled smells of cleaning materials, freshly laundered linen and the walls sweating with the excessive turnover of people. The poky little lift stops in front of me, ready for service. I press the button for the fourth floor and proceed to my supervisor, Miss Lang, to collect my orders for the day. Every time, somewhere halfway between the second and third floors, I am touched by a panicky sensation lest the lift should stop and I should stay here forever, enclosed like a bacterium inside the body of the Hotel Capital. And once the hotel awakens, it will set to work, unhurriedly digesting me, it will even get at my thoughts and absorb all that is left of me, it will feed on me before I noiselessly disappear. But the lift mercifully lets me out.
Miss Lang sits behind her desk, with her spectacles balancing on the tip of her nose. She looks just like what the queen of all chambermaids, the resident of all eight floors, the dispenser of hundreds of bed sheets and pillowcases, the chamberlain of carpets and lifts, the equerry of brushes and vacuum cleaners, should look like. She eyes me from behind her spectacles and takes out a card prepared especially for me, on which, laid out neatly in rows and columns, a plan of the whole second floor is drawn, indicating the status of each room. Miss Lang does not notice guests in the hotel. Perhaps she considers them to be the concern of the higher management, difficult as it is to imagine someone higher, more distinguished than Miss Lang.
For her, the hotel is probably a perfect structure, a living, if inert, being which we have to take care of. Sure enough, people flow and fly through it, warm its beds, drink water from its brass nipples. But they pass on, go away. We and the hotel remain. That is why Miss Lang describes the rooms to me as if they were haunted places—always in the passive tense, as being occupied or dirty or free for the last few days. As she does this, she looks resentfully at my own clothing, at the traces of my too hurriedly applied make-up. And almost straight away I am walking along the corridor with a note in Miss Lang’s beautiful, slightly Victorian handwriting, planning the strategy of how best to use my strength.
It is then that, unconsciously, I cross from the domestic part of the building to the Guests’ Quarters. I can tell this by the smell—I only have to lift my head to recognize it. Sometimes I score ten out of ten: the scent is that of Armani, or Lagerfeld for Men, or of the seductively elegant Boucheron. I recognize these scents from the free samples in Vogue magazine. I am familiar with the look of their containers. I also catch the scent of powder, of anti-wrinkle cream, of silk, of crocodile skin, of Campari spilled over the bedding, of Caprice cigarettes for subtle brunettes. This, to me, is the specific smell of the second floor. Or rather, not the complete smell, but only the first layer of that special smell of the second floor which I recognize instantly the way one recognizes an old friend, while on my way to the changing room where
A transformation
takes place. Clad in the pink and white uniform, I find myself viewing the corridor with different eyes. I no longer trace the scents, I cease to be drawn by my own reflection in the brass door handles, nor do I listen for the sound of my own steps. What I am singularly interested in now are the numbered rectangles of doors in the corridor’s vista. Behind each of these eight rectangles there is a room—the four-cornered, prostituted space which every few days gives itself to someone else. The windows of four of the rooms look on to the street where a bearded fellow in Scottish attire stands playing his bagpipes.
I suspect he is not a genuine Scot. He exhibits too much enthusiasm. Next to him—a hat and a coin meant to attract offerings.
The next four rooms, whose windows overlook the yard, are not as sunny and seem to be permanently bathed in shadow. All eight rooms are lodged in my brain, even before I can see them. My eyes search out the door handles. Some of them have DO NOT DISTURB notices attached to them. I am pleased at this as it is not in my interest to disturb either the rooms or the people in them, and I prefer that they do not disturb me as I contemplate my sole possession of the second floor. Occasionally, a notice declares the room is READY TO BE SERVICED. This notice puts me in a state of alertness. There is also a third kind of information—that supplied by the absence of any notice. This energizes me, makes me slightly anxious. It switches on my chambermaid’s mind which until then has remained inactive. Sometimes, when the stillness behind such a door is too palpable, I have to put my ear to it and listen intently, and even peep through the keyhole. I prefer this to suddenly finding myself inside with an armful of towels and stumbling upon an alarmed guest covering his nakedness or, even worse, finding a guest so deep in helpless sleep that he scarcely seems to be there. That is why I obey the notices on the doors: they are visas granting me entry into a miniature world,
The world of numbers
Room number 200 is empty, the bed rumpled, a few bits of debris and a bitter smell of someone’s hastiness, of their turning over in bed, of their feverish packing. This somebody must have left early in the morning, probably had to rush to the airport or maybe to a railway station. My job consists of removing the traces of this person’s presence from the bed, the carpet, the wardrobes, the cabinet, the bathroom, the wallpaper, the ashtrays and finally the air itself. This is not at all easy. It’s not enough just to clean. The vestiges of the personality left behind by the previous occupant have to be overcome by my own impersonality. This is what Transformation is all about. It is not enough to wipe away with a piece of cloth the traces of the reflection of that face in the mirror, but the mirror has to be filled with my pink and white facelessness. That smell left behind by distraction and haste has to be stifled by my complete absence of smell. This is what I am here for, as someone in an official capacity who is therefore a non-person. And this is what I do. It is always hardest with women. Women leave behind more traces and I don’t mean simply that they forget their knick-knacks. They instinctively try to remake hotel rooms into ersatz homes. They root wherever they can, like seeds carried on the wind. In the hotel wardrobes they hang some of their deep-seated longings, in the bathrooms they shamelessly divest themselves of their desires and deprivations. Light-heartedly they leave the imprint of their lips on glasses and cigarette butts, as well as their hair in the bath. On the floor they sprinkle talcum powder which traitorously reveals the mystery of their footprints. Some of them do not wipe off their make-up before going to bed and then the pillowcases, like Veronica’s veil, retain the image of their faces. They never leave tips, however. For this the self-assurance of men is needed. Men tend to view the world more as a marketplace than a theatre. They prefer to pay for everything, even in advance. It is only when they pay that they feel free.
The next room is
Number 224, occupied by a Japanese couple
by Olga Tokarczuk, Granta | Read more:
is only for the rich. For them there are porters in uniforms, long-legged, tailcoated waiters with Spanish accents; for them the silent lifts with mirrors on all sides; for them the brass door handles which must never be allowed to show any fingerprints, the door handles which are for this reason polished twice a day by the petite Yugoslav woman; for them the carpeted stairs to be used only in case they should be assailed by the claustrophobia of the lift; for them huge sofas, heavy quilted bedspreads, breakfasts in bed, air conditioning, towels whiter than snow, soaps and beautifully scented shampoos, toilet seats of real oak, new magazines every morning. It is for them that God created Angelo of Soiled Linen and Zapata of Special Orders, for them the chambermaids in white and pink uniforms, scurrying along the corridors, myself among them. But perhaps to say ‘myself’ is already to say too much; not much of myself is left when, in the little service room at the end of the corridor, I put on a striped apron while, at the same time, taking off my own colours, my body smell, my favourite earrings, my warpaint make-up and high-heeled shoes. At the same time I take off my exotic language, my strange name, my sense of humour, my face lines, my taste for food not appreciated here, my memory of small events—and I stand naked in this pink and white uniform as if emerging from the sea mist. And, from this moment on,The whole of the second floor of the hotel is mine
every weekend, that is. I start here at eight o’clock and I don’t have to hurry since, at eight o’clock, all the rich people are still asleep. The hotel snuggles them inside, rocking them gently, as if it were a big seashell in the world’s depths and they the precious pearls inside it. In the distance the traffic awakens and the underground train makes the grass tremble gently at its tips. A cool shadow lingers in the hotel’s yard.
I come in through the back door and immediately I become aware of strange intermingled smells of cleaning materials, freshly laundered linen and the walls sweating with the excessive turnover of people. The poky little lift stops in front of me, ready for service. I press the button for the fourth floor and proceed to my supervisor, Miss Lang, to collect my orders for the day. Every time, somewhere halfway between the second and third floors, I am touched by a panicky sensation lest the lift should stop and I should stay here forever, enclosed like a bacterium inside the body of the Hotel Capital. And once the hotel awakens, it will set to work, unhurriedly digesting me, it will even get at my thoughts and absorb all that is left of me, it will feed on me before I noiselessly disappear. But the lift mercifully lets me out.
Miss Lang sits behind her desk, with her spectacles balancing on the tip of her nose. She looks just like what the queen of all chambermaids, the resident of all eight floors, the dispenser of hundreds of bed sheets and pillowcases, the chamberlain of carpets and lifts, the equerry of brushes and vacuum cleaners, should look like. She eyes me from behind her spectacles and takes out a card prepared especially for me, on which, laid out neatly in rows and columns, a plan of the whole second floor is drawn, indicating the status of each room. Miss Lang does not notice guests in the hotel. Perhaps she considers them to be the concern of the higher management, difficult as it is to imagine someone higher, more distinguished than Miss Lang.
For her, the hotel is probably a perfect structure, a living, if inert, being which we have to take care of. Sure enough, people flow and fly through it, warm its beds, drink water from its brass nipples. But they pass on, go away. We and the hotel remain. That is why Miss Lang describes the rooms to me as if they were haunted places—always in the passive tense, as being occupied or dirty or free for the last few days. As she does this, she looks resentfully at my own clothing, at the traces of my too hurriedly applied make-up. And almost straight away I am walking along the corridor with a note in Miss Lang’s beautiful, slightly Victorian handwriting, planning the strategy of how best to use my strength.
It is then that, unconsciously, I cross from the domestic part of the building to the Guests’ Quarters. I can tell this by the smell—I only have to lift my head to recognize it. Sometimes I score ten out of ten: the scent is that of Armani, or Lagerfeld for Men, or of the seductively elegant Boucheron. I recognize these scents from the free samples in Vogue magazine. I am familiar with the look of their containers. I also catch the scent of powder, of anti-wrinkle cream, of silk, of crocodile skin, of Campari spilled over the bedding, of Caprice cigarettes for subtle brunettes. This, to me, is the specific smell of the second floor. Or rather, not the complete smell, but only the first layer of that special smell of the second floor which I recognize instantly the way one recognizes an old friend, while on my way to the changing room where
A transformation
takes place. Clad in the pink and white uniform, I find myself viewing the corridor with different eyes. I no longer trace the scents, I cease to be drawn by my own reflection in the brass door handles, nor do I listen for the sound of my own steps. What I am singularly interested in now are the numbered rectangles of doors in the corridor’s vista. Behind each of these eight rectangles there is a room—the four-cornered, prostituted space which every few days gives itself to someone else. The windows of four of the rooms look on to the street where a bearded fellow in Scottish attire stands playing his bagpipes.
I suspect he is not a genuine Scot. He exhibits too much enthusiasm. Next to him—a hat and a coin meant to attract offerings.
The next four rooms, whose windows overlook the yard, are not as sunny and seem to be permanently bathed in shadow. All eight rooms are lodged in my brain, even before I can see them. My eyes search out the door handles. Some of them have DO NOT DISTURB notices attached to them. I am pleased at this as it is not in my interest to disturb either the rooms or the people in them, and I prefer that they do not disturb me as I contemplate my sole possession of the second floor. Occasionally, a notice declares the room is READY TO BE SERVICED. This notice puts me in a state of alertness. There is also a third kind of information—that supplied by the absence of any notice. This energizes me, makes me slightly anxious. It switches on my chambermaid’s mind which until then has remained inactive. Sometimes, when the stillness behind such a door is too palpable, I have to put my ear to it and listen intently, and even peep through the keyhole. I prefer this to suddenly finding myself inside with an armful of towels and stumbling upon an alarmed guest covering his nakedness or, even worse, finding a guest so deep in helpless sleep that he scarcely seems to be there. That is why I obey the notices on the doors: they are visas granting me entry into a miniature world,
The world of numbers
Room number 200 is empty, the bed rumpled, a few bits of debris and a bitter smell of someone’s hastiness, of their turning over in bed, of their feverish packing. This somebody must have left early in the morning, probably had to rush to the airport or maybe to a railway station. My job consists of removing the traces of this person’s presence from the bed, the carpet, the wardrobes, the cabinet, the bathroom, the wallpaper, the ashtrays and finally the air itself. This is not at all easy. It’s not enough just to clean. The vestiges of the personality left behind by the previous occupant have to be overcome by my own impersonality. This is what Transformation is all about. It is not enough to wipe away with a piece of cloth the traces of the reflection of that face in the mirror, but the mirror has to be filled with my pink and white facelessness. That smell left behind by distraction and haste has to be stifled by my complete absence of smell. This is what I am here for, as someone in an official capacity who is therefore a non-person. And this is what I do. It is always hardest with women. Women leave behind more traces and I don’t mean simply that they forget their knick-knacks. They instinctively try to remake hotel rooms into ersatz homes. They root wherever they can, like seeds carried on the wind. In the hotel wardrobes they hang some of their deep-seated longings, in the bathrooms they shamelessly divest themselves of their desires and deprivations. Light-heartedly they leave the imprint of their lips on glasses and cigarette butts, as well as their hair in the bath. On the floor they sprinkle talcum powder which traitorously reveals the mystery of their footprints. Some of them do not wipe off their make-up before going to bed and then the pillowcases, like Veronica’s veil, retain the image of their faces. They never leave tips, however. For this the self-assurance of men is needed. Men tend to view the world more as a marketplace than a theatre. They prefer to pay for everything, even in advance. It is only when they pay that they feel free.
The next room is
Number 224, occupied by a Japanese couple
by Olga Tokarczuk, Granta | Read more:
Image: Lise Sarfati
