Room Service (3 page)

‘My dear friends, this is the hotel for soldiers.'

‘Hotel for soldiers?' prodded the German, ‘for all soldiers?'

‘No, for the officers.'

‘For officers then of all countries and all armies?'

‘No, only Turkish officers.'

‘A barracks then?'

‘No not a barracks, out of the barracks.'

‘For this they pay nothing?'

‘They pay but only not so much.'

I felt like saying enough, enough about the officers' hotel which was now two kilometres back.

Tour B up the Bosporus gained by not being thoroughly guided. I was certainly glad we did not have a German guide.

Yes, there was an old man on the ferry using his time to weave a fishing net. Yes, there were cadet officers of about twelve, in military uniform, crew cuts, peak caps, yellow lanyards, identical attaché cases and gloves held correctly in the other hand, going home on Sunday leave to eat lunch with parents in villages along the Bosporus.

Yes, they did drink cay (tea) in glasses brought by a boy with a swinging tray suspended from his hand, and they did eat yooort (yoghurt). Yes, they were cooking fish over coals in their small boats at the villages where we stopped and selling the cooked fish in buns. There were seaside restaurants in the sparkling sun of the Bosporus, where I would dearly have loved to have been, but Tour B was a no-lunch-included tour.

‘My dear friends, that is the Focar – a good restaurant,' said the guide, pointing to one of the seaside places.

‘To my taste,' said the alpine-jacketed German, ‘the Cafe Bohemia is better, but check and double check the bill.'

Both restaurants, I point out, are Italian.

‘How do you say that?' one of the note-taking Germans asked the guide.

‘Focar, Focar,' said the guide.

The guide offered to take photographs for any of us who wished to pose. The professor was the only one who had his photograph taken, JAL bag included, and I thought I detected a touch of self-parody.

‘The cakes, the trolley cakes,' a German suddenly asked, ‘are they fresh at these places mentioned, sometimes the cakes are from yesterday?'

The alpine-jacketed German advised caution, yes always check the cakes.

I suppose by poking at them with a big German finger.

The Tour B up the Bosporus climaxed with the guide pointing into the misty distance and saying ‘Black Sea, there is the Black Sea.'

We all looked. I could not see the Black Sea.

We were standing now on the wharf at Sariyer when the tour guide said with a groan, ‘The short fat man! Where is the short fat man?'

We looked to the ferry pulling out from the wharf.

‘He is missing,' the tour guide groaned, and rushed to the wharf edge. We all rushed with him and stood looking at the receding ferry.

We had lost a comrade in arms, a dear friend.

‘Too bad for him,' the German in the alpine jacket said heartlessly.

Another German came forward and said, ‘I am the short fat man.'

‘No,' said the anguished guide, ‘it is another short fat man.'

‘No,' said the German, helpfully, ‘I am the short fat man.'

The tour guide shook his head.

I guessed that the loss of a member of a Hilton lobby tour, a dear friend, on the Black Sea is a disaster for a tour guide – he probably had an extended family to keep.

The German in the alpine jacket said, ‘Name tags we should have.'

The tour guide said something in Turkish which roughly translated meant, ‘Allah, let this day end.'

We stood glumly on the wharf, but then the guide's face brightened. ‘No, it is alright, the short fat man is from last night, Istanbul night-life, my dear friends, it is alright, we are nine.'

There were smiles all round and we returned to our tour gaiety, limited as it was.

We joined a different vehicle, not an air-conditioned coach, but a ramshackle taxi bus with a curtain fringe along the front windscreen. We had to crowd into it. Obviously owned by a relative of the guide.

In the trip back over the mountains the Germans' minds turned to food.

They asked the guide whether the Bosporus Coffee Inn at the Hilton would be open. He did not know, which initiated a debate about it.

‘The Rotisserie would not be open for sure,' said one.

‘Not the Rotisserie but maybe the Coffee Inn or Pilsen Bar, they would be open.'

‘Only light snacks available,' another speculated.

No cake trolley.

We stopped then some blocks from the Hilton and to our surprise were asked to leave the taxi bus.

‘But this is not the Hilton,' the Germans said with some alarm.

The guide said, ‘This taxi is not permitted to drive to the Hilton, but it is within walking distance and I will take you, dear friends, past the nightclub district.'

The Germans rose in complaint. ‘But why is this?'

‘Polis,' the guide said, unconvincingly, ‘regulation.'

‘That is not possible,' grumbled the Germans and muttered about the Bosporus Coffee Inn closing.

I announced that I was leaving the tour and would say goodbye.

The guide's face fell. ‘My dear friend, the tour ends at the Hilton,' he said, resignedly taking my hand, holding it overlong in the Turkish way. ‘No thanks,' I said. I would walk about.

They all stood looking at me accusingly as I plunged into the seething street.

They probably discussed me as they trudged back to the Hilton led by the guide – probably branded me as a traitor to Tour B.

A newspaper could well have a Hilton correspondent to report on the teeming life within international Hiltons, that one long foyer which stretches around the world.

It occurs to me, too, that Hiltons are like modern Crusader forts – they are fortresses for Western tourists surrounded by security and, here in Cairo, by Tourist Police.

One day people will visit the ruins of Hiltons.

Well, Chief, this is Francois Blase calling in from abroad – taking the pulse of the world. As you know I'm not what you'd call God's great traveller. For one thing I travel too heavy because I need a lot of my things around me. I'd like to see the cabin trunk come back. And I stay at Hiltons instead of at dirt-cheap, authentic little hotels where you eat with the family. I'm happy to report that Hiltons haven't changed although an Indian who lives in Hiltons said that the Cairo Hilton had become ‘a bit of a bazaar'. I'll check that out. But Hiltons are one of the familiar things I like to have around me.

You'll remember that on my last trip I discovered that Hiltonia was a secret country. This time my biggest joy has been discovering the secret country of Autobahnia. Autobahns, like the Hiltons, are a whole way of life.

I've always preferred the interval to the opera. I like Conference-ville – another secret country – because they're a reason for having all-night parties in college rooms. I like foreign countries because they give me a reason for sitting in an aircraft for many hours drinking, eating, reading, listening to music, yarning to the pilot in the cockpit and being a smart alec with the hostesses.

Foreign countries give me an excuse for visiting Hiltonia. Now for the autobahns.

Firstly, you have a choice of three lanes – the slow lane, the middle of the road and the fast lane. Naturally, I'm a fast-lane person. The middle lane is for worms and the slow lane is the one you take when you drop back to 100 km/h to read a map or take something out of your bag or change your sweater.

Then there are the
places de servicio.
Many options here. You can take just toilets and petrol or you can take toilets-telephone-petrol or toilets-telephone-petrol-snacks or you can go the whole way and take toilets-petrol-telephone-snacks-cafeteria-restaurant-bar-nursery-boutique-
farmacia
-information-money exchange-television-motel. And the land of Auto bahnia is timeless – these places are always open. There are three classes of restaurant and I find the most expensive ones are the most chatty.

The rich talk to each other more. I think they're lonelier. You can sit around at a service stop over a beer talking about the dollar rate, the price of petrol a litre, the good Hiltons and not so good Hiltons.

The riff-raff
pique-nique
outside the restaurants and play with their engines and can be quite colourful. Autobahnia food is like airline food, which I always enjoy in that it ‘suggests' a nationality but is vague enough for there not to be any problem about what you eat first. There are no gymnasia on the autobahns that I could find. I'll write to the
comité d'autoroute
about it.

But the urge to be back in the fast lane soon gets to you and you leave a half-finished beer, jump into
your rented Mercedes and tool along the autopista or whatever at your 160 km/h upwards.

Here's a tip. You can tell what country you're in by whether it's called autobahn, autoroute, autopista or autostrada. If it's called Cahill Expressway you're home. The music on the radio is always Abba, or a homage to John Lennon, but the voices around it change.

At first I took notice of the signs that said
curiosité
and I'd stop and dutifully look at the ruin, monument or whatever. Then I realised that the signs were enough – that the signs have a little drawing of a ruin, or a castle, or a cathedral, or a spa, or a
museo d'art.
So when I saw these little drawings I'd pull over into the slow lane, drop down to a 100 ks and read my Baedeker's guide. That's enough.

And then I'd be back in the fast lane again, pushing dopes off into the middle by roaring up behind them flashing my headlights in the European manner.

Autobahns talk to you, they have their own little language. I can now talk autobahn German, autoroute French, autopista Spanish. I can read the altitude in three languages. There are about 300 different signs, more in Germany. There are more signs in Germany than you can ever hope to read at 160 km/h.

The
péage
or toll can get heavy, especially in France. You have to pull into the slow lane, drop back to 100 and scrabble about on the floor of the car, firstly for the currency of the country and then for the correct amount.

You need the correct amount for the
automatique
toll
basket. The manual payment lane is for trucks, caravans and worms – too slow. So I tool into the
automatique
at 100 and hurl my money into the basket. If it's not the correct amount, or if you've hurled in Belgian francs instead of French francs, it screams in pain and a big fist comes out and biffs you on the nose. Or a hook shoots out and tears your rear bumper bar off. So get it right.

Hitchhikers work out of the
places de servicio
and sometimes they themselves will do you a
servicio.
You never know your luck on a strange autobahn. I had a dreadful argument with a Belgian physicist who was hitching. I said I would only pick up hitchhikers who spoke English.

I said nothing made the kilos go slower than sitting beside some dope who couldn't speak English. Talking by sign language is hard at 160 ks. He said this was unethical. You had to take them regardless of language. I said they should have a sign around their necks saying what language they spoke as well as the one they usually have saying what city they're going to. I'll write to the
comité d'autoroute
about it. As a matter of fact I wouldn't mind being on the
comité d'autoroute.
I have a number of ideas.

You fall in love on the autobahns too. If you sit behind someone in the fast lane – someone who has your speed – and together you force dopes over into the middle lane and you pass through a couple of small countries together at 160-170-180 km/h you find that you inevitably fall in love. Remember at primary
school you fell in love with the back of the head of the girl in the desk in front of you. Those plaits, the beautifully brushed and parted hair, the clean white blouse and pressed tunic smelling of Murlex cleaner, the virginal neck.

Where was I? Oh yes, well it happens on the autobahn too: you fall in love with the back of a head. Although in Autobahnia the language of cars has developed a long way, especially on the autopista of Spain. There they use right and left blinkers, headlights, hazard lights, engine revving, the horn – bips, half horn, full horn, held horn – and gestures, usually to abuse or instruct dopes and worms. Well, soon it will be possible to use car language to say ‘I'm madly attracted to you. Do you read Proust? Meet me at the next top-of-the-range restaurant-bar
place de servicio
which takes American Express.'

It's the same as passing a note in class. I tried this with a combination of signals and mime including using the palms of my hands to say: ‘Do you read books?' But I never quite got through. Remember that they have to read this through their rear-vision mirror at 160 ks or whatever. Then they have to signal back, ‘Yes, I'd like a cocktail, I do read books and you drive with much
machismo.
' I'm sure it can be done. This is something the
comité d'autoroute
could tackle.

I'd like to write a novel about a couple who fall in love in the fast lane of an autobahn. They get to say ‘I love you' with their blinkers and maybe the hazard light would have to be used as well. They get to know
each other over cocktails at the
place de servicio
, make love for the first time at a P-Stop, get married at an historical cathedral (or maybe just at the sign), have their honeymoon at an autobahn motel or at a
playa de veraneo
resort just off an autobahn, their kids grow up in the autobahn nurseries – play with the other autobahn kids in the
place de servicio
lidos.

Well, I'm writing this in the slow lane at about 100 ks but I've got to get moving. I'm off up the
route principia
to Jerusalem to eat at the restaurant Jesus used to eat at. Cheers.