Even so, I would long have become reconciled to all this, were it not among his habits to appear very quietly in unexpected places. Suddenly he appears in a remote part of a corridor. He looks as though he’s been standing there for ever, and only started moving when he heard my approach. Another time there he is, striding through the lobby with lowered head, as though to indicate that he has no interest in anyone. But I know well that his eyes, which are set wide apart by the temples, like a bird’s or a lizard’s, swiftly and reliably take in the scenes around him, and that a short stroll is enough for the director to know who is in the lobby, what the porter’s up to, and whether all the liftboys and errand boys are present. His glance hooks itself into the scene like a harpoon. He could as well take it back to his office to have it developed or stuck in an album.
He has the habits, movements and gifts of a detective. Born in the Levant to Greek parents, he has the quick-wittedness one ascribes to Greeks and Levantines. What he opens his eyes on he sees, and what he sees he understands. He is fluent in very many languages. There is not one in which he can write an error-free letter. He dictates a few key points to his secretary, probably sensible ones; he leaves the details to her. Of average height, though thin enough to make him appear much taller, he looks like a noble example of a very distant and very alien race. In his dark brown, narrow and seemingly planed-off face, the hooked nose stands out like a weapon, a curved skin and bone dagger. The right half of the narrow brow is covered by a wave of black hair. The trimmed moustache is curved like a black wire — it is shaved above and below — seeming to lie in the middle of the long upper lip. He rarely opens his mouth, not even to speak. If he had no teeth, one wouldn’t know it.
Without question, the man has the imagination to produce and cater for so-called “luxury”. If there is any creature that knows what “comfort” means, then it is the patron. All the details of décor speak for him. Throughout the hotel there are no high-edged tables that make your arm go to sleep when you rest it on them. The bedside lamps are comfortably within reach on adjustable boards in little safe-like niches. You don’t lie in bed, afraid to reach for a glass of water for fear of knocking over the lamp. The ashtrays are all deep, wide and heavy. Every bed is curtained off, so as to be discreetly out of sight in the daytime. Framed by the two doors that lead out into the corridor, the room is large enough for the room-service waiter to be able to leave a small table out with your order, in case he is not able to enter the room. Along with the post, the guest is brought a selection of newspapers from various countries. Never is a mailman allowed to come up with registered mail without being telephoned through. All night, the so-called “pantry” is kept open, for orders of fruit, sandwiches, tea, coffee, and brandy. The large revolving door is open all night, so that you never need to ring the bell and waken the night porter. At three in the morning, there are as many lights on as there are at nine at night. All these details pay tribute to the director.
And yet the way he instructs a liftboy to follow him to his office is embarrassing to me. He doesn’t say: Come with me! Nor does he wave at him or glance at him. He stops in front of the unhappy boy, looks at him, takes a step away, and turns round. I don’t know what goes on behind the office door. But I can see employees as they come out. They straighten their tunics, swivel their heads in their collars as though to straighten their vertebrae, and give themselves a little shake, before going back on duty, as though they were emerging from a different world and needed a little time to adjust. Even if they weren’t gone for any more than ten minutes! You could ask them a question — they wouldn’t hear you. Their ears are still booming with a terrible noise that drowns out every subsequent sound.
It may be that this is only natural, and comes with the territory. But what is unnatural is his way of always uttering the same banalities and asking unanswerable questions. “Have you come from very far away? Did you have a good time? Pleasure to see you again, really, a great pleasure!” And, according to the weather and the season: “Dull old day, isn’t it! It looks like rain!” Or: “Lovely, clear autumn we’re having. It’s the best thing for you. Have a nice day.” And concluding with a bow that turns his body into a question mark: “The hotel safe’s always at your disposal! Goodbye!”
And yet I once witnessed the following scene:
At about ten in the morning, a man came through the revolving door into the lobby. The director was just standing in front of the door of the reception clerk and was about to be on his way. The poor man stopped in the middle of the lobby, as though someone had left him there and forgotten all about him. His raincoat was flapping around him. His stumpy red hands looked like stockings. His face was bony, but clean-shaven and bleeding. The thin neck wobbled about in the stiff collar that was far too big for it. A little below, one sensed the presence of (but did not see) a soft, striped, not terribly clean shirt.
The director said to the man: “Get out, and come back through the goods entrance.”
The man did so. He stepped out as though from a stage set. His behaviour was a little theatrical as it was. He took a rubber band off a letter case, and pulled out a few papers.
The director instructed the man to unfold them. He didn’t move to take them from him, merely gave them one of his cursory glances. Then he shook his head.
The poor man went off. Then the director quietly said: “Psst!”
The man turned round.
“Come to lunch, today, twelve-thirty sharp!”
The poor man smiled and tried a sort of curtsey. Then he walked off.
“Psst!” said the director quietly, a second time.
The poor man turned round again, quicker and more trustfully than the last time.
And the director said to the porter: “Get him a coffee with milk!” and walked off. In mid-step he stopped again and called out over his shoulder, without turning:
“On second thoughts, make that cream!”
And he vanished into his office.
It wasn’t enough to persuade me that he was a good man. But I have at least attained the necessary literary objectivity towards the patron.
Frankfurter Zeitung, 20 February 1929
45. Leaving the Hotel
I would like to have caught up with some of my other friends at the hotel, but I am leaving tomorrow. I have been here for long enough. If I stayed longer I would be unworthy of the great blessing of being a stranger. I might degrade the hotel to a home if I no longer left it unless I had to. I want to feel welcome here, but not at home. I want to be able to come and go. I prefer to know that a hotel is waiting for me here. I am aware that this too is a sentimentality, and that, out of fear of a more conventional one, I am falling for one of my own devising. But that’s the human heart for you.
I will let the chief receptionist know that I am leaving. Oh, not because of any regulations! This hotel pins no “avisos” in its rooms, no “extract from the hospitality and innkeeping bye laws of 1891, Article. IV §§ 18 and 22 ff.”, no house rules and nowhere a “Guests are requested to inform the front desk of their departure in a timely fashion, so as to avoid being billed for a further night. Respectfully, The Management.” No, this hotel pins no commandments on its walls. Nor does the fact that there is a restaurant on the premises require special mention, seeing that the restaurant is a good one, and people like to eat there. If I choose to inform the receptionist of my departure today, then it’s purely because I need his kindness, and because I want to hear him murmur: “Oh dear, so soon!?”—Such a tone! It’s said so quietly, like a secret; as though my decision might be put off, so long as it’s just the two of us who know about it… It’s as slow and protracted as a long-running lament. It seems to issue from that indescribable distance to which I now propose to go. The good fellow! — How will he manage without me? Whom will he say goodnight to when he goes home at night in his smart suit? How well we understood one another. We conversed with looks and glances, in the truly international language of stenoscopy! Which is now at an end…