Hotel Metropole

The question is: Where will they meet this week? At the Hotel
Metropole of course. Its central location and high-ceilinged rooms,
despite having walls daubed with the nicotine stains of a thousand
previous visitors, promote a feeling of intimacy. An establishment
which exudes an aura of wealth and yet, in truth, is reasonably enough
priced for him not to shirk at paying for their two hours together on a
regular-as-clockwork basis. He found the tall-fronted red-brick
building with its inviting white lettering months ago and their
clandestine meetings have continued to be held at the same location on
the same day each week since then. They both know this implicitly, but
when they talk on the phone she still asks him with short, tentative
breaths, as though trying to keep the excitement alive. He treats her
enquiries with hidden disdain, tolerating rather than inviting.

He remembers walking inside for the first time, stepping across the
grandiose glazed marble-like floor in the reception area. He stood
alone at the counter for a moment as no member of staff appeared at
first and, looking up, saw at once the majestic chandelier with its
myriad golden candelabra suspended high above. When the man finally
arrived (after two rings on the carefully polished desk bell) he asks
to see the biggest room available for the lowest price. He is directed
up two flights of stairs and walks briskly behind the lightly
mustachioed porter before being shown the room, which is filled with
daylight through the large window overlooking the street. He looks
content at the arrangements, but not overly so, and resolves to have
this room prepared for one o'clock every Friday. Room Two Two
Three.

The mustachioed porter knows their names by now, as does the man behind
the counter - it is always the same man, apart from one week when he
was off ill. They do not ask questions, just smile their paid smiles as
he picks up the key and she arrives a few minutes later, sometimes wet
from the rain, sometimes just from perspiration.

In the room. The room is compact, with a large bed that takes up most
of the floor space. At the foot of the bed is a table with a television
set on it while the hotels' white towels are neatly arranged on the
dresser at the side. While he waits he toys with the trouser press,
wondering how to work the curious machine and what purpose it could
have for him. He flicks the hangers in the wardrobe and they clatter
together clumsily. There is a bathroom too and the white light that
shines from above the mirror makes him look tanned against the white
tiles on the walls behind him. He brushes his teeth, fills the basin
full of water and dunks his head under it. On the bed he removes his
shoes and lies on his back waiting for her.

She always asks him what he wants - what she can do for him. He knows
she means sexually, but it gets his mind thinking of other things. What
does he want? What can she do for him? He has often wondered what it
would be like to look in the mirror and see an honest man staring back
at him, but only in a vague way. He does not dwell on the matter.

The bellboys too feel they play their part in the affair. They watch
from afar (there is no luggage to handle, something they notice, but do
not draw attention to. They are not easily affronted) but they feel as
though they are involved in some small way just by their very presence,
their addition to the ambience. They have their own problems of course,
their own particular fears. One bellboy edges across the grandiose
glazed marble-like floor in the reception area, his eyes fixed
nervously on the majestic chandelier with its myriad golden candelabra
suspended high above, wondering what would happen if the whole lot was
to suddenly come crashing down.

One time she wants him to cut her with a razor blade she has brought
especially for the occasion. She has a scar on her thigh already from
where she walked into a sharp corner of a cupboard door, she says, and
she wants to feel the pain again, but with him sharing in it too. He
stares at the rectangular piece of metal between his fingers and then
at the gash on her leg, wondering whether he should widen it one way or
the other, unsure of what will happen when he begins to cut into the
bruising at the sides. Years ago he may have baulked at the idea, but
not now. He gives in to her wishes, he too is curious.

She is married, but he never asks her about it. He does not want to
know, to tell the truth. He is simply not interested. They are both
bored and alone, and when they are together they are not alone any
more. These are the simple facts of the matter.

At first she had just wanted to sit in his lap, being cradled in his
arms while the television set played in the background with the sound
turned off, the light flickering comfortingly behind her. Afterwards,
when she had left him again, he looked down onto the city street and
saw the people milling from place to place beneath him in their pressed
suits and starched blouses. He has made sure the curtains are always
kept tight closed ever since.

She begins to wonder if he has done this sort of thing before. If he,
like her, has someone else at home who is waiting for his return from
work. She never felt like this before, but her mind begins to wander as
she sits in her office waiting for the time to come when she can see
him again

But maybe she doesn't want him to this time, and maybe he just goes
ahead and does it anyway. Holding her down, pushing onto her from
behind, grasping her hair, crushing her hands.

He watches her from the bed, lying back and smoking a cigarette. She is
brushing her dark hair, from her scalp to half-way down her back. He
looks at her back, how the separate vertebrate can be seen pressing
against her skin like in a film he once watched about people in
concentration camps. He can't remember if they were Romanian or Polish,
but they were thin, and naked, and depraved, like she is now, standing
before the dresser next to the television.

She shows him some scars on her shoulders and back. She says she got
those scars from being beaten with a belt. She lifts up her skirt and
shows him the cuts on her shins caused when she repeatedly kicked a
full-length mirror at home. Then she pulls out the razor blade and asks
him very kindly.

He is a dreamer, but not in the conventional sense. He doesn't attach
great importance to material wealth or job satisfaction. He rarely
wonders what his favourite food is, but he does think of the room, in
the daytime and at night, pondering on the significance of it all. He
wishes he could tell someone about what he does, but there is nobody,
not even the woman he meets every week. He knows she wouldn't
understand, and probably wouldn't ask anyway, and so he waits silently
for the next phone call, his hand lazily brushing the receiver from
time to time.

At the Hotel Metropole the mustachioed man stands out back, smoking a
cigarette. He watches as deliveries are brought in and the rotting food
from the restaurant is taken away. He wonders what he thinks, what his
union thinks, the porters union, about all the wasted food that is
never eaten, sometimes hardly even looked at, by the clientele of the
Hotel Metropole.

The man once visited a psychiatrist, but he didn't agree with what he
said and so never returned. He was told he had a gap in his life that
he had to fill somehow. Find love, the psychiatrist said. For there is
truth and beauty to be found out there, if only one looks hard enough.
He has found no truth, but he sees beauty from time to time. He saw a
little girl whistling a tune to herself the other day, just walking on
her own through the city streets, hardly caring that she was being
ignored by her mother who had too many bags to carry and was cursing.
He did not ignore her, but watched until she went out of sight,
thinking that the tune the little girl whistled was possibly the most
beautiful thing he had ever heard.

There is no love or beauty to be found at the Hotel Metropole, he
thinks. But he goes there anyway. If there is any gap in his life, it
is not at one until three in the afternoon on a Friday. He spares no
thought to how much money has passed from his hand across the counter
in the lobby, he can always earn more later that day and in the weeks
to come. Money means little to him at times like these. For no matter
what time she arrives or what she will ask him to do this week, the
Hotel Metropole is always happy to accommodate them. He lies back on
the bed, unbuttons his trousers, closes his eyes and waits for her to
descend on him.