Motherland Hotel

by Yusuf Atilgan

  So far into the night, who…? Three more short rings. Didn’t they see the hotel was CLOSED? He waited. No sound came. Pulling the quilt up he lay back and closed his eyes. Who could it have been? A wanted man? A traveler who had missed connections? Someone who had fought with his wife in bed? A whore who had failed to please? The woman off the delayed train from Ankara? “She can go to hell,” he said very quietly.

  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. He set down his pen. They were smiling as they appeared, the woman made up, the man wan-looking. They were possibly the last guests who would stay here.

  “Good morning to you.”

  “Good morning.”

  The man went for his back pocket.

  “Never mind. You were my guests last night.”

  “Oh, but we wouldn’t think of….”

  “Please. I insist. Do you have a cigarette?”

  The man reached out a pack with his left hand and with his right held the flame of a yellow lighter to the tip.

  “You’re very kind.”

  He shrank back into the chair and felt the color drain from his face.

  “It’s not kindness,” he said.

  “See you soon.”

  “Soon? But we’ll be closed for a while.”

  “Why is that? What for?”

  “Various things. The cleaning and so on should take a month.”

  “Really? Well, be good to yourself.”

  “Goodbye,” the woman said.

  “Goodbye.”

  The two left together. Obviously they no longer worried about being seen. He finished his cigarette and crushed it out before taking up the pen. When he had filled out the money order he opened the safe and emptied all the cash from the hotel envelope onto the desk. Faruk Bey’s share went into his inside pocket along with the postal order, and the maid’s wage into her envelope. When the proceeds for the first three days of November had been tucked into the hotel envelope he put the remainder of his month’s wages in his back pocket and replaced the envelope. Then he transferred a single lira from the copper bowl on the shelf to the one below. He shut the safe, took a week’s worth of forms from the drawer, and put these in his pocket. The clock showed almost nine.

  He left the hotel and locked the door. It was a mild, sunny day. The people out on the street had the look of being led someplace unawares. At the post office Zeberjet waited behind a gray-haired man with a hump back, then handed across the money. The clerk gave him a receipt and glanced up.

  “Are you related to Faruk Kecheji?”

  “We’re cousins. His father, my mother.”

  He left the post office, turned right at the main intersection, and strolled to the police station near the courthouse, which he had passed on his way to send the money order. He pushed open the windowed double doors and encountered the same smell that always awaited him back at the hotel when he’d been out. People came through doorways or sat on benches in the wide corridor. Taking out the forms, he was headed toward a door to the right that stood ajar when a voice on the other side, deep and masculine, stopped him in his tracks. “For the record! To question put, colon, declares husband deserted of his own will.” A typewriter clacked. Some woman was crying, and the deep voice came again. “Pipe down, woman, or I’ll throw you out.” A policeman carrying several sheets of paper approached Zeberjet.

  “What is it? What are you standing around for?”

  “I brought these in.”

  “What are they?”

  “Check-in forms, from the hotel.”

  “Ah. In there.”

  A whole tray of tea-glasses and small coffee-cups, each covered with a saucer, went in through the indicated door, casually swung open by its round, hanging handle in the grip of a white-aproned boy. Zeberjet followed. “What kept you?” “Just letting it steep, abi.” The room, full of file-choked glass cabinets, had three desks at which two uniformed men were seated and a third, in civilian clothing, who wore glasses. The boy had set down the required tea and moved on. The man dropped both sugar cubes into his tea and then glanced up over the rim of his glasses.

  “Was there something?”

  “I’ve brought the hotel forms.”

  “Put them there.”

  Zeberjet laid the forms on a thick log-book at one corner of the cluttered desk. The man, elderly and moon-faced, sat impassively stirring his tea. The hands were brown, with a ring …

  “That’s all. What are you waiting for?”

  …on the middle finger. He collected his wits.

  “I’ve always sent these in with the newsboy. From now on I’ll be bringing them myself.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  The policeman at the desk to the left spoke.

  “He could mail them in.”

  During the laughter that followed, the moon face was wreathed in wrinkles. Zeberjet turned and went out of the room and out of the station. It was a mild, sunny day. A bus had just unloaded some passengers in front of the courthouse and was slowly getting under way again, as a youngster hung out the back door shouting “Izmir, Izmir, Izmir,” then banged the door shut when the bus picked up speed. The company used to sing while marching, “Ankara, Ankara, lovely Ankara.” A smoke. He crossed the street to a grocer’s and bought cigarettes, matches, tea, sugar, canned goods, bread, sausage, and cheese.

  Upon opening the hotel door and entering, he sniffed. Same smell as always. He emptied his package in the pantry and arranged the contents. The cigarettes and matches he put in the middle drawer of his desk. As he was headed for the stairs, meaning to straighten up in Room 6, th
e door opened. There stood two youths, one short, the other of medium build. They were cleanly dressed.

  “Hello. Are you the hotel-keeper?”

  “I am, but we’re all full.”

  “We don’t plan to stay. The bey sent us from the village.”

  “From the village? What bey?”

  His voice was constricted. The youth leered and nudged his shorter companion.

  “Hear that? ‘What bey?’”

  “I heard,” said the other.

  “What bey do you think? The veterinarian. We’ve come to get the towel.”

  Zeberjet’s right hand leaned on the desktop.

  “Towel? What do you mean?”

  “The towel. A woman who came to visit the bey left it here. Two weeks back.”

  “Woman? Woman?”

  “A good-looking woman. She stayed here for one night.”

  “Oh, I remember. It was a Thursday. Is she in the village now?”

  “No, she’s left. We brought her to town Friday to catch the train.”

  “How are she and this bey related?”

  The boy leered.

  “Hear that? ‘How are she and this bey related?’”

  “I heard,” said the other.

  “Never mind how they’re related. Just give us the towel.”

  The towel no longer mattered. But how could he give it to them with all that dried crust?

  “I haven’t seen any towel.”

  “It had yellow and red stripes. And black. She described it to the bey.”

  “Well, I told you I haven’t seen it.”

  The boy stiffened.

  “Look here,” he said, “she wouldn’t lie.”

  “It’s the maid who cleans the rooms. Why don’t we go up, though, and have a look.”

  He picked out the key to Room 2. As they were climbing the boy spoke.

  “Make sure you don’t try anything.”

  There was no point, but still he put the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door. His eyes widened. The towel hung over the foot of the bed. He felt a shove from behind, and one of the boys cursed. Zeberjet picked up the towel. It was a replica of the one in the room below, with broad red and yellow stripes and narrow black ones. The boy yanked it away from him. Zeberjet’s legs were shaking and he sat down on the bed. A stack of newspapers lay on the chair. So the Retired Officer, then, had left his towel, too.

  “…with this liar?”

  “Beat him up, maybe.”

  “No, he might snap.”

  “We could tie him to the bed.”

  “Have to have a rope.”

  They were standing by the window.

  “Look, there’s a clothesline in the shed.”

  “Run and get it.”

  The dark, shorter boy ran out. This other one was fair-haired with regular features. No one but a peasant could have those strong, raw-boned hands, which held the towel, now folded. Whoever this veterinarian bey was would take it for hers. So she had stayed there in the village for two weeks. Friday morning….

  “This bey, the veterinarian. Did he come to see her off?”

  “How could he? A horse threw him last month. Broke his leg in two places. It’s still in a cast.”

  “His name wouldn’t be Ömer?”

  “Ömer? Ömer who?”

  “Black Mustafa’s son.”

  “Him? He got himself shot last summer. His own brother is supposed to have set him up.”

  Zeberjet lay down on the bed. The boy stood watching the yard. He waved an arm and said in a clipped voice, “Hurry up about it.” He looked over. “Bedtime?”

  “I felt dizzy.”

  “This tying up business scares you.”

  “That’s not it. You can’t go through with it anyhow. Someone will come and turn me loose. Naturally they’ll have questions. Around evening two gendarmes will come to the village and…. ”

  “What can you tell them? Don’t forget about the towel.”

  “I didn’t know it was here.”

  “Who else was going to know? You run the place.”

  Meaning he was responsible for whatever happened there.

  “True, but I’ll have to tell them something. People don’t just get tied up.”

  “You don’t know us.”

  “I’ll say the veterinarian sent you. The gendarme will know where to look.”

  The boy’s face clouded, darkening. He scratched his ass. At the sound of footsteps on the stairs he went to the door and called out.

  “That you?”

  “It’s me.”

  When the clothesline was brought over he took it to toss onto the bed. The towel was in his left hand.

  “Let’s get out of here. This runt’s going to land us in trouble.”

  Zeberjet laughed curtly. “I told you. Are you tying me up?”

  The boy cursed and took his companion by the arm.

  “Let’s go,” he said. Then, “You don’t need to be tied up.”

  They left the room and he called out after them.

  “You’re chicken is what. All you peasants are chickens.”

  They swore, but kept on going. The hotel door slammed shut. Zeberjet coiled up the clothesline that lay spread over his legs in a messy heap, and placed it on the bedside table. He remained lying there, locking his hands under his head. His eyes were fixed on a reflection in the white lampshade overhead. The window that looked out at the mountain. Three of them, including Muhittin the Kurd, had played hooky that May afternoon, climbing up the mountainside to look for sorrel and stolen cherries. A sudden cloudburst sent them scuttling, half-drowned, for the shelter of nearby boulders. They were soaked through. The rain cut them off from everything. And he had cried. “His mother thought she bore a son….” Back down the mountain at Keskidere they’d stood shivering in a shepherd’s hut, drying off by a fire he built for them. “…brother is supposed to have set him up.” Ömer, with his billowing white robe rolled up, hopping from one buffalo back to another across the stream. Zeberjet had thought it might be Ömer she was visiting. The towel those errand boys had taken…. Were she and the R.O. related? Their paths had crossed as she left the hotel that morning. “The room that woman had, who just left….” “She hasn’t checked out, sir.” Too unlikely. Perhaps they’d bought towels at the same store in Ankara. He sat up and got off the bed, straightened his sweater and jacket, smoothed the quilt. He’d have to make the bed upstairs, too. But when he got there, he found the bed in Room 6 already made. He raised the quilt and saw a small wet spot in the middle starting to dry. The pillowcase bore two pale red smears. Someone was knocking on the desk downstairs.