THE NIGHT AT THE HOTEL

THE NIGHT AT THE HOTEL

- SIEGFRIED LENZ

The night receptionist regretfully shrugged his shoulders. 'It's all we have available ,' he said. 'And at this late hour you won't find a single anywhere. It's up to you , of course, if you want to try other hotels. Let me tell you, though, even this free bed in a double room will no doubt be gone should you decide to come back for it later.'

'Very well,' Schwamm said, 'I'll take it. Only. I'm sure you'll understand, I should like to know with whom I am sharing the room. Not that I'm afraid, I have no reason to be. Is my partner - as I suppose one might almost call a person with whom one is to spend a night-already in the room?'

'Yes. He's probably asleep.'

  Schwamm  filled out the registration forms and handed them back to the receptionist: then he mounted the stars.

As he came within sight of the room number,  Schwamm instinctively slowed down, held his breath in the hope of hearing some noise the stranger might make, then bent low for a peek through the keyhole. The room was dark.  Schwamm pressed down the door handle, shut the door again behind him and started groping for the light switch. Suddenly he froze: a voice at his elbow, deep but firm, called out:

'Hold it! Please don't turn on the light. You'd do me a favour if you left the room dark.'

'Were you waiting for me?' Schwamm  asked, quite startled. The stranger didn't answer him but said:

'Don't fall over my crutches or run into my suitcase, which I put somewhere in the middle of the room. Let me direct you to your bed: take three steps along the wall, make a left turn, then take another three steps and you'll be able to touch the bedpost.'

 Schwamm  obeyed. He reached his bed safely, undressed and slipped under the covers. He listened to the other's breathing and felt sure he wouldn't fall asleep soon.

'By the way,' he volunteered after a while, hesitatingly. 'My name is  Schwamm .'

'Is it,' said the other.' Are yo here to attend a congress?'

'No. I probably have the strangest reason imaginable for coming into town.'  Schwamm  said.

A train at the nearby railway station switched to another track. The earth trembled slightly, and the beds in which the two men lay vibrated.

In a tone of somewhat apprrehensive cheerfulness,  Schwamm explained:

'I have a small son, a little scamp, and it's for his sake I came to town. He's extremely sensitive, and like a mimosa he reacts to the slightest irritation. He has a soul of glass, the little rascal. Every morning on his way to school he has to wait at the railway crossing for the early morning train to go by and there he stands, the small fellow, and waves, waves furiously and eagerly and desperately.'

'Yes, and ....?'

'Then,' Schwamm said, 'he goes on to his school. But when he returns home, he acts bewildered and in a daze, and sometimes even breaks out in tears. He can't do his homework, he doesn't want to play or talk to anyone. This has been going on for months, day after day. The boy is simply making himslef sick.'

'What's the reason for his behaviour?'

'You see,' said  Schwamm , 'this is the strange thing: the boy waves and - sad for him to note- none of the passengers ever waves back. And he takes this to heart that we, my wife and I are highly worried about him.'

'And so you, Herr  Schwamm , are going to assuage the boy's misery by taking the early train tomorrow morning and waving back to him?'

'Yes,'  Schwamm said, 'yes.' 'Children,' the stranger said, 'mean nothing to me. I hate them and avoid them, because- to put a fine point on it- they took away my wife. She died giving birth to our firstborn.'

'I'm very sorry,'  Schwamm said, sitting up in bed.

The other said: 'You are taking the Kurzbach train, are you?'

'Yes.'

 Schwamm fell back on his pillow, pulled the covers up over his head, lay lost in thought for a while, and then fell asleep.

When he awoke the next morning he was alone in the room. He looked at his watch, and was shocked to see that the morning train would leave in five minutes, leaving him no chance to catch it.

That afternoon- he couldn't afford to spend another night in town-he returned home, downhearted and disappointed.

His son met him at the door, beaming all over  and wildly elated. He threw himself at Schwamm, pummeling his thigh with tightly closed fists and shouting.

'A man waved today! Waved for ever so long!'

'With a crutch?'  Schwamm asked.

'Yes, with a cane. And then he tied his handkerchief to the cane and held it out of the window, and held it there until I couldn't see it any longer.'

For Solved Exercises of this lesson, click on the link below:

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