Rabbit Island by Elvira Navarro

Author:Elvira Navarro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Two Lines Press
Published: 2020-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

THE TOP FLOOR ROOM

The good news that causes everyone such inexplicable fear.

—CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

The first night she heard a crash so loud she thought someone must be killing a guest in the next room, or using a jackhammer on the body. Or it could have been a monster throwing chairs at the ceiling and making holes in the floor. There was no room adjoining hers, at least that was what the housekeeper had said. Yet the noise was coming from behind the wall. Added to the monster-machine racket, she heard two men who seemed to be playing some kind of game. They were speaking English. It occurred to her that in the bedroom, whose existence the housekeeper had denied, some very loud, violent sexual practice involving the furniture and fixtures was being carried out. For instance, one of the blond men—she guessed that they were blond because they were speaking English—was undressing and, as he took off each item, was whacking a baseball bat against the toilet bowl. The other was wearing boxing gloves; he’d taken down a picture, hung a shirt in its place, and was punching it. It was a weird scenario, but it seemed possible to her. She waited until the noise stopped to go out barefoot, wearing just a T-shirt, into the hallway. There was no door there. Besides her room, the only things on that floor were the water heaters and the elevator machinery.

She was living in the hotel where she worked. The pay was bad because her room and full board were deducted from her wages. Two waiters working under the same conditions slept in the basement, next to the laundry. Even though it was smaller, she preferred her bedroom on the top floor because it had a view of the whole city.

She spent the day in the hotel kitchen. Her first task each morning was to scramble the pasteurized eggs served for breakfast and put them in a chafing dish. The congealed yellow mixture was maintained at a constant temperature from seven to half past ten, unless the waiters failed to notice when someone left off the lid. Then the eggs went from hot to warmish. The same happened with the bacon, sausages, and the roast potatoes sprinkled with thyme. These elements of an imperfect English breakfast were scarcely touched. Very few foreigners stayed in the hotel. The majority of the guests came from other Spanish provinces to do business at the fairs held in the building across the street, well known for its corten-steel façade designed by a famous architect who had been the object of furious criticism and no less passionate praise in the local media. The people who shuttled between the hotel dining room and the rusty-looking building preferred the tostadas with olive oil, tomatoes, and ham to the full English, even though the ham was of extremely poor quality.

Did any of the dishes served there taste good? She sometimes felt guilty about the lack of gusto with which the diners ate the swordfish in parsley sauce or the breaded filet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.