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


Source text in English

Translation by Nataša Purkat (#14098)

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.
V okrožju SE26 smo že navajeni blišča: Kelly Brook in Jason Statham sta včasih živela nad zobozdravstveno ordinacijo. Toda ko je petka Anouske Hempel zadela ob razlomljen asfalt na parkirnem prostoru zunaj mojega stanovanja, je težko odmisliti fotografije Picture Posta, ki prikazujejo člane kraljeve družine med drugo svetovno vojno ob obisku močno prizadetih družin. Njeno poslanstvo v mojem skromnem delu predmestja pa je nekaj več kot le pokazati sočutje. Hempelova ‒ ki je uvedla butični hotel, preden se je ta sploh tako imenoval ‒ mi bo ob svojem obisku svetovala to, kar si glede na vsebino strani v revijah o interjerju in objave v spletnih forumih na temo Naredi sam zagnanih mojstrovalcev, močno želi polovica lastnikov nepremičnin v zahodnem svetu: kako običajno domovanje obogatiti z videzom in vzdušjem hotelskega apartmaja s petimi zvezdicami, vrednega 750 funtov na noč. Torej kako preurediti ‒ skladno s tipičnim pristopom Hempelove ‒ v tem primeru skromno predelano stanovanje, nastalo iz srednje etaže trinadstropnega viktorijanskega dvojčka.

»To lahko storite,« pravi in z očmi premeri mojo kuhinjo. »Vsakdo lahko to stori. Prav nobenega razloga ni, zakaj ne bi mogel. Med prostori pa mora biti povezovalna nit. Ena zamisel se mora nadaljevati povsod.« Koprneče se ozre še po požarnih stopnicah. »In seveda morate kupiti še sosednjo hišo.« To je samo hec. Vsaj mislim, da je.

...

Vredno se je ustaviti in pretehtati nenavadnost te pobude. Hotelska soba je prostor brez vsakršnega spomina. Motilo bi nas, če bi bili v njen vidni kakršni koli znaki njenega prejšnjega stanovalca, posebno zato, ker večina v hotelu počne to, česar nikoli ne bi počela doma. Pričakujemo, da bo hotelska soba očiščena kar najbolj temeljito, kot da bi pravkar s postelje odstranili truplo (včasih se to celo tudi res zgodi). Domači interjer predstavlja prav nasprotno idejo: je prava zakladnica spominov. Zgodbe stanovalcev naj bi bile razvidne s fotografij na policah, s stenskih slik in iz nabora knjig na policah. Če bi bile hotelske sobe ljudje, bi to bili smejoči se bolniki z lobotomijo ali nadvse prepričljivi psihopati.


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