Metropole (22 page)

He spent days tortured by the thought of a missed opportunity, blaming himself, going over the events, wondering what else he might have done. And like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime, he kept going back to the metro station, hanging about for hours in case the man in the green overcoat came by again, that is if it was his customary route. This time, just this one time, let him catch his eye. And though he did not meet him again it bred a suspicion that somewhere in the eternal crowd filling the streets and the metro there might be someone else who might understand him, maybe more than one – but how would they know each other?

Working at the halls and undertaking his regular watch on the specific metro station soon gave his day some structure. Usually he ate at the self-service buffet before then walking home. On the way back he would walk past the skyscraper in construction, to which eight storeys had been added since his arrival, the builders having got to the seventy-second. How high was it planned to be? Once in the hotel he looked for Pepepé and if she was on duty they would get together; if not he’d just go to his room depressed since it was there he felt most desolate and the time passed most slowly.

The room was always punctiliously cleaned, the bed nicely made up, the towels and tablecloth regularly changed. He had no idea who carried out these duties or when because he never saw anyone. When he stayed in – even for days at a time – they did not call. One morning, out of sheer curiosity, he pretended he was leaving but took care to hide round the corner and watch the comings and goings but he saw nothing all morning. Another time when he only popped out for some fifteen minutes he returned to find his room had been tidied.

What he chiefly missed was reading, the sight of familiar words. At home he spent half his life or more in libraries among books, occasionally as much as eighteen hours in a day and he was not prepared to break the habit and give up. Out of sheer desperation he took out the volume of short stories he had bought at the second-hand book market. He leafed through it again without understanding a word, contemplating the title page with its picture of the harbour and that deep blue sea, its palms and the little white houses twinkling on the hillside. Then he gazed at the photograph of the author on the flap, that full-faced figure in his pullover with his crew-cut hair and his faintly mocking expression and he still looked familiar. He wondered where he might have seen him, who he reminded him of, why he was drawn to him. Was it the ironic look? That lazy watchfulness in his eye? One evening he returned tired from his work at the market and caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror just as he was suppressing a yawn and it suddenly became obvious: the man in the photographs reminded him of himself. Maybe that is why he found him sympathetic, why he had picked his book out among so many others. Was it that he found his own face attractive?

And time and again the same most terrible of questions returned to torture him. What about his family at home? Time would not have stood still for them either. Were they well and in good health? Were they alive at all? And if so what did they make of the extraordinary fact that they had heard nothing from him or about him for close on three weeks? It was pointless trying not to think of it, his entire nervous system was full of such thoughts. If only he could send a message to them, however short, simply to say that he was alive even though he had no idea in what part of the world ...

He hadn’t seen a post office anywhere but they clearly had to exist. Maybe he had passed them by without spotting them. Nor did he see any post boxes, not in the hotel lobby or in the street nearby. He tried looking for postcards and stamps at the stalls in the hotel lobby but there was nothing on display and from the shopgirls’ speech and gestures he surmised that they either hadn’t understood him or that the articles he required were to be found elsewhere. But where?

He tried taking a plain piece of paper, folding it into the shape of a letter and addressing it to his wife though the mere writing of the letter upset him. His emotions ran away with him. He tried to ignore them and took the trial letter down to the reception desk and gave it to the clerk on duty. But the man just turned it round and round in his hand and stared at it, clearly not recognising the Latin script. Or perhaps he had no idea at all what to do with it. Maybe it was not part of his duties. He certainly did not want to be left with it because he pushed it back across the counter with a few short polite words. Thinking the lack of a stamp might be the problem, Budai took out some money and tinkling it in his palm, offered it to him, asking him to take what was necessary, then putting a few coins down in front of the clerk with a questioning look as if to ask whether that was enough. The man – an older, respectable looking chap – must have misunderstood him, taking it for a bribe of some sort for he snapped out a few sharp words and swept the coins away before turning away from him altogether and attending to the next in the queue.

Nevertheless Budai did not give up on the idea. Surely it would still be worth writing a letter. He could just leave it on the counter at reception when someone else was on duty, along with more than enough money to cover the cost of postage then quickly disappear before it could be returned. If there were the remotest chance of the letter reaching his wife the post office at home would be able to work out where he was and when he wrote it from the stamp or the franking, but he kept delaying the task even while he was weighing up his chances for neither his mind nor hand was up to it. Maybe he simply couldn’t find the right first words that would enable him to tell her what had happened to him. However he put it, he was incapable of summing it all up.

So he turned his attention back to the telephone in his room. He dialled at random wherever his fingers happened to land and rang unknown acquaintances he had rung before. It wouldn’t matter now if they presented him with a bill this coming Friday, he couldn’t pay anyway. When somebody picked up the phone at the other hand he shouted down the line, the same words each time, for hours on end, forcing himself to be patient: he kept repeating the name of his home town and his home phone number as well as the six numbers he could at last manage in the local language. He did so in the hope that at some point he would hit on the exchange where long-distance calls were connected. Or if not precisely that perhaps he might come across some other utility that would be able to transfer his call if only he kept repeating the number often enough or obstinately enough. But however much he shouted all he got by way of answer was the muttering and harrumphing of various men, women and children, nothing at all to indicate that anyone had understood. He spent the whole evening doing this until, seized by a sudden helpless fury, he smashed down the receiver and, sweating profusely, cursed his fate and beat the wall with his fists so the neighbours knocked back. What insanely ill luck had landed him here? Why him? Why should fate have chosen him for this? Why, why, why, why?

Having calmed down a little he stared – how many times had he done this? – at the oil painting above the table, that winter landscape with its snow-laden fir trees and those delicate fawns bounding away into the distance. He knew every detail by now to the point of boredom but it was his only reminder of nature, the world beyond the town that was holding him prisoner. That was if that world existed anywhere beyond his imagination.

H
e still hadn’t discovered from Bebé what her shifts were, where she went after work, what her telephone number was, where she lived, where she might be found and so forth. Although the girl was remarkably adept at picking up some things, she seemed to have no idea when it came to questions like this. Either that or she was pretending not to understand. Nor was he any more successful when he attempted to observe her entering or leaving the building or indeed at seeing her anywhere in the building apart from in the lift.

He did, however, know her well enough to try to ask her to take him to a railway station or an airport. But when the opportunity presented itself – on the eighteenth floor again – and Budai attempted to suggest this, even drawing the relevant means of transport Etete showed no inclination to help him but grew sad and tearful. Why should it upset her so much that he wanted to go away? He tried to console her by stroking her but thanks to his clumsiness the movement came out all wrong and he found himself like an idiot clutching her elbow, not knowing what to do with it. The linguistic chasm between them was too wide however much they both wanted to cross it. And now the lift was being called again. There was never enough time: they never had a moment to themselves.

The same night, just when he had bathed and was preparing to go to bed, the light in the room went out. He took a peek out into the corridor and then through the window: there was darkness everywhere. Not even the streetlights were on. All he could see was car headlights streaming through the black air. There must have been a major fault at the power station, something that affected the whole district because there was no light to be seen, not even in the distance. It didn’t particularly worry him. He did what he had to do. He was accustomed to the layout of the room and felt his way to bed. He had nothing to read anyway so, though he was not a bit sleepy, he crawled in and made himself comfortable.

There was a faint knocking at his door. He stopped to listen in case he was mistaken but then somebody carefully opened the door. He must have forgotten to turn the key when he checked the corridor. Whoever it was stepped in, quietly closed the door and stopped, breathing quietly. It was only now that Budai realised he had actually been expecting this, that this might have been why he had unconsciously left the door unlocked, why he felt so awake and alive despite a day of hard work. Even if he hadn’t thought it through, some part of his brain must have been aware that if there was no electricity anywhere the lift wouldn’t be working either ... Simply to confirm then, and before the other had a chance to speak, he whispered:

‘
Bebebe?
’

The girl answered with an embarrassed giggle showing that she too felt a little confused. She corrected his pronunciation:

‘
Djedje ...
’

Or it might have been
Dede
or
Tyetyetye
or
Tete
or even
Tchetche
because he still couldn’t quite tell what it was supposed to be. The girl did not come further into the room but continued standing by the door. It was of course perfectly understandable that she should feel awkward having entered at all. Budai had enough sensitivity to recognise this despite his own confused feelings. He got out of bed and made his way over to her in the dark. He was wearing his only pair of pyjamas, the ones he kept washing, but it was dark now and they couldn’t see each other. He bumped into her as he felt his way forward, his hand just happening to land on her breast. He quickly snatched it away, terrified that she would think him too forward. but at the same time a hot flush ran through him. It was as if the heat of Pepe’s body had transmitted itself through her bra. Her breast was firm and pert as a girl’s. It was as if he could feel her heart beating in it.

They found themselves by the bed. Where else was there to go in this tiny single hotel room, after all? She lit a cigarette and sat down beside him, her face illuminated for a moment and all the stranger for that, her hair brushed differently, neatly smoothed down. She was turned away from him, not looking at him. Suddenly she snapped the lighter shut. Maybe she thought the dark more appropriate. From that time on it was only the red glow of the cigarette that brightened as she drew on it, her outline barely visible in the glimmer. The room was slowly filling with smoke.

But the girl can’t have smoked her cigarette right down to the end. She fumbled a little and ran into the bathroom in her stockings. He could hear her moving in there as she found the tap then came the bubbling stream of water. In the meantime he locked the outside door and got back into bed.

Edede smelled of fresh soap and cologne as she got in beside him, her skin cold from the water, her whole body slightly shivering. Budai tried to warm her, grasping her frozen feet between his thighs and embracing her shoulders. Then he did all that a man should do in the circumstances, all his instincts and experience guided him to do. Veve did not resist or argue but only slowly relaxed and then not entirely. She clearly took pleasure in the act but it was as if for her too it was more important to give pleasure than to receive it. Budai was, however, the sort of person who required the full participation of the other and took little pleasure in solitary satisfaction. And he did finish a little soon. Having spent so much time alone he couldn’t contain himself.

He felt a touch ashamed as he lay beside her in the darkness. The girl broke the silence asking something as she propped herself up on her elbows and, strangely enough, he guessed immediately what she was saying: she was asking him if he did not mind her smoking. She drew the covers over herself before lighting up: she was still embarrassed by her nakedness.

And then she began speaking again, quietly, with periods of silence, timid and halting, stopping every so often to tap the ashes from her cigarette into the ashtray that Budai fetched for her from the table. Her speech became more confident as she went on. She was telling him some extended story that she might long have been wanting to tell him, something about herself or her circumstances, though she, if anyone, must have known how little he understood of her language. She became ever more animated and emotional, ever more broken, though she retained the gentle refinement of her normal voice. No sooner had she finished her cigarette than she took out a new one and lit it: whatever she was talking about must have been of a highly personal nature. Might she be talking about some specific person? But who could it be who so upset her and why did she choose to tell him now? Might it have been her husband?