Now it’s a matter of finding a hotel not too far from the musician’s house. Death strolled down into the centre, went into a travel agency, asked if she could study a map of the city, on which she quickly located the theatre, and from there her index finger travelled across the map to the area where the cellist lived. It was a little out of the way, but there were hotels nearby. The assistant recommended one of them, not luxurious, but comfortable. He himself offered to make the reservation over the phone, and when death asked him how much she owed him for his efforts, he replied, smiling, Just put it on my account. What could be more normal, people say things without thinking, they utter words at random and it doesn’t even occur to them to consider the consequences, Put it on my account, said the man, doubtless imagining, with incorrigible masculine vanity, some pleasurable encounter in the near future. He risked death replying with a cold eye, Be careful, you don’t know who you’re talking to, but she merely gave a vague smile, thanked him and set off without leaving a phone number or a visiting card. In the air hung a diffuse perfume, a mixture of rose and chrysanthemum, Yes, that’s what it smells like, half rose and half chrysanthemum, murmured the assistant, while he slowly folded up the city map. Out in the street, death was hailing a taxi and giving the driver the address of the hotel. She didn’t feel at all pleased with herself. She had frightened the kindly lady in the box office, she’d had fun at her expense, and that’s an unforgivable thing to do. People are quite terrified enough of death without her appearing before them with a smile and saying, Hi, it’s me, the latest version, the familiar version if you like, of that ominous latin tag memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, and then, as if that weren’t enough, she had been about to skewer another extremely nice, helpful person with the stupid question that the so-called upper classes have the barefaced cheek to ask of those beneath them, Do you know who you’re talking to. No, death is not pleased with her own behaviour. She is sure that in her skeletal form she would never have behaved like that, Perhaps it’s because I’ve taken on human form, she thought, these things are catching. She glanced out of the window and recognised the street they were driving along, this is the cellist’s street and that’s the ground-floor apartment where he lives. Death seemed to feel a tightening in her solar plexus, a sudden agitation of the nerves, like the shiver that goes through a hunter when he spies his prey, when he has it within his sights, it could be a kind of obscure fear, as if she were beginning to feel afraid of herself. The taxi stopped, This is the hotel, said the driver. Death paid him with the change that the woman at the theatre had given her, The rest is for you, she said, not even noticing that the rest was more than the amount on the taxi meter. She had an excuse, this is the first time she has used the services of this form of public transport.
As she went over to the reception desk, she remembered that the man at the travel agency hadn’t asked her name, he had simply said to the hotel, I’m sending you a customer, yes, a customer, right now, and there she was, this customer who could not possibly say that her name was death, with a small d, please, or that she didn’t know what name to give, ah, her bag, the bag over her shoulder, the bag out of which came the dark glasses and the money, the bag out of which must surely come some identifying document, Good afternoon, may I help you, asked the receptionist, A travel agency phoned a quarter of an hour ago to make a reservation for me, Yes, madam, I was the one who took the call, Well, here I am, Would you mind filling out this form, please. Death knows what her name is now, she found it on the identity card that lies open on the desk, and thanks to her dark glasses she will be able to copy down the facts discreetly, name, place of birth, nationality, marital status, profession, without the receptionist realising, Here you are, she said, How long will you be staying at the hotel, Until next Monday, May I make a photocopy of your credit card, Oh, I didn’t bring it with me, but I can pay now, in advance, if you like, No, no, that won’t be necessary, said the receptionist. She took the identity card to cross-check the information on the form and, with a puzzled expression on her face, glanced up. The photo on the document was that of a much older woman. Death took off her dark glasses and smiled. Confused, the receptionist looked again at the document, the photo and the woman before her were now as alike as two peas in a pod. Do you have any luggage, she asked, drawing one hand across her perspiring brow, No, I came to town to do some shopping, replied death.