MADELEINE HOTEL, Part III
"About to get the interview, now time seems to stop. While Harry is sitting in the waiting room trying to organize his mind, the unexpected events continue..."
At one point I wanted to stop on the furniture where I was sitting for more than the expected time. Climb up to the pendulum and pluck it with my hands... the constant Tic, Tac, Tic... was the only thing that was heard apart from my breathing.
They discounted the minutes, those two needles that seemed to go forward and then backward.
Embedded in a stone ledge located in the highest place, the old wooden box seemed to be there to make fun of me, while its sound drove me crazy.
I decided to walk down the hall to get away from that pendulum clock hanging on the wall. He couldn't stop looking at him, as if he expected him to mark his final hour.
He had to remain on the fifth floor of the building until he was attended. To the greater disgust no one had come out to meet me. I was only sure that I would never approach the elevator again, when I left I would go down the stairs to whatever it took because I was not willing to relive the previous nightmare.
-:-
I heard the opening and closing of a door, turned quickly to look, thinking it was the secretary, but I saw no one, only the carpets on the floor and walls, the lamps in half light and all the doors closed.
_If I open the doors one by one, I would find out where the administration is! _; but it would be an abusive gesture on my part. _"Better still in my sweet wait!" _
I turned my face again to continue my journey through the desolate corridor, _Mr. Volte !, are you... _; I almost suffered a heart attack, _Ave maria in heaven! _ just two centimeters from my face a pale woman, standing in front of me showed me a forced smile ...
It was the hotel secretary looking for me to do the long-awaited interview.
With a lump in my throat I swallowed my spit to be able to pronounce: _Greetings, taste in...! _, it is a pleasure to see her. He invited me to the office and so I looked at her from behind with her spotless dress and heels. _Pass you, make yourself comfortable! _, said.
-:-
He served me a cup of hot coffee with sugar, without asking, it was as if he knew my caffeine addiction. I said, "Okay! Delicious!" While she reviewed the documentation. The look of that woman was familiar to me, expressing nostalgia and languor.
I looked closely at my curriculum vitae, while making notes in his notebook. I continued immersed in his two sad eyes wondering what the problem of that lady would be, no doubt, she was unhappy, she was resigned.
He brought the stamp ink pad to his desk and stamped the word "Approved" on my sheet. He looked at my face, she had her makeup run on her lower eyelid. Without intentions to disguise his affliction, he spoke:
_ Congratulations! You already have a new job
He put his pencil in a drawer along with the stamps and left his chair. More than a congratulation or a welcome, that greeting seemed like a grieving note.
-:-
"Come with me! You start working today." He opened the door and left. I walked behind, down the hall again to the waiting room, she carried the manila envelope in one hand and in the other the note she had written when she interviewed me.
I remembered instantly: _Ya! I know this woman _. I looked at her pink dress and then I knew that those sobbing green eyes were of the woman I had seen sitting hours ago in the park cafeteria. I already said that the existential conflict that was seizing the lady became familiar.
Again at the beginning, I sat in the living room again, next to the hypnotizing swing of the pendulum clock. I listened to the infinite Tic, Tac, Tic ... which now sounded a bit funny, because, although I had not had time to assimilate, I already had a new job.
_ It was worth waiting for Harry Volte! _, I congratulated myself, at the same time that the secretary placed the keys of her office and the written note next to my seat. Then he left, on his way to the elevator, without saying goodbye.
-:-
_ What a start Harry!_, I told myself, while remembering my traumatic experience in the elevator...
I thought, To hell, I will send all that bad memory to oblivion! The important thing now is that my days of misery in this city are over and I just have to think that in MADELEINE HOTEL, my new life begins.
I took the keys that the secretary had left in the adjoining seat, opened the sheet of notes she left me and looked at the clock on the wall which said 5:50 pm. That old wooden clock and its dancing needles didn't bother me anymore, I just took out my glasses and dedicated myself to reading the note with the instructions...
To whom it May concern:
_ "I say goodbye to this cruel world, because my soul can no longer bear the weight it has left me... I hand over the destinies of this hotel, hoping you don't run the same fate as me..."
Sincerely, Madeleine
I could not believe my reading, I ran in a hurry, I went down from the fifth floor of the hotel using the stairs. I went after the secretary, hoping to find her at any rate.
In the surveillance box the guard looked at me smiled, as if nothing happened, I just went to the gardens looking for "Madeleine"...
But it was late, upon reaching the center of the ecological park, in the drowned artificial pond, the woman's body floated in her pink dress floated. "Madeleine" had committed suicide...
To be continue...
