Chapter 47
“Ah. Did you find them back there then?” Max asked quietly. “The last clocks? The octopus?”
She shook her head. “No clocks. I thought I found the octopus, but the scavenger card won’t let me add it. The words keep disappearing. How long have I been gone?”
He glanced at his watch. “About two minutes. When you vanished, I went upstairs to your room in case you were there. I was sure I was knocking at the door of Room Twenty-seven just now.”
Luca cleared his throat. “As you will see from the clock, it’s time for champagne and cake.
” He set two plates down on Eve’s table.
The cakes were a work of art. Eve stared at the white chocolate octopus closest to her, its tentacles unfurling in elegant loops, the green ripple of pistachio making it look like a sculpture carved from marble.
“I’m going to get some sleep while I still can,” Luca went on, “and I suggest you both do the same once you’re finished here.
Tomorrow is a big day. In the meantime, take anything else you’d like from the cake counter.
I highly recommend the gateaux de voyage. ”
He disappeared out the door, leaving the two of them alone.
Max joined her at the table, and she found it impossible to stop looking at him.
She was mesmerised by all the ways he was different and all the ways he was the same.
A person could change a lot in seventeen years and for a moment, she missed the twenty-year-old she’d known and wondered how much of him was left in the different man sitting across the table from her.
She suddenly recalled Max’s words from that first night in the Palm Bar.
You marry some woman, and you vow to honour and love her for the rest of your days, but she won’t stay the same person and nor will you, so how can you possibly promise to love a person you haven’t yet met?
But as Eve looked at Max, it didn’t matter that time had passed.
She could see the twenty-year-old still there beneath the surface, and she knew that he wasn’t a different person, not really, only a new version of the same soul that she had loved before.
And she knew in her bones that she would love him as he was now, and in all the versions of him that would come after that, and she wanted to see him tomorrow, and next week, and next year, for the rest of her life.
Or, at least, in a different life. But not here and now.
Not when there was Bella to think about.
“You told me something a couple of days ago,” Max said, lighting up a cigarette.
Eve tried to order the days inside her head, searching for the one he was referring to, but her mind kept going back to the POWs on the ward.
“What did I say?” she finally asked.
“You said that you’re not beautiful.” Max inhaled smoke, breathed it out slowly.
“But that’s not true. Some types of beauty aren’t visible at first glance.
Seventeen years ago, and now still, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.
My music is for you. It’s all for you, every note and bar. ”
In another version of this moment—one where they had both been born in the same time period and met in the normal way—these would have been the words Eve most wanted to hear.
They would have filled her up with such joy.
But here they were no use to her at all, they were just ash in a long-cold hearth.
She couldn’t see any rabbits in the room, but they might as well have been there; they were always there inside her head, sniff-snuffling about in all the dark corners.
“Don’t,” she said. It was difficult to look at Max, so she looked at the clock instead and saw that both hands were pointing to Truth.
“No, I’ve waited seventeen years to say this and I’m not waiting any longer.
” Max took another drag of the cigarette.
When he exhaled, the smoke seemed to twist itself into tentacles in the air between them for a moment.
“I know you regret what happened in the steam baths,” he said.
“I was never quite sure why, or where exactly it went wrong between us, but I must tell you that I don’t regret it and never have. ”
“Why are you saying this?” Eve asked. “Are you hoping to persuade me to give up the writing paper? To choose you instead?”
Max looked startled. “No,” he said at once. “No, that’s…That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
“Then what—?”
He paused, his cigarette burning forgotten for a moment between his fingers. “It’s a maze,” he said.
“What is?”
“All of it. This hotel. The octopuses. The loop of time that keeps playing out. The music.”
“The hand,” Eve said quietly. “The hand holding mine in the dark.”
“The horse,” Max added. “The birds.”
For a moment, Eve could almost see them, the dark wings fluttering and flapping in the corners of her vision.
And her octopus didn’t like that. She felt the burn as it slid over her skin, preparing to flail its tentacles, if need be, to squeeze and squeeze until fragments of beak and bone were all that remained.
The birds vanished then, and Eve’s octopus stilled.
“But mazes,” Max said, “have exits. And you can find your way out.”
Eve raised an eyebrow. “And you?”
He smiled slightly. “I’m not here. Not really.
I was supposed to die in the war.” He met her gaze.
“Or here at the hotel. A man knows when his time is up sometimes. He’ll sense there’s a shell out there with his name on it.
And it’s all right, in the end, because I know when I go, I’ll be helping you.
And that’s what I came here to do. It’s the thing I’ve been waiting for almost my whole life.
I’m not trying to change your mind about the writing paper, I’m telling you that it’s all right.
I understand why you need to do it and I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all.”
Eve took a deep breath. She was afraid to speak too much while the hands of that clock were pointing to Truth, in case she revealed things she didn’t wish to reveal.
“I don’t regret anything at all about 1918,” she said carefully. “Not one single moment. And I’m…I’m sorry you ever thought differently and I’m sorry it has to end this way between us.”
“The good times don’t last,” Max replied.
“That’s just how it is. But I’m glad I met you, Eve Shaw.
” He glanced at the clock once more. “We should go.” He nodded down at her scavenger hunt card lying on the table.
“You’ve still got one last octopus and clock to find before the party tonight.
But I hope you won’t mind me saying that you look exhausted.
We should do as Luca suggests and get a few hours’ sleep before the morning. ”
Eve wanted to protest, to continue with the hunt immediately.
But the fact was that she didn’t know where to look.
She’d looked everywhere, hadn’t she? She’d even looked in the past and it still hadn’t been enough.
She was exhausted. And the lure of sleep was irresistible.
She and Max returned to the lift, and as the door slid closed, she reached for his hand—even though she knew that she shouldn’t.
But she wanted to feel the warmth and the rightness of his fingers entwined with hers one final time.
When the lift doors opened on her floor, she couldn’t let him go.
One way or another, this was the last night they would ever be together. And it was so hard to say goodbye.
“Will you stay with me?” she found herself asking.
“I will.”
They went to Room 27 and crawled beneath the covers fully dressed.
Max wrapped his arms around Eve and rested his chin on top of her head, his body warming her back.
A feeling spread through Eve that was so alien it took her a moment to identify it.
This was security and warmth and contentment.
This was happiness and love. This was peace.
And her heart broke because she knew she couldn’t keep any of it.
That she would have to let it all go tomorrow.
But, for now, she held on to Max and fell into the relief of a dreamless sleep.
—
When Eve woke the next morning, Max was still there in the bed with her, one arm draped over her stomach.
She waited for feelings of awkwardness or embarrassment, but they never came.
It felt right, waking up together like this.
She wished that she could linger there with him, but time was running out, so she nudged him awake and said, “It’s morning. We have to go.”
“All right.” Max sat up, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll go back to my room to get changed. Meet you downstairs in half an hour?”
“See you then.”
Once he’d gone, Eve changed out of her nurse’s uniform for the final time and had a wash before looking into the wardrobe to see what outfit it had selected for her today—a belted polka-dot teal dress with pockets in the skirt and a matching bolero.
Max was waiting for her by the fountain in the lobby. They were about to head towards the corridor when Anna came storming over to them. She was still wearing last night’s evening gown and her hair was in disarray, as if she’d been running her hands through it.
“Where is it?” she hissed.
“Where’s what?” Eve asked, startled.
“The key! To the lift. I know you’ve been down to the basement.”
“I’ve got it,” Max said, rummaging in his pocket and handing it over to her.
Anna stared at the object in her hand. “I have the only key. There is one key to the lift, one, and it doesn’t leave my side. How did you come by another?”
“You’ve got a lot of questions,” Eve said. “But so do I. Why did you trick me into checking out in 1918? Why did you pretend we’d never met before?”
Anna stared at her. “I didn’t trick you. I was following my instructions. I’ve done what I’m supposed to do every step of the way. You’re the one who’s getting it wrong and ruining everything. Down in the basement, which trunks did you look in?”
“We looked in a few that had our own names on them,” Max said.
“And one suitcase for Nikolas Roth,” Eve added.
The colour drained from Anna’s face so fast that she looked as if she might faint.
“The contents?” she whispered.
“There were paintings,” Eve replied.
She didn’t go on because Anna recoiled as if Eve had slapped her. “You saw them?”
“Well, yes.”
“But you can’t. You can’t!”
“Why not?” Eve replied. “What does it matter now?”
But Anna didn’t reply. She turned on her heel and ran from the lobby without another word. Eve looked at Max, who shrugged.
“I don’t know much about art, but the paintings we saw seemed a bit…average. They weren’t masterpieces. Okay, so we found out their secret. Nikolas Roth wasn’t a genius artist. He was just a mediocre dabbler. So what? Who cares? We’ve got more important things to worry about.”
Eve knew he was right, so she tried to put thoughts of Anna from her mind. They went to get some breakfast, although she was almost too tense to eat and could only pick half-heartedly at a croissant. They were just finishing up when there was a shout from the doorway.
“It’s Anna Roth!” someone cried. “She’s outside burning the guests’ luggage!”