Page 15 of The White Octopus Hotel
The next morning, Eve was up early, impatient for the boat trip she’d been promised. She found Aurel’s wife, Friede, in the breakfast room and there was something about her warm friendliness that reminded her of Suzy and immediately helped take the edge off the strange feeling of nervousness that had been with her since she woke up. She couldn’t stop fiddling with the fumsup in her pocket.
“We’re not exactly swamped for the breakfast service, as you can see, so I’ll take you across the lake once you’ve eaten,” Friede told her.
“I’m not hungry,” Eve replied. “Could we go now?”
“I’m ready when you are,” Friede replied with an easygoing shrug. “Best wrap up warm.”
Eve piled on as many layers as she could before meeting Friede at the pier. She wobbled as she climbed into the boat, slipping on the frozen boards, and the fumsup fell from her pocket, landing in the water with a splash. She let out a cry of dismay and Friede shook her head.
“Water’s quite deep here, I’m afraid. I hope it wasn’t valuable, whatever fell in.”
It wasn’t the value that Eve minded, it was the fact that the fumsup had been her companion through a great many dark moments. She was already painfully aware of its absence in her pocket, but there was nothing that could be done now. She gritted her teeth as she sat down in the boat. The motor sputtered into life and there was the tang of petrol mixed with the crystal scents of cold water and frosted chains.
“Ghost hunter or photographer?” Friede asked conversationally as the boat pulled away.
“Neither,” Eve replied. “Just interested, that’s all. I came here on holiday as a kid.”
Friede nodded and Eve was glad when she didn’t ask any more questions but was content to let the boat trip pass quietly. As the hotel got closer, it was like seeing a photograph slowly developing—the details appearing, a spark of an idea made real. But more than that, it was like coming home. Eve felt a strange tingling sensation wash over her as she stared at the hotel. It knew she was here. She was suddenly certain of it. It had been waiting for her. It had been waiting for years.
Once again, she felt that stir of memory that must have come from the trip with her mother—except it wasn’t the abandoned building she remembered, but a living, breathing, bustling hotel. The details appeared one after another, as sudden and bright as the flash of a camera—piano music and lace gloves and the splash of a fountain. It was disorienting and Eve shook her head.
“Are you all right?” Friede asked.
“Fine,” she replied, a little tersely. She wished she’d kept a tighter hold of that fumsup.
The journey took about twenty minutes and then the boat glided past the pier, which was falling to pieces. Several boards had come away entirely and what was left was clearly unstable. There were signs around the pier and staked into the lawn, warning people in English, French, and German that the building was dangerous.
“Probably best to pull up on the beach,” Friede said, nodding at the small crescent of sand at the edge of the water.
When Eve scrambled out, she was annoyed to hear Friede say that she’d wait in the boat. She desperately wanted to be by herself here.
“I was thinking I’d spend the day,” she said. “Could you come back for me this afternoon? I’ll pay extra.”
Friede looked surprised. “There isn’t much here,” she said. “No buildings or villages for miles. And you won’t be able to access much of the hotel either. The place is falling down. I wouldn’t go any further than the lobby.”
“I’d planned to go for a hike afterwards. My guidebook says there are deer and ibex around.”
Friede eyed her dubiously. “That’s true enough, but you don’t seem as if you’ve brought much in the way of hiking supplies.”
Eve tried to quell her irritation. What did it matter to Friede anyway? “I wasn’t planning to go far. Really, I just want to soak up the hotel atmosphere. I’m an artist,” she added on a whim. It felt an odd thing to say. She wondered if she’d ever spoken those words before. “I have my sketchbook with me.”
This seemed to reassure Friede. “All right. I can come back around threep.m.?”
“Thank you.”
Friede nodded at the prow of the boat and said, “Would you give me a shove?”
Eve leaned forwards to push the boat as hard as she could back into the lake.
“See you later,” Friede called over her shoulder.
Eve raised her hand in a wave as the boat glided away, then turned back to look up at the hotel. There was still something achingly beautiful about it, despite the fact that the paint was peeling from its walls and most of the windows were boarded up or broken. The once-manicured front lawns were completelyovergrown with weeds and nettles, as was the dilapidated garden terrace.
Eve clambered up the beach and picked her way across the lawn, past the frames of old loungers lying on their sides and broken umbrellas with their parasols long rotted away. To her right, the breeze from the lake whistled through an old pavilion, and to her left, pine cones and a random assortment of rubbish had collected at the bottom of a long-dry swimming pool.
The place was completely and utterly silent. It occurred to Eve that she had never experienced a silence quite like it. No traffic, no talking, no phones ringing and beeping. It was peaceful, yet at the same time it seemed a strange, sad thing for a hotel to be in such a condition. Eve could feel the ghosts of the bellhops who’d walked the halls in years gone by and see the doormen adjusting their cuffs as they hurried down to the pier to greet guests arriving by boat. There would have been the hum of conversation and the bright ring of laughter. The chink of teacups placed upon saucers over on the veranda where a few tables still stood.
Eve reached the staircase leading up to the front doors and placed her hand on the marble balustrade, which was icy cold to the touch. Her footsteps seemed too loud in this silent place, too intrusive, as she climbed to the front doors, which were hanging open. She cast one last glance back towards the sparkling glass surface of the lake, then turned and stepped over the threshold into the lobby.
