Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Vignette 6: The Hotel Grande

Six—The Hotel Grande



The Hotel Grande in Belem pulsated with life and activity. Lights shone dimly from wall brackets in the long, narrow foyer where a fawning clerk squinted at the register as he handed the pen to a new guest. Lights blazed harsh and triumphantly in the dining room. Clusters of naked bulbs in sparkling chandeliers revealed correctly attired dinner guests, and an energetic, if not melodious, three-piece orchestra. The dining room could not contain all this light; it spilled out through tall windows onto the broad sidewalk in from that carried a continuously moving burden.

Along this sidewalk passed representatives from every strata of Brazilian society; the light touched them all for a fleeting moment. A dog of unknown antecedents stopped to scratch his fleas, and two lovers giggled through its democratic rays. A thickset man wearing a dinner jacket and a stern visage strode through with a fat dowager, arrayed in evening gown and pearls, on his arm. They ignored the light.

A slim woman of undetermined age, but whose occupation was no secret, slowed perceptibly to advertise her wares. She was unaware that the same light, which emphasized her too-tight dress over rounded hips and breasts threatening to burst out of it, revealed watery eyes, slack features, and uncombed, greasy black hair. Three dandies in zoot suits with shoulders much too brad, narrow pant legs, and broad-brimmed hats followed closely behind, looking for a bargain. The light embarrassed them as it cast their ridiculous shadows the full width of the sidewalk. They hurried on.

Traffic thinned on the sidewalk as the great lights in the dining room dimmed and then let the blackness in, unaffected by the lives it had touched. Only the dim lights in the foyer remained, and a bell had replaced the fawning clerk. The Hotel Grande went to sleep.

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