Room 29 by Ignasi Monreal

A gaggle forms at the restaurant’s door, tourists of every form, distinguished, trashy, American, Italian. A guest walks to the front of the group, others following close behind her. ‘We’re here for la festa, la festa?’

The restaurant is hot, noisy. Diners are crammed in, and on one side chefs in dirty smocks minister to stoves, clashing pans upon cast iron, upon flames. Water boils constantly, so the air is steamy, smoggy, holding a fug of kitchen scents, sharpish, the loud conversation of diners, and the shouts of the waiters to the cooks. A guest dodges a waiter carrying a large, raw, one-kilo bistecca in one hand and a scale in the other. He weighs the meat beside someone’s table and is received with applause. A woman in Corbusier glasses cleaves meat from bone with short, sharp movements. Her white shirt bears three flecks of fat. She chews with solid contentment.

~

At the beginning of December, the host asked about renting the restaurant’s basement for a New Year’s lunch. No. The response was short and to the point. No, we do not do that. The maître d’ returned his eyes to the reservation book, haughty behind the cash desk, its medals, and scarves, and t-shirts in light purple, proclaiming the Florentine fleur-de-lis.

The host cleared his throat, first politely, and then again, and behind this he placed his English entitlement. Resting a leather-gloved hand upon the desk, he reiterated his request, adding that he would pay for everything in advance, in cash, and would order more than necessary. He explained that he wished to mark time’s passing, that he wanted the year’s rebirth—and here struggled to think of the word in Italian—to be marked.

~

Down go the guests, past the toilets, into the basement. The walls are lined with wire shelves holding boxes of wine, plates, tins of tomatoes, boxes of paper napkins and between them faded reproductions of paintings from the Louvre, each above a calendar grid—April is the Mona Lisa, January the Wedding Feast at Cana, July Titian’s Woman with a Mirror. The air is cold, with the clean dampness of a cellar.

Three tables with 12 places are decorated with light brown paper place mats, baskets of bread, cheap glasses, two-litre Chianti bottles in wicker and jugs of water.

The tables are occupied by youngish guests, well dressed, their faces mostly grey and drawn. They conduct a low burr of conversation, respectful as if the funereal—tomblike—aspect of the basement had subdued them.

~

The bread is unsalted.

During the rule of the Medici, when they were sparring with the Papal States, the latter controlled the production of salt. Salt was mined in Lazio. Holy salt, Holy See. They stopped selling it to the Tuscans, and so the Tuscans made do without it. And have ever since.

The guests tear pieces of bread and drag them through saucers of cloudy olive oil. An American asks for balsamic vinegar and is refused so pours a little wine into a saucer. Others follow suit. The oil is sweet, the wine sour. A guest lifts the bread from his plate and sprinkles a great deal of salt onto it.

~

‘I want the waiters to watch over my guests. If the wine is finished, fill it again, the same with the bread. I want you to begin serving when the last guest arrives, which is when I shall enter. After, I want each course to come quickly at 15-minute intervals. And, most importantly, I would ask that you clear nothing from the table. Let the guests make their own room’.

The maître d’ removes crisp notes from the envelope, pocketing the large tip and placing the rest in the till.

~

Standing before Ghirlandaio’s Last Supper, the host admired the partridges flying above the disciples with the specific ignorance of painted birds among lemon trees on an overcast day. Then, he sat and watched diners bordering the Piazza del Mercato Centrale, eating spaghetti and pizza and large platters of seafood and bowls of gnocchi, all with great concentration, with no abandon. Would the disciples have continued eating after Jesus gave his terrible news? Judas, relieved by permission, did continue, as did Peter, who had a taste for lamb.

~

The guests nudge one another when the host enters. He is followed by six waiters bearing tureens, two for each table, chickpea soup and vegetable soup.

The host stands before his place and clears his throat, banging his fork upon his glass. ‘With desire I have desired to eat this meal with you before I suffer’, and trails off, grinning. ‘So, go ahead!’ He raises the glass, spilling a little wine in his excitement. Everyone follows suit, smiling, spilling wine, exchanging salutations.

~

A tall guest spoons soup to his mouth with surprising speed. A woman across from him leans over, chides him, and he slows. The air grows warmer, fetid. Another guest, fat, plays with his spoon, not having enjoyed the meaty broth. An ugly guest is showing his neighbours how far back he can bend his fingers, eliciting mock screams of fear.

~

Above ground, it begins to rain, and the umbrella sellers appear, the only men standing still in the now-hurried city.

~

Below ground, the conversation throws off its hush and becomes a rich babble.

Most of the guests have finished their soup, though plenty remains in the tureens. The six waiters reappear holding platters of penne in a dark duck ragu and linguine with prawns. They place these between the tureens, crowding the table. A glass is knocked over, eliciting a sharp porco dio from a waiter.

The guests wait for fresh plates and in this waiting grow quiet. After five or so minutes, a guest shrugs and helps themself to some penne, careful to scoop up enough sauce for the pasta. Others follow. Those who have not finished their soup tip it back into tureens. Much is spilt onto the tablecloth, down the sides of the tureens, into water glasses. When the dishes are full of pasta, the conversation returns, loud, renewed.

~

The host asked the maître d’ for a specific succession of dishes to conjure the seasons, to conjure lost time. Here, the refusal was final. What was served would be dictated by the market, the Mercato Centrale, whose large eyes watched the restaurant unblinkingly. So soon after Christmas, this would be unpredictable, the suppliers tired, lazy, anxious, the produce flighty.

~

A guest sits low in her chair, holding her dish close to her mouth so she may more quickly shovel in her spaghetti. Some sauce, a mix of oil and leftover soup, has fallen onto her front. Beside her, a guest removes his jacket and wipes the sweat from his brow with a serviette, which leaves touches of paper in its wake. A waiter refills empty glasses and replaces empty bottles.

A slight guest stands, sways, sits, stands again, and asks for the toilet. He is pointed toward a small door through which he finds three cubicles where the toilets wait in various states of degradation. He pisses onto the seat, onto the floor, into the toilet.

The six waiters enter carrying wide platters of risotto, one black from ink and one yellow from saffron. They balance them upon the messy soup tureens and platters, eliciting a mild protest which quickly dies down.

~

One guest mixes the risottos, arranging flecks of black in a yellow mass. Another drops his glass and begins drinking wine from the bottle, spilling it on himself, removing his wet t-shirt to reveal a hoary chest covered by a stretched, yellowish, singlet. The bottles build up, and the guests place them on the floor when empty, or mostly empty. Some spill their contents, sending rivulets between the flagstones. Risotto is spooned upon pasta or pasta is scraped back into the risotto. The platters, precarious atop the tureens, wobble as the guests serve themselves. One slips off, and risotto spills across the table, onto the floor, onto a guest’s lap.

~

The host sat alone on New Year’s Eve, watching television on his laptop. A man played the piano surrounded by celebrated friends and, as the clock struck 12, they popped champagne bottles and sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’. The host wept.

~

Again, the waiters come in. Guests stand and remove tureens and platters from the table, stacking them without order around the room, too close to the legs of chairs, in the footpaths, in the way, pasta, rice, soup at the feet of the guests, congealing. Onto the tables are placed gigantic circular plates, each carried by two waiters, thick with polenta topped with a carnage of small birds—pigeons, squabs, quails, finches, songbirds, wings bent, small heads crisp, eyes burnt out. The host begins to clap, and the guests join in, clapping, chanting, stamping their feet, banging the table. Now they take the birds with their hands, forgoing their plates, and rip at them with wine-stained teeth, blood and fat slaking their fingers, snaking down their wrists.

~

The host hardly slept on New Year’s Eve. He was too excited and kept company by the incessant ringing of bells. ‘The bells, Esmerelda, the bells!’ he shouted around 4am toward his ceiling. When he did sleep, he dreamt he was below ground, a guest at his own feast, and woke sweating, trembling.

~

A guest chokes, the bone of a quail stuck in his throat, his coughing grows louder and more desperate. Three other guests pound his back inexpertly until the bone dislodges. His face is red, and he collapses to the floor, holding his sides in pain and relief. Slowly, the host walks to him and gently takes him from the floor, leading him to the room’s exit. A waiter emerges to take his arm, firmly, and leads him outside. The others stare after him, their eyes hazy with drink, maws half-open, most full.

Coats, jumpers, and shirts flow off the backs of the chairs and onto the floor. They have embraced half-nudity. The floor is a mess of food and wine and glass, slippery, a hazard for the drunk though easily picked through by the sure-footed waiters who enter, carrying thick bistecca on white plates, one in each hand, which they let slip onto the polenta. A few guests reach, lazily, fatigued, toward the steaks and take them idly, hardly noticing how hot they are, that they burn their hands, and with tired mouths begin to rip and chew, proffering the meat to their neighbour after.

~

The conversation dissipates, the guests are almost silent. There is no longer direction, no longer momentum. When the waiters enter with dessert, the host leaves quietly. Bowls of gelato are placed on the table, left untouched, and melt before guests who are no longer awake but dreaming idle final, dreams.