“Madam, it’s already past the afternoon prayer, and the days in winter are very short,” he chided.
He bent into the receiver listening for a moment, then put it back and returned to the lobby, clearly disturbed. The manager damned him from his deepest heart. The woman was responsible for inviting this ghoul to the hotel, he thought as he glanced at the lobby’s door with aversion and disgust. Meanwhile, some of the lady’s guests came down on their way outside, and the manager’s apprehensions about the goings-on in room number twelve seemed to lessen.
“Some of the visitors will go sooner and some later; they’ll all be gone by nightfall,” he assured himself.
He began to worry that his position of responsibility would force him into a confrontation with them — and they were from a powerful class. His dismay redoubled with the wind that whistled violently outdoors and the sense of distress that cloaked the roads. Yet despite these forbidding conditions, he saw a group of men and women wearing raincoats gathered at the door, and his heart sank in his chest. He surprised them by asking, “Madam Bahiga al-Dahabi?”
One of them, laughing, replied, “Tell her, if you please, that the delegates from the Association for Heritage Revival have arrived.”
So he telephoned the woman, and as she gave her consent for them to come up he pleaded with her, “There are ten of them, madam, and the lobby downstairs is at your disposal for any number of visitors.”
“There’s plenty of space in the room,” she retorted.
As the male and female delegates ascended, the manager shook his head in total confusion. Sooner or later, there’s going to be a clash. The fury of heaven was about to descend outside — provoked by the assorted oddballs in room number twelve. The manager chanced to turn around to the lobby, and caught sight of Blind Sayyid the Corpse Washer creeping toward him. So he rapped the table with his knuckles in agitation, then put the man directly in touch with the woman by telephone before he could open his mouth. The manager listened to him complain to her, then heard him accede. The undertaker hung up the receiver by himself, but then grumbled as the manager began to walk away, “Waiting around with nothing to do is very boring.”
The manager became enraged, and would have scolded him if the lady hadn’t telephoned at that moment, asking to be connected to the restaurant. Her conversation with them continued for some minutes. Would she and her guests remain in the room until dinner, the manager pondered, and where would they dine? How he wished he could examine her room now: it had to be a scene beyond all imagining — an insane spectacle indeed.
While the torrent continued outside without any hint of slowing, a group of university professors and men of religion came — so immersed in deep discussion, that the manager simply let them go upstairs. The situation was becoming more and more nightmarish, as a mysterious man went up without first passing by the desk. The manager called out to the intruder — who did not respond. One of the bellhops followed him, but stopped when the man ducked into room number twelve. The manager now felt he was all alone, that he had lost fundamental control of the hotel. He considered summoning the head bellhop, but then a man appeared, the mere sight of whom brought him relief. They shook hands and the manager told him, “You’ve come at the right time, honorable informer, sir.”
“Show me the register,” the informer said calmly.
“Strange things are happening here,” the manager blurted.
As the informer perused the names in the ledger, jotting down notes as he read, the manager said, “I suppose you’ve come because of room number twelve.”
“Eh?” the informer coughed quizzically.
“Mad depravity is running riot in there,” warned the manager.
“Anything found in nature must be natural,” the informer said dismissively. Then, taking his leave, he said, “If anyone wants me on the phone, I’ll be in room number twelve.”
The manager became even more confused — yet at the same time, he was comforted to think that the government’s eyes and ears knew what was happening in the hotel. He remembered that he was going to summon the head bellhop, and just as he pressed the ringer to call him, he observed Blind Sayyid once again slinking up to him. Losing his grip on his nerves, he shouted, “She told you to wait until she invited you up!”
The man grinned in habitual servility to the rebuke, then pleaded, “But I’ve been waiting so long….”
“Wait without any backtalk — and remember you’re in a hotel, not a boneyard!” the manager fumed.
The man retreated in feigned patience, as the manager recalled the head bellhop. “How are things going in room number twelve?” he queried.
“I don’t know, but there’s a lot of racket in there.”
“How can they all squeeze into that place? They must be sitting on top of each other!” the manager marveled.
“I don’t know any more than you do,” the head bellhop mused. “In any case, the officer is inside with them.”
The man wandered off as the manager went to look once more out the window, and saw the night weighing heavily in the void. The lights were on throughout the hotel, casting a wan radiance through the atmosphere thick with damp from the howling, raging wind outside. A battalion of waiters came from the restaurant, bearing trays crammed with all kinds of food, and the manager’s astonishment grew. The room had only one dining table, so where would the woman’s guests put all those plates? How could they consume their meals? One of the bellhops told him that the room’s door no longer opened, and that the food only went in now through the little peep window.
What’s more, the uproar from the room was afflicting the entire hoteclass="underline" the whole spectacle was now simply incredible.
After a half hour, the bellhop came back to confirm that the lot of them were drunk.
“But I haven’t seen a single bottle go up there!” exclaimed the manager.
“Maybe they hid them in their pockets,” the bellhop surmised. “They’re singing, shouting and clapping — a case of drunken rowdiness, to be sure. And sinfulness too, for there’s as many women as men in that room.”
“And the informer?”
“I heard his voice singing, ‘The World Is a Smoke and a Drink,’” said the bellhop.
Thunder boomed outside as the manager said to himself, “I could well be dreaming — and I could just as well have gone mad.” At that instant, a group of common people approached — their faces and clothes proclaimed their low social status. They asked the inevitable question, “Is Ms. Bahiga al-Dahabi staying here?”
The manager smiled despairingly as he contacted the woman. She asked him to keep them waiting in the lobby and to serve them drinks as well. He pointed the way to the group of them and ordered the staff to give them tea. The lounge was overflowing, upsetting the undertaker. The manager again smiled hopelessly, muttering, “This hotel is no longer a hotel, and I’m no longer the manager, and today is not a day, and lunacy is laughing at us in the shape of meat and wine!”
The rain began to gush down again in sheets, and the sky to thunder. The asphalt at the hotel’s entrance gleamed with the light of the electric lamps as feet scurried in from outside. The waiters all cried, “There is no god but God!” while the passersby took refuge in the foyer. The battering blows of the rain rattled the window-panes without ceasing.
The manager left his post and went to the entrance, turning his face up to the blackened sky. Then he looked down at the water sluicing stones over the sloping ground. First the rain beat down, then it flared up with wrath, before detonating in a surging deluge over the hapless earth.
“There hasn’t been rain like this for at least a generation,” he declared.