Free Zenith Hotel by Oscar Coop-Phane Page A

it’s not cold today. This one will do. Close the window. Mustn’t forget my keys, whatever happens. In my pocket. Cell phone. No one will call but take it anyway. Also in my pocket. There, I’m ready. Oh yes, shoes. Quick, the fresh air’s calling. Shoelaces. Faster, for Chrissakes! Get out. Get out. Escape from the daily gloom, walk through the streets of the 14th
arrondissement
. A little expedition on foot. Dogs, passing women, mopeds.
    How about taking the métro?

    ‘What are you going to do?’
    ‘I don’t know, sweetheart!’ (Laughter) ‘You’re the boss.’
    ‘Can I ask for anything I want?’
    ‘If you’ve got the money. As far as I’m concerned, you know …’
    ‘I haven’t got much money.’
    ‘So we’ll make do with what you’ve got.’

    I’m done for the night. The money comes fast. At what cost?
    Back to the Zenith Hotel. Always the same old routine. I climb the six flights of stairs up to my dismal room with the paint peeling off the walls. The stairs are worn down in the centre from too many feet tramping up and down them in boots or trainers. I don’t like this stairwell. I hurry to the top.
    I unlock the door with my big gilt key, then slump down on my little bed and lie there, on my back, my legs dangling, still dressed, the strap of my bag around my arm. I’d like to be able to stay like this forever – as flat as a pancake. I feel good. I think of nothing.
    But I have to sit up. Mentally I count. On thirty, I’ll get up. Twenty-seven … twenty-eight … twenty-nine … thirty. Right, another two minutes. I count again. I don’t want to get up. Twenty-seven … twenty-eight … twenty-nine … thirty …

    Slowly I take off my make-up. I wipe cotton wool over my face with one hand, holding a small fragment of mirror in the other.
    I ignore my reflection. I’ve given up looking for crow’s feet around my eyes and new blackheads on my nose. I think about other things – I don’t want to see myself.

    Slowly, I get undressed. I let my clothes drop gently on to the white-tiled floor. I don’t fold them, they’re dirty. I’m going to the launderette tomorrow, as I do every week.
    I slip into my nightie. That’s my evening routine. My movements are mechanical, like in the morning when I scratch my head and make coffee.
    My routine makes me forget the nasty taste seeping through my body. I concentrate on the moment. I slip into my nightie and go and fill my water bottle on the landing.
    I go back to my room and smoke a cigarette in silence.

    I double-lock the door. At last I can go to bed, turn on the television and light up another fag.
    I gently fall asleep, watching people living on the other side of the screen.
    The commentators’ voices are soothing. They have that journalistic tone that makes them sound beautiful and professional. The voices of those who keep us informed.
    I trust that voice. It isn’t nasty. I can let myself go.I listen with one ear. With the other, the one that’s glued to the pillow, I start to nod off. A pleasant voice with a journalistic tone.
    I fall asleep. Tomorrow’s another day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Oscar Coop-Phane was born in 1988. He left home at 16 with dreams of becoming a painter and at 20 moved to Berlin where he spent a year writing and reading classics. There he wrote
Zenith Hotel
, which won the Prix de Flore in France, and then
Tomorrow, Berlin
(Arcadia, 2015). Today he lives in Brussels and is working on his third novel,
October
.

Copyright
    Arcadia Books Ltd
139 Highlever Road
London W10 6PH
    www.arcadiabooks.co.uk
    First published in France by Éditions Finitude 2012
First published in the United Kingdom by Arcadia Books 2014
    Copyright © Oscar Coop-Phane 2012
Translation copyright © Ros Schwartz 2014
    Oscar Coop-Phane has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
    All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in