Holy City: Chapter Twelve - Part One

V moved through the streets like the businessmen and businesswomen, passing stores and cafes. The ghosts were still there, in the back alleys and side streets, in their own streams, haunting each other, but V no longer noticed them. He noticed the world that had been created by the businessmen and businesswomen.

The streets were grey and most of the buildings that surrounded them were grey. The grey of the skyline was punctuated throughout by the artificial color of videos and billboards. V missed the natural green of the grass of his walk from the worksite, he missed the rolling hills and the open plains, he missed the type of air he could inhale deeply instead of coughing out. He sat down in a chair on the sidewalk on the edge of a cafe. A young man wearing an apron came and asked for his order. V did not want to place an order. The young man told V to get out of the chair and to start walking again, so V did.

V walked for another hour through the streets of the capital city. After walking through the Aten twice, after walking from the worksite to the capital, V was beginning to hate walking. He looked enviously at the cars that lined the road trying to move like blocked in cattle.

V looked closely at these cars and at the people inside them. They were probably sitting in comfortable air-conditioning. Envy built up inside of V. He hadn’t felt such envy since he emerged from the desert. Now he felt it strongly. He was tired of the perspiration on his brow and the back of his neck, he was tired of the heat that baked his body inside of the fashionable suit.

After much deliberation and several hours of walking, V decided that even though the suit fit him it was not comfortable. It constrained the tops of his shoulders. He moved his head to and fro trying to loosen the collar. The tie felt like a noose, the cufflinks like handcuffs, the belt like a medieval chain. V missed his old rags, the ones they burned at the worksite. Those rags weren’t nice, but they weren’t a heated straightjacket either.

V looked up to the horizon. The horizon he had marched over twice, to two different nations. That horizon was now a skyline. A skyline that obscured the faraway desert. A skyline that hid that faraway desert as if it didn’t exist, as if the city everyone was fighting over, the city of Alexandria didn’t exist, hidden from view from everyone in this land.

V’s gaze lowered to a forty-story building of ornate structure draped in emerald green, an architectural oasis amidst the grey office towers that dominated the capital city. This was the Figueroa Hotel. It had been built by an empire that was no longer an empire, a holdover from the previous century, an old giant amongst sprouting teenagers.

V walked towards that old giant, air conditioning on his mind. The hotel would certainly be air-conditioned. It was funny, he thought, the desire for air-conditioning had never struck him during his marches through the desert but now he was desperate for it.

It took V less than an hour to reach the old giant. He was approached by a throng of people like he was a celebrity several blocks before the hotel and the crush intensified the closer he got to the hotel. They were all trying to sell him one kind of a trinket or another.

V apologized to the first man and then the first women who held up an ornament for his approval, but there were still a dozen others. V smiled hoping this would send the message that he had no money to buy the trinkets and ornaments. But that didn’t convey anything to the sellers besides contentment. More people tried to press goods of various kinds into his hands. V put his hands into his pockets so they could not. The group only left him when he was near the front of the hotel and a well-dressed couple came through the revolving doors going in the other direction.

It should have been obvious to V since begging was illegal in Vitesia the sale of trinkets and ornaments and baubles of all kinds was the only way for the ghosts of the street to survive. But it took V longer to realize this than he would like to admit. When the reality finally sank in there was only one woman left standing in front of him. She hadn’t chased after the young couple like the others. She had a different sales technique. She offered a jasmine string to V, this time with her total attention focused on him and his total attention focused on her.

She was old, she looked old, but when she moved she had the movements of a younger woman. And when she said, “It is very well made, I made it myself.” She had the voice of a younger woman. The forty year-old who looked like an eighty year-old pleaded with V to buy one of her jasmine strings.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any money,” V said.

She looked at his expensive suit and made a harsh face, she had heard this lie many times before. She kept at V.

“Honestly, I don’t have any money.” V insisted, trying to win the argument, not quickly walking away like a normal hotel guest.

“Don’t insult me.” The forty year-old said fiercely when she finally gave up trying to press a jasmine string into V’s hand. “If you’re not going to buy then don’t buy. But don’t insult me.”

“I’m sorry.” V said feebly. “It’s the truth.” He still wanted to win the argument. His recent acquisition was betraying him.

She shot him an angry look and started to say something even angrier but stopped herself. She walked away from V leaving him on the doorstep of the hotel as guests and valets maneuvered around him as he stood in their way.

A bellhop came up to him.

“Can I help you sir?”

The suit had a different effect on the hotel staff. Despite its discomfort it was a nice suit, it looked nice, V vainly admitted to himself. He smiled at the bellhop. “Can you tell me where the check-in desk is?”

The bellhop pointed past the large indoor water fountain and medium sized plaster statues to a long wood-paneled desk that ran the length of a mirrored wall on the far side of the lobby. Soldiers were stationed at regular intervals behind the wood paneling and in front of the mirror.

V thanked the bellhop and walked towards the desk navigating through flows of people. It was a busy time of day, families and couples were checking in and out as bellhops tried to keep up while directing the traffic and ferrying the luggage.

V found the shortest line and waited. After five minutes, he was at the desk, unsure of what he was going to say to the young soldier who stood in front of him. V caught himself. The young man wasn’t a soldier, even though he had epaulets on his shoulders and medals on his chest and a nice formal cap on his head. He was only an employee of the hotel like the bellhops and valets who were running around the lobby.

“Hello,” V said, still formulating a plan.

“May I help you, sir?”

V caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the young soldier. It was a nice suit.

V’s eyes returned to the young man. “I would like a room.”

“Yes, sir. Do you have a reservation?”

“Yes.”

“Under what name?”

“Mersh.” V remembered the name on all of the trucks and all of the equipment at the worksite.

“Yes, Mr. Mersh. I see you have several rooms on standby. How many rooms will you need for your stay this time?”

“One.”

“And how long will you be staying?”

“I’m not sure.”

“We’ll leave the dates open.”

“Yes, that would be nice.”

The young man handed a plastic card to V. The card was as shiny as the mirror behind the desk. “As you know you can use your key in any of the bars or restaurants on the grounds, it will go on your tab.”

“That is kind of you.” V said amused by the ease of it all.

“Do you have a bag?”

“No.” V was feeling giddy, he didn’t know why. He stood smiling, looking at the young clerk who stood smiling looking eagerly back at him. They had reached an impasse. “If there isn’t anything else, sir.” The clerk hesitantly said after quite some time.

“Oh yes, of course. Thank you.”

V walked away from the desk and stood under the large water fountain. Porpoises were spitting water or maybe they were dolphins. V searched his memory trying to remember the difference between the two. He couldn’t remember the difference. To him they were the same thing.

V didn’t go to his room. He didn’t need to sleep. He was enjoying the air conditioning of the lobby and he wanted to enjoy the air conditioning of the bar.

Next Chapter: Chapter Twelve - Part Two
Previous Chapter: Chapter Eleven