he sighs. "so you like being dead?" "no, i very much like it to be alive, it is that just sometimes i feel this urge to disappear from being me, to evade from myself, my past my future" saying it to him out loud makes me feel stupid. but he smiles. "can i have a cigarette too?" "i thought you are a non smoker" "i am, but maybe this is the small death i indulge in" i give him a cigarette, light it for him. "was my story ok, are you relaxed?" "a little, but it is a bit of a short story. tell me one more."
Ah, but long before that afternoon in the hague I have visited luxury hotel rooms, and dreamt about them too. Come to think of it, even as a little girl, I must have been 11 I went on a trip past the rhine river in germany. You know, the kind of tour that is normally done by seventy year olds. But my parents wanted to do it anyway. I was bored, but I remember the story of Lorelei, And the Hotel. Not the hotel we stayed in. We stayed in this middle of the road it has clean sheats but you have to share the toilet in the hallway kind of hotel. But next to ours, there was hotel Belvedere.
And that was the hotel I wanted to be at. It spelled luxury from the entrance to the restaurant, everywhere.
From our window I could see the belvedere hotel, and I asked my parents why we weren´t staying there, in that lush red and gold heaven. They just laughed, it was way too expensive and unnecessary. I felt that was untrue. How can something as good as that be unnecesarry? And how can it not be the most important thing in the world at that moment? I wanted so much to stay at the Belvedere, that the whole evening I spent in front of our hotel window, looking through the curtains, in to the hotel Belvedere. I was imagining the Balls they would have there, and that I would be arriving at the ball too, walking over the red carpet, and know how to waltz and dazzle everyone with my beautiful secquined dress and be bedazzled by the lights of the christal chandeliers and the polished wooden dance floor. I would meet counts and earls and know how to talk in seven different languages with all the ambassodors that were there. In my mind I made my own martini commercial come true. (remember the martini commercials of the seventies, always about superbly dressed men and women driving in rolls royces sipping their martini´s, how dissapointed I was when I found out it is a very cheap drink) The next morning it wasn´t a very bright day as we left, and our hotel looked even bleaker in the stale grey light of the day. But I had had my night at the belvedere anyway.
i look at him. this is all i can do tonight. i realise that i came very ill prepared for the job. he sighs. "that was a nice story. now i can rest and think of you as a little girl. twelve. you really where twelve then?" "maybe eleven, maybe thirteen. i know i was really ugly." he laughs at that. "yes, i can sleep now. i will be in the expensive hotel and walk through a hallway which has a window overlooking yours, and i will see you sitting there, looking at me. i have meetings all day tomorrow.... let´s meet again the same time." i just say okay and move towards the door. when i go out i mumble a good night and he replies.
i walk through the empty hallways of the hotel. i try to call a friend, but she doesnt pick up. that does not make me feel very safe. what if something had happened? in my room i take a bath. i need to feel clean. i then go to bed. i wonder what kind of story he will want to hear the next day.
i oversleep for breakfast. it is past two when i finally wake up, and i still feel tired. i look out onto the street, it is completely empty. sunlight is gushing over it. i decide i will take a walk in the city, become a tourist for the first time in my life and just enjoy. the walk isnt a pleasant one. there is nothing to do for me here, i have no reason to be here. i drink some coffee at one place, and some more coffee at another. i am being waited by waiters who hardly look me in the eye. never in my life have i been so bored. i decide to go to a movie, but the one cinema i can find only has dubbed films. somehow i am not able to take in my surroundings. the streets become hostile, i dont know them, have no connection to them, it is as if i am a stowaway in this neighbourhood. i feel as if i slightly panic. i dont know if i should cross the next street or not. i decide to cross it, then walk back, there is nothing for me on the other corner. but i feel stupid and observed in my strange behaviour. i hurry back to the hotel and lie down on the bed. zap through the television channels and wait till i can get dinner somewhere.
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