Haunted Hotels

Haunted Hotels

May 24, 2010, 4:06 pm
Filed under: Peace Corps Romania | Tags: Generation Y, Harlem, haunted, hookah, hotel, Marley, Millenial Generation, Peace Corps, Romania, The Shining

The last month and a half I’ve been sleeping one or two nights per week in a hotel– the HP in nearby Petrosani. Frequenting a hotel with my own place nearby would probably only indicate a few possible scenarios– and most of them dubious. One presumes that either: I’m having an affair, or that my apartment is undergoing such massive and complete renovation that I can’t stay at home. Happily, I have neither to report. The truth, however, I consider to be much more atypical and interesting.

In early April, I met Marley. Marley has become my first close, Romanian friend in Petrosani that is not twice my age. Marley is someone to go to bars and clubs with, or to watch intensely-deep movies with and then expound upon all the abstract “what ifs,” that humans in their teens and twenties are so insatiably drawn to. Whilst I adore my eight Romanian “moms,” and appreciate them endlessly, it is also simultaneously true that we are still separated by the perspectives and responsibilities of an entire generation. Marley and I are connected by the perspective embedded into being members of the Millennial Generation. It also helps that she speaks fantastic English, has a progressive mindset, and has experienced America (namely, San Francisco).

Marley lives in the HP. Her family controls and operates the place for the state, and, as a result, Marley and a few members of her family all live in different rooms scattered throughout the building. Therefore, Marley has her own room perched up on the farthest corner of the third floor– that’s where I’ve been staying.  I should make it clear that our sleep-overs aren’t intimate. Marley and I are not romantically involved– we’re just good pals. Again, I press that the reality of the situation is crazier than any gossipy fiction one might muster.

On Saturday night, Marley and I were over at Harlem’s, smoking hookah. We stood and stretched and initiated the steps to get ourselves out the door and on our way into the night. “You sleeping at my place?” Marley asked me, and I told her that I would. We had a cab pick us up from Harlem’s and drop us off at the reception of the HP. We went to the front desk to grab some bottled drinks, and make small-talk with the receptionist.

Marley turned towards the elevators and froze.

“What’s the elevator doing at floor five?!” Marley called out into the lobby. She didn’t turn to look at the receptionist or I– she just stared at the red, digital ’5′ buzzing above the elevator’s call button.

“I don’t know,” said the receptionist.

“Oh my Gd,” growled Marley. She angrily clacked forward and jammed her finger into the silver dial. She leaned against the wall alongside the lift door and raised her eyes to the ceiling and let her voice echo out into the dim lobby: “bântuit.”

I recognized that word from my Halloween lessons with my kids. Bântuit means ‘haunted,’ in Romanian.

The elevator door shook open and the two of us stepped inside the mirrored room and watched the doors close. “The fifth floor is closed– no one is allowed up there.” Marley said, her eyes still staring off into a place above us. “Once a girl was up there, and got like really sick and vomited blood and there was glass in her blood, like from a mirror– and now that place is closed and no one goes up there.”

“Really?” I asked– I hadn’t heard Marley tell this story before. “We should go up there!”

“No way!” Marley said as she walked out of the open door on the third floor. “I never go up there.”

I believed her– that the elevator had somehow mysteriously perched itself on the 5th floor (it’s supposed to idle on the 3rd) is far from the strangest thing that Marley has experienced. She has told me stories about faucets opening themselves, or doors closing randomly, or even voices yelling things from her bathroom. A few of Marley’s friends have seen/heard these things and refuse to stay at her place– it frightens them too much. This is why Marley invites me over– she’s afraid of sleeping alone. As of this moment, I haven’t experienced anything supernatural there.

“That reminds me of a movie filmed in Colorado,” I said. “It’s about a haunted hotel– I saw that you have it downloaded on your computer. Do you want to watch it?” I asked, and Marley said that she did.

So, that same night Marley and I stayed up and watched two thirds of THE SHINING before she began to doze off. We finished the movie the next afternoon, and Marley said that she liked it. “And did it scare you?” I pressed.

“No. Not really,” she smiled. It made sense– I guess a movie about haunted hotels probably seems redundant when you live in one.

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