Hotel Adelsheville: Chapter One
Let me begin with a description of sorts: Ang was a town with few amenities, but was a stop for many travelers on their way south to the city. On a hill north of the main street, beyond the small shops and eateries stood erect, a lofty structure, the Hotel Adelsheville.
It stood fourteen stories tall with small balconies on every room numbering up to one hundred and twenty-two. Doric pillars decorated the front of the building, though their plaster cracked visibly and some of the white pallor had rusted from age along their fine edges. The steps guiding upwards and into the lobby were colored burgundy, though now they held a brownish hue, much like dried blood coagulating on flesh. Outside, the Hotel seemed worn and outdated, there was talk years ago of destroying the building, and the motion was readily received, but for whatever reason, the bill was shuffled away and the Hotel remained.
The lobby was finely in shape despite the somewhat shabbiness of the exterior. Large glass and crystal chandeliers hung enormous from the depressions in the ceiling, and the black marble floors reflected their elegance. Maroon tapestries swept across the walls casting a glow and created an air that made them almost hum in a solemn meditation. Large ebony skinned overstuffed chairs greeted one another across cast iron and glass tables, but remained quite contained. The marvel of the lobby, however, was not based in colorful antiques; instead, it was the bookcases. They stretched vastly from one end of the room to the other with two foot gaps between them for the floor to ceiling windows. They stood mighty with four tall ladders attached to reach the top shelf (Our guests, though, were not permitted to climb these—liability issues, I suppose). The books were of subjects varying immensely, from Tolstoy to Salinger, from encyclopedia to atlas, the information available was more than any man could gorge in his own lifetime. The desk, where I spent most of my time, was directly across from the bookshelves and overlooking the easy chairs and general area. It was forged from the same black marble as the floor and rose to my chest. There was at all times to be only one thing to be displayed on this counter, and that was a tiny iron bell that one could dangle side to side should I be somewhere other than my post. My boss, the caretaker, was very serious about this bell, it had been the same bell used to summon since the Hotel was opened in 1895; the bell was not to be anywhere else than this place for all of eternity it would seem.
It was an October Morning and quite cold, beads of snow froze against my skin exposed only in the face. The main street was silent, lights flickering only in scarce windows; I was the only soul on the pavement at all. My steps were quick in black leather shoes. I remember not wanting to scuff or wet the shoes as they had belonged to a guest, one whom had left his bag in his room. I did not make a vicious habit of searching through others things, but this bag had been left with us for weeks post departure. There was also a small amount of money that I kept, two oxford button downs, and a tweed jacket. I preferred only the shoes, however, finding that both the shirts and coat were a bit tight in the shoulders. I hurried down the cut cement and scuttled around patches of ice.
The Hotel was just ahead, though shrouded in a blue mist rising from old ore mines found in the hills. This particular morning, as I weaved towards work, I witnessed a stray dog huddled and quivering against a metal trash can beside the Ang Place Bar. I stopped for a moment to observe the dog. It was yellow in spots, but some of the fur was bunched unnaturally in clumps of dirty black and there were equal spots of mange. His ribs almost pierced his flesh from malnutrition. I bent down, but remembered the fleas and ticks amongst other diseases the dog could be carrying. I stood back up, the dog had yet to move, his snout buried into the dark place between the can and the wall, he could not see me. Thick heavy breaths gave steady rise to its chest. I took my right foot and guided it slowly over the dog, running the sole of my shoe across its coat from its backside to its neck. I angled my toe against the tuft of fur, the dog still, it seemed, unaware of my presence and with most of my weight I forced my foot down and crushed the dog’s spine. It never let out a sound. The only assurance of death was the cessation of deep heavy breaths giving rise to its chest. I took my white rag handkerchief from my left pocket and polished my right shoe. I remember thinking that I had better move fast; I might be late for work.
When I arrived in the lobby of Adelsheville, a small man stood waiting at the counter and was reaching for the bell. Hurriedly, I ran across the black marble floor and before he could ring it, I grasped the iron in my hand and prevented the noise from alerting Mr. Cordial, the caretaker, to my tardiness.
“Yes, sir, how may I be of assistance?”
“I think I need a room.”
“Of course, sir, will you be staying with us long?”
I took out the necessary papers to assign him a room and to make the arrangements for his signature.
“I’m not sure, where is this place?”
“You are in the Hotel Adelsheville, Sir, the number one hotel in upstate New York, we have plenty of fine accommodations, suites, doubles, conjoining rooms, which would you prefer?”
“New York…New York.”
The man seemed astonished in his own thoughts; I had no use for his foolery, so I assigned him room twenty-seven, and pushed the registry to his hand resting on the counter.
“Sir, will you need any assistance with your luggage?”
“Bags, no, I don’t think so.”
I inserted a pen into a crack between his thumb and forefinger urging him to finish the signature.
“Very well, if you will just make your mark here on the line them you will find that the elevator on the left will take you straight to your room and if you should need anything else, my name is Jefferson, please do not hesitate to ring me, I shall remain ever close to this desk, and a ring on the phone will keep me at beck and call.”
I smiled joyously and held a key dangling from a red oval piece of plastic adorning the number twenty-seven.
“Yes, twenty-seven, thank you.”
The little man, Mr. Abram Adams according to the registry, took very slow indistinct steps away from the counter, I could not be sure of his motives; everyone has motives. I replaced the registry and stepped to the back office to speak with Mr. Cordial and receive the news for the day.
“Mr. Cordial and how nice it is to see you this morning.”
The room was dark, illuminated only by a small desk lamp. There were mountains of paper lining the walls, newspaper clippings and such, and books creating small pillars in front of and beside his wooden antique desk. Mr. Cordial was a very old man, who as far as I knew was forever living in this Hotel. I had never seen him leave, nor arrive. His eyes were impossible to see, mounds of flesh squeezed together as folds over deep sockets. His head was bald with small strings of courageous hair shooting from scattered regions of his skull. He was seated and hunched with visible scoliosis and wheezing with a long endured case of emphysema; an ashtray full of cigarette butts caught my attention. His mounds rose to gaze upon me and he stared, I believe for quite some time. With no word, Mr. Cordial swung the weight of his arm by shifting his chest and his hand landed with a pop upon the desk. His fingers worked as spider legs pulling his arm across the table towards his spectacles folded neatly in the center of the table. With the same technique he pulled them back to him as an ant might bring a large crumb on its back to feed his queen. Lowering his liver spotted skull to the wood, he unfolded the glasses, put them on over his mounds and studied a piece of paper with muddled cursive pen marks.
“Mr. Striker, the fourth floor needs repair, there is a tear in the insulation…along with this, the bookcases need polishing, the boiler needs checking and…”
He moved his gaze back to me, or rather towards the floor.
“Where did you get those shoes, Mr. Striker?”
“They were a gift, Sir, a very nice gift, and if there is nothing else, I will begin my duties.”
He gave a defiant grunt, and I left. When I arrived via elevator on the fourth floor, a sweet cool breeze hit me at the feet. Perhaps the old man was right; the insulation had sprung a leak. How he knew these things was always a mystery, he never moved from the room, and most news, or so I understood, came through me. A dreadful spy network, I conclude, with tiny invisible eyes staring at itchful spots on my body. I chuckled to myself.
The maid, Ingrid Belafon, left her cart in front of one of the suites on the East wing, the door propped open with a wedge of newspaper. I strolled by, swaying from side to side and pulled three soap bars individually wrapped from her cart and slinked by casually. The walls had a green fabric shining dully against warm flickering lights spotted along the hallway after every step or two rising just above my shoulders on both sides. My approach to the window grew increasingly colder, and my feet felt the chill even through the leather. I stopped four feet in front of the massive glass pane and pondered.
In several steps my mighty self,
Be cast below in empty strides
And if the tides decide to steal
My soul be preserved with formaldehyde.
My thoughts were wonderfully suicidal, outlining my descent four stories below onto pavement covered in ice and broken glass. My eyes were closed and a sensation gathered in my chest moving downward, downward. I did not hear her coming.
“Mr. Striker, did you steal my soaps again?”
“What?” My head spun in a wild jerk towards her heavy Polish accent, I could feel heavy amounts of blood retreating from my lower body and collecting in full force in my face. In rage, perspiration gathered on my forehead, squeezing reluctantly from my pores.
“What woman, can you possibly want right now? What in God’s name do you want, hmmm?”
I said the last with a defiant sarcasm.
“No, nothing Mr. Striker, I just remembered putting seventeen…”
“Seventeen what? You will kindly go back to your duties Mrs. Belafon or you will be promptly find yourself sans occupation, without a job, and I’m sure your next employer will not be as lenient when it comes to hiring filthy infested immigrants!”
I felt my jugular surge and spit was gathering in the corners of my mouth, my hand raised to the side of my head open-handed. She, this miserable squat woman, was left whiter and more pale than even her most remote Polish ancestry. Her hair was a blond nest of rattails that shook as she attempted in vain to restrain her tears; she made not a sound, but replied only by an unhappy ‘O’ adorning her face.
“Is that all Mrs. Belafon?”
In a shy and defeated word, she replied, “Yes, Mr. Striker.”
She turned her frame like a tilt-a-whirl, rotating on an axis one hundred and eighty degrees before slowly walking back to her cart.
“Mrs. Belafon, we do not have the luxury of time in this Hotel, now move quickly, or else I will, and be sure that my movement will not be as conducive to job security.”
I felt better almost instantly when I saw her rotund backside shake as she lumbered, attempting to run, of course, down the forsaken hall. I reached into my pocket and felt the soaps between my forefinger and thumb, then returned to the window. It was near eleven in the morning when I completed my first tasks and all that was left were the bookcases. Returning to my desk, I retrieved the wood polish and a crimson cleaning rag. I found that a young man was standing four feet or so away from the right most shelf, eyeing the biography section.
“Sir, is there anything that I can help you find?”
“No, just browsing through.”
“Well, sir, why don’t you find a nice book and retreat to the lounge just down the hall to the left, have you been staying with us—”
“No, as soon as my wife arrives, we will check in, thank you.”
“I will be right here, Sir, fear not, for I am at your service.”
The man nodded and added an abrupt smile. His eyes were slits when he smiled, he reminded me of Mr. Cordial. In a brown suit and black shoes, he could not have been over twenty-four. I was staring gauntly at the gentleman without catching myself as I sometimes do for several minutes.
“Is there anything else?” the man asked warily.
“No, Sir, I will resume my cleaning now.”
I paused for another moment eyeing the lad, then off. On the first ladder I climbed to the highest rung and began to rub some of the glorious smell from the bottle onto the wood. I would polish, nudge, polish, nudge, all the way to the opposite end of the shelving. It was along the way that I would check my various collections that I had behind the books. On the top shelf I had rearranged the books to house those that were less wide than their compatriots so that I would have a place to put my things. Behind Oscar Wilde’s collection of plays, I kept three jars of cigarette butts that I had gathered from ashtrays in the lounge. Some had been smoked by prominent businessmen, some by women, some by men cheating on their wives, some by women who had taken a man’s life. On each of the butts, I meticulously had written a small epitaph: name, business, eye color. Further down the shelving there were boxes of coins, sewing needles, used silverware, and also nail clippings and hair from some of our more untidy clientele. When I reached the end if the shelf, I retrieved the soaps from my pocket and placed them amongst the other things that I had collected from Mrs. Belafon. I placed them beside a newspaper clipping of her husband’s murder on July 2, 1932, a small glass mirror, and a brooch that her husband had given her just before he left for war in Germany. There were also assorted small things, a piece of linen from her dress, a tuft of hair, and more soap. She had been searching for many of these things for quite some time now, how funny it would be if she were to learn that they had been here all along. The thought brought spinning ecstasy to my brain.
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