Serpents and Stairways

Chapter II - Part 3

He used to ask himself what Fate wanted from him. Whether he acted right, had played the part expected of him. But no matter how long he took to ponder these questions, the situation always arrived at its conclusions, and luck never left his side. Did that mean he couldn't have done anything differently, and everything had been decided from the start? Did that mean that even right now he wasn't escaping his fate, but simply was an invited actor to a play more complex than he'd used to star in?

Lights turned on in the towers and pretend-houses that decorated the street. Wind rolled along the pavement the dried vertebrae of spiralling ribbons that hadn't been picked up after the boisterous day.

Georg thought he had nothing to wait for at that point, that he'd made a mistake and not only wasted time, but also got cold to the bone, like a dog, but then a nutcracker, in a red livery with a cap, appeared from around the corner and made a quick gesture with his chin. They walked further into the backstage of residential buildings, and there the young man, making sure that not a single window was spying on them, handed Georg a roll of brown paper.

"Hm. The colour is different. I thought you'd bring me your own uniform." Georg said, picking out from the wrapping a slippery, suffocative cache-nez, "Although, it's even better this way. Do you happen to know a lad named Pavel Vlčhek?"

"And here I was, thinking you were about to go snatching," the young man raised his eyebrow. "I know him. He has a rough client today—some kind of allergy."

"And?"

"They sent him to look for supper, but the lad skedaddled!"

"Where?"

"Destructor knows where! You can wait for him at the warehouse—I'll let him know when I see him."

"Fine. A thousand once we're inside—as I promised—and a thousand I'll leave with Pasha."

"Just for telling him where to find you?"

"And for not telling anybody else. Got it?"

So it seemed like a thousand was enough of a reason for the boy to risk it and let into the hotel a man, who, by his own impression, was about to go snatching. What was left was to hope that it was also enough for his service as an ambassador.

"Got it. It's a concierge's uniform, not a porter's, by the way."

"Alright. What does that mean?"

"Nothing. I just thought you looked more like a concierge."

"I'll take that as a compliment. What do they do, actually?"

Once they were inside, Georg slipped the banknote into the young man's pocket—as if it was a tip—and, promising to find his own way to the warehouse, joined the workforce. After all, it was still a couple of hours till midnight, the hotel was alive, and it would've been weird to idle. He helped with luggage, ordered theatre tickets for a lovely theocratic old lady, conversed in four out of six languages that he knew, and overall had a wonderful time.

But the minutes of mischief had passed. He sincerely promised a charming girl from the Free Republic that tomorrow he'd certainly bring her, and her not-any-less-charming le belle-mére, the best brochure on local restaurants, gave a subtle nod to a passing-by maid, in a strict non-hotel dress, looked at his watch and hurried to the meeting place—making just one final detour to help out of the restaurant a middle-aged albion man wearing a vatermörder collar, which used to be popular in the times of the man's youth. These collars, lined with cellulose, were so stiff that they were promising to strangle to death a poor fellow who'd had a few too many drinks. Georg, without a fear of being deemed improper, had loosened the man's tie and undone two buttons on his neck before opening the door in front of him—and slid along the smooth hotel carpets towards the spiral staircase, which was, besides the service elevators, the only way that led to the warehouses and kitchen.

And what a staircase that was! Twisted and steep, set in the echoing hollow of the interwalls, unpleasantly resembling fish guts. Having descended it, Georg sat down next to a wall of wooden boxes, full of cans of food preserves—and waited, from time to time chatting with little cooks; there was no door between the two spaces.

Time passed; the man named Pasha still hadn't returned. Georg's head, which he had just drained of all the existential questions on the nature of doom, started filling up with fresh nonsense anew. "A tin can is something like a coffin, is it not? Just a round one" — he thought, "A grave. And a mass one at that."

A pastry cook and a jerky cookstress were passing by, with whom Georg immediately shared his considerations, and several minutes later an entire consilium, led by the chef who spoke with a thick free accent, was pondering the future of coffinmaking.

"I think, correct and sensible would be to have not round, but hexagonal coffins. So—you know—cosily-stackable. Honeycomb-like," said the confectioner, "and numbered instead of named. Ah, what a life that would be!"

"The shape of coffins? Horrible! People ought never ask such questions," shrank the lord of the hot shop, "it's all your books composting your brains. I'd say burn them all—it would only benefit the people!"

"I think that in the future each can buy himself a coffin to his liking," noted the waiter, "and people would be grown in special incubators—each for his own purpose. Like chicken."

"Rather, here's something to chew over. What if, say, a group of children, who'd never seen a funeral, we leave on an unpeopled island? What kind of coffins would they invent, say?" Pondered the butcher, who'd just delivered to the grand hotel fresh pork and was eager to chat.

It was a worthy discussion. Georg was so invested that, at first, hadn't noticed how in the opposing wall, laid similarly out of boxes, one of its rectangles shifted, and through that slit in the fabric of creation two gloomy, almost childish, eyes were now staring at him.

Georg stood up and walked behind the wall, sinking into the darkness.

"Is that you—Pasha?"

Wearing a red livery, with scarlet bitten lips, cheeks crimson with rage and eyes pink with lack of sleep (or crying), in the darkness stood that boy who chased him that morning—Mr Golden Retriever in person.

"You must be aware that if you wished to meet, you could've just asked for me?" the young man quickly whispered, "Even back in that courtyard where Károly gave you the uniform!"

"Perhaps," Georg didn't argue, even though the idea never crossed his mind.

"Come!" The boy said and stormed off, away from the raging kitchen workers, who despite their turbulent discussions of the necropolitical future, did not forget to chop, peel and boil.

- - ⌀ - -

Thank you for reading the third part of the second chapter! If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to star it and subscribe for more updates! I'll keep publishing each Thursday!

Did you notice the animalistic details in the description of the hotel? The oldest fairytales often describe the magical huts, that the hero finds themselves in, as consisting of animal parts. One example of it could be the hut on chicken legs, where the forest witch lives.

The origin of that is thought to be related to the hunter-gatherer traditions of young men leaving the tribe after initiation to join the "great house" where lived the hunters—adults who symbolically had control over animals and were a part of the world of the woods. The initiation rituals symbolised dying—passing from one life, as a child, to the next.

And so, the great house, or the Grand Hotel in our case, is closely related to the afterlife.

Did you spot the references during the kitchen discussion?

Let me know what you thought in the comments!

P.S. The artwork in the chapter's header is "Boy Blowing Soap Bubbles. Allegory on the Transitoriness and the Brevity of Life" by Karel Dujardin. This 17th century painting depicts a boy in a temporary unstable equilibrium, carried by Fortuna, the goddess of fortune, over rough waters.