Once, when she started awake, she said, groggily,
‘Do you know what my mother once told me?’
‘What?’
‘That when she was giving birth to me there were three women standing there by her bed. Two were dressed in white, and the third was in black.’
‘Do you suppose those were the Fates who determine your destiny?’ I asked, cautiously.
‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘Most likely mother was suffering from the labour and hallucinated them. Two in white, one in black,’ she mumbled, and sank back to sleep.
During those fifteen days in March 2007, the sunrise was so lavish and bright that we had to lower the blinds every morning. The air had the smell of spring. My mother’s balcony was neglected; the soil in the flower boxes was dry.
‘We should buy some fresh loam and plant some flowers,’ I said.
‘We will be the first to have flowers in our building!’
‘Yes, the first.’
‘Yes, pelargoniums.’
Sparrows settled onto the balcony railing. That was a good sign; Mother was convinced that this year there wouldn’t be a swarm of starlings.
‘Those pests are gone,’ she said.
‘Which pests?’
‘You know, the darlings!’
‘Starlings are birds, darlings are your grandchildren.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘What did you say?’
‘That the pests are gone.’
Then she added, with an air of mystery,
‘As they came, so they went away.’
PART TWO
Ask Me No Questions and I’ll Tell You No Lies
Day One
1.
As soon as the receptionist, Pavel Zuna, caught sight of the three figures approaching the desk, he became aware of a slight current running upwards from his left big toe and stopping somewhere in the small of his back. Or the other way round: running downwards from his back to his toe. Pavel Zuna was not a neurologist but a receptionist, and a receptionist rather than a poet, so he did not abandon himself to contemplating this unusual sensation, especially as the picturesque appearance of the approaching figures occupied his full attention. In a wheelchair sat an old lady with both feet tucked into a large fur boot. It would have been hard to describe the old lady as a human being; she was the remains of a human being, a piece of humanoid crackling. She was so little and so crumpled that the boot appeared more striking than she did. The old lady had a tiny face that consisted of a skull and aged skin stretched over it like a nylon stocking. She had thick, closely cropped grey hair and a hooked nose. Her lively grey eyes sparkled brightly. The old lady was hold ing a big leather bag on her lap. The other one, the one pushing the wheelchair, was exceptionally tall, slender and of astonishingly erect bearing for her advanced years. Although Pavel Zuna was not a particularly short man, a quick glance suggested that he would barely reach the tall woman’s shoulder. The third was a short breathless blonde, her hair ruined by excessive use of peroxide, with big gold rings in her ears and large breasts whose weight dragged her forward. Pavel Zuna’s career as a receptionist had been neither brief nor unsuccessful, nor indeed uninteresting, that is to say he had seen all kinds of things – even more intensely bleached hair and even bigger earrings. But still, Pavel Zuna did not recall ever, either behind the reception desk or in his entire life, seeing women’s breasts larger than those of the breathless blonde.
Pavel Zuna was an experienced receptionist with a particular talent. He was endowed with a built-in financial scanner, which had, up to now, proved infallible: Zuna was able to guess at once to which class a given person belonged and his or her financial status. Had Pavel Zuna not loved his receptionist’s job so much, he could have been head-hunted by any tax department in the world, so infallible was his estimate of the depth of other people’s pockets. In short, Zuna could have sworn that this unusual troika had just wandered into his hotel by mistake.
‘Good morning, ladies. What can I do for you? Might you have lost your way?’ asked Zuna in that patronising manner adopted by medical personnel in hospitals and old people’s homes when addressing their older patients.
‘Is this the Grand Hotel?’ the tall lady addressed Zuna.
‘It is indeed.’
‘Then we have not lost our way,’ said the lady, handing Pavel Zuna three passports.
Pavel Zuna felt that current in his toe again, this time so forcefully and painfully that it took his breath away. However, in the practised manner of a supreme professional, Zuna smiled agreeably and went to verify their names on the computer. Pavel Zuna’s face illuminated by the light of the computer screen turned pale, partly with pain, partly with surprise: the two best and most expensive suites in the hotel had been reserved in the names on the passports.
‘Excuse me, how long will you be staying? I don’t see the date of your departure here,’ said Pavel Zuna in the tone of a man whose professional pride has just been bruised.
‘A couple of days, maybe,’ said the little old lady asthmatically.
‘Or maybe a week,’ said the tall lady drily.
‘Or maybe forever,’ chimed the blonde.
‘I see,’ said Zuna, although he didn’t see at all. ‘May I have your credit card, please?’
‘We’re paying in cash!’ said the blonde with the large breasts, smacking her lips as though she had just consumed a tasty morsel.
The little old lady in the wheelchair silently confirmed the authenticity of the blonde’s statement by opening the zip of the leather bag that was lying limply on her knees. Pavel Zuna bent slightly forward and caught sight of the fat bundles of euro notes arranged tidily in it.
‘I see…’ he said, feeling a little dizzy. ‘Ladies of a certain age always pay cash-in-hand.’
There had clearly been a serious malfunction of Pavel Zuna’s inner scanner, and that troubled him. He waved a hand feebly and at the same instant three young men in hotel uniforms appeared.
‘Help these ladies to their rooms, lads. Presidentske apartma! Cisarske apartma!’ Zuna commanded, handing them the keys.
Surrounded by hotel personnel of the male gender, the three female figures glided away towards the lift. Pavel Zuna just managed to observe a sudden breeze blow petals off the luxuriant floral display in a Chinese vase on the reception desk, before his eyes clouded over. The pain from his left big toe swept upwards. It struck him in the small of the back with such force that he simply collapsed.
This whole scene was observed out of the corner of his eye by Arnoš Kozeny, as he sat comfortably sprawled in one of the lobby armchairs. Arnoš Kozeny, a retired lawyer, was a kind of fixture in the Grand Hotel. He came here every morning for a cappuccino, to leaf through the fresh newspapers and smoke a cigar. He would reappear in the hotel about five in the afternoon, in the café, and in the evening he would hang around the hotel casino. Arnoš Kozeny was a well-preserved seventy-eight-year-old. He was wearing a sand-coloured suit, a freshly ironed light-blue shirt and a bow tie of a bluish hue, with canvas shoes that matched the colour of his suit.