Page 52 of The White Octopus Hotel
“She only comes out when needed,” Max said.
“She?”
“Come and see.”
He held the door open, and Eve walked into the space she’d explored earlier. It was set up as a private dining room, with a long walnut table and banquet chairs. The walls had clearly once been hung with Nikolas Roth’s paintings, but as elsewhere in the hotel, there were only now blank squares in their places, except for one spot that had been hung with another ghastly Bouguereau. Eve recognisedThe Kiss—a painting of a woman with her cherublike infant child, exchanging the kiss of the title. An abundance of rosy cheeks, and tumbling curls, and adoring looks. Like the others, it was thoroughly dull. Large windows on one side of the room offered views across the lake, slowly turning silver with the night.
“They have private functions in here,” Max said. Then he cleared his throat and added, “We only have thirteen guests tonight.”
At his words, the octopus appeared immediately at the head of the table. It was a beautiful wooden sculpture, tentacles curling in elegant loops around it.
“The others called her Cleo,” Max said, “but perhaps she has different names to different people. Have you heard the tale about thirteen people sitting down to dine at the same table?” He arched an eyebrow. “Or are people more enlightened in your time?”
“I know the story,” Eve replied. “If thirteen people eat together at the same table, then the first to leave will die before the year is out.”
He nodded. “This table seats up to fourteen guests, as you can see. On occasion, there might only be thirteen. And when that happens, this octopus arrives to be the fourteenth guest. The staff even serve it a meal.”
“Have you eaten here yourself then?” Eve asked.
“Once, before I left the hotel in 1918. They threw a farewell dinner for the servicemen. We made up thirteen until Cleo arrived.”
Eve’s eyes went to the walls. “And the original paintings. Were they still here?”
“They were. And nothing like these sickly things. The opposite. There was something dark and disturbing about them. They drew you in. Got inside your head. Matron said they weren’t Roth’s own paintings, though. She wasn’t sure who had painted them.”
“That’s odd. Did you ever meet Nikolas Roth himself?”
“No. I only saw him from a distance.”
“And was I there? At this dinner?”
Slowly, Max shook his head, his face suddenly flushed. “No. You were supposed to be, but then you never turned up. That was why there were thirteen of us that night. Matron said you were ill.”
Eve looked back at Cleo. She didn’t like the fact that there were secret octopuses like this. It would be almost impossible to find them if you didn’t already know they were there. Her mind went tothe octopus sculpture up in her room, the one Max had given her in 2016, and for the first time it occurred to her that perhaps it was itself one of the hotel’s octopuses; perhaps it belonged somewhere inside the building. The hook on top of its head indicated that it had clearly once been attached to something else, but she couldn’t think of a single place where it might fit.
When she described the ornament to Max, he shrugged. “I don’t recall ever seeing anything like that. There are a couple of octopuses that only come out after dark, though. The hotel changes at night. Let’s get something to eat and then I’ll show you.”
“All right. Thank you.”
He turned to the octopus and said, “Good night, Cleo.”
The sculpture immediately vanished, seconds before three women in evening gowns and loops of pearls burst into the room, all holding scavenger hunt cards in their gloved hands.
“See, I told you,” one of them said. “There’s nothing here.”
“But it was there in the photo,” another one said. “I saw it in the Reading Room.”
“Shall we?” Max pointed at the exit.
Eve followed him out to the corridor. This one, like many of the others, was lined with photographs. Some were missing, leaving empty frames upon the walls, but a good number remained. And as they were heading towards the lobby, Eve caught sight of one that made her stop.
The photo depicted a wrought iron staircase inside the hotel. Gathered along the landing and standing on the stairs was a group of twelve servicemen in their ill-fitting hospital uniforms. Some had sleeves or trouser legs pinned up due to missing limbs. The ties seemed an odd addition, as if they were all about to head to the office. And there, at the top of the staircase, one hand resting on the banister, was Eve. She looked just as she did now, except for the fact that she was wearing a nurse’s uniform. Her head spun as shelooked into her own different-coloured eyes—apparent even in a black-and-white photo. Standing beside her was Max as a younger man, looking gaunt in his hospital uniform.
“Christ, I hated that suit,” Max said, stepping to her side. “Damned thing had no pockets for cigarettes.”
Eve couldn’t tear her eyes from the photo. It seemed impossible, and yet there it was.
Noticing her expression, Max raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t believe me? About 1918?”
