Hotel Iris (6 page)

This was the first time I noticed the exquisite movement of his fingers. They were not particularly strong—almost delicate, in fact—spotted with moles and freckles; the fingernails were dark. But when they began to move, they bewitched anything they touched, casting a spell that demanded submission.

I took a sip of tea and looked out the window. A scuba-diving boat cut across the inlet. The town was obscured behind the sparkling waves. A small brown bird flitted down to the deck for a moment and then flew away.

Then I noticed his desk—old and plain, with the tools of his trade neatly arranged on top: five sharp pencils, two well-worn dictionaries, a paperweight, a magnifying glass, a letter opener, various thick books. One notebook lay open, and the writing on the page was as precise as the arrangement on the desk. The tiny characters had been copied out perfectly, with no changes or corrections.

“Is this the novel about Marie?” I asked. I reached out for the book, but he stopped my hand. Perhaps he didn’t want me to touch his things, or perhaps he simply wanted to touch me.

“That’s right,” he said.

It was the first time I’d seen Russian writing.

“Russian is interesting to look at, even if you don’t understand it,” I said.

“And why is that?”

“It’s like a code meant for keeping romantic secrets.” He was still holding my hand. “What is Marie up to these days?” I asked.

“She has finally met the riding master. They are embracing in a corner of the stable. He has his riding crop in his hand. A horse whinnies softly, shaking its halter. Straw rustles at their feet. A ray of sunlight cuts through the darkness, and then they …” He drew me close and pressed his mouth to mine. I could feel the warmth of his lips and the rough parching of old age. It was a quiet kiss. Even the sound of the waves outside had stopped, and the silence seemed to draw us in.

His desire grew bit by bit. His hands wandered from my shoulders to my hips, lingering at each bone and rib along the way. I didn’t know how to respond—I could only obey him.

I didn’t know whether the things the translator did to my body were normal, nor how to find out. But I suspected they were special, different from the pictures I would imagine at the front desk of the Iris when the secret night noises drifted down from the rooms.

Then, at last, he said it.

“Take off your clothes.”

It was the first order he gave me, and I trembled at the thought that this voice was now speaking only to me. I shook my head, not to refuse but to hide the trembling. “Take everything off,” he said. Desire and impatience stirred under his calm expression. He had been as timid as usual all day—until we reached the island, where his rule over me began.

“No,” I said, crossing the room and trying to open the door. The teacups he had set out for us rattled.

“Do you want to leave?” I had not noticed him move, but he was standing in front of the door when I reached it. He took hold of my wrist. “There’s half an hour until the next boat.” Pain slowly quivered through my wrist as his fingertips dug into the skin. I found it hard to believe that a small man of his age could be so strong. But I knew he was going to hold me here, that I could not leave this place.

“Let me go,” I said. The words that came out of my mouth were the opposite of what I wanted, but I knew that resisting would make his orders even more forceful. He tried to drag me back to the center of the room, but he pulled so violently on my arm that we both fell. I caught a glimpse of the leg of the couch, a stray slipper, the sea through a gap in the curtains.

“I’ll show you how,” he said. Pressing my face to the floor, he ripped open my dress. There was a tearing sound, as if he had slit my back with a knife, and I tried to curl into a ball. But he refused to let me move, not a finger, not an eyelid.

He was still terribly angry, and, in his own way, he was using my body to take revenge on that woman and the maître d’. My ear was flattened, my breasts crushed, my mouth forced half open. The pile of the carpet had a bitter taste. My whole body should have hurt, but I didn’t feel anything. Somehow, my nerves had become hopelessly tangled, so that pain became vaguely pleasurable as it rippled over my skin.

He tore off my dress and threw it aside—a ball of yellow
crumpled in the corner. Then in quick succession, my slip and stockings and bra were stripped away. He seemed to know exactly what to unfasten, where to pull. His arms and legs and fingers moved skillfully and relentlessly over me. When he finally slipped my panties down to my ankles, I let out a cry. It was then that I realized I was no more than a helpless lump of flesh.

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, but I could only moan. He forced my head deeper into the carpet. I caught sight of the Russian books in the bookcase—and my ugly reflection in the glass front.

I was certain he would be disappointed by my underdeveloped breasts, my sweaty pubic patch, by the stubble under my arms and the ugly color of my private parts. How could he admire the hideous shape of my body when he tied me up? Wouldn’t he have preferred the woman outside the restaurant, even with her insults?

He produced a strange piece of cord from somewhere and began to tie me up. It was thicker and stronger and more flexible than the plastic twine they use at the post office, and it had a slightly medicinal smell, like the science labs at school. Or perhaps it smelled like my grandfather before he died, like the tube that had drained the yellow fluid from his stomach.

The cord dug into my flesh, holding me fast. The translator was remarkably skillful, quick and sure.

I looked at my reflection in the glass front of the bookcase. My wrists were bound behind my back. The cord crushed my
breasts, but the nipples were sensitive and pink and wanting to be caressed. The cord ran down between my thighs and around my knees, spreading me wide open, and if I made any effort to close my legs, it dug deeper into the soft place between them. Light fell in this crease, this pleat of skin that had been hidden in the dark until now.

Then he lay on top of me. He moved very slowly, as if to make his pleasure last as long as possible—and to be absolutely sure the cords did not come loose. His lips ran over my neck and ears, and then pressed against mine. It was not quite a kiss, not like the one he had given me a few minutes earlier. Our mouths met, and saliva, tinged with the flavor of cheese from the pizza, dripped into me. He played with my breasts. They were swollen and sensitive from the cords.

He was still in his suit and tie. Even his cuff links were still neatly fastened. He looked exactly as he did when we met in front of the flower clock—though I was now completely changed.

He used only his lips and tongue and fingers, but they were enough. Nothing was neglected; I felt I was learning for the first time that I had shoulder blades and temples, ankles and earlobes and an anus. He caressed me, moistening each part with his tongue, tasting me with his lips.

I closed my eyes. That way, I could feel the humiliation more deeply. The vinyl on the couch rubbed against my back. I should have been chilled, but I started to sweat.

His mouth probed between my legs. Even his breath made my nerves cry out. I felt as though I was being torn
apart, split between fear of what he would do next and the desire to be shamed even more. But out of the tear, pleasure came bubbling like blood from a wound.

He opened the folds one by one, his tongue playing over the tiny seed under the last layer. I cried out and tried to twist away, but he refused to release me. The little mound twitched nervously in the damp pleats.

His fingers ventured into me. It had started at last. There, between my legs, everything seemed to be coming to pieces. I tried to close myself, terrified that everything would disintegrate, fly apart from the pleasure. But the cords held me fast.

He pushed deeper into the darkness, touching places I had never reached myself. His fingers twisted between warm folds of flesh.

“Stop!” I screamed at last. He slapped me, flooding my head with a new kind of pain. I thought of Marie in the stable, the riding master, the riding crop.

He wiped my cheek with the fingers that had been inside me a moment before, streaking it with something sticky.

It was hot outside but cold here, not because I was naked but from the dull chill in the room. The south-facing window had been left open, and the curtain fluttered from time to time, but the hot breeze never reached me. The scene outside the window seemed to come from a distant world— the painted deck, the lawn, the sea spreading out beyond. We were alone.

“Do you like it?” he asked. I moved my chin, not sure
whether I did or not, and past caring. “I’m sure you do,” he said, suddenly forcing four fingers into my mouth. I gagged, trying to keep from vomiting. “Does it taste good?” he said. Saliva dribbled from the corner of my mouth. “It’s so good you’re drooling!” I nodded. “Slut!” he muttered, slapping me again.

“It feels so good,” I said. “Do it more, please.”

He grabbed my hair and dragged me to the couch. I tried to cover my head with my arms, but he was quick and strong. Mother’s neat bun fell in my face, the pins sticking out here and there.

“Don’t resist, understand?” Despite the pain, his voice thrilled me. I tried to nod, but I could barely move my head. “Answer me!”

“Yes,” I managed to murmur.

“Louder!”

“Yes, I understand.” We repeated this exchange over and over until he seemed satisfied.

He didn’t seem to trust me yet, though I had given up trying to get away and did exactly as I was told. He was determined to strip me of every last trace of freedom.

“Why are you trembling?” He took hold of my chin, but even this slight motion caused the cord to tighten and bind. I needed to give him the answer he wanted, but I could only manage a sigh. He pulled harder on the knot at the back of my neck, sending a wave of pain through my body.

“I’m sorry.” Roused by the pain, I managed to speak at last, but he didn’t relax his grip. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
They were words I had said over and over to my mother since childhood. Though I’d had no idea what forgiveness meant, I had cried for it nonetheless. But now, finally, I understood. From the bottom of my heart I wanted to be forgiven. “Forgive me, please. I beg you. I won’t move again. I’ll be quiet.”

He looked down at me, studying my body with his unblinking stare. In this room where everything was arranged in perfect order—from the dish cupboard and bedspread to the desk and the tiny characters in the notebook—I was an affront to order. My dress and underwear were strewn about, my ugly body was draped over the couch. Reflected in the glass, I looked like a dying insect, like a chicken trussed up in the butcher’s storeroom.

The sun was disappearing into the sea when I got back to the Iris. Showers were running in several rooms—guests cleaning up after a day at the beach. Swimsuits were drying outside the windows in the courtyard. The light of the sunset dyed red the curls of the boy with the harp.

“What have you done to your hair?” Mother noticed immediately that something was odd.

“It caught on my hat,” I said, trying to sound natural.

“Well, it’s a mess. You can’t work at the desk like that.” She dragged me off to the dressing table and put up my hair exactly as she had that morning, despite the fact that I would soon be taking it down again for my bath. I worried she would be able to tell what the man had done, but I also knew she
wouldn’t. I had gone somewhere far away today. Far away over the sea, to a place she could never reach.

We had tried to fix my hair in his bathroom.

“No, that’s not it. She’s going to be furious.”

“But it’s very pretty,” he said, trying to console me.

“Mother is insane about my hair. She’ll notice even one pin out of place.”

His bathroom was insane in its own way, each surface carefully polished, from the sink to the mirror in the medicine chest. The old-fashioned faucet with no hot-water knob, the razor blades and toothbrush, the new bar of soap.

His comb was too fine for my thick hair, and we had no camellia oil. I tried to tie it up while he gingerly stroked my neck, afraid to get in the way. He was suddenly timid again, plucked out of our private world and returned to normal. But I knew how I had looked and felt just a few moments before. As I carefully replaced each pin, I wondered when the storm would come again.

“You are so lovely,” he said, speaking to my reflection in the mirror. Then he put his hands on my hips and drew me gently to him. It was a simple gesture, but it thrilled me as much as his tongue running over my naked body. It made us terribly sad to part.

“Well, I don’t want you wearing a hat anymore,” Mother said. “Why should you hide such a pretty face?” He had said almost the same thing. “I’ve told you before, you should show off your hair. You can spend all kinds of money on clothes and makeup, but your beautiful hair is free.”

We could hear guests in the lobby, probably on their way out to dinner. Someone put a room key on the front desk; children were arguing. Mother pulled so hard on my hair that my eyes watered, but it didn’t hurt at all.

In my heart, I told her that her pretty little Mari had become the ugliest person in the whole world.

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