Jakob started at the very bottom, as a commis de rang. He filled the heavy crystal carafes with Seltzer water, lighted the candles in the candelabra and plate warmers, and polished the knives, forks and spoons. Meantime, he had an opportunity to study the waiters both at close range and from afar, noting their every movement, every facial expression and flick of the wrist. After only a few days he felt capable of emulating them and itched to do so. He said as much to Erneste, but it was a while before he was allowed near an occupied table.
He spent three weeks performing his lowly tasks in the big dining room, which contained some twenty-five tables of various sizes. Not only did he perform them to Monsieur Flamin’s entire satisfaction, but no complaints were heard from any other quarter. He silently disposed of anything deposited on the serving table, whether used napkins, brimming ashtrays, snapped toothpicks, or dirty plates and glasses.
One night he was privileged to be personally introduced to Herr Direktor Wagner. The manager gave him a benevolent smile, patted him on the shoulder, said, “Good work, my boy,” and walked on. Jakob didn’t see him again for days, but he learned the same night why Wagner showed his face so seldom, unlike his wife: he suffered from violent bouts of depression. When overcome by one of these fits of melancholia he would closet himself in his darkened office for days on end, incommunicado to anyone but his wife. He slept in his clothes, didn’t wash, and had to be coaxed to eat.
Jakob knew that a commis de rang could speak above a murmur only when directly addressed by guests and in the absence of any senior waiter who could have hurried to their aid, for instance when they inquired the way to the cloakroom—by which, of course, they meant not the cloakroom but the facility situated beyond it, namely, the toilettes. For a waiter to indicate the way to the toilettes by pointing, let alone jerking his chin in their direction, would warrant his dismissal if the manager spotted him. Consequently, everyone strove to observe the correct etiquette. None of the Grand Hotel’s employees found this difficult, for uncouth individuals did not apply for jobs as waiters; they became butchers or bricklayers.
Jakob also learned that it was extremely impolite for waiters of any rank to converse together in the presence of guests. Such conversations were permissible only when one waiter’s inability to answer a guest’s inquiry rendered it essential for him to consult another. Jakob acquired many tips of this kind during the next few weeks, not only thanks to Erneste but from personal experience, by closely observing various situations of a similar nature. As Erneste had grasped the very first day, Jakob was alert, adaptable and coolheaded. He got everything right the first time and appeared to see and hear all that mattered without ever giving the impression that he was watching and listening from curiosity alone. He never seemed indiscreet, absorbed and assimilated all he saw, and did not forget a thing once he had learned it. Like any efficient waiter, he soon conveyed the feeling that he had no personal interest in what was going on around him but was solely intent on doing right by the guests, which also meant treating them with complete impartiality.
On the morning of Jakob’s second day at work, Erneste accompanied him to the tailoring department, which was housed in the former spa hotel that had closed around the turn of the century. This rather dilapidated building, which was situated a few hundred yards from the hotel and could not be seen from there, also accommodated the short-term seasonal workers, the linen store, and the clothing store. The latter contained all the various garments which, having been unpicked and restitched again and again, had clothed and would continue to clothe generations of waiters and chambermaids. While they came and went in quick succession, the aprons and blouses, trousers and jackets on the shelves and hangers calmly awaited their resuscitation by the lithe young bodies that would replenish them with flesh and life for varying periods.
The person in charge of the clothing store was Frau Adamowicz from Geneva, who also ran the hotel’s tailoring department. Polish by birth, brought up in Switzerland, and trained as a couturière in Paris, she presided over her realm of slumbering garments as prudently and incorruptibly as she did over the three needlewomen who, with bowed heads and nimble fingers, toiled in her service from early in the morning until late at night. She never took her eyes off them, and despite her cool manner, which might have been only a veneer, she loved them like an elder sister immune from all criticism. They were delighted when words of praise escaped her lips but didn’t expect them, and they humbly accepted her reproofs but weren’t surprised by them, knowing that they were constantly in her thoughts because she disliked thinking of herself—if she ever did so. Her only child was said to have died in infancy, but she never alluded to it. Rumors were all that was known.
That Frau Adamowicz’s minions did a good job was plain to see. The three women, of whom the eldest had been employed at Giessbach for nineteen years, repaired napkins and tablecloths, bedspreads and sheets day after day. They also tailored garments for new employees in accordance with Frau Adamowicz’s instructions. If she was out the new employees would be sent away and told to come back later, because she alone was entitled to take their measurements. She also submitted every napkin and tablecloth, sheet and bedspread to personal inspection before handing it over to be repaired, or, if it was no longer fit for guests, weeded it out and tossed it onto the cleaning-rag pile after tearing it into strips with her own hands.
Erneste and Jakob entered the tailoring department at a quarter past ten, after a late breakfast. Frau Adamowicz’s minions were seated at their work, one of the four sewing machines was in use, and the room smelled of glowing coals and dried flowers. The three women looked up and smiled without speaking. Frau Adamowicz, who was bound to have heard the men come in, would appear before long.
She emerged from the clothing store, almost simultaneously removing her glasses and putting them in her apron pocket. The ends of the tape measure around her neck reposed on her bosom, and a pincushion worn like a bracelet jutted menacingly from her left wrist. Her appearance in the sewing room was preceded by an unaccountable stir, as if she were propelling the air along in front of her.
Erneste introduced Jakob to the four women. He had scarcely uttered Jakob’s name when Frau Adamowicz repeated it: “Jakob? Meier?” She replaced her glasses, went over to her cutting table and proceeded to leaf through a bulky ledger, starting at the back. Having found a blank page, she wrote something on it, then looked up and surveyed Jakob from head to foot. “Now we’ll take your measurements,” she said, pulling the tape measure from around her neck. “Kindly remove your jacket. Stand up straight, please don’t shuffle from foot to foot, and keep your head up.” Her French was so clearly enunciated that even Jakob could understand it in spite of her Polish accent.
While she was preparing to take his measurements, Erneste sat down beside the window, where he could watch the three needlewomen as well as Jakob and Frau Adamowicz. One of them rose and went over to the cutting table, picked up a pencil and bent over the ledger.
Although physical contact with Jakob was an unavoidable part of the measuring process, Frau Adamowicz went about her work in a characteristically easy, experienced manner. Without any misplaced shyness, she did whatever she had to do to give the new trainee waiter a spruce appearance. Erneste, seated on his chair, found it easy to put himself in her place. He watched her without blushing, following her practiced, authoritative movements with rapt attention. He stared spellbound at the slowly moving image, his eyes tracing the course of her hands as they traveled across Jakob’s body. No one asked why he didn’t leave the room. None of the others did.
Frau Adamowicz started at the top. She encircled Jakob’s neck with the tape measure and tightened it until there was room between it and his throat for her forefinger, nothing more. Her assistant noted down the collar size in the employees’ measurement book.
Frau Adamowicz’s instructions were unmistakable, although she didn’t speak particularly loudly. “Spread your arms,” she said, and Jakob promptly did as he was told: he
stretched out his arms at right angles to his body. Little patches of sweat had formed under his armpits. As he spread his arms, the cuffs of his soft shirt rode up and exposed his wrists. One of the needlewomen looked up. The one who was taking down the measurements stared intently at the ledger and waited. Her forefinger exerted so much pressure on the pencil that the lead snapped.
When Frau Adamowicz came to measure Jakob’s chest, he involuntarily deflated it a little. “No, don’t,” she said. It seemed she’d been expecting him to do just that because everyone reacted in the same way. “Stand up straight, absolutely straight, and look straight ahead,” was all she said, and Jakob resumed his upright stance. She stood on tiptoe and leaned forward a little, put the tape measure around his chest, and tightened it over his breastbone. “Breathe in. Now breathe out.” Her assistant, who had meantime sharpened the pencil, jotted down two figures under the heading “Chest Measurement”. The two women seemed to be trying to outdo each other in conscientiousness.
“That was for shirts, vests, and jackets.” Frau Adamowicz probably said that to every candidate at this stage of the proceedings. If so, each of her three assistants must have been expecting to hear the words at precisely that juncture. She had said the same thing to Erneste, too, when he first arrived. Next, she applied one end of the tape measure to Jakob’s left shoulder and measured the length of his left arm, first to the elbow, then to the wrist, first extended, then bent. After that she measured his right arm in the same way. No two arms are identical, Erneste reflected, and Jakob was probably thinking the same at that very moment.
Jakob’s armpit hair felt silky. It was moist and somewhat fairer than the hair on his head. Erneste couldn’t see it now, but he had seen it that morning, while Jakob was washing. He was sitting twenty feet away, but he could distinctly feel it on the back of his hand.
Before going down on her knees, Frau Adamowicz stooped and put the tape measure around Jakob’s waist, hips and buttocks. She called out a series of measurements, which were noted down and, on one occasion, erased and rewritten in short order. “Spread your legs a little,” she said, and Jakob’s rubber soles squeaked as he complied. A moment later he was standing there with his legs apart, just as she wanted—but not too far apart, because he froze when she abruptly called, “Stop!”
The two men’s eyes met as Frau Adamowicz applied the tape measure to the inside of Jakob’s left thigh, exerting gentle pressure on it with her thumb. She ran the tape down to his knee, then to his ankle, called out a figure and then, to be on the safe side, repeated the process in two stages, from the top of the thigh to the knee and from there to the ankle. She shifted her weight onto the other knee and turned to the left slightly in order to measure Jakob’s right inside leg. Erneste, still holding his gaze over the top of her head, flushed suddenly. Jakob lowered his eyes: he had understood. Frau Adamowicz straightened up, and the blood slowly receded from Erneste’s cheeks. What had Jakob grasped that he hadn’t known already?
Frau Adamowicz had now taken all his measurements, but he wouldn’t, of course, get a tailor-made suit. None of the Grand Hotel’s employees got tailor-made suits, nor would any of them have dreamed of expecting one; you contented yourself with what you were given. Four efficient women were at work here, so you could rely on their producing a good job—one in which you would look presentable. Only senior employees who had seen something of the world possessed suits of their own, for instance Monsieur Flamin and the chef de réception, who had worked in Cairo, Paris, and London.
Frau Adamowicz turned and disappeared into the clothing store, from which she soon emerged bearing one of the waiter’s outfits customarily worn at Giessbach’s Grand Hotel: black tails, vest, and shirt with a starched dickey. The system that prevailed in the clothing store enabled Frau Adamowicz, who never allowed things to get out of hand, to locate them quickly. She hung the garments in Jakob’s size over a chair and stepped back. The assistant who had entered Jakob’s measurements in the ledger had returned to her place and was removing pins from the hem of a chambermaid’s dress draped over her knees and trailing on the floor.
Frau Adamowicz asked Jakob to try the things on, so he started to undress. She turned away and her three assistants concentrated on their work. Erneste and Jakob might almost have been alone in the room. Jakob continued to undress while Erneste looked on. Frau Adamowicz, who had discreetly turned her back, was facing in Erneste’s direction, but he refused to be deterred by her gaze. What, after all, could she see, other than one young man watching another just as he might have watched himself undressing in a mirror? However talented she might be at putting herself in another person’s place, she couldn’t read his thoughts. His face was expressionless.
Jakob unbuttoned his shirt, took it off, and tossed it onto a chair. He was wearing an undershirt, darned in several places, the sleeves of which came down to his elbows. He stooped to undo his shoelaces, removed his black shoes and put them under the chair that was serving him as a clothes rack. He smoothed his hair down with his right hand as he straightened up, and the sleeve of his undershirt rode up far enough to expose his upper arm. It was slender but muscular, even though he wasn’t accustomed to manual labor. He unbuckled his belt and undid his fly buttons. He pulled the belt out of his waistband with a snap, then pulled his trousers down over his buttocks and thighs with both hands, raised his right leg, bent forward, gripped his right trouser leg by the cuff and slid it over his calf, ankle, and foot. He climbed out of the other trouser leg in just the same way—just as Erneste himself would have done. Any man would have done the same in Jakob’s situation. It was the most natural series of movements in the world, but to Erneste it was something special.
Jakob was quite unembarrassed. Erneste found this remarkable, because he was naturally entitled, if not duty-bound, to display at least a hint of embarrassment. But he didn’t seem to mind being watched while undressing. Erneste sat there without moving, anxious not to miss a single phase of the process. Jakob was still holding his belt, which dangled against his leg and brushed the floor. He wound it around his right hand and deposited it on the chair, where the leather coil loosened a little like a spring unwinding.
Jakob looked good in his underwear. Erneste almost wished the four women could see his friend as he was now, as he himself was seeing him, but they didn’t look up and continued to concentrate on their work. They must surely have been under instructions not to embarrass the men who came to try on clothes by watching them. Erneste counted himself lucky to be a man. Being a man, he could watch.
He went over to help Jakob try on his waiter’s outfit. He handed him the trousers, but Jakob wanted the shirt first. Erneste took it from the chair and unfolded it. Since Jakob made no move to take the garment, Erneste unbuttoned it for him and went around the back to help him on with it. Jakob, who was slightly taller than Erneste, stooped and bent his left arm behind him. He missed the sleeve opening, so Erneste grasped his wrist. Jakob didn’t recoil at his touch. His skin was cool and firm, smooth and hairless. Trembling a little, Erneste guided Jakob’s left arm into the sleeve. Then he did the same with the right arm. This time Jakob made no attempt to find the opening. He left it up to Erneste, submitted to his guidance, bent his arm behind him and waited for Erneste to grasp it. Erneste did so. He tightened his grip on Jakob’s wrist and guided it into the sleeve. The hand did not pull away, it tensed. It was the hand of a man, a resolute man.
While Jakob was buttoning up the shirt, which smelled faintly of starch, Erneste smoothed it down for him. As he patted it down over his shoulders and back with both hands, he could feel what lay beneath them: little protrusions and hollows, shoulders, shoulder blades and armpits, alternations of firm and soft. But he could sense that Frau Adamowicz was growing impatient. One last touch, and he detached himself from Jakob’s shadow and came and stood in front of him, passing him the trousers, belt and vest in turn. He stood in front of Jakob, only inches from him, and watched his legs disappear into the black t
rousers at close range, and while Jakob was buttoning them up he looked into Erneste’s eyes, and when he smiled Erneste knew that he was lost: that he had gained something and forfeited it at the same time—that the profit he had made would be his loss. He had a strange presentiment, a vague sense of something incomprehensible, something that lurked behind his excitement as if concealed by a bright façade and was trying to signal its presence by means of unintelligible signs; something foolish and distressing, some threat he wanted no part of, some foolish, distressing threat that lay behind the happiness and joy that surged through him. Erneste couldn’t swim, but he wouldn’t have drowned had he jumped into the lake at that moment; he would have swum far out, unafraid of failing to reach the opposite shore. But he also knew that he would be happy only while Jakob was happy too, and that he must make him happy to preserve his own happiness. He had captured Jakob’s attention—succeeded in doing what he hadn’t dared to hope for. He didn’t possess Jakob yet; he was obsessed with him.
But time was passing and they had to be quick. Erneste continued to stand beside Jakob until he was fully dressed. Then he took two paces to the rear. The tails were an almost perfect fit. Frau Adamowicz, who had turned around by this time, took a piece of tailor’s chalk and marked the minor alterations to be made to the trousers. “Germans are always the tallest,” she said, and Jakob grinned. “Yes,” Erneste said with a proud smile, “you’re right.”
Chapter 4
On October 5, 1966, three weeks after Jakob’s first letter, almost to the day, Erneste received some more mail from the States, same sender, same address. Unlike the first letter, however, this one left no room for hope. It merely confirmed Erneste’s worst fears. He had counted on getting another letter, it was true, but he hadn’t expected it so soon. Jakob was hurrying him along.
A Perfect Waiter Page 4