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11th ProZ.com translation contest: "Contemporary society" » English to Slovenian » Entry #14255


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Translation #14255

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.

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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.
V 26. okrožju severovzhodnega Londona smo navajeni na glamur: včasih sta nad zobozdravnikom živela Kelly Brook in Jason Statham. A ko so po razpokanem cementnem parkirišču pred mojim stanovanjem zaštorkljale petke Anouske Hempel, so se mi pred očmi hočeš nočeš izrisale fotografije iz revije Picture Post, na katerih stanovalci kraljeve palače med drugo svetovno vojno obiskujejo družine, ki so jim zbombardirali domove. Vendar gre pri njenem obisku moje skromne predmestne vrstne hiše za veliko več kot le sočutje. Hempelova – „izumiteljica“ butičnega hotela, še preden se je ta uveljavil kot blagovna znamka – je prišla z namenom, da me pouči o nečem, po čemer hrepeni polovica lastnikov nepremičnin na Zahodu (vsaj sodeč po obilju člankov v revijah, ki se ukvarjajo z notranjim dizajnom, in neučakanih objavah na spletnih forumih na temo „sam svoj mojster“): kako običajen dom urediti tako, da se bo lahko po videzu in vzdušju kosal z luksuznim hotelskim apartmajem s petimi zvezdicami, za katerega bi odšteli 750 funtov na noč. V mojem primeru torej, kako „hempelizirati“ skromno predelano stanovanje, ukleščeno na sredino trinadstropnega viktorijanskega dvojčka.

„Lahko bi ti uspelo,“ pravi in ob tem s pogledom prečesava kuhinjo. „Komurkoli bi lahko uspelo. Res ne vem, zakaj ne. Vendar morajo biti sobe med seboj povezane. Skozi vse mora teči ena sama rdeča nit.“ Nato obžalujoče ošine požarne stopnice. „In seveda bi moral kupiti še sosednjo hišo.“ To je bila šala. Po mojem.

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Kakorkoli že, splača se za trenutek zajeti sapo in razmisliti o čudaškosti tega vzgiba. Hotelska soba je amnezičen kraj. Ne bi nam bilo prav, če bi v njej opazili kakršnokoli sled svojega predhodnika, še zlasti zato, ker marsikdo od nas tam počne stvari, ki jih doma ne bi. Zanjo pričakujemo, da bo tako temeljito počiščena, kot bi iz postelje ravnokar odstranili truplo. (Kar se tu in tam tudi dejansko pripeti.) Za notranjost doma velja ravno obratno: je zakladnica spominov. Zgodbo njegovih prebivalcev morajo pripovedovati fotografije na kaminu, slike na steni, knjige na policah. Če bi bile hotelske sobe ljudje, bi bile bodisi smehljajoči se pacienti po prestani lobotomiji, bodisi prepričljivi psihopati.


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