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11th ProZ.com translation contest: "Contemporary society" » English to Slovenian » Entry by JanaUrh


Source text in English

Translation by JanaUrh (#14150)

We're accustomed to glamour in London SE26: Kelly Brook and Jason Statham used to live above the dentist. But when Anouska Hempel's heels hit the cracked cement of the parking space outside my flat, it's hard not to think of those Picture Post photographs of royalty visiting bombed-out families during the second world war. Her mission in my modest tract of suburbia is, however, about more than offering sympathy. Hempel—the woman who invented the boutique hotel before it bore any such proprietary name—has come to give me information for which, judging by the spreads in interiors magazines and anxious postings on online DIY forums, half the property-owners in the Western world seem desperate: how to give an ordinary home the look and the vibe of a five-star, £750-a-night hotel suite. To Hem­pelise, in this case, a modest conversion flat formed from the middle slice of a three-storey Victorian semi.

"You could do it," she says, casting an eye around my kitchen. "Anyone could do it. Absolutely no reason why not. But there has to be continuity between the rooms. A single idea must be followed through." She looks out wistfully over the fire escape. "And you'd have to buy the house next door, of course." That's a joke. I think.

...

It's worth pausing, though, to consider the oddness of this impulse. The hotel room is an amnesiac space. We would be troubled if it bore any sign of a previous occupant, particularly as many of us go to hotels in order to do things we would not do at home. We expect a hotel room to be cleaned as thoroughly as if a corpse had just been hauled from the bed. (In some cases, this will actually have happened.) The domestic interior embodies the opposite idea: it is a repository of memories. The story of its inhabitants ought to be there in the photos on the mantelpiece, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves. If hotel rooms were people, they would be smiling lobotomy patients or plausible psychopaths.
Privlačnosti londonske četrti SE26 smo vajeni: nad zobozdravnikom sta nekdaj živela Kelly Brook in Jason Statham. A ko Anouska Hempel s petami zadane počen cement parkirnega prostora pred mojim stanovanjem, je težko odmisliti tiste fotografije s Picture Post-a, kjer člani kraljevske družine med drugo svetovno vojno obiskujejo družine, žrtve bombandiranj. Vendar njeno poslanstvo v mojem skromnem predmestnem predelu presega zgolj ponujanje sočutja. Hempelova - ženska, ki je iznašla butični hotel, še preden je bil imenovan s tovrstnim lastninskim imenom - mi je prišla posredovat informacijo, ki bi si jo, sodeč po razširjenosti v revijah za notranje opremljanje in nestrpnih objavah na spletnih forumih "Naredi si sam", grozno želela polovica lastnikov posesti v zahodnem svetu: kako spremeniti videz in vibracijo običajnega doma v hotelski apartma s petimi zvezdicami za 750 funtov na noč. Za Hempelizove, v tem primeru, skromna preureditev stanovanja na sredini viktorijanske hiše v treh nadstropjih.

"To bi lahko naredil," pravi, medtem ko škili po moji kuhinji. "Vsakdo lahko to naredi. Absolutno nobenega razloga, zakaj ne. Vendar mora obstajati povezanost med sobami. Ena sama ideja se mora nadaljevati do konca." Zamišljeno pogleda proti požarnim stopnicam. "In seveda bi moral kupiti sosednjo hišo." To je šala. Vsaj mislim, da je.

...

Vredno je narediti premor, kljub vsemu, in pretehtati nenavadnost tega vzgiba. Hotelska soba je prostor z izgubo spomina. Vznemirilo bi nas, če bi odražala sledi njenih nekdanjih stanovalcev, še posebej, ker mnogi med nami odidemo v hotel zato, da v njem delamo stvari, ki jih doma ne bi počeli. Pričakujemo, da bo hotelska soba počiščena tako temeljito, kot da bi iz postelje ravnokar povlekli truplo. (V nekaterih primerih se bo to tudi zares dogodilo.) Domačinska notranjost pooseblja nasprotno idejo: je odlagališče spominov. Zgodba njenih stanovalcev se mora odražati v fotografijah na polici nad kaminom, slikah na zidu, knjigah na policah. Če bi bile hotelske sobe ljudje, potem bi bile nasmejani pacienti po lobotomiji ali verjetni psihopati.


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