I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal

  I Served the King of England

  I was always lucky in my bad luck. I left the Hotel Tichota in tears, because the boss thought I’d deliberately caused the mixup between the real Bambino di Praga and the counterfeit one, that I’d set the whole thing up just to get my hands on six kilos of gold, though it hadn’t been me at all, and so another waiter showed up with a suitcase, and off I went to Prague, but right there in the station I had the good luck to run into Mr. Walden. He was setting off to cover his territory, and his assistant was with him, the sad man who carried the scale and the salami slicer in a bundle on his back, and Mr. Walden wrote me a letter of recommendation to the Hotel Paris. He must have been fond of me because as I said good-bye to him again he patted me on the head and kept saying, Poor little fellow, just stick to it. You’re small so you’ve got to try hard to make something of yourself, poor lad. I’ll look you up. By this time he was shouting, and I stood there waving until the train was long out of sight. So there I was, on the threshold of another adventure. As a matter of fact the Hotel Tichota had begun to scare me. It started when I noticed that the porter had a cat that would hang around, waiting for him to come back from his night labors, or she would sit in the courtyard and watch him split wood, and that cat meant the world to him, he even slept with her, but then a tomcat started coming around and she went off with the tomcat and didn’t come home. The porter became thin and pale and he looked everywhere for his beloved cat, until finally she came home again. The porter had a habit of talking to himself. Whenever I walked past him, I could hear how the unbelievable came true, because from these soliloquies of his I learned that he’d been in jail, that he’d chopped up a gendarme who was having an affair with his wife and given the wife such a thrashing with a rope they had to take her to the hospital, and so he got five years. One of his cellmates was a thug from Žižkov who’d sent his little girl for beer and when the kid lost the change from a fifty he got so mad he took his daughter’s arm, laid it across a block of wood, and chopped her hand off. That was the first time the unbelievable came true. His other cellmate was someone who had caught his wife with a traveling salesman and killed her with an ax, then cut out her vagina and told the salesman to eat it or else be killed with the ax, but the salesman died from the sheer horror of it anyway, and the murderer turned himself in, and so the unbelievable came true again. The third time the unbelievable came true was the porter’s own case, because he’d trusted his wife, but when he saw her with the gendarme he split the gendarme’s shoulder open with an ax, and the gendarme shot him in the leg and our porter got five years. Anyway, one time the tomcat came right up to the porter’s cat, and the porter held the tomcat against the wall with a brick and chopped through its spine with his ax. His cat began to mourn, but the porter squeezed the tomcat into kind of a screened-in grilled window and left it there dying for two days, then he threw his cat out. The cat paced up and down by the wall, but he wouldn’t let her come home, and finally she disappeared. I suspect the porter killed her too. He was a gentle and sensitive soul, and therefore had a short temper, which is why he went straight after everything with an ax, both his wife and the cat, because he was horribly jealous of the gendarme and the tomcat. At his trial he said he was sorry he hadn’t split the gendarme’s head open helmet and all while he was at it, because the gendarme had been in his wife’s bed with his helmet on, wearing his holster and pistol. It was this same porter who invented the story that I’d tried to steal the Bambino di Praga, and he told the boss that I hadn’t a thought in my head except to get rich quick, even if it meant committing a crime. The boss was upset because whatever the porter said was gospel and, besides, no one would ever challenge him since he was as strong as five grown men. One afternoon I had found the porter sitting in the children’s playhouse doing something, playing with the dolls and teddy bears, perhaps, and he told me he didn’t want to see me go into that playhouse again, the way he’d seen me there once with Zdeněk, because he wouldn’t want the unbelievable to come true for the fourth time. Then he told me how the tomcat had lain in agony for two days with a severed spine right next to my little room, and every time I passed by he’d remind me, pointing at the tomcat’s mummified corpse, that this was how everyone who sinned in his eyes—and he gestured with two fingers at his own eyes—ended up. If there wasn’t any other reason, he’d get me because I’d played with his dolls, and for that he might not kill me on the spot, but I’d be sure to die a slow death, just like the tomcat. Now, at the railroad station, I realized just what a creature of habit my six months at the Hotel Tichota had made me, because the conductors blew their whistles, the passengers climbed aboard, the conductors whistled signals to the dispatcher, and I found myself running from one conductor to another asking what my orders were. And when the dispatcher blew his whistle to alert the conductors, and all the doors were closed, I ran up to him and asked politely, May I be of service? So the train carried Mr. Walden away, and I walked across the intersections of Prague, and twice a traffic cop blew his whistle so loudly that I ran up, put my suitcase down on his foot, and asked, May I be of service? And so I walked on until I came to the Hotel Paris.

  The Hotel Paris was so beautiful it almost knocked me over. So many mirrors and brass balustrades and brass door handles and brass candelabras, all polished till the place shone like a palace of gold. There were red carpets and glass doors everywhere, just like in a château. Mr. Brandejs gave me a warm welcome and took me to my temporary quarters, a little room in the attic with such a pretty view of Prague that I decided, because of the room and the view, to try to stay there permanently. After I’d unpacked my suitcase to hang out my tuxedo and my underwear, I opened a closet and saw it was full of suits, and a second closet was full of umbrellas, and a third was full of topcoats and inside, hanging on strings nailed to the wall, were hundreds of ties. I pushed the hangers together and hung up my clothes, and then looked out over the rooftops of Prague, and when I saw the shimmering Castle, the home of Czech kings, I was flooded with tears and forgot all about the Hotel Tichota, and I was glad they’d suspected me of trying to steal the Bambino, because if my boss hadn’t believed it, I’d still be raking the paths and tidying the haystacks, nervous, wondering where the next whistle would come from and who would be blowing it, because by that time I’d figured out that the porter had a whistle too and was acting as the boss’s eyes and legs, and he’d watch us and then whistle just like the boss. When I went downstairs, it was noon, and the waiters were changing shifts and having lunch, and I saw they were eating croquettes—boiled potato croquettes with fried bread crumbs—and everyone in the kitchen was served this, including the boss, who was eating in the kitchen just like the cashier. Only the chef de cuisine and his assistants had boiled potatoes in their skins. I was served croquettes with bread crumbs too. The boss had me sit down beside him, and while I ate, he ate too, but rather delicately, as if to say, If I, the owner, can eat this, then you, my employees, can eat it too. Soon he wiped his mouth with a napkin and took me out into the restaurant. My first job was to serve the beer, so I picked up the full glasses in the taproom and arranged them on my tray, putting a red glass token in a box for each beer, which was how they kept track of them here, and the old headwaiter pointed with his chin to where I was supposed to take the beer. From then on he just used his eyes, and I never made a mistake. Within an hour I could tell the old headwaiter was stroking me with his eyes, letting me know he liked me. He was class itself, a real movie actor, born to the tuxedo. I’d never seen anyone look better in a formal suit, and he seemed right at home in this hall of mirrors. Even though it was afternoon, all the lights were on, candle-shaped lamps with a bulb in every one and cut-glass crystal pendants everywhere. When I saw myself in the mirror carrying the bright Pilsner beer, I seemed different somehow. I saw that I’d have to stop thinking of myself as small and ugly. The tuxedo looked good on me here, and when I stood beside the headwaiter, who had curly gray hair that looked as though a hairdr
esser had done it, I could also see in the mirror that all I really wanted was to work right here at this station with this headwaiter, who radiated serenity, who knew everything there was to know, who paid close attention to everything, who filled orders and was always smiling as though he were at a dance or hosting a ball in his own home. He also knew which tables were still waiting for their food and would see that they got it, and he knew who wanted to pay, though I never saw anyone raise his hand and snap his fingers or shake the bill. The headwaiter would gaze out over the restaurant as if he were surveying a vast crowd of people, or looking out over the countryside from an observation tower, or scanning the sea from the pilothouse of a steamship, or not looking at anything, and every movement a guest made told him at once what that guest wanted. I noticed right away that the headwaiter didn’t like the waiter and would reproach him with his eyes for getting the plates mixed up and taking the pork to table eleven instead of table six. When I’d been serving the beer for a week, I noticed that whenever this particular waiter brought the food from the kitchen on a tray he would stop before he went through the swinging door and, when he thought no one was looking, lower the tray from the level of his eyes to the level of his heart, look hungrily at the food, and take a pinch of this and a pinch of that—just a tiny amount each time so it looked as if he’d accidentally dipped his finger in the food and was licking it off. I saw the headwaiter catch him at it but say nothing, just watch. Then the waiter would wave his hand, hoist the tray over his shoulder, kick open the door, and rush into the restaurant. He always ran as though the tray were falling forward, his legs a-flurry, but it was a fact that no one else dared carry as many plates as Karel (that was his name). He could get twenty plates on his tray and lay eight along his outstretched arm as if it were a narrow table, and hold two more in his outspread fingers, and three plates in the other hand. It was almost like a vaudeville routine, and I suspect that Brandejs, the boss, liked the waiter and thought that the way he served the food was one of the attractions of the establishment. So almost every day we employees had potato croquettes for lunch, sometimes with poppy seeds, sometimes with a sauce, or with a toasted roll or covered with butter and sugar or with raspberry juice or with chopped parsley and melted lard. Each time, there would be the boss himself eating those potato croquettes with us in the kitchen. He never ate very much, because he said he was on a diet. But at two o’clock Karel the waiter would bring him a tray, and judging by the silver covers over the food it must have been a small goose or a chicken or a duck, or some kind of game, whatever was in season. He always had it brought into one of the private chambers, to make it look as though it was for someone else, a member or a broker from the Fruit and Vegetable Exchange, because the brokers always went on conducting their business after hours in the Hotel Paris. But when no one was looking, our boss would slip into the room, and when he came out he’d be glowing with satisfaction, a toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth. I suspect that Karel the waiter had some kind of arrangement with the boss. When the main day at the exchange, which was Thursday, was over, the brokers would come to our hotel to celebrate over champagne and cognac the deals they’d closed. On each table would be trays laden with food, or really only one tray, but full enough to make it a real feast, and every Thursday, from eleven o’clock in the morning on, some brightly painted young ladies would be sitting in the restaurant, the kind I’d met at Paradise’s when I was working at the Golden City of Prague, and they’d be smoking and drinking vermouth and waiting for the brokers to show up. When the brokers did show up, the girls would split up and go to separate tables, and the men would select them for the private chambers. Then I could hear the sounds of laughter and the tinkling of glasses through the curtains as I walked past, and this would go on for hours, until finally the brokers would leave in high spirits and the young ladies would come out and comb their hair, redo their kiss-smeared lipstick, tuck in their blouses, and glance behind them, almost putting their necks out of joint trying to see if the stockings they’d just put back on had the line, the seam, running straight down the middle of their legs into their shoes to the exact center of their heels. When the brokers left, neither I nor anyone else was ever allowed to go into the private chambers, and we all knew why. Several times, through a half-drawn curtain, I saw Karel lifting the cushions, and that was his little business on the side, picking up lost coins and bills, and the occasional ring or watch chain. It was all his, the money that fell out of the pockets of the brokers’ trousers, coats, and vests as they dressed or undressed or were writhing about.

  One morning Karel loaded up his tray with twelve main dishes and as usual stopped just inside the door to pinch a bit of sirloin tip and a touch of Brussels sprouts to go along with it, topping it off with a morsel of dressing from the veal. Then he lifted the tray as if the food had given him new strength and with a smile on his face struck out into the restaurant. But a customer who was taking snuff, or had a cold, inhaled abruptly through his nose, and as he inhaled it was as if the force of the intake pulled him straight up by the hair, because he suddenly rose to his feet, sneezing loudly, and caught the corner of the tray with his shoulder. Karel, leaning forward at the waist, had to run to catch up to the loaded tray, which now was sailing through the air like a flying carpet, because Karel always carried his food high. Either the tray was too fast or Karel’s legs were too slow, but in any case when he reached for it the tray slipped away from his upturned hand, his fingers scrabbling desperately for it as all of us in the business watched, including the boss, who was entertaining a group from the hotel owners’ association. Mr. Šroubek himself was at the banquet table, and he saw what then happened, just as we had foreseen it would. Karel took one more mighty leap in the air and managed to catch the tray before it fell, but two plates slid off one after the other, and first pieces of beef roll à la Puzsta, then dumplings poured over a guest who was just raising his eyes from the menu to ask if the meat was tender and the sauce warm enough and the dumplings light. It all slid off the plates and onto the guest, and as he rose to his feet dripping with sauce, the beef roll à la Puzsta and the dumplings tumbled off his lap and fell under the table. One dumpling remained on his head like a small cap, a yarmulke, the kind a rabbi wears, or a priest’s biretta. When Karel, who had managed to save all the other ten plates, saw that and saw Mr. Šroubek, who owned the Hotel Šroubek, he raised the tray even higher, gave it a little toss, flipped it over, and flung all ten plates onto the carpet, demonstrating, as if he were in a play or a pantomime, how disgusted he felt about those two plates. He undid his apron just as theatrically, flung it at the floor, and stomped out in a fury, then changed into his street clothes and went out to get drunk. I didn’t understand it yet, but everyone in the business said that if you dropped the two plates like that, the other ten had to end up on the floor too, because of a waiter’s honor. But the matter was far from over. Karel came back, his eyes flashing, and sat down in the kitchen, glowering out into the restaurant. Suddenly he jumped up and tried to pull the large cupboard down on himself, the one that held all the glasses. The cashier and the cook rushed over and pushed the cupboard back upright, while the glasses clattered out of it and crashed to the floor, but those two plates had given Karel such power that he almost managed to pull the cupboard over three times. Each time the cooks, who by now were all red in the face, slowly pushed it back upright, and just when everyone had got his breath back, Karel jumped up and grabbed the kitchen stove—which was so long that when you added wood at one end, the fire would almost be out by the time you got to the oven at the other—and gave the stove such a yank that he pulled the stovepipe out of the wall, and soon the kitchen was full of smoke and fumes and everyone was choking. With great effort they got the pipe back in place, and the cooks, all smeared with soot, collapsed in their chairs and looked about to see where Karel was, but he was gone. Just as we all heaved sighs of relief, suddenly we heard a tinkling sound. Karel had kicked a hole in the glass of the a
ir shaft over the stove and smashed his way down into the kitchen, and he landed with one leg up to his knee in the lunchtime special, which was tripe soup, and the other leg in a pot of goulash combined with sauce for the filly-on-mushroom. There were splinters of glass everywhere, so the cooks gave up, and they ran for the porter, who was a former wrestler, to take Karel out by force, since they decided he must have some kind of grudge against the Hotel Paris. The porter set his legs firmly apart and spread his huge paws as though he were holding a skein of wool to be wound into a ball and said, What’s it going to be, you horse’s ass? But Karel slugged the porter so hard that the porter fell over, and the police had to be called in. By the time the police arrived Karel was docile, but in the corridor on the way out he knocked down two of them and kicked a dent in the helmet of a third while the policeman was still wearing it. So they dragged him into one of the private rooms and beat him up, and each time he screamed, all the guests in the restaurant looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders. Finally the policemen took him out, all bruised up, but as he passed the cloakroom he told the girl that those two plates would cost some more yet, and he was right, because word had barely come back that he’d settled down when he suddenly kicked a hole in the porcelain sink and yanked the pipes out of the wall so that everything in the room, including the policemen, was soaking wet before they managed to stop up the holes with their fingers.