The Woman in Valencia by Annie Perreault (book recommendations website txt) 📗

solitude were much like the ones ticking by now in this hotel room; the night eddied with the same currents of worry and fatigue, and the feeling of not being a good enough mother, woman, lover, daughter. That numbness that pervades your whole body and clouds your vision, when your skin feels like it’s weighed down by a layer of clay, when staring into the soft glow of a lightbulb sends you into a trance, and you’re suddenly convinced of the need to take stock of your entire life, right there, in the middle of the night.

ROOM 714

In the silent room, in the hollow Valencian night, far removed from everything, as though the Valencia Palace has come unmoored and is now adrift on dark waters, Claire still can’t sleep.

In her insomnia, she recalls the pair of vacationers lounging on their deck chairs at the far end of the terrace. They never even noticed the woman in Valencia, never saw her bleeding or her body falling from the roof. They had no clue what was going on, Claire thinks, never heard her weak cry of horror. They’ll return home well rested, oblivious to what happened, happy with their trip to Spain. But why did she choose me? Those two could have probably helped her. And that’s when Claire finally starts to cry.

What follows are several nights of sharks and screams, the woman’s voice, the edge of a roof, her daughter’s hand slipping from her grasp, falls into the void, and sweaty jolts awake, with the woman’s dull, lifeless stare imprinted on her retina.

*

Claire lifts the stiff, heavy duvet and slides one leg out without disturbing the mattress. She’s an expert at getting out of bed without waking Jean. They’ve been on different sleep cycles for years now. They may share the same snug cotton cocoon, but they each have their own way of responding to the heat—Jean by sweating and Claire by waking up constantly. Nestled in this unfamiliar bed, where others have lain before them, enjoying the comfortable pocket-coil mattress and cursing the itchy feathers poking out of the hotel-issue duvet, they lie apart, not touching, curled up on separate sides of the bed. The years when they used to make passionate love, veering off hiking trails in pursuit of simultaneous orgasms in fields or on clifftops overlooking the river, waking up at night to start all over again, are nothing but a distant memory. Now, when Claire looks at Jean’s naked body, she feels resignation rather than desire. She makes love to him the same way she sorts the recycling and puts out and rinses the bin every Monday morning: out of obligation, like a household chore that needs doing.

The mattress doesn’t make a sound as Claire places one foot on the carpet. The alarm clock reads 3:04 a.m. She slips her feet into her sandals, pulls a sheet up over a child’s arm and drapes her navy cardigan over her shoulders, buttoning it up crookedly over her nightgown. As she walks toward the door, she presses a hand to her side; through the ribbing of the sweater, she can feel the rectangular shape of the woman in Valencia’s key card, which she’d stashed in the pocket. She retraces her steps, gropes around on the dresser for her own key, emblazoned with the hotel logo, and folds it, smooth and cold, into her palm. Ever so gently, like she’s caressing a child’s cheek, she turns the lever until she hears the muted click of the latch releasing. Claire closes the door slowly behind her and steps out into the hallway.

She makes her way down the stairs to the fourth floor. She’s careful to close the heavy fire door behind her, then pauses for a moment in the hallway, which looks exactly like every other hallway in the Valencia Palace Hotel, with its mocha carpeting and cream-coloured panelling interspersed with expanses of vaguely walnut-looking faux wood around each door. Spotlights on the ceiling and knee-high emergency lighting strips cast an intense, hazy glow, almost like they were designed to hurry guests back to their rooms. But Claire lingers; she approaches a door, presses her ear up against it, holds her breath. She runs a hand slowly over the smooth, shiny surface of the artificial wood, traces a finger around the fake knots and imitation rings, lined up in a predictable horizontal pattern, there to give the impression of the real thing, but not fooling anyone.

The walls are perfectly soundproofed. It’s impossible to tell which rooms are occupied, who’s sleeping, who’s having sex, who’s battling insomnia or infidelity or depression, who’s masturbating, who can’t get it up, who’s snoring, who feels utterly alone behind these impenetrable doors, locked tight with an electronic bolt. A rabbit hutch made up of perfectly aligned cages, with thick concrete walls designed to block out all sound, ensure a peaceful night’s sleep. She tiptoes forward, coming to a stop in front of one of the rooms, hyper-aware of the silence, the night, the muted tones of the hallway. She spends a few seconds turning the woman in Valencia’s key card over and over in her fingers, as though preparing for a coin toss. She slides it into the slot in the waist-high door handle and swipes down. The light stays red. Claire pivots and tries the lock on the door across the hall. Nothing happens. She keeps going, making her way along the nubby wall-to-wall carpeting, card in hand, heart in her throat each time she slides the key into the narrow slot on one of the doors. Her palm is sweating, her temples pounding. The risk is intoxicating, like slipping into a cage with a predator or reaching out to stroke a big cat.

Another step, another door.

At the second-to-last door on the left, against all expectations, the light turns green and a click breaks the silence. Claire freezes, a lump of fear in her throat. She hesitates between running away and