Читать книгу Undressing Emmanuelle: A memoir - Sylvia Kristel - Страница 7

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‘Uncle’ Hans is the manager of the hotel, which belongs to my paternal grandmother. The whole family lives or works here – my parents, my aunts Alice and Mary, my younger sister Marianne and the baby, my brother Nicolas.

The hotel boasts no stars but it is rather elegant, with its high ceilings, Persian carpets and art nouveau style.

‘Uncle’ Hans is appreciated for his rigour. He is steadfast, hardworking and clean, his nails perfectly rounded from frequent filing. He’s the right-hand man, he opens and closes the hotel with the clockwork regularity of the station trains. ‘Uncle’ Hans has that inhuman ability to repeat impeccably the same mechanical actions day after day. His face betrays neither fatigue nor pain, just a slight smile. He intrigues me. He must be a robot, resembling a man without quite having the right expression, hiding under his smooth mask and shiny head a lifeless body, activated by strings and held together by steel rods and tightly fastened screws rather than blood and tears.

‘Uncle’ Hans is not an uncle but the head employee of the hotel. He owes his nickname to the trust my parents have placed in him, to his daily presence, and to the calm and protective impression he makes. It was my mother who first called him that. With the name she gave ‘Uncle’ Hans a stake in our family, hoping to encourage that solitary man to attach himself – to us, our good fortune, and our hotel.

‘Uncle’ Hans does not like me. I am the boss’s daughter. His secret rival, an idle girl sprouting up before his very eyes with my lazy blossoming charm, the kid constantly under his feet, a growing obstacle, an unformed body arousing his desire.

I often eat with him and the sous-chef in the kitchen. I am already making my preferences clear, gently but firmly. I don’t like onions, carrots or mustard, those adult items I’m supposed to force down my throat ‘like a big girl’, as he says. He likes to watch me grimace as I chew. The mustard pot is huge, family-size. It goes from table to table acquiring layers of congealed mustard on its rim, some browner than others, scored by marks where the spoon has lain. Leftovers. I don’t want any mustard.

One refusal too many and ‘Uncle’ Hans’s eyes go all red. He grabs my slender neck and squeezes it until my body goes rigid, then shoves my face into the pot.

When I’ve had enough to eat I push my plate towards the middle of the table with infinite slowness, looking elsewhere. I take advantage of any distractions to secretly push the plate as far away from me as possible.

‘Uncle’ Hans catches me at it, and stabs his fork into my arm. Hard. I scream and run to my room. The pain is intense. The blood is seeping through, making four red spots on my arm. I rub them as you scrub a stain, but it doesn’t make any difference.

I hide the wound by crossing my arms: my first pose.

I tell my mother how ‘Uncle’ Hans forces me to finish disgusting plates of food. She replies that I have to do whatever ‘Uncle’ Hans tells me, it’s for my own good.

I hit on a different strategy. I decide to spend any scraps of money I earn from serving or making beds in the chip shop next door. The chips are fat, greasy and delicious; they crunch and melt in my mouth as I savour their soft hearts, alone or with my sister Marianne.

We behave like starving orphans, and the kind owner gives us extra large portions. We are free, happy and sated.

When my skin turns brown in the summer, the four spots from the fork are reborn – one at a time, in a neat little row, from the most distinct to the faintest.