The Eldorado Network Read Online Free PDF

in her delightful face and finding nothing but loveliness %They talked, but it was all about Luis: where he had lived and what he wanted to be. It was easy and utterly enjoyable, a taste of life at a level of luxury and confidence that Luis had never before known.
    After half an hour she held out her hand. He stood, feeling adult and serious, and they shook hands. 'Goodbye,' she said.
    And that was that. She had not told him her name, nor asked his. He went back to work, gave them some excuse for his absence which they clearly didn't believe, but he didn't care. He knew that he was utterly changed, his whole life was changed; he could think only of her, remembering and reviving every glorious detail. For the rest of that day he went about in a slight daze. The kitchen staff decided that he had fallen down some stairs and concussed himself.
    He went home, shut himself in his room and indulged his impatience in an orgy of anticipation, mentally rehearsing their next meeting in every possible mood and manner  --  witty, intense, casual, noisy, brooding, friendly, dramatic.
    Each would be a wonderful, incomparable experience. He tried to sketch her and made such a hopeless hash of it that he burned the paper. He studied his face in the mirror, wondering which part she found attractive and testing different expressions for impact. He took a long, hot bath, scrubbing his body until it tingled with purity, and then he examined it in his wardrobe mirror. He suffered a moment of despair when he noticed that his legs were not
    quite as strong as his stomach and chest; but it passed. He lay on his bed and made glorious plans, while dusk slowly drained all the light from the room and his limbs grew cool as earthenware.
    Next morning he was at the hotel early, before the other room-service waiters arrived. This reinforced the concussion theory. As the breakfast orders came in he worked with fearful speed, hastening back to the kitchen in a constant panic in case he missed the call from the suite on the fourth floor. Sweat made his shirt dank and his face sticky. Normally talkative, today he was silent. The kitchen staff watched him uncomfortably: if he wasn't working he was looking for work. It was unnatural. They preferred the old, argumentative, back-chatting Luis.
    By nine o'clock no order had come. Luis was in despair. He refused food and straddled a chair in a corner, chewing his nails and watching the telephone. His legs ached from pounding up and down stairs.
    9.05. No call.
    9.11. The telephone rang. Luis felt all his gloom and misery lift like a theatre curtain, turning the kitchen into a place of colour and light. A businessman on the second floor wanted breakfast. The curtain thudded down.
    Luis took the man's tray and was back by 9.20. No other orders had come in. He began to feel slightly light-headed with uncertainty. The obstinately dumb telephone became a hateful object; the whole kitchen was oppressive, unbearably squalid. The thought of that sun-splashed heaven waiting on the fourth floor made him feel as if he were trapped in a greasy tomb.
    Waiting and stillness were impossible any more. He slipped out and began prowling the corridors. His shoulders were hunched, his eyes were strained, his fingers kept up a running battle with his thumbs. For the first time in his life Luis was sick with love, and it had sapped his wits.
    His legs carried him upwards, floor by floor; his brain was too swamped with desire to have an independent opinion. Groups of guests walked past him, talking of leisurely, pleasureful things; and when Luis met a curious glance from one young man  --  snowy blazer draped fashionably about the shoulders --  he wanted desperately to explain that he didn't really belong in this silly uniform, that he deserved to be one of them, if only . . .
    The door to the suite on the fourth floor was shut. Luis stared, unblinking, trying to see through the wooden panel and summon the mistress of his delight who