The only thing that keeps me awake is my own heartbeat under the water lily.
Boom, boom, boom.
It won’t be long now, though, before dead stillness reigns in my chest.
It’s cold on top of the bedspread and it’s cold under the sheets and, at some stage in the night, I grope through the darkness to get my sweater in the wardrobe—I don’t expect to find a down quilt. As soon as I open the wardrobe door it comes off in my arms. I grab the flashlight and examine the joints, it would seem that the hinges were being held up by a total of two loose screws. I should have a box with the right screws and will fix it tomorrow. I put on the sweater Gudrún knitted for me and curl up under the sheets, a forty-nine-year-old foetus, isn’t it logical that I think of Mom?
I turn the flashlight back on and reach for one of the notebooks that I open at random.
At the top of a page in the middle of the book I’ve written the following in wavy blue handwriting: The human heart beats seventy times per minute. The bigger the creature is, the slower the heartbeat. An elephant’s heart beats twenty-three times per minute. Once a heart has beaten a certain number of times, it stops.
Under his wings you will find refuge
I wake up to a giant bird running in circles around the room, strenuously flapping its wings up and down, as if it were trying to take off in flight, but then he shoots through the door as quick as a flash and silently closes it behind him.
It’s a child.
Didn’t I lock the door? The lock is old, it might have jammed.
I takes me a few moments to remember what part of the globe I’ve landed in. I try to guess the time from the light filtering under the curtains and look at my watch. I’ve slept for ten hours and still have words from my dreams hanging on my lips. It’s Mom talking to me:
“Instead of putting an end to your existence, can’t you put an end to you being you and just become someone else?”
A short while later there is a knock on the door and a young woman appears on the threshold. She is wearing a white turtleneck and skirt and might be the same age as Waterlily. I expect it’s the sister mentioned by the young man in reception and the thought flashes through my mind that she will probably be the one to discover me and inform her brother in the lobby, who will then call the police.
The woman apologises for the disturbance and asks when I would like her to make the bed and whether I need anything. A clean towel? The hot water ration is actually finished for the day. It’s obvious that I’ve slept in my clothes and she scrutinises me. I also notice her scanning the room. The toolbox is open on the bedside table but her gaze freezes on the loose door leaning against the wardrobe.
I stand up and say I’ll fix the door.
“I’ll take care of it.” Yes, that’s how I put it.
She watches me fetch the drill and box of screws and tells me that her brother had told her I was on vacation. I sense it’s really a question, the bit about me being on vacation. She looks at me, waiting for me to counter her assertion.
“Yes, that’s right, I’m on vacation.”
“Not much luggage, mister?”
I explain to her that I’m only making a short stop.
“I won’t be long,” I say.
In fact, it’s written in black and white on the reservation that I’ll be staying for a week.
I notice the curiosity in her expression and expect her to ask me what I’m doing with a drill on vacation. She doesn’t. Instead she repeats what her brother said the day before, that it’s kind of weird that they haven’t had guests for many months and then suddenly three in the same week.
“So we hope the truce will last and that tourists will come back again. We need currency,” she adds.
She stands watching me as I screw the door back into place. That’s quickly done. She tests the door with one hand and eagerly thanks me.
The shirt I came with hangs on a wooden hanger inside the wardrobe.
The door to the corridor is open and a brief moment later a short being appears. It’s a boy. He shoots past the woman with a towel tied around his shoulders, which he uses as a cape, and runs one circle around the room before vanishing again through the door, down the corridor.
I sense her becoming insecure and she says something to the boy as he whizzes away.
“He’s flying,” she says apologetically. “He doesn’t play with the other children.”
Could this be her own child she’s brought to work? When it comes to it—once I’ve chosen the day—I’ll tell her she can’t bring the boy in. Let’s say Tuesday of next week. I could decide it here and now and it will be Tuesday of next week.
I grab the opportunity and ask her straight-out:
“Your son?”
She nods and says the kindergarten is still closed, but that he should be starting school in the autumn.
“If they’ve finished fixing the building,” she says, adding that she can’t bear the thought of leaving the child on his own, nor allowing him to play outside because he could wander into an area of land mines. Some are to be found on soccer fields and playgrounds.
Not only do the young siblings have to run Hotel Silence, they also have to take care of a child.
“We came here towards the end of
