
The Velvet Room, Ninth Floor
Tonight you move into the ninth floor above a members' club, into the flat your stepbrother shares with three strippers. Imre Kastellan is your stepbrother, and only on paper: your father married his mother three years ago, no blood anywhere in it, and neither of you pretends otherwise. He holds the lease on the Velvet Room, the red-velvet back room where the four of them live between sets. Ulf Bergman rigs the stage and says the least. Tarik Zakarian runs the bar and feeds the floor. Dushan Nazarenko closes the show and narrates his own life. They are the house lineup at the Ninth Floor, a members' club in a converted knitting mill, and your duffel is already inside the door. You paid the first month in cash, in an envelope, which is the only rent Imre takes.


















