He removed the framed and printed notice from its nail by the door and examined it with fresh care by the light of the table lamp. But this did not get him anywhere either for whatever templates he applied he had not come across the characters before. He couldn’t even tell whether they were characters in the European sense, parts of words as to some extent in Japanese or Chinese, or a series of bare consonants like ancient Semitic and Aramaic. He found the occurrence of normal Arabic numerals disruptive. By now he was so tired he could not think, so having decided to postpone his investigations till the next day, he undressed and went to bed.
Accustomed to reading for half an hour before going to sleep he noticed that there was nothing to read: he had packed all his books, as well as his notes and his speech to the conference, in the other, bigger case. He got up again and unpacked his hand luggage to check but there was nothing there. He felt angry. Why hadn’t he bought a newspaper or magazine at least on the plane? He tossed and turned, unable to sleep so eventually opened one of the bottles of red wine he had brought with him. He tried to extricate the cork using one of the blades of his penknife, but the cork broke up in the process so he had to push it back into the bottle. Not being able to cork it up again he drank his way, little by little, through the lot and finally sank into a hazy sleep without a thought in his head.
He woke next morning with a headache: the day outside was grey and dry. He looked out on the street through the closed window. Even from the ninth floor he could see the crowds rolling by, a continuous black stream of traffic and pedestrians. There was something wrong with his stomach too: he had drunk too much last night. He took a long time brushing his teeth to get rid of the foul taste in his mouth. He took a shower, scrubbing his face in the jet of hot water, then rubbed his whole body vigorously with the fluffy towel until he was quite red. He looked in his bag and found a salami-filled roll that he had overlooked. His wife must have packed it as a snack for the journey. It served as some kind of breakfast though it would have been nice to have had some tea as well. He sought in vain for a bell to call for service. Maybe the telephone was there to serve that purpose though he would have to know what number to dial and how to ask the question; in other words he was back exactly where he had been last night… Suddenly he was all impatience and ready for action. Enough of this nonsense! He had urgent business to attend to in Helsinki! It was the first day of the conference to which he had been delegated, he had to get there, even if a little late, and make his speech. He packed his belongings, put the bag down on the luggage rack ready for departure and hurried downstairs to settle matters once and for all.
There was large group of people waiting at the lifts, before all eight lifts, and judging by the illuminated buttons all the lifts were in use. It seemed to be an even busier morning than usual. Budai couldn’t find the stairs on this level either, or at least none of the corridors seemed to lead to them, so he was obliged to join the others in the furthermost queue. The lifts didn’t seem to stop on this floor very often, rumbling past it for several minutes without opening their doors. And when one did happen to stop it only had room for four or five people: everybody, it seemed, was going down, leaving rooms on the floor above his. The lifts were crammed by the time they reached here. His queue was the slowest moving of the lot, of course, and a clear ten minutes went by without the characteristic low hum of the lift opening its automatic doors. Thinking it must be out of order, Budai moved to the back of another queue. But no sooner had he done so than it was his old queue that was moving forwards whereas his new queue was at a standstill, and even when the lift did stop at the new queue the indicator immediately showed it returning to the upper floors. It was enough to drive one crazy. Budai’s entire body was covered in sweat as he struggled to contain his helpless fury. He felt hot and cramped. Eventually a lift stopped and he reached the ground floor.
There were as many people clogging up the lobby as there had been last night, maybe more. Some stood around in haphazard clusters, others were stuck in long queues, while still others were hurrying from place to place, forcing their way through the rest. Were they all guests at the hotel, or if not, what were they doing here? It was impossible to tell. He struggled through them to the reception desk but it took quite a long time again before he was face to face with the desk-clerk on duty. The man, however, was not one of those he had already met. The only thing he had in common with them was that he too failed to understand a single word, jabbering away himself instead. Budai was so furious he could no longer contain himself: he grew red in the face and beat the counter, bellowing in various languages.
‘Skandal. ein Skandal!… C’est un scandale, comprenez-vous…?’
He hardly knew what he was shouting. He demanded his passport and aeroplane ticket; he wanted to see the manager, he called for an interpreter, he raged and threatened, repeating: pass, passport, passaporto, now in one language, now in another while ever more people gathered around listening to him. Finally, when the elderly desk-clerk simply spread his hands out in incomprehension, Budai leaned across, grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking him, screaming at him, waving his hands in front of his face. All this accomplished nothing, of course, since it was perfectly obvious that neither the man nor any of the nearby witnesses to the scene understood him. In any case, there were so many waiting behind him that they too began to grow restive, pressing forwards, each of them preoccupied with his own affairs. It was pointless. The desk-clerk readjusted his jacket. Budai himself grew uncertain and confused. He waited a little longer, looking everywhere, hoping to discover where guests’ passports might be stored, at which counter, in which cupboard, but there was no way he could get to the other side of the counter and into the office from here, and he had begun to feel a little ashamed of himself for creating such a fuss. It really wasn’t like him. There was no point in making things worse: it would only be more trouble. Nor could the people behind him wait there forever. So, having first mopped his neck and brow with his handkerchief, then, having blown his nose in it, he allowed himself to be elbowed discreetly aside, having achieved nothing.
There were a number of large circular tables in the lobby with armchairs arranged round them and one of them had just become available. He sat down in it and closed his eyes: perhaps this was all a dream, perhaps he was actually in Helsinki or at home, maybe he hadn’t even set out from home yet. Or, if he was where he appeared to be, other people would know about it by now, seek him out, apologise and explain, and it would all be cleared up, back to normal. Maybe he just had to wait a minute or two, to count to sixty or, at most, a hundred… But having done so and looked up, he saw he was still there in the same hotel lobby with heaving crowds pressing this way and that, the printed notices still incomprehensible, the same foreign posters, photographic enlargements, landscape paintings on walls and pillars, the same mysterious papers and magazines at the newsagent’s stand, the same men, women, old and young and people of all shapes and sizes. There was a small exotic-looking group close to him now, a collection of church dignitaries of some sort moving through the hall, composed mostly of dark-skinned, bearded ancients in long, black kaftans, wearing lilac hats, highly colourful sashes and heavy, gold chains round their necks: the crowds opened for them so that they might continue their dignified progress.