Who Is Martha? by Marjana Gaponenko

emptiness that lay beyond the periphery of the picture, “sister’s house. We nine children. Two sisters dead. Here!” The chambermaid let Levadski look at a picture of two gravestones and then cheerfully clicked on. In an overexposed photograph a boy was hugging a girl on a children’s bicycle. “Children of my brother. And here me.” In the midst of sprawling bushes Levadski recognized the chambermaid. She was wearing a shirt covered with oversized raspberries. “Raspberries back there. Jam, juice, own products, in Novi Pazar we have everything. Here letter for you. From reception. Almost forgot. I go now.”
    Levadski took the letter. The simple solemnnity of the moment drove a tear into his eye, but the remarkably firm handshake of the chambermaid with the raspberry garden and the unbuilt house instantly cheered him up again.
    Dear Mister Levadski,
    As you made use of our butler service yesterday, we would like to advise you that you are most welcome at any time to avail yourself of the services of our butlers throughout your sojourn at our hotel. If you are interested in a personal butler, please call reception.
    Levadski was chewing a banana when the telephone rang. “Come in,” Levadski called in the direction of the door. He was annoyed that a piece of banana fell out of his mouth and onto the carpet when he did so. The telephone rang several times more before Levadski’s gaze gave up on the door. Rocking and wheezing, he got to his feet, trotted over to the desk and picked up the receiver.
    The concierge wished Levadski a very good morning. Levadski wished the concierge the same. He had just read the letter and would be interested in the butler from yesterday. The concierge acknowledged this wise decision with a pregnant pause. The butler service would be deducted from Levadski’s credit card at the end of his stay, together with the extras, the concierge said. “What extras?” Levadski wanted to know.
    “Telephone, internet, minibar, breakfast, hotel bar, restaurant, barbers,” the concierge-voice rattled off.
    And funeral, thought Levadski, giggling into the receiver.
    “Do you see the butler button on your telephone? Above it there is a button with a picture of a man in a black bow tie with a coffee cup,” the concierge said. Levadski saw it. All he had to do was press the button once and the butler would come.
    “When I press the button, I would like Habib to come.”
    “But of course, sir. Habib will be informed immediately.”
    This is what things have come to, thought Levadski, an oriental youngster serving an old Ruthenian. From a Ruthenian to a Bohemian, he rhymed.
    Levadski dressed himself for breakfast. Buying a new suit, along with the resolve to await death pleasurably in a grand hotel, had been one of the best ideas of his too-long life. Although, thought Levadski, it all seems to have been a little on the short side. This snippet of time I have grappled with. A tiny puddle! Levadski tied his favorite bow tie with the red-billed choughs and marveled at the strange expression. Why was he thinking about a tiny puddle? In the gigantic mirror, an elegant gnome held its silence.
    On the sea I was born
    On the sea I was raised;
    Swore unto the sea did I
    To take her as my eternal bride:
    To drown therefore my lot would be
    As a sailor on the sea,
    sang Levadski, to himself. It was as if his life had been a dream of a future and resolute being, of an ultimately irrational being and a sophisticate, of someone whose existence had been worthwhile. And now he was perfect and his life would step outside of him and stand before him, to marvel at him: you have become useless, Levadski. Pah!
    Smartly dressed and feeling slightly hungry, Levadski stepped out into the corridor. The elevator came almost immediately, opening its golden chest. From all sides Levadski could see a small bald dandy staring back at him. This hotel is a ship, thought Levadski stepping into the elevator, a ship, and I am a