The first indication I had of Claudia’s arrival was the fuss and bother in the foyer. I was despatched to represent management - yet imagine my trepidation at the reputation that went before Claudia.
My speech had been instantly prepared as the fast down lift proceeded to turn my stomach over: “I welcome you, Madame Claudia, to our small but prestigious hotel wherein the mind is as important as the body. No untoward entertainments, such as the bonzo on an electric organ playing ‘A Bird In A Gilded Cage’ to a samba beat, nor the ugly belly dancer wobbling her oversized bosom to an amplified accordion accompaniment nor, even, the unmitigated tides of inconsequential musak that all other hotels allow to infiltrate their lobbies, lifts and powder rooms.”
I had another section of the speech to make where I would have invited her to try every bed in all our rooms to find the one, if any, that fitted her best - but I was loudly and rudely interrupted by her male companion. I was previously unaware of his existence this side of nullity, mainly because he hid among the concertina pleats of her voluminous skirt.
“Fetch me the manager!” he whined. “My mistress here has in fact a great interest, both spiritual and financial, in the provision of the subtle wallpaper harmonies and melodies to which I take it you have just referred so pejoratively as musak.” He paused to take on board his Claudia’s approving look, which she accomplished with an indistinguishable flick of the peacock mask that she held up before her face. “My mistress who even now stands before you as she has graced so many hotel foyers in the past is indeed the daughter of the inventor of the music sublimator device that allows the tape-loops of popular, catchy tunes (such as ‘Tiptoe Through The Tulips’, ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’, ‘I Left My Heart In San Francisco’ and ‘Que Sera, Sera’) to be played without surcease directly into the consciousness without the need of passing through the ears first.”
He gloated, but not for long, since I replied: “My dear sir, I can only agree. I assure you that we have managed to reap the full potential of your Madame Claudia’s Father’s excellent sublimator. We have so painstakingly refined and worked it into the characteristic acoustics of the soul, that we can all now relish its pure, golden and incontrovertible silence which was no doubt the ultimate nirvana of its purpose.”
It was my turn to gloat. I breathed, in waiting. The lady did not remove her mask but I could tell she was surveying me with great interest. “REALLY?” Her voice was one I imagined a fat goose would have if its neck was a musical instrument and it was afraid of Christmas. She held up her hand as if to prevent me speaking again, but it was really her way of casting curses, as I was to discover soon enough, since all my orifices (alimentary, respiratory, sexual, optic and aural) clammed up with thick impenetrable hymens.
And, then, of course, I endured consecutively: suffocation, hunger, bladder rupture, bowel upheaval, a menses-surge into the lungs and, consequently, a little less hunger from being force-fed my own loose innards. But the real horror was the incessant minimalist singing music caused by my body’s own processes within the ears dammed-up cavities. Or was I being kept alive for something far more insidious, far more soul-wrenching than all this mere apocalypse of the flesh?
Yet all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The lady, if not Claudia, turned out to be the lumpy belly-dancer, with her midget accordion-accompanist, whose private performance had been specially requested by the honeymoon couple in the Royal Suite - between the pate-de-foie-gras starter and the main course.
(published 'Daarke World' 1993)
