“So, you believe in a healthy diet?”
“He who believes, will be blessed,” Mr. Witzturn laughs. “Oh, the revolving door won’t move!”
“Push harder. It was working when we left the hotel. Or let me have a go.” Levadski leans against the door. Nothing stirs.
“Hhm, perhaps counter-clockwise?” Mr. Witzturn suggests.
“Nothing,” Levadski sighs, “perhaps reception has closed?”
“Nonsense, it is not even eleven o’clock. Oh, someone is coming!”
“Please enter through the side door, gentlemen,” beckons the dark figure of the concierge. “Unfortunately we have a power outtage in the neighborhood.” His colleague at the reception desk is waving two greenish glow sticks.
“What are those?”
“They are glow sticks, Professor.” The green moonface belongs to the head concierge who greeted Levadski on the day of his arrival by addressing him as Gracious Sir. “Just give a quick twist here and you get five to six hours of light.”
“We are all as green as bog people,” Mr. Witzturn remarks with a sense of satisfaction, receiving his light rod.
“Unfortunately the elevator is out of service.” The head concierge softly jangles the room keys. “Perhaps the gentlemen would like to take a drink at the bar and then,” he gestures vaguely in the direction of the stairs, “go to their rooms.”
“Go or ride?” Levadski wants to know.
“We are doing what we can, Professor.”
“I didn’t know that you were a professor,” says Mr. Witzturn, following the light rod of the younger concierge in the direction of the Bar Maria Theresia.
“Well, yes,” Levadski says in defense, “what can I say …” Mr. Witzturn starts giggling again. Strange, Levadski thinks, it’s been a while since we had that sparkling wine in the intermission, he can’t be drunk. And in no time he finds himself at the bar, bathed in delicate piano music and the chatter of other hotel guests. After the concierge has greeted the piano player across the room with a nod, he wishes Mr. Witzturn and Mr. Levadski a pleasant evening. His light rod swaying in front of him shows him the way back.
“It is very warm in here,” Mr. Witzturn remarks.
“Not surprising,” Levadski shrugs his shoulders, “with all the burning candles. It’s as bright as day.”
“Almost,” adds Mr. Witzturn, clambering onto a barstool. “I never sit at the bar. The chairs are too high and dangerous for me, but today, I thought, today it feels right.”
With a death-defying balancing act Levadski seats himself next to Mr. Witzturn. “I have hung my stick on the rim of the bar,” Mr. Witzturn continues. After several failed attempts Levadski’s drinking stick stays hanging beside Mr. Witzturn’s.
“An elegant rim,” says Levadski, discreetly examining Mr. Witzturn’s stick through his magnifying glass, “padded with leather at the bottom, did you notice that? Specially for guests with worn out kneecaps.” The knob must be made of a tree root or a bulbous nose, thinks Levadski, putting the magnifying glass down on the counter, satisfied. There is no doubt that his drinking stick is more beautiful.
The barman hands the gentlemen two open drink menus. “Recommend something to us,” Levadski says.
“We’re game for anything,” Mr. Witzturn says, distorting his face into a pathetic grimace. He closes his eyes and sneezes. The hum of the hotel guests disappears for a second but the imperturbable bar pianist, who seems to be playing louder than ever at this precise moment, jumps in alarm, discounts the possibility of a shooting, and, hunching over, continues to play.
“Imperial fruit vodka would be my recommendation.” The bartender is propping himself up with both hands on the sink.
“Sounds very refreshing. It is exactly what we need in this heat, isn’t it, Mr. Witzturn?” Mr. Witzturn agrees.
“Game for anything,” he repeats, giving a wink and deliberating whether he should sneeze again.
“I will hold on to the glasses,” the bartender smiles.
“Nope, it’s not going to happen,” Mr. Witzturn declares resignedly, after having listened intently to his insides. Levadski breathes a sigh of relief.
“Haaaaaa!” Mr. Witzturn starts roaring. “Haaaa-haaa-haaa-tchoo,” he drily continues, opening his eyes.
“Bless you,” a wrinkled lady motions to him from one of the tables, her hand draped in shimmering pearls.
“Thank you,” Mr. Wtizturn replies from atop the high lookout of his barstool. “Haaaa-haaa!” he adds. It is not that embarrassing after all, thinks Levadski. I hope he stops sneezing so we can end the evening with a nice little conversation.
“Cheerio,” Mr. Witzturn mumbles into his glass.
“Yes, cheers,” says Levadski gently, taking a decent swig that pleasantly and coolly flows down his throat.
“Do you know why it smells so strongly of alcohol in here?” Mr. Witzturn, with one eye mischievously closed, waits for Levadski’s reply. “You think it is because of all the bottles that are lined up on the bar shelf?”
“I don’t know, perhaps a bottle broke. Evaporation?”
“It is indeed, my dear Mr. Levadski, because of evaporation, but from all the old farts sitting at the tables,” Mr. Witzturn whispers and begins to snort.
When he stinks of schnapps himself, Levadski thinks, raising his glass. “I drink to …” Levadski deliberates, he wants to say something poetic, something succinct and uplifting. “I drink to the kindness of humanity!”
“Bravo!” croaks a woman’s hoarse voice from one of the tables near the piano. To be on the safe side, the piano player intimates a bow, even if he knows it was not directed at his virtuosity. In revenge, he begins to hammer out a dramatic song.
“You are a poet,” Mr. Witzturn sighs, taking another sip and rubbing his chest with a circular motion through his shirt. “Paahh, vodka is good for the arteries …” In Mr. Witzturn’s eyes the bottles of cognac, whiskey and vodka on the bar shelf glow like molten lava. Candles flicker in the bellies of the bottles and their reflections rotate in a circle dance around Levadski’s bald head.
Levadski slowly leans back, wondering where the backrest has gone. “A barstool does not have a backrest,” the hunched figure of Mr. Witzturn beside him informs him. Levadski stops himself, eyes wide. “Let me treat you to a second vodka,” Mr. Witzturn announces in the direction of the bartender.
“Two fruit vodkas for the gentlemen,” the bartender says to himself and disappears into the small dark connecting room.
“To your health!” Mr. Witzturn, his glass raised, waits for Levadski.
“To you, Mr. Witzturn.” Levadski hastily finishes his old glass and reaches for the new one filled to the brim.
“It doesn’t matter,” Levadski says turning to Mr. Witzturn, “in what form we encounter beauty.” Mr. Witzturn slowly turns his head. His eyes are dull, tired, as if he were pleading for mercy, that’s how Mr. Witzturn looks through Levadski. “The moment and the connection in which we experience that beauty are also irrelevant,” Levadski goes on. “We should not let ourselves be confused by the recurrence and arbitrariness of beauty. For it is … it is,” Levadski repeats a little more softly.
“It is what?” Mr. Witzturn asks, after blinking several times. Levadski doesn’t know.
He is suddenly scared of tackling the thankless subject.
“Perhaps beauty is just the certainty that you don’t need memory of it in order to be certain of it,” Levadski replies, almost inaudibly and falls silent, which doesn’t seem to bother Mr. Witzturn.