Flights

RECEPTION AT LARGE FANCY HOTELS

In a rush I enter and am greeted by the polite smile of the porter. I look around as though I’m busy, as though I’ve come to meet someone. I put on an act. I glance impatiently at my watch, and then I collapse into one of the chairs and light a cigarette.

Receptions are better than cafés. You don’t have to order anything, you don’t have to get into any disputes with the waiters, or eat anything. The hotel extends before me its rhythms, it’s a whirlpool, and its centre is the revolving door. The flowing stream of people pauses, turns in place for a night or two, then continues.

Whoever was supposed to come won’t come, but does that undermine the ethos of my waiting? It’s an activity similar to meditation – time flows and brings little in the way of novelty, situations repeat (a taxi drives up, a new guest gets out of it, the porter takes their suitcase out of the boot, they walk up to reception, with the key to the lift). Sometimes situations double up (two taxis arrive symmetrically from two opposing directions, and two guests get out of them, two porters take out two suitcases from the two boots) or multiply, it gets crowded, the situation gets tense, chaos looms, but it’s just a complicated figure, hard to see at first its complex harmony. At other times the hall becomes unexpectedly empty, and then the porter flirts with the receptionist, but only absent-mindedly, half-heartedly, remaining at full hotel readiness.

I sit like this for about an hour, no longer. I see those coming out of the lift and rushing off to a meeting, late by nature, sometimes in their rush they spin around in the revolving door as though in a mill that will grind them into dust in a moment. I see those who shamble along, dragging their feet, as though forcing themselves to put one foot in front of the other, lingering before every movement. Women waiting for men, men waiting for women. The women wear fresh make-up that the coming evening will wipe off completely, and over them a cloud of perfume, a sacred halo. The men act out complete freedom, but in reality they’re tense, living somewhere in the lower floors of their bodies today, in their lower abdomens.

This waiting periodically brings lovely presents – here a man is escorting a woman to a taxi. They get out of the lift. She is small, petite, dark-haired, dressed in a tight short skirt, but she doesn’t look vulgar. An elegant prostitute. He walks behind her, tall, greying, in a grey suit, with his hands in his trousers pockets. They don’t talk, and they keep a distance; it’s hard to believe that just a moment ago their mucus membranes were rubbing against each other, that he was thoroughly investigating the insides of her mouth with his tongue. They walk side by side now, but he lets her go first again into the mill of the revolving door. The taxi is waiting, notified. The woman gets in without a word, at most just a slight smile. There is no ‘see you later’ or ‘this was nice’, nothing of the kind. He leans into the window just a little, but I don’t think he says anything. Maybe a completely superfluous ‘goodbye’, perhaps still bound by habit. And she’s driven off. He comes back, meanwhile, with his hands in his pockets, light and content, there’s even the hint of a smile on his face. He’s already starting to come up with plans for the evening, has already remembered email and phones, but he won’t go to them just yet, he’ll keep enjoying this lightness for a bit, perhaps he’ll just go out for a drink.