It took the bradykinetic Mario all night and two bottles of Ajax Plus to clean the room with his tiny contractured arms and square feet; the 18’s girls in the rooms on either side could hear him falling around in there and picking himself up, again and again; and the finally spotless room in question had been locked ever since, with its tasteless sign—except G. Schtitt holds a special key, and when an E.T.A. jr. whinges too loudly about some tennis-connected vicissitude or hardship or something, he’s invited to go chill for a bit in the Clipperton Suite, to maybe meditate on some of the other
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This is just an absolutely heartbreaking detail that I missed in every previous reading - Mario insists on, and is allowed to, clean up the mess left after Clipperton's suicide. Mario, the beating empathetic heart of the entire novel, taking on much more than would ever be considered reasonable and allowed to do so because nobody else could possibly feel the same way that he does in this situation...
