This man had the gift of being quite disconcerting without losing his composure for a second. I asked him how long he was planning on staying.
“Oh, didn’t they tell you at reception? I live here.”
He had for years, he added, without saying how many. He had come for work, liked the place, and decided to extend his stay. Bit by bit, he had grown accustomed to it, developing routines and arranging with the kitchens for some very simple, very homely meals, developing a taste for the hotel life and its comforts. Like a summary, or an outline, of the life he had lived before.
He had always been, he told me, a man of very little practical sense. Of unprotected tenancy agreements and few possessions and bullyish landlords. Once he had done some calculations and negotiated a bit with the hotel management, he saw it made sense for him to move in. Via a now rickety superstructure of agents and managers, the family that owned the hotel granted his request: lifetime occupancy, at a reasonable price, of the poet’s room — which at that time was being kept empty as a sort of miniature museum, with his chamber pot, inkwell, and penholder in small glass cases. The family only asked that he show the historic room to tourists every now and then. The hotel was under financial strain at the time, and this offered them a way to get a reasonable return on the room. With his retirement and a few small annuities on top of it, he could afford to pay the full-pension rate they had negotiated.
“As you will have noticed, I added a few things. And I took away the glass cases, of course. Anyway, that was all a load of junk — all of it fake, or almost all of it. We agreed that this room would be left out of any refurbishments, and I brought in a few bits of furniture that I liked from the others.”
I looked again at the saucepan and the little stove in the corner. After listening to him, it seemed to me that those objects, and the general look and even odor of the room — which I couldn’t smell any more but which must still have been there, of course — had been transfigured; I felt a new atmosphere, domestic and permanent, solidifying around me. Everything was still in its place, and yet I found myself on the other side of the world from where I thought I had been. I wasn’t in the innermost sanctum of the long-dead poet or in a hotel room with a past — I was visiting someone’s home.
“And let me tell you, I had to put up a fight to save the wallpaper, even threaten to leave. They were grateful in the end; as you know, people like refurbishing things in this country, but as the years go by they’ve realized that foreigners have a liking for these things. In time, they’ll be glad to have this reminder of what the rest of the hotel used to look like. I often joke that when I’m no longer around, they can turn it into a museum dedicated to me.”
Now that I recall the conversation, I’m amazed once again at the ability the man had to offer such dizzying access to his private life without actually revealing more than the outermost fringes of it. I suppose that’s what comes of the knack for striking balance that someone who has made a hotel his home would have developed. This man lives day in and day out rooted in the uncertain position of a permanent guest.
He listed the advantages of the arrangement: the newspaper appearing on his doorstep every morning; the flawlessly punctual lunch; the sheets; the daily laundry service and changes of bed linens that he hardly notices any more; and the cleaning ladies’ impeccable synchronization with his regular walk and aperitif in the garden. All very tempting, of course, and admirable, up to a point. I thought again of how seductive the idea of becoming an eternal guest at the hotel she has built on her website was — of how easy it would be to spend a whole lifetime exploring all its rooms.
In fact, rather than all these conveniences, what I really envied in this man was the solidity — renewed daily — of his monastic life; the almost unbearable delight of his contemplative retreat, of the life of this hermit who, just like in the famous fairytale, lets decades and centuries pass by while he remains enchanted by birdsong here transmuted into the tinkling of antique reception bells.
A space seemed to open up for me to ask what sort of work he used to do. But as I asked the question, it immediately felt impertinent. Luckily it was forgivable — he smiled as he got up and walked over to his miniature fridge.
“The kind that these days is called ‘creative’.”
He leaned over the open door of the fridge and took out an old-fashioned tin.
“Would you like an herbal tea? I always have one at this time of day. It helps me sleep.”
On the shelves of the minibar, I glimpsed the proof of what he had told me: some fruit, half a lettuce, and a small plate with the slice of cake that always seemed to be missing from the one that emerged otherwise intact on to the breakfast buffet every morning. At that moment, in that room, they looked positively hallucinatory.
Out of politeness, I ended up accepting an herbal infusion that supposedly had sleep-inducing properties. I who hate infusions. It turned my stomach, and I’m still feeling awkward after being kept awake by it all night.
The man stood side-on by the stove while he waited for the water he’d gotten from the bathroom sink to boil. The feeling that I had seen his face before grew stronger. The place, as I’ve said, was ideal for suggesting things to the mind, for settling layers of things on top of the things that were already there.
I didn’t manage to place him then and I still can’t now. The mention of “creative” work set me thinking last night about actors, about artists — of the visual arts or easy-listening varieties. Then I thought about politicians and even athletes of various disciplines whose faces might have graced the front pages in years past. I tried in vain to picture his face projected on the big screen, or under a banner at a rally, or treading the boards, or in front of the cameras at a press conference, or even — eventually — behind a counter. But I felt I was barking up the wrong tree. This morning I’ve been thinking instead about someone who is famous in a supporting sense, by power of attorney or proxy, someone who has inherited another person’s fame, or who processes it and ensures it takes effect.
Perhaps, I thought as we sipped our diffuse infusion, he was a colleague or a predecessor of mine, some forgotten pioneer of hotel criticism. I ought perhaps to have been aware of any legend the trade may have had about some primordial forefather of the country’s reviewers, the errant critic who disappeared one fine day and whom I had just run into. Hidden in the most obvious place, where, for that very reason, it would never occur to anyone to look for him. Living out his old age in an ageing hotel.
It would have been crass to insist, to let slip a banal “I think I’ve seen you somewhere before.” The steam from the hot water was reincarnated as a wistful fog on the windowpanes. Partly to banish the tepid triviality of the tea, partly to break the silence that was apparently only uncomfortable for me, and partly to see if I could inspire his sense of trust and coax him into solving the mystery, I decided to confess my own.
I explained my reasons for being in the hotel and for wanting to see his room. For the second time in less than a week, I broke the anonymity that I had so strictly maintained up to now. And both times with complete strangers. Or almost. The truth is, I wouldn’t know where on the scale of mutual unacquaintance I should place individuals who are united by a connection that may be the most tenuous one imaginable beyond, or this side of, being total strangers: that of being hotel-room neighbors.
In this case, we didn’t even share a dividing wall. And unlike my neighbor at the Imperial, he didn’t recognize my name or remember ever having read my column. And he certainly did not reveal himself to be a colleague or the original master critic.