A Castle in the Clouds

by Kerstin Gier

  “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, young lady.” Gordon Montfort thrust Gracie’s hat at me. “Sort this out. We don’t tolerate troublemakers in this hotel.”

  He didn’t wait for my reply; instead, he turned on Nico. “And what are you doing standing around like a lemon, you idiot? Look, more guests have just arrived.”

  6

  That night I dreamed I was riding an air current, circling high above Castle in the Clouds with the seven Hugos as if I were one of them. It was strange to see the hotel from above. It looked like a magical, jagged rock formation jutting out of the snow like a piece of the mountain. The lower we flew, the more details I could make out: the steep turret roofs, the wrought-iron roof rails, the big skylight above the staircase—like a Victorian greenhouse. On the ground, Monsieur Rocher was standing in the snow outside the entrance to the hotel with the Forbidden Cat, and when he saw me he smiled, pulled his handkerchief out of his breast pocket, and waved it at me.

  But you’d better wake up now, Sophie, he said. The early bird catches the worm …

  And at that point, I did indeed wake up, just like that, for no apparent reason. My phone told me it was only quarter to five, and I wanted to roll over and carry on dreaming my lovely dream. I didn’t need to get to the playroom on the third floor until nine o’clock, after all, and it couldn’t hurt to be well rested when I got there, especially if Don was going to make good on his threat and turn up at day care, too.

  But no sooner had I closed my eyes again than I heard a soft sighing sound coming from the wall, tentative at first but then more forceful, until it sounded more like an angry man clearing his throat. After five minutes, I couldn’t stand it anymore and sat up. Clearly, the old water pipe in the wall had decided that today was the day to catch up on all the noises it had refrained from making over the past few months. I switched my bedside lamp on and stood up. I was only imagining it, of course, but the noise from the pipe almost sounded pleased.

  And to be honest, I felt pretty well rested already. “The early bird gets a free bathroom, at any rate,” I said to myself. It was pitch dark outside and I couldn’t see whether it was still snowing, but the whistling and wailing of the storm had dropped as I crept along the corridor as quietly as I could.

  It was a lot more relaxing taking a shower when I knew Hortensia, Camilla, and co. were still fast asleep.

  When I’d gotten back to my room after my evening shift yesterday, I’d put my hand in a big glob of gooey stuff that someone had smeared all over the door handle, and Hortensia and her three friends, who’d obviously been waiting for me in the doorway of their own room, had been beside themselves with laughter.

  Toothpaste on the door handle—ha ha. Very original.

  “Someone’s clearly been reading too many boarding-school books,” I said as I walked past them to the bathroom to wash off the toothpaste. Unbelievable—they were all wearing exactly the same set of frilly polka-dot pajamas. “What’s your next trick? A whoopee cushion?”

  “Oh dear, Work Experience is sulking!” As they followed me in their spotty pajamas, laughing idiotically, they both looked and sounded uncannily like a pack of spotted hyenas I’d once seen in a wildlife documentary. “Can’t you take a joke?”

  No. I’d had quite enough practical jokes for one day. I was no more in the mood for joking than the wildebeest the hyenas had chased down and eaten for dinner in the documentary.

  I grimly proceeded to wash the toothpaste off my hand while Camilla stood at the sink to the left of me and admired her reflection in the mirror. Ava, Hortensia, and Whatsername positioned themselves to my right. Ava started braiding her shoulder-length, dark-blond hair, Whatsername batted her eyelashes coquettishly at herself in the mirror, and Hortensia ran cold water over her wrists and dabbed it on her temples.

  I turned off the tap. “I’m really tired, and I want to go to bed. So if you’re going to beat me up and stick my head down the toilet then could you please just get on with it, or else leave it till tomorrow.”

  The four of them looked at me in bewilderment.

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” said Hortensia in her nasal voice. “It was just a harmless little joke. You’re the one who’s not following the rules around here.”

  “What?”

  “You used the bathroom at the same time as us,” Ava explained.

  “And then you started being rude to us.” Whatsername looked at me reproachfully.

  Camilla nodded vehemently. “And now you’re lying and saying we want to beat you up and stick your head down the toilet.”

  “Have you completely lost your minds?” I cried indignantly. “You pushed me and insulted me. And put toothpaste on my door handle.”

  “Yes, because you threatened Hortensia with your so-called friends,” said Camilla. “My aunt said we shouldn’t let you intimidate us.”

  “What?” Who was intimidating who here? I was definitely the wildebeest in this situation.

  “And you left your disgusting hair in the sink,” added Whatsername.

  “And you’re ugly,” said Ava.

  At that moment, the tap in her sink went haywire. It seemed to suddenly explode, spitting a jet of water right onto Ava’s pajamas.

  All four hyenas jumped backward, screaming, but by that time the tap had already settled down again.

  Since it didn’t look like anyone else was going to, I turned off the tap and moved toward the door. Nobody stopped me; they were all staring suspiciously at the sink.

  In the doorway, I turned back. “As my so-called friend the tap just told you: Leave me alone.”

  Hortensia didn’t answer me but muttered to Camilla: “Something must be wrong with the pipes. This hotel really is in a shocking state. Even if your aunt does seem to think it’s on a par with the Ritz-Carlton.”

  Yes, and she was right, damn it. Though I was willing to bet they had nicer chambermaids at the Ritz-Carlton.

  One of the four hyenas was now snoring loudly as I crept past their room, freshly showered and dressed and with my hair already done. That must be Hortensia; the snoring had a nasal quality to it.

  I didn’t run into anyone on my way downstairs to the kitchen, which was located in the basement below the restaurant, but that didn’t mean everybody else was still asleep. There was always someone awake somewhere in the hotel. Or, as Monsieur Rocher often said: Castle in the Clouds never sleeps.

  Because there were no fixed mealtimes for the staff, food was left out for us all day in a room just off the kitchen. When I arrived, Pierre (one of the two junior chefs permanently employed at the hotel) was laying out a cheese board, and the smell of fresh bread filled the air. The breakfast buffet down here was almost identical to the one served to the guests in the restaurant upstairs. Granted, we didn’t get summer fruits arranged in concentric circles, freshly squeezed juices, or trays full of little glasses of mango lassi, but we got almost everything else, and around the clock, too. From midday onward, there was hot soup. In the afternoons, there were little pastries; bowls of apples, oranges, and carrots; and often casseroles on hot plates. There were always cold meats, fresh bread, cakes, and tarts—nobody had to go hungry here.

  “You’re up early,” said Pierre.

  “So are you.” I bit happily into a slice of crusty buttered bread and lowered myself onto one of the few chairs. “The early bird gets the best breakfast. And a seat.”

  Pierre laughed. “You’ve got to have some of this salmon. I made the marinade myself, with lime and sea salt and juniper and dill and … oh, just try a bit.” He laid out a big piece on a plate for me. I really liked Pierre. He was the one who supplied me with the milk rolls I fed to the seven Hugos. He always put a few aside for me. And when I’d first started working here, he’d helped me understand the regional dialect that most of the staff spoke. I’d probably never be able to speak it myself, but I found it easy enough to follow a conversation now. Old Stucky was the only person I couldn’t understand at all. Pierre said that
wasn’t my fault but was due to the fact that Old Stucky had no teeth.

  The salmon was absolutely delicious. And it went perfectly with the bread. And the egg. And the cheese. I always ate as much as I could for breakfast because I didn’t usually get to eat again until the afternoon. It was nice not to have to rush for once and to get a chance to chat with Pierre. There’d been fourteen inches of fresh snow overnight, he said, and snowdrifts several feet high. The mountain pass roads had been closed, and only cars with snow chains could manage the road to the hotel. The next bout of wintry weather was already on its way, and from Christmas Day on, the snow was supposed to be even heavier. Where I lived, weather like this would have triggered a state of emergency, but here it was nothing special.

  “And what’s morale like in there?” I asked, pointing to the door that led to the kitchen. There were more extra kitchen and waiting staff than any other kind of temp, and two thirds of the people working in the kitchen and the restaurant were new.

  “It’s going very well. Except that the newbies still haven’t realized how serious Chef is about the ban on cell phones. I’ve done what I can, but I’m afraid they won’t really get the message until the first phone gets melted on the grill. Or minced. Or thrown in boiling water.” Pierre grinned, and I couldn’t help laughing. The head chef was very creative, in more ways than one. “One of the new waiters is really cute. I think I might be a little bit in love.” He winked at me. “And how are things upstairs?”

  “Gordon Montfort has got it in for me, the students from Lausanne are evil creatures with a warped view of life, and little Don Burkhardt has taken it upon himself to make my life hell. But apart from that, everything’s fine, thanks. Oh, good morning! Where did you spring from?”

  The Forbidden Cat wound herself around my legs and then Pierre’s, purring. Then she mewed loudly.

  Pierre put down a plate of cold meats chopped up into little pieces—he’d obviously prepared them for her specially. “Do you know the one thing that puzzles me?” he asked, as the Forbidden Cat dug into her breakfast with relish. “Chef says this cat was already here when he started working in the kitchen.” He left a short, dramatic pause. Then he added quietly, “In 1989.”

  Math wasn’t my strong point, but even without a calculator I knew that couldn’t be right. “Perhaps there was a different cat here then that looked like this one. A ginger forebear.”

  The Forbidden Cat started washing herself. We looked thoughtfully at her.

  “Yes, that must be it.” Pierre picked up the cat’s plate. “Shall I save you a mini raspberry cheesecake for this afternoon? Madame Cléo wasn’t happy with the glaze, so I managed to nab us twenty-four of them, believe it or not.”

  I heard footsteps on the stairs, and Nico appeared in his bellhop’s uniform. He had his funny little cap clamped under one arm.

  I greeted him in a friendly way and offered him my chair.

  “Good morning,” he said rather stiffly, as if he felt a bit embarrassed about running into me. “Oh! A cat! I didn’t think pets were allowed here. In the house rules we got given, that was underlined three times.”

  “What cat?” said Pierre and I simultaneously.

  “That one there!” Nico pointed to the Forbidden Cat, who was now making her way up the stairs in a leisurely fashion.

  Pierre narrowed his eyes. “Do you see a cat around here, Sophie?”

  I shook my head. “Where?”

  “Ha ha, very funny.” Nico glared at us. “I’m not falling for it this time like I did with the epaulet thing.”

  As he shoveled his breakfast indignantly onto his plate, I said good-bye to Pierre and followed the Forbidden Cat up to the ground floor. I’d been planning to go back upstairs again to brush my teeth before those stupid sheep from Lausanne woke up. But the cat padded on ahead of me, purring, and kept turning around as if to check I was still there, so I did what she seemed to want and followed her. We walked right across the empty lobby and past the corridor that led to the conference room, toward the bar and the library. It was a very roundabout way of getting to my room but one that appealed to me because there was a door in the library that opened onto a hidden back staircase leading down to the basement or up to the third floor.

  The library was one of the most beautiful rooms in the hotel. It had ceiling-high shelves full of books, upholstered window seats where you could sit and read, an old-fashioned tiled fireplace with a bench in front of it, comfy armchairs, side tables piled high with coffee-table books, and a library ladder on rollers that glided all the way along a twenty-foot-long and twelve-foot-high bookshelf. Thanks to this ladder, dusting the books was great fun.

  If I’d been a guest, I would have spent all day in here. The wood-burning stove in the fireplace gave out a cozy warmth, and it smelled irresistibly of old books and furniture polish. If you wanted, you could even order a cup of coffee or a port or whatever you fancied to be brought to you in the library. In spite of this, not many of the guests found their way here. Most of the time the big room was deserted.

  “It’s all the books that put people off,” Monsieur Rocher had said with a wink, when I’d told him how surprised I was to see the library so empty. “It makes them feel guilty when they see how many books there are out there that they haven’t read.”

  The Forbidden Cat clearly wasn’t interested in finding a cozy corner in here, either; she planted herself by the door to the back staircase and meowed until I opened it. The door was set discreetly into the bookcase where the thrillers and crime novels were kept, and featured the usual NO ENTRY—STAFF ONLY signs in three languages. On the first floor, the staircase opened onto a long room full of nooks and crannies that lay between the Small Tower Suite and Room 102 and had space for storing vacuums and cleaning equipment; on the second floor, you went through a big room full of built-in cupboards for bed linens and towels, and through a door into the corridor that passed the entrance to the Large Tower Suite, where Don Burkhardt Jr. had been staying with his parents since early December. On the third floor, the stairs opened onto the men’s staff quarters.

  From the corridors on the first and second floors, the doors to the back staircase and the rooms branching off it looked like perfectly ordinary hotel room doors—none of the guests would have guessed there was anybody staying in Rooms 103 and 203. Unless they happened to be particularly brazen and inquisitive, like Don Burkhardt Jr., who presumably found NO ENTRY signs too tantalizing to resist. Don Jr. had already scared me half to death once when I’d opened a cupboard in the laundry room to find myself staring straight into his cute little face. My cry of alarm had alerted Fräulein Müller, who had initially scolded him but ended up believing his story (told with his usual doe-eyed look and adorable lisp) that he’d been playing at being a pirate and had completely lost track of where he was. Ridiculous! As if Don Burkhardt Jr. would ever indulge in innocent children’s games!

  The cat seemed to be in a hurry; instead of ambling along at a leisurely pace as she had been doing until now, she suddenly went bounding up the stairs. When I got to the first floor she was nowhere to be seen. Typical. First, she led me on this huge detour as if she had something to show me, then she just vanished.

  On the second floor, one of the cupboards in the linen room had been left open. I knew how much this would annoy Fräulein Müller, so I was just about to close it when the door to the main corridor swung open and somebody came in. Afterward I couldn’t explain why I’d done what I did, but by that time it was too late anyway. I slipped inside the cupboard as quick as lightning and pulled the door shut behind me, and then I stood there in exactly the same spot where I’d come across Don two weeks earlier and held my breath in astonishment. Something was clearly wrong with my reflexes. Why on earth had I leapt inside a cupboard to hide just because somebody had walked in? I hadn’t been doing anything wrong. And I looked immaculate—not even Fräulein Müller could have found fault with me this morning. But I couldn’t exactly come strolling out of the c
upboard now as if nothing had happened—I’d have to wait until whoever it was that had come into the room went out again.

  The problem was he didn’t go anywhere. And it wasn’t just one person, either—it was two. Right outside my cupboard, they started having a conversation.

  “I can’t understand why you’re being so stubborn, Gilbert,” said one, and I almost fainted with shock. That was Gordon Montfort! He must have slept here at the hotel last night because of the snowstorm, instead of going home.

  “I’m not being stubborn—I just want to find another solution,” replied the other person, and I recognized the voice of Gutless Gilbert, Gordon’s younger brother. “Just give us a little time.”

  Gordon sighed. “We’ve been over this a hundred times. More time is not a solution. And if we wait any longer, this offer will be off the table. We won’t get a better one.”

  “But we can’t do this,” said Gilbert, sounding even more depressed than usual. “We have a responsibility to this hotel with all its traditions and to the people who work here. And just think of your—”

  “Oh, don’t give me all that guff about tradition and responsibility,” Gordon broke in. “This clapped-out old pile of bricks with its clapped-out old traditions and staff have been a millstone around our necks for long enough now. Christ, you know the numbers better than I do. You know how long we’ve been in the red. We’re about to go under.”

  “Things might seem rather hopeless just now, but the hotel has so much potential and an excellent reputation still, and if we try another relaunch—”

  “With our debts? Who the hell is going to give us another loan for all the modernization this place would need?” Gordon cut his brother off again. I was amazed he wasn’t shouting: By his standards, he was practically whispering. But that made his words all the more powerful. “Christ, Gilbert, just accept it. We’re finished—it’s the end of an era. The hotel is slowly but surely dying of old age, our guests are dying of old age, and so are the staff—like that senile old caretaker you insist on keeping on the payroll even though he should have been put in an old people’s home years ago. All he does is scare the guests!”