Page 44 of The White Octopus Hotel
“Time for us to go, Eve,” Jane said. “Say goodbye.”
“Bye-bye,” the little girl said, raising her hand in a wave before Jane led her across the foyer to the lift. Unlike ordinary guests, they wouldn’t be leaving through the front doors. Eve watched them go and then glanced across the room and her eyes locked with Max’s.He looked from her to the grandfather clock and back again, a deep frown etched upon his face. Then he stood up and walked over to Tristan, who was just closing the cabinet on the clock.
“How was that done?” he demanded. “No illusionist can rewind time.”
Tristan gave a small half smile. “But, Mr. Everly,” he said, “we don’t really have the faintest notion of what time actually is. How can we possibly? Yet we claim to measure it and count it and so on, but the truth is that time will always be as much of a mystery to us as death itself.”
Chapter 27
Max—June 1918
It had been a long, tiresome journey, but Max thought he had weathered it well. He had mastered the art of keeping himself together over the last couple of years. He hadn’t allowed himself to become emotional during the train journey into the mountains—not even when writing a letter home to his mother to say that he was one of the lucky ones who was being transferred from a German camp to be interned in Switzerland. Thoughts of home were always dangerous—something that could unravel you. He wrote to his aunt too, although she’d stopped writing back after her two sons had both been killed. Max wrote anyway, in the hopes that the letters might bring her some small comfort. And perhaps, one day, when she was more herself, she might write to him again too.
I’m doing really rather well,he thought. His chest ached, obviously, thanks to that little piece of shrapnel that had buried itself into his body. It had become infected in the German camp and the throbbing ache of it kept him up at night, made it hard to breathe sometimes. But, after all, the trenches had been the hard part. The German POW camp had been a different type of hell. Sitting in safety on a train that was taking him to a place of rest inSwitzerland was easy. Anyone could do that. You didn’t get to complain about that, not when so many of your comrades were still back there on the battlefield, never to return.
I’m very glad to be leaving Germany.
I have been unwell but hope to be fully recovered soon.
All my love…
His hand barely shook as he signed his name.
Your loving son, Max.
As he slipped the letter into the envelope, it was impossible not to think of all those hundreds of letters written by his men that he had had to read and censor—part of his duties as a junior officer in the trenches.
Dearest Mother…
Please send my love to Bertie….
I was always proud to be your son….
A candle made all the difference….
Time is topsy-turvy here….
There was no band at Waterloo, not like they had for Sammy….
Charlie was forever mentioning that lack of a band in his letters home.I wasn’t surprised or the least upset,he’d always write. Yet the absence of a band—let alone the cheering crowds that had been there when his older brother, Sammy, left for war a year earlier—was something that came up in his letters again and again. Max could still see the hyacinths and peonies of Charlie’s trench garden, growing out of their German howitzer shells. He recalled how theboy had written to his mother, asking her to send packets of nasturtium seeds.
And don’t worry,he’d assured her.I made sure to leave plenty of flowers in the village in case anyone ever comes back, after the war is over. It has to end sometime. It can’t go on forever.
Charlie had turned a petrol tin into a watering can by punching holes in the side and would whistle as he watered the plants. He was an expert whistler. And Max liked hearing favourite tunes like “Auld Lang Syne” again. Music was perhaps the thing he missed the most from his old life. It hadn’t been so bad when Thomas was there with his gramophone and the sound of ragtime records had floated from their dugout, through the trenches, and out over no-man’s-land.
Max’s days at the Royal College of Music felt more like a dream than reality now. He could not imagine himself going back to it. In fact, he couldn’t really imagine going back to his old life at all. He wondered if his mother would be there to greet him when he finally arrived home—whether she would even recognise him, or walk right past him on the platform, searching for some other man, one who no longer existed.
“We’re here!” someone cried.
Max looked up and saw a small station up ahead. With a jolt, he realised it was crowded with people and he quickly struggled to his feet, dreading the reception that lay ahead. When the POWs had arrived by train into a German town en route to the camp, the platform had been full of furious citizens who hated them. Just hated them with all their might. There had been yelling and screaming, palpable bitterness ripping through the air. Some of the civilians had thrown stale, mouldy bread at them too. Max had been so hungry that he had snatched the mildewed pieces up from the ground and eaten them. He was glad of the bread, but a few people had brought bricks to throw as well.
Switzerland was neutral, though. Max hadn’t expected a similar situation here. Yet the platform ahead was so crowded with people that he feared something must be wrong. Perhaps the Swiss didn’t want them either. Perhaps they were going to be boarded and sent back to the camp in Germany. Then he heard the singing. There were children on the platform, an entire choir. And the adults weren’t shouting, they were cheering. Some were even waving flags. There were so many flowers, everywhere he looked. And the children’s voices raised in song was the loveliest sound Max had heard in the last year.
The train doors opened, and the civilians came forwards to press gifts of chocolate and cigarettes and oranges into their hands. As Max stepped down onto the platform, he thought of Charlie and how miffed he had been about the lack of a band to see them off at Waterloo. He wished Charlie could see the children singing for them now, but Charlie was back in France, lying alone in the mud with a bullet through his guts.
Please send packets of nasturtium seeds as soon as you can….
Max recalled how he had stood with the packets of requested seeds in his hands, looking down at the trench garden that would now go untended.
