– a picturesque, elaborate, and once widely celebrated establishment. I expect some of you will know it. It was off-season and, by that time, decidedly out-of-fashion; and it had already begun its descent into shabbiness and eventual demolition.
Montage:
The nine other guests of the hotel each observed from a respectful distance: a frail student; a fat businessman; a burly hiker with a St. Bernard; a schoolteacher with her hair in a bun; a doctor; a lawyer; an actor; and so on.
AUTHOR
(voice-over)
What few guests we were had quickly come to recognize one another by sight as the only living souls residing in the vast establishment – although I do not believe any acquaintance among our number had proceeded beyond the polite nods we exchanged as we passed in the Palm Court and the Arabian Baths and on board the Colonnade Funicular. We were a very reserved group, it seemed – and, without exception, solitary.
Cut to:
An enormous, half-abandoned dining room. There are two hundred tables and fifty chandeliers. The ten guests sit, each on his or her own, at their separate tables, widely spaced across the giant restaurant.
A waiter carries a tray a great distance to the schoolteacher and serves her a plate of peas.
INT. LOBBY. EVENING
There are faded couches, fraying armchairs, and coffee tables with new, plastic tops. The carpets are threadbare, and the lighting in each area is either too dim or too bright. A concierge with a crooked nose smokes a cigarette as he lingers behind his desk. He is M. Jean.
(Note: the staff of the hotel in both the relevant time periods wear similar versions of the same purple uniform – while the public spaces reflect a cycle of ‘regime changes’.)
On the wall behind M. Jean, there is a beautiful Flemish painting of a pale, young boy holding a piece of golden fruit. This is ‘Boy with Apple’. A patch of water damage above seeps dangerously close to the picture-frame.
The author (a fictionalized version of himself) wanders into the room with his hands in his pockets. He has dark circles under his eyes.
AUTHOR
(voice-over)
Perhaps as a result of this general silence, I had established a casual and bantering familiarity with the hotel’s concierge, a west-continental known only as M. Jean, who struck one as being, at once, both lazy and, really, quite accommodating.
M. Jean quickly stubs out his cigarette as the author approaches – and tucks the butt into his coat pocket.
AUTHOR
(voice-over)
I expect he was not well-paid.
The author and M. Jean chat amicably as they study a pamphlet of Alpine tourist sites.
In any case, one evening, as I stood conferring elbow-to-elbow with M. Jean, as had become my habit, I noticed a new presence in our company.
At the far end of the lobby, beyond Reception, a dark-skinned, white-haired seventy-year-old man in a three-piece-suit sits alone smoking a pipe. He is Mr. Moustafa.
AUTHOR
(voice-over)
A small, elderly man, smartly dressed, with an exceptionally lively, intelligent face – and an immediately perceptible air of sadness. He was, like the rest of us, alone – but also, I must say, he was the first that struck one as being, deeply and truly, lonely (a symptom of my own medical condition, as well).
Mr. Moustafa takes a sip of sherry. The author lowers his voice and asks discreetly:
AUTHOR
(voice-over)
‘Who’s this interesting, old fellow?’ I inquired of M. Jean. To my surprise, he was distinctly taken aback. ‘Don’t you know?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you recognize him?’ He did look familiar. ‘That’s Mr. Moustafa himself! He arrived early this morning.’
The author looks to Mr. Moustafa again. Mr. Moustafa is now staring directly back at the author. The author quickly looks away and examines a detail in the woodwork on the ceiling.
This name will, no doubt, be familiar to the more seasoned persons among you. Mr. Zero Moustafa was, at one time, the richest man in Zubrowka; and was still, indeed, the owner of the Grand Budapest. ‘He often comes and stays a week or more, three times a year, at least – but never in the season.’ M. Jean signaled to me, and I leaned closer. ‘I’ll tell you a secret. He takes only a single-bed sleeping-room without a bath in the rear corner of the top floor – and it’s smaller than the service elevator!’
The author seems genuinely intrigued by this information. He nods thoughtfully.
It was well-known: Moustafa had purchased and famously inhabited some of the most lavish castles and palazzos on the continent – yet, here, in his own, nearly empty hotel, he occupied a servant’s quarters?
M. Jean frowns. The fat businessman, sitting at a table in the middle of the lobby drinking hot chocolate and eating biscotti, appears to be choking to death.
At that moment the curtain rose on a parenthetical, domestic drama which required the immediate and complete attention of M. Jean –
M. Jean dashes out from behind his desk. As he performs an improvised version of the Heimlich maneuver on the fat businessman, the German hiker enters the lobby with his St. Bernard. The rescue dog, sensing a human in distress, charges avidly, hurdling three tables and jostling the dessert cart, and arrives at the fat businessman’s side just as a significant hunk of biscotti rockets out of his mouth, into the air, and lands on a saucer at the next table. M. Jean immediately detaches a cask hanging from the dog’s neck, pours a generous shot of brandy into a water glass, and forces it down the fat businessman’s throat.
– but, frankly, did not hold mine for long.
The other guests of the hotel begin to gather around the gasping victim as the author makes his way into the elevator. He presses a button, and the doors close.
Montage:
The author appears pensive as he: lies in bed that night staring up at the ceiling; sits in the dining room at breakfast eating toast and gazing into space; and floats through the conservatory ignoring flora at noon. He nods to the schoolteacher sketching an orchid. She smiles and nods back.
AUTHOR
(voice-over)
However, this premature intermission in the story of the curious old man had left me, as the expression goes, gespannt wie ein Flitzebogen, that is, on the edge of my seat – where I remained throughout the next morning until, in what I have found to be its mysterious and utterly reliable fashion, fate, once again, intervened on my behalf.
INT. SPA. DAY
A steamy, underground mineral baths. Miniature tiles of various shapes and intricate patterns cover every inch of the walls, floors, and ceiling. Distant voices echo faintly through succeeding chambers.
A long row of identical, adjacent cubicles, each containing a blue tub and tiled in a more recent, utilitarian style. The author soaks. He shakes salts from a carton into the water and stirs it.