A woman speaks to me and I’ve immediately started to repeat her. She says she was born and raised in this country but moved abroad long before the war.
“We shot a movie here back then. It was popular to shoot films in these parts that were meant to be set somewhere else completely.”
She speaks, I shut up.
I like to sit opposite a woman and to shut up.
“I stood here on the last day of the shoot,” she says, pointing at the square in front of the hotel. “My costar stood there,” she continues, pointing again. “He stretched out his hand when a shot was fired. The filming went badly. We did the scene six times and used gallons of artificial blood. We had good fun in the evening. It was all make-believe. Then it turned into reality and the movie felt phoney.”
She suddenly falls silent and looks around. The man from room number nine has disappeared.
“In the months preceding the outbreak of hostilities, people started to vanish from the face of the earth, journalists, university lecturers, artists. Then ordinary people from next door. People weren’t prepared for the need to adopt the right opinions about the government. Entire families disappeared like they’d never existed. By then the country was suddenly full of weapons.”
We both shut up.
“People are gripped by despair when they realise what the situation is, but can’t change it,” she says finally.
She leans over the table and looks straight at me. And lowers her voice.
“There used to be a zoo in town,” she continues, “but the animals were shot at the beginning of the war. They say that one wild animal managed to escape. People aren’t sure of the species, but they say it was a big male beast, some say a tiger, others a leopard, and others again a panther. Various stories are told about what became of it. Some even say the beast is managing the reconstruction.”
She adjusts the scarf around her neck again, finishes her cup of coffee, and scoops the sugar from the bottom with a spoon.
Then she says she’s on her way into the country but will be back in ten days. Her plan is to visit some members of her family, but also to scout for locations for a documentary and look for interviewees.
“The documentary is about how women handle communities after a war,” she adds, brandishing a rolled-up script. “They also shoulder the responsibility for keeping the family together and it’s a terrible strain.”
She says something else, but I’m thinking of the emphasis she placed on the fact that she is returning. She wants to know if I will have left when she comes back.
“Will you be gone? In ten days’ time?” she asks with feigned nonchalance.
I reflect on this. In the land of death there isn’t the same urgency to die.
“No, I don’t expect to be gone,” I say. And I think, this is the kind of place to linger in.
There are so many voices in the world and none of them is without meaning
May is waiting for me when I return to the room. She has a formal request to make. That’s precisely how she words it:
“I have a formal request for you,” she says.
She’s wearing a black blouse and draws a deep breath as she shuffles her feet in the doorway.
“My brother and I had a chat and decided to ask you if you could help us with some small repairs at the hotel. To be more precise, a few small jobs.”
She pauses.
“That is to say, when you’re not sightseeing.” The use of the term sightseeing seems slightly alien to her.
She says they can’t pay me much for it because they haven’t had many tourists yet, that is to say, apart from the three of us—me, the lady, and the man—and therefore they’ve had no revenue yet. They would rather pay with bed and board. It occurred to her, for example, that I might want to prolong my stay and extend my vacation with more vacation. She says this hesitantly, as if she were trying out the words together, vacation and vacation. And stay for an extra two weeks. Even three. That would include room and breakfast.
“Fifi and I discussed this last night and we agree.”
What exactly they agree on, she doesn’t say.
She edges into the room and stands in front of me. Her hair is in a ponytail, like Waterlily’s.
“There’s a shortage of men,” she says. “And tools. Those who didn’t die in the war or flee the country are busy doing other things. A whole generation of men disappeared. Foreign contractors don’t fix cupboard doors and doorknobs.”
I tell her what I’ve told her before, that I’m neither a carpenter nor a plumber. And not an electrician either.
“You have a drill.”
I give this some thought.
Since I’ve already told the actress that I will be here when she comes back in about a week’s time, I need to have something to do. Which is why I say:
“I really want to help you. I can’t do everything,” I add, “but I can do some things.”
She smiles from ear to ear.
Then she turns serious again.
“Any chance you could start tomorrow?”
“If you like, I can start straightaway,” I say.
HOMO HABILIS 1 (HANDYMAN 1)
There are sixteen bedrooms and it takes us a while to find the keys that fit the locks. We move between floors and May opens and closes doors. We step into dusty rooms, she pulls back the curtains and shows me what needs to be fixed.
Most of them are small repairs I can easily cope with, although I would have wanted to have better tools with me. I think of my bigger toolboxes in my basement on the other side of the ocean. It transpires that many of the cupboard doors are hanging on just one hinge, and locks, knobs, and window handles need to be repaired. I also need to check the pipes, switches,
