There’s a Count in the Attic
One of my fondest early memories is spending time at the hotel Ruža in Mostar, where my father used to work. Looking from this perspective, it felt a bit like Downton Abbey. A strict hierarchy of employees and spatial disposition, the artworks and the gift shop, the architecture and the unforgettable lobby with a stream of the nearby river passing through it. On my way home from school I’d stop by. The building was a masterpiece of hotel architecture. My father told stories of countless celebrities of the day that stayed at the hotel and their antics. The hotel’s hairdresser used to take care of my hair and I’d tag along with the chamber maids while they were strolling through the corridors in between the rooms, filling their cart with used pillowcases and wet towels.
My godfather used to work there too. We don’t have much in common but he’s a decent, good man which is nowadays hard to find. Just like hotels resembling concrete poetry. After I fell in love with them at such an early age, they accompanied me through experiences like the refugee years when I stayed at the Riviera in Makarska as a refugee. My recollections always go back to jam on toast for breakfast and foreign soldiers playing ping pong on the beach. It was weird, like a long vacation. And nowhere to return to. Sometimes I wonder how we manage to survive all that. I know I still do. But every time I pass by a beautiful hotel, it reminds me what prepared me for a life like that. And I instantly regain my composure.
The best hotels are fictionalised. Graham Greene’s The Quiet American was inspired by his experience in Vietnam during his stay at the Continental Palace in Saigon. An another literary hotel can be found in Moscow. The Metropol is an extravagant 19th century building where the main character, Count Rostov is imprisoned by the Bolsheviks as a punishment after the Russian Revolution. His death sentence has been overturned and he gets to stay alive provided he stays inside the building. Even in this most beautiful of all confinenents it’s easier said then done. At least he gets to wear a waistcoat instead of a prison uniform. But those never go out of style, there’s just no place to put a pocket watch.
What initally feels like a natural environment for the Russian aristocrat gets increasingly uncomfortable when he is downgraded from his suite upstairs into claustrophobic, dusty attic. There he somehow finds enough space for an antique writing desk that’s more fit for the library at his estate seized by the revolutionaries. They go to extremes in their obsession with social equality and rebellion against nobility. In one moment, they ravage the wine cellar of the hotel to tear away the labels on precious vintage bottles initially meant for someone with a much more appreciative taste. We’re at the Metropol, not a shabby roadside tavern.
But that’s the problem with revolutions. Too often are they instigated by people that socialize in taverns. That’s why the new government treated this historic establishment like it. The attic count is a symbol of old values in the new system. Hotels require a specific behavior in their almost theaterlike setting, which is also what Rostov finds out. He’s the Guest who becomes the Prisoner. There’s The Chef, The Bellboy and The Concierge. It paints a picture of society as a chessboard where everyone has their own trajectory and function.
Once the count is no longer treated as a guest, he discovers the world of so-called downstairs people and its complex structure. His life changes when a girl called Sofia is entrusted to him by a woman who flees to find Sofia’s imprisoned father. Rostov’s relationship with the girl is rather friendly in its nature than parental. This perspective is much more fitting to his own views than the barbaric practice of the Bolsheviks. It’s a wonderful irony that the hotel today proudly presides over Revolution Square. What’s in a name? It’s as true today as it was back in Shakespeare’s day.
And then there are truly fictional hotels. My favourite must be in Wes Anderson’s 2014 comedy Grand Budapest Hotel. A story that takes the whole narrative of the parallel worlds of staff and guests to a new level. Quirky, stylized and melodramatic, it’s a story of Monsieur Gustave H. played to perfection by Ralph Fiennes. He’s the concierge of the Grand Budapest Hotel and mentor of the new lobby boy called Zero. When a wealthy patron is murdered Gustave is accused of the crime. Being a beneficiary of her will, he ends up in deep mud, there’s a secret society of concierges helping him to prove his innocence and a priceless painting hidden in the hotel. Anderson exacerbates the human condition to a carricatural level proving there’s no such thing as ordinary people, just extraordinary circumstances.
Most places I’ve stayed at are cherished memories. I remember ordering a dessert in a hotel famous for its pattisier. Looking like a chocolate sausage wrapped in a thin layer of white chocolate, it tasted of prestige and success. If I could I’d invite count Rostov to join me for a glass of their best wine but alas, he’s fictional. It’s reassuring though that the Metropol is there. Some things resist the caprices of history. It prevents me from surrendering to anxiety that makes everything seem tiresome and useless. And once again you regain the bewilderment and curiosity that keep you focused on the bright side of life.
