Motherland Hotel by Yusuf Atilgan

Author:Yusuf Atilgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: City Lights Publishers

MONDAY

He sat up. A bell was ringing. The alarm. He reached out to the bedside table and pressed the button to silence it. Seven-thirty—he’d brought in the clock at bedtime and set it, as they might be leaving early. He had slept well, except when the buzzing of a wasp near his face had sent him scrambling out of bed to search the sheets, at 2:10. The couple who had stayed in Room 6 ten days ago, Thursday night, were there again. Below the body, unaware. Young and warm and alive. He had recognized them as they came in last night and for some reason he’d been unable to say no. “Hello, it’s us again.” The man had looked at him like a friend. Fishing their key from the drawer he had extended it. “No one’s stayed in the room since you were here. Have a good night.” The woman had turned to smile as they were going up. Zeberjet got out of bed. Before soaping his face he looked in the mirror at the small scratch over his left eyebrow. Only an indistinct redness there. He had picked the scab off the day before.

At breakfast he had three glasses of tea and nibbled at a simit with white cheese. He had no appetite any more. Drank lots of tea and, every lunch and dinner, forced down a few bites of bread and cheese. The morning before he had gotten four simits from a passing vendor. The bread was all gone. He hadn’t been out since that night. Worst of all was keeping the hotel open. The card hung on the wall as usual—DOOR LOCKED AFTER MIDNIGHT. He’d been telling people the rooms were all taken. Toward noon the day before he had gone up to lock the door on the body, hanging the key in the kitchen where the kachamak had begun to spoil. This he had dumped in the garbage, which he had then carried down to the shed. He stood up, took the tray into the pantry, and brushed his teeth. Coming back to the desk he reached for his pocket, but stopped. No more cigarettes. He’d get some when he went out. He had to send a money order and then go to the police.

He opened up the two registers on his desk. He no longer invented names for the clients he turned away, but rather had extracted last year’s register from the chest underneath the stairs and was copying names from it day for day onto the forms and into the current log. Last year November 3rd had been a Saturday. There had been eight guests. He copied the names for Room 6 with no alteration. There was movement overhead as he closed the register and put the form into the drawer with the others. He had balanced the accounts for October and now began to fill out a postal money order. Upstairs the door opened and closed, and descending footsteps paused momentarily on the second floor.

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