Hotel Memoirs

Sometimes late at night just before the night staff took over the running of the hotel and the bars began to close, I used to spend time in the lobby of the big hotel where the visitors from more economically secure nations come to stay. On one such visit, before going up to my room to sleep, I stopped off for a drink and a sweet after seeing a Mid period Godard movie, at the last retrospective before socialist films were banned. A neatly dressed dandy traveler entered the bar from the reception hall, carrying in his hand a small case of soft leather, a night porter took his suitcase of matte black ribbed aluminum off to his room or suite. The traveler paid and thanked the night porter and without paying him any further attention sat down on a leather chair and gently gestures at the waiter to get his attention. The dandy takes off his dark blue gloves and puts them down on the leather case. He looks at them for a a few moments before opening the case and taking a small notepad out and a book. The traveler is dressed as I said in grey, a colour that in earlier decades would have been called discreet, even though it is late at night and the city is gradually disintegrating under his attention, he is wearing a perfect and rather beautiful purple tie with iridescent threads running through it. After ordering a drink from the waiter I examined his shoes and feet, leather walking shoes with elegant knots, tied I imagined for some reason by a servant. The traveler stretches out his legs and inspects some more things in his small case, useful things like scissors, a small knife, pens, chargers, cigarettes. The traveler seemed like Buchner’s schizophrenic who has strolled into the hotel and whose organs have entered into an intense becoming with all the elements of his class and nature, to the extent that the distinction between self and non-self, inside and outside, man and nature has no meaning […] [The traveler searches through his pockets for the book of matches he’d brought with him from last nights hotel. He imagined that he’d arrived earlier in the day. ] He orders some tapas to eat with his bright green Margarita. Using a silver pen he is writing in his notebook. Perhaps its not the conference he is attending, perhaps he is an accountant, or a creator of AI systems, or a designer of the new dirigibles that are capable of carrying thousands of passengers across vast distances, slower than aircraft but faster than ships. Writing his plans on perfect paper, in exclusive notebooks that are worth small fortunes. As he leans forward and puts the pen and notebook down I can see the unfamiliar characters of the language, unreadable by a human. The book seems to contain profane calculations only fungi might understand. The traveler puts a cigarette between his thin lips and his face turns olive yellow as he inhales the smoke. “Here for the conference?” I ask the traveler. Imagining that he’d arrived from the east earlier in the day, was staying a few days for the conference taking place on Equaliberty before leaving. The traveler smiled and nodded refusing to speak, perhaps because the question I’d asked was too commonplace to be answered without compromising oneself. Perhaps he is here to present a paper on the politics of disintegration, the rise of new fascist political groups, the printing of counterfeit monies, or simply to speak of an american princess has had sex and is expecting, I have stretch marks and am beautiful the singer announces. I think he looks like a secret agent for the neo-managerialist parties. “Are you here for the conference?” He asked me. “No, I have a week of meetings at the head office, since I have some free time this week I thought I might go to a few sessions..” We didn’t speak again. Eventually we didn’t even acknowledge the others existence…