Hotel Milano, page 9
Frank, to prepare you for Sophie’s birthday party … A month or so ago Patricia was involved in a car accident. Her fault. An elderly man is in a coma. There is to be a court case but Ben isn’t satisfied with the legal aid lawyer and wants to go private. I shall say no more …
As I headed for the door, Alberto Rizzo waved. I made a small detour.
Any luck? I asked.
The hospital is very busy. We are waiting. Hoping.
Fingers crossed, I said. His partner glanced up from her food, twisted her mouth and looked down again.
In the lift I remembered I had told Rachel, right at the start, that when I went – long before her no doubt – she should not hesitate to find herself another … She had put a hand over my mouth. I could feel the cool skin on my lips, now, in the moist warmth behind my mask, shooting up to the sixth floor of the Hotel Milano.
It was not a good time for meeting strangers.
The room had a tired smell. Each day feels harder, I thought. Tomorrow I must sort out a better strategy. Then, stepping out of a long shower, I was aware of a noise. A buzzing, on and off. I poked my head out of the bathroom.
The noise had stopped. I towelled myself dry and hopped into the room. It began again. An intermittent buzz, with resonance. I picked up Excalibur and went out on the balcony, naked in the cold damp air. Why? Why was I deliberately doing stuff that was odd? Things that quickened the senses. I grasped the stone parapet and leaned over, the gritty surface against my thighs. The balloon was still there, caught in the branches. Company.
I went back inside and closed the big windows. The sound had stopped. For a moment it crossed my mind I was losing it. This is dementia. I pulled on my T-shirt to sleep, and as my head came out through the neck, saw her phone on the bedside table. On top of Tennyson. A green LED shone in one corner. Fully charged.
It was a surprisingly expensive-looking thing. I fiddled. The screen lit up with five people arm in arm. In a walled garden, with a tree. The women were wearing headscarves. Three notifications in Arabic script. A swipe pattern to block access.
So she would have to come back. There would be a knock at the door. Perhaps she had already tried. I would cover myself in my dressing gown and take it to her. There was no point in falling asleep before that happened.
Back to Tennyson then. Bored with Arthur, I leafed back and forth. Ulysses.
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth …
The phone began to vibrate.
I watched it. Arabic appeared. A name? It rang four times, five. It was extraordinary how this riveted my attention. Eight times, nine. Should I answer?
It stopped. I examined the phone again, but there seemed to be no way to get into the settings and mute it. Back to Ithaca.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees.
Clearly, I thought, Homer’s hero didn’t have a bad knee. I bent back the spine of the book, wondering if I mightn’t have been happier after all with Montaigne.
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments.
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all.
I wish! Who gets to be honoured worldwide these days? The answer came at once. Dan.
And drunk delight of battle with my peers …
Delight of battle!
I stopped. I was feeling a little nauseous. The risotto perhaps, or the cold air on the balcony. For me battle became a misery. I had been overwhelmed.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
Not at all!
The phone was ringing again. It pulsed. Again the Arabic script lit up. I waited. It rang on and on.
I put the book down and slid my finger on the screen.
A voice spoke. A deep guttural voice.
I am sorry, I cut in, I am not the owner of this phone.
There was a pause. Then more incomprehensible speech. It sounded aggressive.
The owner left the phone in my room. No doubt she will come back for it soon enough.
Again the voice.
I’m afraid I can’t understand you.
The caller rang off. I put the phone down. I felt strangely shaken. I picked up Tennyson, smoothed down the page, then flung the book across the room. This was ridiculous. Should I take the phone up to the attic?
I was tired. I had already undressed.
I sat in this state for some minutes. Propped up on soft pillows. Retrieve the book? Smoke a cigarette on the balcony? Pour a drink from the minibar? Wander the corridors of the hotel? I was bursting with tension.
When the phone rang again I picked it up, weighed it in my hand, pulsing and vibrating with its foreignness, then tossed it across the room after Ulysses. It caught the leg of the coffee table and banged on the floor. Silent.
I slid down under the sheets. In the dark. In the quiet. I turned on my side. There was no thumping tonight. I could sleep.
I couldn’t sleep. I turned on my back. Why had I done that?
I resisted a few minutes, then swung my legs off the bed and felt for the light switch.
The screen of the phone was cracked diagonally. Was it working? I pressed the buttons on the side. Nothing.
For a moment I stood in the middle of the room. In the T-shirt I’d brought to sleep in. What was all this about?
I dressed. My travelling clothes this time. Everything smelt stale. I took my stick and headed for the stairs.
The hotel’s ubiquitous electric hum seemed more present than ever. I passed through the grey door that led from luxury to utility and climbed the cement stairs to the warning, SOLO AUTORIZZATI. Fluorescent light flickered along the corridor.
Which door was it? Second from the end? They were all alike.
I stood facing it. A low door. You almost had to bend. Old brown paint. Overlooked in the recent renovation. I pulled out the phone and pressed its buttons again. The corridor lights went out.
Pitch-dark. This time I knocked. Softly. The hum didn’t reach up here. There was no response. No sound at all.
I knocked again.
Why hadn’t she come back for her phone at once? This could so easily have been avoided.
I put a hand on the door and pushed. It was Tuesday evening. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to get through.
The door squeaked. I had the impression there had been another sound too, inside. Perhaps not. I swayed a little in the dark, prodding my stick in front of me, as if in dread of a chasm. And the smell hit me. Damp, sour and thick. I held the doorpost.
Is anybody here? It’s the man from downstairs.
I stood, listening. In the dark. Then tried another step, holding on to my stick.
I have brought your phone for you.
Something brushed against my ankle. I stepped sharply back and banged against the doorpost. Stumbled. Let out a yell.
A light clicked on. A low wall of boxes appeared, dividing the near space from the far. The lamp must be on the floor beyond the boxes. A black cat meowed.
Now a head and shoulders appeared above the boxes. She must be kneeling. Without headscarf or mask. A round face in blotches of chiaroscuro. She ducked down. One moment, please.
I’m afraid I tripped on the stairs and it fell. I hope it isn’t broken.
A child whined. There was whispered scolding. Beyond the boxes the roof slanted steeply down. They must be sleeping on the floor. To my right, against the wall, in the shadows, there were stacks of tiles, rolls of carpet.
Now she reappeared with a mask and headscarf, wrapped in a white bathrobe. Property of the hotel. There was a gap in the boxes to the left.
I’m afraid I slipped on the stairs.
She came to me, treading carefully in the clutter, took the phone, pressed the buttons, rubbed the screen, examined the crack. She seemed a different presence here. Swift and sure of herself.
It is broken. She looked up.
So stupid of me. It’s my knee.
The little boy had followed her. In pyjamas and fleece, barefoot. He hugged her legs. She was still fiddling with the phone.
From behind the boxes a voice spoke weakly. She turned and answered. And her voice changed. It was warm and cooing. The boy peeked from behind her back and made faces. I winked at him.
Someone was trying to call you. It kept ringing. That’s why I came up. I’m sorry.
From behind the boxes came a low cough.
If you want to use my phone, please do.
I pulled it from my pocket.
She hesitated, eyes alive with caution.
The boy fussed for her attention, tugging at the gown, which was too big for her, almost hiding her hands.
I don’t know the numbers, she said.
Ah.
Wait. She turned and went back behind the barrier of boxes, dropped down. There were low voices. She hadn’t called me sir, I realised.
The boy let out a sudden high-pitched trill. He sunk on his haunches. A queer, wheedling sound. After the cat. The animal had taken refuge behind a roll of carpet. The child made frog-like jumps in that direction. Showing off.
Hakim, I said.
He turned, pouted, turned back. Behind the boxes the confabulation went on. I sat down on a stack of tiles.
Hakim.
Again he pouted and scowled. I smiled. When he got close, the cat shot off along the wall, leaping over the boxes. The boy scrambled after it with a yell. The mother stood to shush him.
Why not just go? I thought. Back to my warm bed. I hadn’t meant to break her phone. What was the point of feeling guilty? The cat reappeared, perching on the boxes, studying me. Unblinking.
It is okay, the woman said. It is my husband that called. I am sure.
She came back and squatted a yard or so away from me. Bouncing very gently as she spoke.
Perhaps he has found a flat for you.
Between her eyes, the skin wrinkled. Yes. Maybe.
Is your father ill?
She didn’t reply.
Suddenly I was irritated. I got to my feet.
Look, why don’t you just tell the hotel management what the situation is and ask for help? Then you can go to the place your husband has found. I can give you money for another phone.
She was squatting on her haunches, watching me.
It’s not good for you to be here. It’s cold. Dirty. With the boy as well. There’s no bathroom.
On my feet, I meant to go to the door. Then I sat down again, on the tiles.
Nothing is more important than health, I said. You’ll be looked after.
She let out a sort of growl. A strange cry. Her son came running. He put his arms round her back and his face beside hers.
I’m really sorry about the phone. It was stupid of me.
She stood up, surprising the boy who tumbled from her back.
Please go now, she said.
XIV
I went to breakfast in my coat, took more than I needed at the buffet and slipped croissants and apples into my pockets. Then found myself glancing at headlines with a certain ease. Italians Staying Home. 600 deaths. Five Things We have Learned about Self Isolation. Allegations against Placido Domingo Deemed Credible. Perhaps I could go out, I thought, and buy the woman a phone. It was Wednesday. My odd couple didn’t show. The Frenchman appeared, on his own. To my surprise, he nodded his mask my way, as if we were acquainted. The angry businesswoman ate scrambled eggs over her laptop.
Looking across the room, its sumptuous furnishings and attentive staff, I wondered at the life of the woman in the attic. The life of the child. I wondered at the focus and practicality I had felt in her presence. Her attentiveness with her mask and headscarf. The affection in her high cooing voice. Her ease crouching down, only moments after being woken. Also her state of unsurprise. As if it were not so unusual to hide one’s family plus cat in a hotel attic. Who could tell what experiences such people were coming from? What journeys they had made. Surely if the father were well, he would have come forward and spoken to me, if only to offer a protective presence for his daughter.
I thought over our encounter, her reaction to the loss of her phone, which presumably was her only contact with the world outside the hotel. Or did the father have one? But if he did, wouldn’t her husband have called him? Not finding his wife on hers. Perhaps he had. Or was the battery dead? But then why not ask me to charge it? And why sit looking at me like that for so long, then ask nothing. Then send me away.
I ate a fruit salad. I had slept badly. But that was par for the course. I decided not to reply to Charles Porchester. You must be a long way from that precious keyboard … Connie had written. Her old love affair with suspension points. I looked up Dan’s magazine. The website. Liberalism, the Challenge, was the lead article. Then, Academe’s Anxieties. It was hard to imagine taking out a subscription. On Amazon, sipping tea, I found Frog and Toad Are Friends and We Don’t Eat Our Classmates. It’s the first day of school for Penelope Rex, and she can’t wait to meet her classmates. But it’s hard to make human friends when they’re so darn delicious! Also a biography of Alfred Lord Tennyson. To Strive, to Seek, to Find. I selected one-day delivery. The Ulysses thing was beautiful nonsense, I decided. Old men embarking on wild adventures.
Back on the sixth floor, I was fumbling for my keycard when I felt a tug on my raincoat. For a split second I imagined a hotel detective stopping me for stealing food. It was Hakim. Bedraggled. He was holding a piece of paper. With the hotel logo. And the words: FOOD AND WATER. THANK YOU.
I caught his shoulder.
Hang on!
He was twisting, pouting.
Wait!
Hand on the pommel of my stick, I pulled a croissant from my pocket. A buttery fragrance filled the air. He shot out a small hand.
Let’s find a bag. I went into the room. He stood at the open door, shifting from one foot to the other, like his mother. I fished a supermarket bag from the waste bin.
Would you like a shower?
The bathroom was just inside the room. Its door open.
Shower? I turned on the light, went in, leaned into the shower, swivelled the lever.
Yes? Smell nice?
The water splashed. He peeped in. I held out a hand. He seemed puzzled. His face was so mobile. Then he turned and ran. From baldness and mottled skin, no doubt. I watched him scampering off down the corridor, the bag banging against his ankles.
The question now was, could I get past the doorman again? Or rather doormen. There were two. At least you have something to do, I thought. You’re not idle. Though the revolving doors of the Hotel Milano were hardly the Pillars of Hercules. Walking down the stairs from the sixth, one chary step at a time – to comply, to pass the morning – I remembered having told myself the same thing in Rachel’s last days: at least it’s clear now what you have to do, for however long it takes.
Sitting on a sofa in Reception, I watched how it worked. Everyone who passed through must have their temperature taken, and must show and justify their autodichiarazione. Perhaps it was encouraging for these men to have a real job at last. They had felt rusty, unburnish’d. The Indian boy was wheeled out, blankets heaped on his knees. An ambulance was waiting. The young German business people were allowed through. But the woman from the odd couple was turned back.
I watched. She must have come from the stairs behind me, across the polished marble. Suddenly she was in my line of vision, striding towards the doors, guarded by the two men in their crimson uniforms, their gloves. She was wearing dark trousers, flat shoes, a beige coat. They barred her way. Voices were raised. She spoke sharply, rapidly, impatient and tearful. She had no piece of paper. She tried to push past. The concierge hurried to intervene. She was beside herself. I couldn’t understand a word. She pulled down her mask. Her colour came up. The men were implacable. Pressing their masks to their faces. Anxious perhaps. Until, at the climax, as they were trying to escort her back to the lift and she was half resisting, a trumpet blared out. The same three blasts I had heard here before. Faces turned to the big wall screen. Once again it rippled with national pride, the red white and green. As the choir burst into song, I hobbled quickly to the door and slipped out, free.
There was pale sunshine, volumes of fresh air. What a relief. A young man was standing against a tree trunk across from the taxi rank. Smoking. Possibly Arab. Could it be the husband? Wearing bubble jacket and jeans. If she had given me his name I could have tried to speak to him. Round the corner, four policemen were blocking the pavement. It was too late to change direction. I had the first day’s autodichiarazione in my pocket. I waited while they laughed with a young woman carrying a backpack. It all seemed friendly enough.
I am going to the pharmacy. For medicine.
They studied my autodichiarazione, which had a crumpled look. And no date.
Grand Hotel Milano, one muttered. The young men weighed me up.
When you have your medicine you are returning to the hotel.
At once.
You are American?
English.
Why are you coming in Italy?
For a funeral.
They spoke to each other. They seemed to be growing more hostile, as though they had smelt a rat. I looked shabby, hadn’t shaved. They wore masks which they kept adjusting with gloved hands.
Which medicine?
Of who is the funeral?
I turned from one to the other. His name was Dan Sandow, I said. An American. I need cortisone. For my knee.
You have the recipe?
Sorry?
You have the paper. From the doctor.
No.
Your document, please.
They examined my passport, passing it from hand to hand. I was a curiosity. They were deciding whether to make trouble. Other pedestrians passed by, careful not to look. Some masked, some not. I had the packet of masks in my coat pocket. Watching the men as they passed the passport around, I felt a curious mix of anxiety and pleasure. Stuff was happening. I was dealing with it.
