Читать книгу Undressing Emmanuelle: A memoir - Sylvia Kristel - Страница 6

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The last train has screeched noisily into Utrecht station, as it does every evening just after nine. Daytime was over hours ago, but night arrives only with this silence. A brutal cold snap started today.

‘Winter is here, that’s for sure!’ declared a customer in the overheated hotel restaurant.

Utrecht station is enormous, the biggest in Holland, a great entangled fork leading to a huge, well-ordered platform. Travellers arrive here from all countries, for a day or a month, for the cattle market, the trade fairs, the hopes and encounters of big city life.

I walk slowly down the main staircase, the floorboards creaking despite the lightness of my tread. I am trying not to make any noise, in case the hotel is full – although the lights in the lobby are off. There’s only that red light seeping in through the bay windows, lending a glow to each piece of furniture, each line, to the Chinese vase standing on the reception counter. This red light blinks on and off, banishing the nighttime dark. In the hotel the dark is never black, it’s purple.

The show is scheduled for ten o’clock. I cross the empty restaurant; the customers must have eaten early on account of the sudden cold. I walk towards the counter. It’s the end of the week and the customers have left, tired.

I’m disappointed. I enjoy doing my little show. Usually the two of us do it together, it’s better that way – we smile and protect each other. We always use the same song, ‘Only You’ by the Platters. I get on my bicycle and pedal around the bar, turning in the wide aisle. I fix each customer with a perfectly neutral smile, neither happy nor sad. I stretch out one leg, then the other. My skirt flips back over the saddle and I turn my head slowly from side to side, trying to make the curls of my short hair flutter. Marianne is behind me on the rack, waving. I meet the amused eyes of the customers without reading them. I check that everyone is happy. The recipe usually takes – they laugh out loud, encouraging me and calling out:

‘Bravo, Sylvia! Do it again, both legs together this time!’

That’s how it usually turns out, but not tonight. I am alone and I won’t be doing a show for anyone. I decide to go back up to my room.

The lounge door opens, letting in a patch of bright light. I jump.

‘Ah, you’re here, Sylvia! You came. Is it only me? Come over here, Peter! Sylvia’s going to do her show, just for us.’

I nod slowly, minimally. I can’t refuse, can’t say no to ‘Uncle’ Hans. I’m already wearing my performance outfit – the short wool skirt and a slightly faded pink T-shirt matched to my tights.

Peter is still wearing his apron. He’s the sous-chef. He has a red, puffy face and large, deep-set, glittering eyes. ‘Uncle’ Hans always wears the same grey suit, unironed and too short, revealing spotless white socks. His face is round. His hair is greasy and plastered back. I can’t tell the length of ‘Uncle’ Hans’s hair. Is it long, under all the Brylcreem? As long as the hair concealed in severe buns which in the rooms at night cascades free and soft right down the backs of the women I sometimes glimpse?

‘Come on then! Start! We’ve no time to lose, sweetheart!’

‘Uncle’ Hans turns on a table lamp so he can see me better. I get on my bike and go round once in their silence, I don’t want any music. I stretch out a leg, not looking at them. I can feel their gaze. Settled on my body like a boil. It bothers me and makes me feel tired but I carry on, neither sad nor happy, I will not stop. I twirl around, I’m an acrobat, an agile cat, a beautiful lady. I pedal around the bar. ‘Uncle’ Hans puts out a hand each time I pass, trying to catch me as if I were a fairground attraction. I skid a little but regain control. One more and I’ll stop, I’ve decided. That will be it for tonight.

‘Uncle’ Hans has stood up. And Peter. They’re suddenly in front of me, blocking my circular route. They wedge my front wheel with their feet, grab my shoulders and put a hand over my mouth. I don’t cry out. I knew it. Peter pulls my hands behind my back, takes a forgotten napkin from a table and ties them together, pulling hard, wanting me to wince but I won’t. I stand motionless, waiting. I want to see ‘Uncle’ Hans’s hair come loose, to feel his sticky hands soaked with fear. Let him sweat his desire over me, exposing himself as no one knows him. I want the boil to burst. I’m waiting.

‘Uncle’ Hans sticks out his thick, blotchy, pinky-brown tongue, waggling it like a hissing snake. He takes hold of my face – smaller than his hands – tilts it, and leans over so that his tongue can reach every part of my skin. He is slobbering, licking me slowly from neck to temple, from bottom to top, then starting again. His tongue is a thick, hot body, with a hard, pushing tip, so close but so foreign, so unknown. I don’t move. I leave my hands knotted in the napkin, leave my face to be smeared with his saliva, let him do it.

‘What’s going on here?’ shrieks Aunt Alice as she comes into the lounge.

‘Nothing, nothing!’ replies ‘Uncle’ Hans. ‘We’re playing with Sylvia!’

Aunt Alice comes closer, slender, quick and unafraid. She slams on light switches as she comes, making the bar as bright as daylight, then raises her voice.

‘Sylvia, go straight back up to your room. You need to take care of your sister, she’s not well. Quick now, it’s late!’

I turn towards her, pulling with all my strength on the napkin still binding my hands. ‘Uncle’ Hans has stood up again and is leaving the room without a word, head bent. Peter follows him. Aunt Alice watches them go, mute, then sees the napkin fall to my feet. She hides her head in her hands with a great groaning sigh and repeats, her voice softer and slower: ‘What’s going on? …’

I am out of there.

I was nine years old. It was in my parents’ hotel, where I grew up – the Commerce Hotel, Station Square, Utrecht. That was the chaos of my young life.