The Night Porter

The Night Porter

As he entered the kitchen the night porter wished he could sigh. Working the night shift suited him because he didn’t sleep, and he loved the sweet quiet of darkness. He wondered at the need for all the lights illuminating the night in cacophony. As if we were kids scared of the dark.

So, he made the rounds to check no lights had been left on. And of course, the light at the back, towards the walk-in fridge, was on, as per usual. The idea of a room that was also a fridge where you hang meat and store food as if they were clothes and shoes, was cool.

All lights were supposed to switch off automatically, but that one always stayed on, as if a ghost were keeping it on while no one could see them. But the night porter had checked many a time and no ghosts were around. The simplest explanation was always a defect of technology. So, he walked back to the other side of the kitchen from where he had come from, skirting around shiny metal surfaces freshly scraped of food. He entered the chef’s office and switched off the light from the distribution board. It had become a standard procedure. No one knew what the problem was, the phantomatic ghost in the machine.

The lights were off now. No wasting energy, when energy was life. In the dark, he hovered back to the walk-in fridge ensuring it was locked, then took a right and checked the back door was locked. It was through the window in the door that he saw her. She was standing on the edge of the roof like an old-fashioned apparition from an old movie, a woman in a white gown whipping in the wind like a flag. He was transfixed as if by a thing of beauty.

When she moved closer to the edge, he started up as if he had been dreaming. The apparition was standing on the roof of the hotel, which meant she was his responsibility. It was only a 4-storey building, but still. If she jumped, he would lose his job.

When he opened the door to the roof, he could see the wind shaking her white gown. It was probably cold up here. He missed the all-body feeling of goosebumps at times. The wind shrieked through his Vest, like a demon’s flute, singing the verses of the tortured and the ever-dying.

At that sound piercing through the ghost’s soul like a lament, the woman turned away from the edge and look at him, with the eyes of a girl. She shook all over, eyes moon-wide, hands frantically scratching each other, as if in argument.

‘Good evening, Ms. I work here. I am the night porter.’

‘You are a ghost.’

‘Well, yes, that I am, thanks for noticing. What gave it away? My Vest?’

‘Sorry.’

‘What for?’

‘That was rude of me, pointing out you are a ghost like that.’

‘Oh, that’s okay, I am used to it.’

They stood silent for a while with only the sound of the wind between them, slapping her gown, screaming through his Vest and his soul. The Vest was a dark red metal, an upside-down waistcoat, a triangle standing on it’s point, vambraces and greaves and a helmet, like a medieval soldier that could not afford a full armour. The helmet was full face, to hide the fact that there was no face behind. An electronic plate imitated human emotions like an emoji. The Vest was not there to protect nor as a uniform: it was there to show the ghost to the living. Past was the age of ghosts scaring humans. It is a human right to see ghosts, and an obligation for the latter to be seen. Pity that the Vest also sucked the life out of the wearer. Or what life they had left.

The porter’s expression was a frozen, smiling emoji. He never changed it because expressions cost energy. The Ghost-Fuelled Technology, or G(i)FT, that powers his Vest uses the electromagnetic field of a ghost to function. What is the saying? What is a ghost, but an electromagnetic field with a consciousness? It’s clean energy, the only cost, the life of the ghost.

He buried his thoughts and returned to the reality of the girl in front of him standing like a leaf in a storm.

‘You are shaking.’

‘Don’t, please.’

‘No, I mean, I don’t know if it’s the cold or maybe you are afraid. You shouldn’t be scared when you die. If you are scared, maybe you don’t want to do it. Just saying.’

‘How should I know. Everything scares me.’

‘So, you mean to say death is just one fear amongst many, and it makes no difference?’

‘Yes, that’s it.’

‘Why are you afraid, Ms?’

‘It’s hard, that’s all.’

‘What is?’

‘Life.’

‘Now, that’s insulting. Do you think life after death is any easier? Look at me, I work as a night porter in a cheap hotel. Okay, it was my choice, I wanted something simple, nothing hard, trying to make my soul last as long as possible ... And here you are, making me sweat, metaphorically, of course. And do you know why I’m metaphorically sweating? Because you are going to make me lose my job.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, let’s go back in then.’

‘No, please, no.’

‘Okay, it was worth a try.’

The wind had quietened, just a whisper through his soul. And yet the young girl was still trembling. Mumbling, whimpering, like a whisper through arthritic lips. She wasn’t wearing much, after all. In the darkness of this night, she looked more of a ghost than he did. She was one step from becoming one. Maybe. No one could tell who was going to turn into a ghost or who would just die.

Science could trap and use up a ghost like him but could not predict whether the dead would stay dead. The most advanced countries used the death penalty to execute murderers and other such assumed criminals, so they could enslave them after death, as batteries in a factory. The needs of industry and economy ruled justice, after all. Unfortunately, being a serial killer didn’t always make one a candidate ghost.

The porter didn’t know what made him different, why he was still there. He had no attachment to life. When his father had died still in his fifties, he had wished the roles had been reversed, since his dad loved life very much. But the porter never did. He was just passing through.

‘Can I be alone now?’ He had almost forgotten she was there. At times ghosts were just made of thoughts that didn’t want to go away. Such as memories.

‘Yes, of course, if you don’t mind going back to your room.’

‘No, I cannot.’

‘Why, miss?’

‘I have to do it.’

‘Well, you don’t have to do anything at all.’

To that, she didn’t have an answer. She was trapped in her own fear like the proverbial mouse. But he didn’t know where the cheese was, where was the trap, what was the trap. He didn’t know. And he didn’t need to know.

‘Listen, miss, I only want to keep my job. Do you think if you jump, I get to keep my job? Do you think it’s easy for someone like me to find a job? It would be easier for everyone if I just gave up and became a battery. You know all those ghosts that go crazy because they wake up one day and they are a ghost? They become batteries for factories. This building? It’s powered by crazy ghosts. So, yes, I’d rather you didn’t jump. You want to jump. I don’t want you to jump. We are both quite selfish, only thinking about ourselves, aren’t we?’

‘No, that’s not true.’

‘Isn’t it now? So, you are not selfish if you jump and I lose my job.’

‘Can you stop with that! I don’t want you to lose your job, that’s not why I am doing it.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you mean to do. Your intentions have no power over their outcomes. You jump, I lose my job. You jump, you might find some people are even going to miss you.’

‘No, they won’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Do you think if people cared about me, I would be up here? Even you don’t care about me, you only care about your job.’

‘Oh, finally the bite of some personality. Now, you tell me why I should care about you.’

‘…’

‘That was a question, by the way.’

‘I don’t know why you should care. Why should you care? I am going to jump anyway.’

‘Goodness me, cannot you think of anything else? I am trying to have a conversation here.’

‘What’s the point? I’m tired, I’m so fucking tired.’

‘Well, there’s a nice bed waiting for you in your room.’

‘The bed is cold, and no one is there waiting for me.’

‘Well, maybe it’s because they had enough of waiting for you to get back.’

‘Are you trying to be funny?’

‘Who, me, miss? Not at all. I told you what I’m trying to do.’

‘Keep your job.’

‘Exactly.’

The wind, having caught its breath again, howled through his Vest with renewed energy, loud and arrogant. As if it had had enough of their conversation. Moving around the young woman, keeping away from her social and public space, away from what remained of her life, the night porter approached the edge and looked down. Just a big dark space. It was late, all the lights were off. How long had he been on his shift? And he hadn’t done anything yet. Another night doing nothing. And yet, that nothing was his reason for living.

‘You know, in the last few weeks, memories of my death keep flooding in.’ He paused, creating involuntary pathos, unaware of the young woman holding her breathe. ‘And yet, are these memories real? Are they electric impulses? Does this make them more or less real? Am I just an electric field with a consciousness?’ He stared in the night with his inexistent eyes, wondering if looking at life from after death meant anything special. If he didn’t have eyes to see, then the reality he was seeing must be an illusion.

She stared at him, filled with questions too big or just too alien for one so young, her lack of experience not giving her any words she could use. She felt stupid, unable to form an answer. Any answer. She set down from the edge and sat with her back against the parapet from which she was still planning to end it all. She was always better at thinking when sitting against something solid, her knees up, hugging her shins, holding everything tight against her timid chest, head resting gently on her knees. As if making herself into a ball helped her focus, condensing her own being in a small space made all of herself.

He did not have a shape to change into, but the firm rule imposed by his G(i)ft Vest. The rigidity of his container shaped his very soul, as of form dictating its content. Had he always been so strict in his routine, in wanting to keep his job? Was he being shaped into keeping his position by the clothes he wore, the technology that dictated his after-life?

Holding to his job was all the identity he was left with, after his death and his previous life. After all, one cannot stay the same after death. His job was the vest he had chosen, if he lost it, he’d lose his very identity. Identity is continuity and repetition, running the same existence day after day. Coming to work, going home, repeat. People who seek change are unhappy with who they are. At times, back at home after work, when he removed his Vest, he was afraid he would lose himself. As if the Vest had become everything that held his soul from dispersing into nothing.

It was so quiet in the night that she could not think, a pressure squeezing ever tighter the ball she had made of herself. She would never be able to come up with anything of consequence or meaning, but she had to say something to interrupt all the silence.

‘I’m sorry.’

He was surprised to hear her voice, forgotten had he that she was even there. Again. Losing touch with reality, with time.

‘Why? Why are you apologising?’

‘Because I am making a whole lot of trouble for you.’

‘That is true. I had almost forgotten.’

‘Funny.’

‘No, really. Do you mind if I sit with you? Not that I can really sit. More like leaning the back of my Vest against the wall alongside you. So it looks like I am sitting next to you. Something like that, yes?’

‘Mmh, okay.’

They sat there quietly for a while, the ghost looking at the stars, the other, being still alive, looking at her feet, as if just by staring intently forward and down she would be able to continue with her life.

‘You know, I don’t even know why I want to do it. I cannot really complain. My parents have just divorced, yes, but whose parents haven’t? Marrying is just a step. Then they divorce so that they can start over. I’ll have new families soon. I don’t seem to be able to keep a boyfriend, but I know I’ll be able to find someone soon enough. It’s not that I am particularly pretty, but it’s just the way of things. I have a job, it’s not great, but I earn a good wage, way above average. I wear cheap clothes, but that’s just because I feel like it. I do have a few good friends, I don’t always manage to see them, but often enough. I have never been great at anything, but I’ve mostly been lucky with everything. It’s not bad, really. I am sure it’s going to pass.’

‘Unless you jump.’

‘Eh, yes, unless I jump. Anyway, I don’t feel like jumping anymore, it’s like I’ve lost the momentum. So, well done, your job is safe.’

‘I’m sorry I’ve interrupted you. You were saying you have a good life, and this is just a moment.’

‘Yes, something like that, I don’t know. It’s just a moment, but it feels so empty, like my life is this big vacuum right now. Maybe it’s because in this moment I don’t have anything or anyone to hang on. It’s like I woke up the other day and realised that God doesn’t exist or that life is meaningless and I have no purpose.’

‘Is it any worst than being a ghost? I wonder, does being used as a battery my purpose?’

‘Yeah, maybe you are right. I don’t know, maybe I am simply spoilt. I have everything, haven’t I?’

She paused, but he didn’t have anything to say, because his nonlife was not her life.

‘If I have everything I am supposed to have, why don’t I feel anything? What is the point?’

‘Mmh, what are you supposed to have, to feel? Maybe I just don’t get it. When I was alive, I didn’t have most of the things you have, but I guess I was okay for a while. Now I am dead, and in a way, I am content with my afterlife because the dead don’t search for meaning or purpose. I could say I am lucky, because I still own my soul and I am not being used to power the lift you used to come up here.’

He paused as if to catch his breath.

‘But this is borrowed time, the same as yours. A gift of time. Your life is fading away, with or without meaning. It was so the day you were born. Rushing to your death from a random roof won’t give it any more meaning. I don’t have any lifechanging advice to make you feel better. But dying has taught me that maybe it’s okay to just find something that makes you content. No need for any big purpose or meaning. Is it so bad to just keep going on? What if you could go on doing something that makes you content or doing nothing at all and still be content? I’ve discovered so many things I didn’t know before by doing nothing after death. You appreciate the little things, as they say. It’s like coming back home after years of living abroad. You find your memories and your spite towards your home belong to a different person and that person is now dead, so you find a new place, and sometimes it’s beautiful. Like, for example, I have enjoyed my conversation with you, you’ve made me think and remember and appreciate. I had forgotten how complicated life is when it’s all about meaning. So, thank you.’

‘You are welcome. If anything. I guess I did something good in the end.’

‘And how does that make you feel?’

‘Mmh, I don’t know really, not yet.’

‘Okay, how would a tea make you feel?’

‘Mmh, that would be lovely.’