Zenith Hotel (10 page)

Today, Robert has bought a new tree. He hasn’t named it yet. He certainly intends to find a name for it. We’ll see later, he thinks. Right now, he needs something to eat, his rumbling stomach is his main concern. He can’t do anything on an empty stomach. Some people can think more clearly when they’re hungry, but with him it’s the opposite. I’ll have a four-cheese pizza. Yes, to take away. That’s quick! Yes, of course, it’s because you’re Italian, how silly of me!

He eats his pizza at the little kitchen table and gradually his head fills with dwarf tree names. He’s made up his mind, it will be Billy the Kid. That sounds cool, as if he’d bought it in the USA. A little tree from Houston, Texas. A tree with cowboy boots and a gun. Now that
is
cool! The next one will be a Mexican, he’ll dress it in a little poncho and a big hat. Oh, his little trees are so lovely! If he looks after them well, they’ll outlive him. It’ll be his opus, his mark. But who will he leave his dwarf trees to? Who would be prepared to take them into their living room as if they were their own children, water them with a mineral-water spray and prune the superfluous little branches? Bah, he’ll find someone. For the time being, he’s looking after them, and he’s happy.

It’s his tender loving care that keeps them alive.
They don’t grow, of course, but they are nourished by it. They drink Robert’s little attentions like their own sap, the blood that courses through their veins. It’s an image – Robert knows full well that they’re not people. That’s why he loves them, like an elderly spinster with her cats.

Robert doesn’t despise people. Most of the time, he forgives them excessively. It’s just that he doesn’t know how to relate to them. He’s a bit gauche, he’s unable to interest people or make them laugh. So he sits on his wooden chair and waits patiently, as always.

But what is he waiting for? He doesn’t know, it feels like a void to be plugged. Which stopper should he use? He’d have been extremely grateful if only someone had helped him, told him what to do. But there you go, no one had ever been there for him. Robert had built himself, like a slightly wobbly house. The foundations aren’t very stable, the roof’s falling in, he is less and less able to
withstand
the assaults of the wind and rain. One day, he’ll collapse. All those tiles crumbling will be like a rock fall. There’ll be nothing left but the bare rafters, intersecting beams that no longer support anything. A ruined Robert, his carcass naked like a common laboratory skeleton. Medical students will stick a cigar in his jaw, they’ll make him give
the two-fingered salute and arrange his pelvis in a suggestive posture. It’s understandable, it’s not a person they’ll be seeing, only a frame, an assembly of bones placed end to end, a human-sized jigsaw puzzle whose pieces have complicated Latin names that you have to learn if you want to pass your exams. He’ll give those cheeky students grief. He’ll be called Oscar and wear a bowler hat.

He retains all that in his yellow foam.

He has moved the little wooden chair over to the window. There’s a man on the other side of the street. He’s leaning against the railings in his shirtsleeves, smoking. He doesn’t really seem to be paying attention to what’s happening around him. He’s not interested in the goings-on of the street. He smokes. He’s thinking of something important. He scratches his head. Is his wife cheating on him? His mother dying? Have his shares taken a
nose-dive
? It must be something of the sort, he looks very anxious.

Robert watches the man at the same time as drinking in the life of the street. The stallholders shout the prices of vegetables and fish. Women walk about, leeks poking out of their
shopping
baskets. They’re getting in provisions, as people used to say during the war. When Robert thinks about it fleetingly, he’d quite like a war. He
imagines himself as a Resistance fighter, shooting at the enemy from high up in his apartment.
Concealed
behind the window, holding a rifle with telescopic sight. Unimaginable bravery defending his little trees. But it’s peacetime, he’s not exactly going to take pot shots at housewives with
shopping
caddies. So he watches them and tries to guess what they’ll be cooking for lunch. What can you make with leeks and a baguette?

From time to time, he spots a bottle of red poking out of a basket. The sound of the cork popping before lunch. He crooks his finger and makes a popping sound in his cheek. Pop. Pop. Another bottle that’ll course through our veins. We need to forget for a while, we need to get drunk when we’ve got nothing better to do. It’s the fruit of our land that we’re drinking. Pop. The bottle neck clinks against the sides of the glasses. It can’t be bad, we say to your good health before drinking. We don’t say cirrhosis or alcoholism, no, we say to your good health, so come on, let’s have a drink to celebrate! After all, what’s the problem? We drown our sorrows where we please.

The bustling street makes him restless. All those
housewives out and about, all those cars, all those kids on scooters. Go out, that’s a good idea. Slip on a jacket, it’s not cold today. This one will do. Close the window. Mustn’t forget my keys,
whatever
happens. In my pocket. Cell phone. No one will call but take it anyway. Also in my pocket. There, I’m ready. Oh yes, shoes. Quick, the fresh air’s calling. Shoelaces. Faster, for Chrissakes! Get out. Get out. Escape from the daily gloom, walk through the streets of the 14th
arrondissement
. A little expedition on foot. Dogs, passing women, mopeds.

How about taking the métro?

I’m done for the night. The money comes fast. At what cost?

Back to the Zenith Hotel. Always the same old routine. I climb the six flights of stairs up to my dismal room with the paint peeling off the walls. The stairs are worn down in the centre from too many feet tramping up and down them in boots or trainers. I don’t like this stairwell. I hurry to the top.

I unlock the door with my big gilt key, then slump down on my little bed and lie there, on my back, my legs dangling, still dressed, the strap of my bag around my arm. I’d like to be able to stay like this forever – as flat as a pancake. I feel good. I think of nothing.

But I have to sit up. Mentally I count. On thirty, I’ll get up. Twenty-seven … twenty-eight … twenty-nine … thirty. Right, another two minutes. I count again. I don’t want to get up. Twenty-seven … twenty-eight … twenty-nine … thirty …

Slowly I take off my make-up. I wipe cotton wool over my face with one hand, holding a small fragment of mirror in the other.

I ignore my reflection. I’ve given up looking for crow’s feet around my eyes and new blackheads on my nose. I think about other things – I don’t want to see myself.

Slowly, I get undressed. I let my clothes drop gently on to the white-tiled floor. I don’t fold them, they’re dirty. I’m going to the launderette tomorrow, as I do every week.

I slip into my nightie. That’s my evening routine. My movements are mechanical, like in the morning when I scratch my head and make coffee.

My routine makes me forget the nasty taste seeping through my body. I concentrate on the moment. I slip into my nightie and go and fill my water bottle on the landing.

I go back to my room and smoke a cigarette in silence.

I double-lock the door. At last I can go to bed, turn on the television and light up another fag.

I gently fall asleep, watching people living on the other side of the screen.

The commentators’ voices are soothing. They have that journalistic tone that makes them sound
beautiful
and professional. The voices of those who keep us informed.

I trust that voice. It isn’t nasty. I can let myself go.
I listen with one ear. With the other, the one that’s glued to the pillow, I start to nod off. A pleasant voice with a journalistic tone.

I fall asleep. Tomorrow’s another day.

Oscar Coop-Phane was born in 1988. He left home at 16 with dreams of becoming a painter and at 20 moved to Berlin where he spent a year writing and reading classics. There he wrote
Zenith Hotel
, which won the Prix de Flore in France, and then
Tomorrow, Berlin
(Arcadia, 2015). Today he lives in Brussels and is working on his third novel,
October
.