They went back into the lobby.<\/p>\n
After the back office, the lobby had suddenly become a theater again. The light was too beautiful, the wood too warm, the air too perfumed. The guests moved in it like figures who do not notice that they are being played.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik stepped behind the counter as if he had never been away. And immediately he was again the porter, the threshold man, the polite guardian.<\/p>\n
A woman came up to him, spruced up, with a smile that smelled of entitlement.<\/p>\n
\u201cExcuse me,\u201d she said, \u201cwe would like a different pillow. This one is\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToo soft?\u201d said Kautsonik.<\/p>\n
The woman blinked. She had not expected to be understood before she had explained herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik nodded, as if that were the simplest thing in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d he said. \u201cSoft is everywhere today. Sometimes you need hardness to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it so dryly that it sounded like a joke. And yet it was true.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp stood a step back and watched. He saw how Kautsonik, with one reach into a drawer, pulled out a card, how he noted something, how he sent a message to someone \u2013 and how the woman, who had just been demanding, suddenly became grateful because she felt seen.<\/p>\n
That, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, is the art of guest relations: You give the person the feeling that he is unique by entering him into a field.<\/p>\n
A child ran past, almost stumbled, caught itself. The mother called out in fright. Kautsonik did not look, but he knew it. He knew everything that happened in this lobby because his body was tuned to it like a measuring device.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp felt a twinge of admiration. And again that Tonio-sting: warm and sad at the same time. For admiration is often the form in which longing disguises itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are good,\u201d he said quietly.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik did not answer immediately. He just smiled, as if Hans Castorp had said something funny.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am here,\u201d he finally said. \u201cThat is all. Being here is my profession.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp nodded. Being here. The Magic Mountain had been a novel of being-there. And Hans Castorp had stayed back then. He had stayed until time itself swallowed him.<\/p>\n
He looked at the sentence on the wall.<\/p>\n
Joy to him who comes. Joy to him who goes.<\/p>\n
And he saw, as if seeing for the first time, that between the two sentences, quite imperceptibly, there was a small black eye: a camera, discreetly embedded in the wood paneling. The eye was so small that it did not want to disturb. And precisely for that reason it was so powerful.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp felt his back grow cold.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik followed his gaze. He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he said. \u201cNot I. The technology. I see only faces. The technology sees time. And time is what people pay for here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp thought of Dr. Porsche: \u201cMedical consultations are billed according to the time required.\u201d Time required. Here everything was billed according to the time required. Even friendliness.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if I\u2026,\u201d Hans Castorp began.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf sir wishes to leave,\u201d he said calmly, \u201cthen you go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp blinked. The sentence was so simple that it almost hurt.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo simple?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he said. \u201cNot simple. But clear. People confuse difficult with unclear. Yet difficult is often very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp was silent. He thought of System Two. He thought of Morgenstern, who draws boundaries. He thought of the five resolutions he had not yet written. He thought of his white spots.<\/p>\n
He thought: Perhaps leaving is also a resolution.<\/p>\n
And while he thought this, he saw a man, slim, in a coat that did not smell of sports and not of wellness, but of the city, walk through the lobby. The man did not walk like a guest who is arriving, but like someone who is already there, even if he has just arrived. He carried a notebook under his arm.<\/p>\n
Gustav von A., thought Hans Castorp, or someone like him.<\/p>\n
The man did not stop. He walked on, as if the lobby were only a way station. And Hans Castorp felt how a small pull in him pointed south, without his knowing why.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik followed his gaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know him?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik shrugged his shoulders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know everyone,\u201d he said. \u201cI do not know their inner self. But I know their arrival. And their departure.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said \u201cdeparture\u201d with an emphasis that Hans Castorp did not like.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yours?\u201d asked Hans Castorp, and he himself heard that the question went too far.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik did not smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy departure,\u201d he said, \u201cwill take place here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp swallowed.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik, quite imperceptibly, straightened his trouser leg again. A small tug. A small sign of pain.<\/p>\n
\u201cSir,\u201d he said, and his voice became businesslike again, \u201cdo you need anything else? Another pillow? Another world?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp smiled, and the smile was not happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he said. \u201cJust\u2026\u201d He broke off.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust?\u201d asked Kautsonik.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at the lilies. He thought of Dr. AuDHS\u2019 sentence: \u201cOtherwise you will become forest.\u201d Forest is beautiful, but cold.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a bit of white,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik nodded as if he understood.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhite,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is enough of that here. Snow, paper, blankets. But beware: white is also the color of lists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
He left.<\/p>\n