I work in the café of a by-the-hour hotel

maria vittoria morokovski

That's the first line of a very sad Italian song.
I'm not Italian, I'm Ethiopian, Christian and I think I'm 38, I say I think because where I come from there wasn't any birth register when I was born, at least not in my village. My name is Isaac, I have two grown children in Ethiopia, with my first wife, who didn't want to follow me to Italy, and two smaller ones born here, the children of my present partner. As the song says, for over ten years my job has been to carry coffee to couples; to tell the truth, I carry fewer cups of coffee than glasses of whisky or champagne, or sometimes sandwiches.
That's not all I do, when the couples leave I also have to make the beds, change the towels, clean the ashtrays, make sure the bathroom is tidy, and make room for the next couple.
Now my job seems easy, but it wasn't always like this.
When I found this job it was 1968, I didn't know a word of Italian, nor what a bed was; I'd never seen a vacuum cleaner or a floor polisher, I had no idea was a deodorant was. Today I can even understand the ugly expression, "Dirty black!"
I have to admit that I wasn't exactly clean when they took me on as an odd-job man. At that time I had to clean the garden, the garage, wash the car, sometimes the windows. I was skinny and they gave me a lot to eat, but I couldn't manage to eat it all, so I threw it into the toilet, because I didn't want to offend such nice people.
Then they started giving me even more, and one fine day the toilet got stopped-up, so they found out where all that good food wound up.
They all started to shout and threatened to send me away, they said I was ungrateful and I got a tremendous headache, also because I couldn't understand anything about what was happening.
At that time the hotel wasn't like it is now, there were entire families living there, people who'd come north looking for work like me, or students, or people who couldn't afford to pay a rent.
The boss was a good-looking woman who cried and yelled a lot, I couldn't say why, she had a daughter who was at school and an old mother who never spoke.
The old woman took care of the cooking, did the shopping and ironed her granddaughter's school smocks and the maids' white aprons, she was modest but must have known a lot of things, because the granddaughter often went over to her with her exercise books open to ask for explanations, they weren't Italian either but I understood that only a long time after. I realized that the mother cried a lot because they didn't have the money for the rent and the landlord was threatening to send them away.
The hotel was always full, but the guests were poor and couldn't always pay, and the two women didn't have the heart to send them away.
In those years it got really cold in Milan in winter.
I understood a long time later how lucky I'd been, they'd given me a tiny room in the attic, I had to stoop low so as not to hit my head, even though I'm not very tall.
The attic was heated and had a washbasin.
Other people from my country were a lot worse off, they were crowded into smelly spaces under the stairs or damp cellars.
I didn't like the boss, she shouted too much and was never satisfied with my work and always threatening to send me away.
But I liked the daughter a lot, she'd understood that if she wrote me notes I was able to understand better what they wanted of me, she tried to explain things without letting on to her mother, she'd taught me to wash and use deodorant, she gave me used clothes (many of them belonged to customers who had sneaked off without paying the bill), she tried to get me tips and when she learned that I had a girlfriend she helped me get a small high-rise apartment. It was my first real home, I still live here, even if today I could get a nicer one. I love this little place, where my children were born, which I learned how to paint by myself, where every nail was put in by us, by my partner and me.
Back then I would send part of the money I earned to my first wife and my grown children, to my father and mother and my brother, there was not much left for me, since I always had to have a plane ticket for Ethiopia in my pocket - the employers were supposed to pay for it, but back then no one did.
The pension contributions they paid were also for fewer than the hours I really worked, but I'd never have reported them to the Unions, because I'd have been afraid not to find another job and because I didn't understand much about pensions and rights, and also because I'd have worked for them even if they hadn't made any contributions.
Life flowed along peacefully, and when my son Thomas was born I didn't mention it; but when my partner found a good job, I had to ask to bring him to work with me.
The owner's daughter kept him with her while she studied, and when she found out that I hadn't reported his birth she got furious and helped me make a regular report. Today Tommaso is Italian, but in his documents he is two years younger.
It was easier when Isabel was born.
Everything changed the day when the bailiff came to serve the eviction notice.
The hotel was closed and the customers thrown out.
The boss yelled and cried more and more; at the time I didn't have my little apartment yet, and I was afraid of having to leave.
The two women managed to let me stay on, the only tenant in an empty hotel.
The two women were always out and about, the mother had sold all her jewelry and a few pieces of furniture had been carried off; they didn't pay me wages any more, but they'd left me a little heater and when it was time to eat they always called me.
One evening a woman came to see them, she was a bit vulgar, she wore too much jewelry and her expensive fur coat did nothing to make her graceless body any more attractive. The boss talked to her for a long time, repeating over and over, "But I have a daughter!" The other woman answered, "So? You'll be able to send her to university, you'll pay your debs and you'll see it's just a job like any other." Before leaving, she handed over a check. A few days later my life changed for the better.
My boss said I'd have to learn how to make the beds and clean the rooms.
So I learned to use electrical appliances and I got a second-hand uniform.
The boss worked, too, while the daughter studied, seated at the cash-desk in front of a big register.
A few days later, the hotel reopened and the rooms filled up with people again, but not with students or working people looking for a home, but with couples that stayed for a few hours, some only a few minutes. I preferred the second sort: the room was quite tidy when they left, I only had to check the waste baskets, they told me top put on gloves to empty them but I never did. That was how I learned what a condom was.
Until then I'd never seen one, and I didn't know what they were for.
The couples who stayed for hours, instead, left the rooms like fields of battle, I had to hurry to change the sheets because there was already another couple waiting. The work seemed never to finish, the washing machines filled up and emptied continually, like the cleaning women who came and went quickly.
Only later did I understand that for some of them the job was bad for possible future references, for others it was easier to become clients than to stay on to do the cleaning. That was why another man from my country was hired to take over the night shift.
The daughter made the coffee and washed the glasses, prepared breakfast and took care of waking up customers.
Yes, because I haven't mentioned that the rooms were let in the middle of the night to people who stayed until the morning.
I've lost count of the white sheet covers that I had to change several times a day.
The debts were paid off, it took more than three years of constant work but they were paid, the hotel was painted and decorated, telephones were put into the rooms, finally maids were found, attracted by the good pay.
The girl worked every night and studied, sometimes she took the place of a maid that didn't come to work, she never went out and had no friends.
The mother had heart disease, maybe she'd cried and yelled too much.
One day she was put in hospital and they told her that if she didn't have an operation immediately, she would die.
The doctors said that if she chose a private clinic she could be operated on at once, but if she chose the public hospital she would have to wait months.
I remember the frightened expression on the daughter's face, she phoned the woman, the one who'd given the check.
The check arrived that time, too. It was a hard period, without the boss and her daughter we couldn't work.
The girl was always in the clinic, for over twenty days the hotel was closed.
The mother didn't get better and the clinic was very expensive.
We opened again and I found myself promoted to doorman, I learned how to register clients and take their money.
Often they insulted me, but I never told the girl, because I didn't want her to worry. One day, though, I had to quarrel with a client who wouldn't pay a "dirty black".
The girl heard him and came out of the room where she was resting, like an unleashed fury, she took the man by his necktie and came near to suffocating him, warning him never to set foot in the hotel again.
He was one of our best customers, he drank a lot and came often.
From that moment, if she hadn't been before, the girl became more than a sister for me. The following day I was asked to make the daily payments in the bank, the girl was afraid to keep money in the house, and so she left me the night's takings in a place only the two of knew about. In the morning before starting work I took care of the payments and the daily expenses.
The customers didn't want a black to make their coffee, even the prostitutes could hardly put up with the fact that a black washed the glasses.
They could do worse things, with individuals a lot dirtier than me, they even went to bed with blacks, but they wouldn't accept the fact that a black washed the cups...
Back then, the prostitutes were all white, all Italian immigrants, they came from the south of Italy, they found what they believed was love, they hoped in a better life and wound up on the street, they often got beat up and were tracked by the police as though they were animals, with round-ups as exhausting as they were useless.
Still... they wouldn't accept the idea that a black made their coffee.
I didn't mind much, I understood that it was their ignorance that made them think that way. I had the world of my affections, my children in Ethiopia had learned to read and write thanks to the money I'd sent them for so long and they wrote to me every once in a while, my Italian children were growing up healthy and strong, my woman loved me and had a good job, I had my second great love with me every day. Yes, I think I can admit it today, after so much time has passed, I loved that girl, I'd watched her grow up and I loved her as a friend, as a brother and I would have loved her as a lover. Only once did I ever steal anything in that house, and it was a pair of panties belonging to the girl.
How often I regretted that, if she realized I would have ruined that marvelous everyday understanding we had.
Sometimes I had masturbated thinking of her, and I was jealous when I saw a man come out of her room, but I cried for her when that man didn't turn out to be worthy of her love. I think she did realize about the panties, I kept them in my locker, hidden behind my uniform; one day I couldn't find them, I thought it was her way to let me know she'd found out, but she never said anything, evidently she cared about me as much as I did about her. Speaking of Italian prostitutes, I wonder what has come of them, now that there are only foreigners and drug-addicts around, were they able to 'retire' in the end, as they hoped? I doubt it, but today's world is a lot less clean than things were back then.
The mother had to stay in hospital for six exhausting months, and the girl was desperate, both because of her mother's health and for the money that never seemed enough, she'd had to give up her studies again and she'd become a shadow of her former self.
To make the situation even worse, plain-clothes policemen had begun to make us strange visits, I understood it was police because she called them according to their rank, and their visits made her more and more worried and upset. The day after their visits I never had to go to the bank.
One Monday morning I was followed to the bank, attacked and robbed, but I was happy that I was able to give them only my salary and not the weekend's takings.
It wasn't the fists that worried me, but knowing that we were not safe any more.
The girl would willingly have left me half of the money I'd saved, but I wouldn't accept it; that month I got along with half of my salary and the girl arranged for me to get a lot more tips than usual. What she did was to ask every customer, not an easy thing for her since she was proud and didn't like to ask, but for that month she put her pride aside.
The curious thing about that time was the strange mixture of clients. From the time when the girl was left on her own, the sitting room was full of people of the male sex of the most varied social backgrounds - judges, priests and policemen made small-talk with pick-pockets and ne'er-do-wells, they didn't go into the bedrooms with lovers or prostitutes but stayed for hours and hours talking to her.
The sitting-room became a meeting place for all sorts of people who exchanged ideas and wanted to listen to music, chatting and drinking, a sea of lonely men that arrived endlessly, until finally a judge suggested that she make them pay to get in, in part to screen the customers, in part to meet the growing expenses.
The girl had hired a penniless musician and what had been a by-the-hour hotel became an exclusive circle, without a license or a name, where only a select few could afford to enter. It was the customers themselves who fixed the prices of the drinks to free themselves of unwelcome types.
The girl found herself managing something that she herself didn't know how to define, but her presence was essential, the only woman in a sea of men.
Every one of them would have produced false documents to take her to bed, but no one dared go beyond a few veiled innuendos that She knew how to ward off with great style. Money was now coming in abundantly, rooms were still let but were certainly not the largest source of income.
In the neighbourhood, other hotels let rooms by the hour, but rumours of the girl's high takings began to spread.
The girl had paid for her mother's operation and had put her into a luxurious, comfortable clinic for the chronically ill; unfortunately, the woman had not completely recovered from the operation and would never again be useful to herself or to anyone else.
I watched the passing of the youth of that girl who was admired by so many and was so alone and so tired, who was exploited by the people who let her pay for her mother's treatment, exploited by the police who closed an eye on the couples and on the absence of a license to serve alcoholic beverages, lorded over by an invalid mother who didn't leave her a moment to breathe. I felt like her only real friend, and it really seemed it was that way.
It didn't take long for requests for kick-backs to arrive from other directions, fortunately the delinquents weren't as ferocious as they are today, because though I was trembling with fear, I managed not to give in to their threats. I remember one day when, my eyes aflame with anger, I answered an ugly mug, 'I have nothing to lose except my mother and my job, if you touch either of them I'll be like you and I won't hesitate to shoot if I have to.''
The bluff worked, by the grace of God or of someone else, the girl didn't have to pay kickbacks to the racket and thanks to the people she'd got to know in her own sitting-room, she slowly managed to free herself of the bribes to the police and tax officers.
The couples arrived less and less often, swallowed up by the competition.
I was still the jack-of-all-trades by day and she was the good fairy by night, vestal of a temple where men weren't looking for sex but for companionship and humanity.
Only those who were part of that strange circle know the truth, in the eyes of the world it was a place of perdition.
It was at that time that I got my last promotion, I was allowed to make the coffee, wash the glasses and, sometimes, drink champagne with them, I no longer wore a uniform, I served the drinks only on the days when my colleague was off work, I didn't receive as many tips, I wasn't very well-liked by the girl's "friends".
One strange day the girl fell in love, and everyone was amazed. She was supposed to be there to smile, to chat, sing or play cards with them, it wasn't possible for her to fall in love, to have a man.
The Vestal had to remain just that!
I suffered a lot, too, seeing her so different and happy.
But the brother won over the lover in me, I hoped that he was the right man even if I was never able to like him.
Then the girl's mother died.
She felt free, she wouldn't have to pay for the expensive clinic any more, she wouldn't have any more debts, and she decided to sell the hotel.
Since the takings were all under the table, the price that was offered was low.
The girl wanted to grab her only chance at life and she'd started to neglect the place, without Her it had no reason to exist.
People began to come less often, the men began to drink too much, someone started up a fight for no reason and the Police arrived, the girl was arrested, ironically the charge was aiding and abetting prostitution.
I don't understand much about the law, but I don't think the girl had aided or abetted anything, she wouldn't even had had the time, and then the men she knew would have been very careful not to be seen with a woman.
In fact, she was acquitted, but the whole affair took away her fighting spirit, the great love had vanished at the first sign of trouble, and so had the great friends.
Now the takings didn't cover our expenses, the couples had stopped coming long ago, the club had melted away like snow in the sun, the few customers who came to sleep at the hotel weren't enough even to pay our salaries, but the worst thing were the girl's eyes: they were still beautiful, but lifeless. She was suffering, and when she decided to sell the hotel and go away I understood she couldn't do anything else.
They would have crushed her, she had to go away, far away, alone, without me Now I work in café of a by-the-hour hotel and I take coffee up to the couples making love ...

Maria Vittoria Morokovski was born in Rome to parents who were Russian exiles and she graduated in foreign languages and literatures in Milan. A translator of literary texts from Russian and from French, at a very young age she began published stories in various magazines. The year 2004 saw her first novel, La cosa più bella della nostra vita (Edizioni Vida) and in 2006 the Bolognese house Giraldi published La prima volta di Marily . Winner of literary awards, her stories are included in numerous anthologies, among which Canti di Venere (Borelli editore, 2005).