"Nicholas Royle - Flying Into Naples" - читать интересную книгу автора (Royle Nicholas)

but gets me another key -- room 19 -- from a hook and quotes a price. It's
cheap; the hotel is probably a haunt of prostitutes but right now I don't
care. I just need a bed for the night.
"It's on the third floor," the man says. I pay him and walk up. There are
lightbulbs but they're so heavily shaded the stairs are darker than the
street outside. On each landing there are four doors: three bedrooms and
one toilet cum shower. I unlock the door to room 19 and close it behind
me.

I have a routine with hotel rooms: I lock myself in and switch on all the
lights and open all the cupboards and drawers until I feel I know the room
as well as I can. And I always check the window.
There are two single beds, some sticks of furniture, a bidet and a
washbasin -- I open the cold tap and clean up the scratch on my arm. The
window is shuttered. I pull on the cord to raise the shutter. I'm
overlooking the Corso Uberto I which runs up to the railway station. I
step on to the tiny balcony and my hands get covered in dust from the
wrought iron railing. The cars in the street below are filmed with dust
also. The winds blow sand here from the deserts of North Africa and it
falls with the rain. I pull a chair on to the balcony and sit for a while
thinking about Flavia. Somewhere in this city she's sitting watching
television or eating in a restaurant and she doesn't know I'm here.
Tomorrow I will try to find her.
I watch the road and I'm glad I'm no longer out there looking for shelter.
Small knots of young men unravel on street corners and cross streets that
don't need crossing. After a while I start to feel an uncomfortable
solidity creeping into my limbs, so I take the chair back inside and drop
the shutter. I'd prefer to leave it open but the open window might look
like an invitation.
I'm lying in bed hoping that sleep will come but there's a scuttling,
rustling noise keeping me awake. It's coming from the far side of the room
near the washbasin and the framed print of the ancient city of Pompeii. It
sounds like an insect, probably a cockroach. I'm not alarmed. I've shared
hotel rooms with pests before, but I want to go to sleep. There's no use
left in this day and I'm eager for the next one to begin.
Something else is bothering me: I want to go and try the door to room 17
and see why the proprietor was about to give me that key. The scratching
noise is getting louder and although I can't fall asleep I'm getting more
and more tired so that I start to imagine the insect. It's behind the
picture where it's scratched out its own little hole and it's lying in
wait for me to go and lift the picture aside and it will come at me, slow
and deadly, like a Lancaster bomber. The noise works deeper into my head.
The thing must have huge wings and antennae. Scratch ... scratch ...
scratch. I can't stand it any more. I get up, pull on my trousers and
leave the room.
The stairs are completely dark. I feel my way up to the next landing and
switch on the light in the WC to allow me to see the numbers on the doors.
I push open the door to room 17, feeling a layer of dust beneath my
fingertips, and it swings open. The chinks in the shutter admit enough
light to paint a faint picture of a man lying on the bed who looks not