A Castle in the Clouds

by Kerstin Gier

  On the nightstand, in the nightstand—it was pretty much the same thing.

  Tristan grinned approvingly.

  “So I just grabbed it. I mean, it belongs to Mrs. Ludwig. And she’s been crying her eyes out. I couldn’t just leave it lying there.” I looked expectantly at Ben. He was welcome to break his silence now.

  “Is that why you looked so distracted in the lobby just now?” he asked, and I nodded eagerly.

  “And you’re sure it’s Mrs. Ludwig’s ring and not just one that looks like it?”

  Hmm. That was opening a whole new can of worms. But no—I was absolutely sure. The ring that had disappeared in the spa was the same one that had reappeared in Stella Yegorov’s nightstand. I nodded vigorously.

  “Okay,” said Ben slowly. “So you took the ring from the nightstand to give it back to Mrs. Ludwig. What’s the problem, then? And what does he have to do with it?” He pointed to Tristan.

  “Sophie can’t give the ring back herself because then Stella Yegorov might find out how the ring disappeared from her suite,” said Tristan impatiently. “And I’m sure you’ll agree with my gut feeling that it might be best not to make an enemy of that woman. Do you really think the hotel management is likely to accuse Viktor Yegorov’s wife of theft? Or report her to the police?”

  Ben didn’t answer.

  “You see? And there’s your problem,” said Tristan, and I added hastily, “That’s what Tristan and I have been doing this whole time—trying to figure out the best way to give the ring back. We thought we might be able to get a package to Mrs. Ludwig anonymously.”

  “The whole time—I doubt it,” murmured Ben. Then he cleared his throat and went on more loudly, “Why didn’t you come straight to me, Sophie? Why would you discuss such a delicate matter with this … guest?” He shook his head. He looked disappointed now, and that was even worse than his outrage a moment ago. He put out his hand. “Give me the ring.”

  I pulled it off my finger and laid it in his hand. I immediately felt about twenty pounds lighter. And I felt like I could breathe again.

  Tristan rolled his eyes.

  “Come on,” said Ben, and I could hear the disappointment in his voice now, too. “We’ll make sure Mrs. Ludwig gets her ring back.”

  “Yes, but there’s just one more thing you should know. This ring is … ouch!” Tristan had given me a dig in the ribs and a slight shake of his head. Perhaps he was right—perhaps we’d told Ben enough for now.

  “This ring is what?” asked Ben.

  Worth a few million euros.

  “Very special,” I whispered. I just couldn’t lie any louder. “Mr. Ludwig bought it decades ago, at a flea market.”

  “I know,” said Ben.

  Tristan stretched and yawned as if he’d just woken up from a nap. “If you don’t need me anymore, I think I’ll go and find my grandpa and head down to dinner.” He slid smoothly past Ben and out into the corridor. “Merry Christmas to you both.”

  “Screw you,” muttered Ben in German.

  14

  On our way downstairs, Ben maintained a stubborn silence. And I felt guilty for not having told him the whole truth. Although he couldn’t know I’d lied, so he couldn’t exactly be angry with me about it.

  I shot several sideways glances at him, but he pretended not to notice. His jaw was clamped tight shut as if he was grinding something between his teeth. When Anni Moser, who was stuffing dirty sheets into the laundry chute, wished us a merry Christmas, Ben growled “Merry Christmas to you, too” in such a grumpy tone of voice that she looked quite taken aback. I gave her an apologetic smile.

  This was the time of day when Fräulein Müller did her evening rounds with the chambermaids, getting the rooms ready for the night. The evening round had always been my favorite, firstly because it was the last thing you had to do before the end of your shift, and secondly because it involved lots of nice jobs: drawing the curtains, folding back the bedspread, placing a little rug and a pair of slippers on either side of the bed, plumping up the pillows, and leaving a little wrapped square of chocolate on each pillow. As you went out, you tidied up the room a bit and took any dirty cups or rubbish away with you. When the guests returned to their rooms after dinner, everything was all neat and cozy, ready for bedtime.

  “I could really go for a bit of chocolate right now, couldn’t you?” I said, but Ben didn’t answer. He seemed to be taking this very seriously.

  When we reached the ground floor and entered the staff room behind the concierge’s lodge, I plucked up all my courage and asked him: “Are you angry with me for taking the ring?”

  Ben stopped. “No.” He looked me in the eye at last. “I’d probably have done the same thing. I’m angry because you didn’t tell me. Instead you went and told that … Tristan Brown.”

  Which of course I would never have done if I really had taken the ring. Oh, crap.

  “I thought we were friends,” Ben went on. “I thought you trusted me.”

  Now I felt even worse. Especially because I really did feel I could trust him—last night on the stairs, when we’d been drinking tea and rum together, I’d certainly gotten that impression.

  “And I would have come to you.” If I really had taken the ring, that is. Which I hadn’t. “It’s just that Tristan … he was … he just happened to be around at the time.”

  Half-truths, I was coming to realize, were no good at all. In the end, they just added up to an outright lie. But now, for better or worse, I had to stick to my story, even if I hated it and felt terrible for lying to Ben. “I had to let Tristan in on it, otherwise he would have thought I was a thief and reported me to management.”

  “I see,” said Ben.

  No. He didn’t, unfortunately. For a moment, I felt genuinely angry with Tristan for putting me in this situation. After all, I was only lying to Ben to cover for Tristan, to make sure nobody found out about his habit of climbing up walls and in through strangers’ windows to go rummaging around in their nightstands.

  On the other hand, if it hadn’t been for Tristan, Mrs. Ludwig’s ring would probably have been lost forever. And the old lady really didn’t deserve that.

  “It’s not a great idea to make friends with the guests.” Ben looked at me gravely. “Especially not with that British pretty boy who thinks all he has to do is smile and girls will just fall at his feet.”

  “Which they probably will,” I said, then added quickly, “Not me though, obviously.”

  “That’s not how it looked just now. The two of you seemed pretty close. Like it wasn’t the first time you’d held hands.”

  “We weren’t holding—” I broke off. This was stupid. Why did I keep having to justify myself? I hadn’t done anything wrong. Not even in the untrue version of the story. “What were you doing up there in the vestibule anyway?” I asked, looking Ben straight in the eye.

  Ben stared back at me for a few seconds, then looked away. “You mean, how did I know I’d find you there? Ariane told me. Several people saw you on the second floor making … er … doing whatever you were doing with that English boy.”

  “Who the hell is Ariane?”

  “One of the students from Lausanne who’s working for Fräulein Müller, the one with blond hair and bangs. You must know her—her bedroom is right next to yours.”

  “Ah, you mean Whatsername.” I started chewing on my lower lip. Little by little, this was all starting to make sense. It was also starting to make me angry. “So Whatsername came to see you at Reception and told you I was holding hands with Tristan Brown on the second floor, did she? And you believed that stupid little snitch?” I didn’t know why I suddenly had such a bitter taste in my mouth.

  Ben looked at me, frowning. “She and the other girls were worried about you. They said they’d seen you with that guy before. In the linen room.” He took a deep breath. “Which is off-limits to guests.”

  “Yes, I’m sure they were terribly worried about me. The girls.” I snorted. Hearing him talk about
them so nicely had really made me see red. “How thoughtful of them to bring their concerns to you. What with you being so trustworthy and all. And how very chivalrous of you to come rushing upstairs to … do what, exactly?”

  “To stop you doing something stupid, perhaps? Or—for all I knew, the guest was pressuring you.” Ben pressed his lips together for a moment. “But clearly he wasn’t doing anything you didn’t want him to.”

  “You can tell your friends from Lausanne that my private life is absolutely none of their business,” I hissed.

  “Well at least they know the hotel rules, unlike you,” Ben retorted. “This is not the kind of place where employees make out with guests in linen closets and dark corners.”

  Now he’d gone too far.

  I felt my eyes fill with tears. This always happened to me: Whenever I got really angry, I started welling up and I couldn’t get a sensible word out. Had I really been feeling guilty a minute ago for having lied to him?

  “It’s my duty to make you aware of inappropriate behavior that might damage the hotel’s reputation.”

  Ben clearly couldn’t see the effect he was having on me. My eyes were burning from the effort of holding back tears. “If I were you, I’d be grateful to Ariane for coming to me with this and not my dad,” he said.

  “And you expect me to trust you?” I wanted to yell at him, but my voice was strangely quiet and choked. “I think you’re behaving just like your dad right now. And as for us being friends—that’s a joke! I’d ten times rather be friends with that British pretty boy, as you call him. At least Tristan can recognize a silly cow when he sees one.”

  Without waiting for his reply, I pushed past him into the concierge’s lodge and slammed the door as hard as I could.

  “Oh, good,” said Monsieur Rocher. “It was getting so quiet around here I’d almost nodded off.”

  I leaned back against the door, breathing heavily. Monsieur Rocher must have heard every word of our argument, which at least saved me repeating all the sordid details and inevitably bursting into tears.

  Ben had gone out through the other door and was now crossing the lobby with long, angry strides. He withdrew behind the reception desk and started tapping loudly and pointedly at his computer keyboard.

  “I should have given him a slap,” I said between gritted teeth. “Or shoved him against the wall. Or done something else very painful to him.”

  “A good slap is sometimes better than a bad kiss.” Monsieur Rocher took a stack of postcards out of a cardboard box and started arranging them in the postcard rack. “I read that somewhere.”

  The British actor and his wife, who must have been out for a last little Christmas Eve walk, came in through the revolving doors bringing a blast of cold air with them. Ben handed them their room key and glanced in our direction. I would have liked to grab one of the polished apples from the bowl on our desk and throw it at him.

  “He basically accused me of hiding in dark corners and making out with a guest,” I exclaimed, as soon as the actor and his wife had gone upstairs. “And all because those buttnuts from Lausanne…” I could hardly breathe, I was so furious. But using Gracie’s insult had made me feel better. And it had helped me hold back my tears.

  “That wasn’t very nice of Ben.” Monsieur Rocher handed me a pile of postcards, and I started arranging them on the rack. “You look very pretty this evening, by the way, Sophie. Even prettier than usual.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Which guest did he say you’d been … stepping out with?”

  “Tristan Brown from Room 211,” I said readily, and despite how upset I was, I couldn’t help smiling a bit. What a lovely quaint phrase stepping out was, compared with “making out.”

  “And we weren’t ‘stepping out’ together; we were just trying to solve a problem, that’s all. And we were doing it for the sake of this hotel, incidentally. The same hotel Ben basically accused me of bringing into disrepute!”

  Monsieur Rocher looked at me with an understanding smile. “Tristan Brown from Room 211 is a very attractive young man,” he said. “It’s just a thought, but perhaps Ben misjudged the situation a little because he feels jealous?”

  “No, he misjudged the situation a little because he listened to that snitch Whatsername.” I looked darkly over at Reception, where Ben was still pounding the keyboard as if trying to avert a dangerous hacker attack. “He even knows her name. He said it so many times I can’t really call her Whatsername anymore.”

  “Love looks for roses; jealousy sees thorns,” said Monsieur Rocher. “Or the other way around—was it love that sees roses while jealousy looks for thorns? Either way, I don’t envy you people your jealousy. Here’s a few more cards, my dear.”

  For a while we arranged the postcards in silence, listening to the Christmas songs that drifted faintly over from the bar and watching the stragglers making their way into the restaurant, dressed in their festive finery. The oligarch’s family (mother and daughter were in matching outfits again, and the dog seemed to have been left upstairs for once) were now coming down the stairs.

  “Have you eaten yet?” Monsieur Rocher asked me, once everyone had gone inside the restaurant and the pianist in the bar had launched into a jazzy version of “Let it Snow.”

  “Nothing since a potato at lunchtime.”

  “Aha,” said Monsieur Rocher, as if that explained a great deal.

  At that moment, the Ludwigs entered the lobby. They too were all dressed up. Mr. Ludwig was wearing a suit (the sleeves on the jacket were slightly too short) and Mrs. Ludwig was in a voluminous lilac dress with a matching stole.

  Ben sprang into action. “Excuse me, please,” he called, coming out from behind the reception desk. Aha! Now things were heating up. My heart was pounding in excitement. I was intrigued to see how Ben was going to explain the business of the ring. Not wanting to miss a thing, I leaned out over the concierge’s desk so far that I almost fell off the other side. Unfortunately, the Ludwigs were standing with their backs to me so I couldn’t see their faces. And to top it all off, the Ball Bearings Baroness and her young lover chose that moment to come tripping down the stairs and stand right in front of us debating whether to go straight in to the restaurant or have an aperitif in the bar first. By the time they’d finally finished their conversation and wandered off toward the bar, Ben must have handed over the ring because Mrs. Ludwig had flung her arms around his neck and was kissing him animatedly on both cheeks, saying, “You are an angel, young man. A Christmas angel.”

  Ben blushed slightly and said something I couldn’t quite catch.

  Mr. Ludwig slid the ring onto Mrs. Ludwig’s finger, and I almost shed a tear. He did it with such solemn seriousness, gazing at her so devotedly, that they could have been standing at the altar. Then he kissed her just as tenderly, and eventually the two of them walked away with their arms around each other and disappeared into the restaurant. Where, I hoped, they would be sitting at a table as far away from Stella Yegorov as possible.

  Ben stood still in the middle of the lobby and watched them go. All sorts of emotions flitted across his face, as if he’d just come out of a very moving film. When he turned to look in our direction, I quickly picked myself up off the desk, but it was too late—he’d already seen what knots I’d tied myself in to get a good view of him and the Ludwigs. And that I was still leaning over the desk staring at him, even though the Ludwigs were long gone. He’d better not go thinking I’d forgiven him! I tried to adjust my body language to better reflect my emotional state and folded my arms across my chest as grumpily as I could. I also tried to get my eyes to flash dangerously, the way people’s eyes do in novels. I was determined not to be the first one to blink.

  What did he expect? A round of applause? I could have given the ring back to Mrs. Ludwig myself if I’d wanted to. I’d have found a way. The Manfred plan, for example. Anyway, the real difficulty lay not in giving the ring back but in explaining to the Ludwigs that they could buy this whole hotel,
if they wanted, with that flea-market ring of theirs.

  Ben wasn’t in the least fazed by the dangerous flashing of my eyes. He walked slowly toward us without averting his gaze, seemingly just as determined as I was not to blink first.

  “I don’t think Ben’s had anything to eat this evening, either,” said Monsieur Rocher, when Ben finally reached us.

  So what? He could starve to death for all I cared.

  Neither of us said a word.

  “I imagine one or the other of you might be feeling sorry for the things he or she said just now, hmm?” Monsieur Rocher looked at Ben, eyebrows raised.

  “Yes, I imagine we might,” Ben murmured, lowering his eyes for a second.

  “I didn’t say anything I have to apologize for.” I sniffed, and Monsieur Rocher silently handed me a tissue.

  “But I did.” Ben sighed. “I don’t know how to … I’m so sorry, Sophie. I really didn’t mean those things.”

  “The thing about my inappropriate behavior damaging the hotel’s reputation or the thing about making out in dark corners?” I blew my nose loudly into Monsieur Rocher’s tissue. I had no idea why my nose was suddenly running so much.

  “Both.” Ben looked genuinely contrite, as I could see when I snuck a quick glance at him, my nose still buried in the tissue. “It was unfair of me. And very … rude and offensive. I … Please forgive me. I just lost it, thinking about you and that obnoxious English guy…”

  “Stepping out together?” I said, lowering the tissue.

  Ben grinned. “Yes, exactly.” Then he grew serious again. “Sophie? Will you accept my apology and come and have dinner with me?”

  He looked at me so disarmingly that I had trouble keeping my composure. I decided to stay silent for a little while longer. But at least I didn’t need the tissue anymore.

  “What a good idea! Just what I would have suggested.” Monsieur Rocher took a little package from the mail rack and handed it to Ben. “And if you get the chance, you two, would you be so kind as to give this to Pavel when you go downstairs? It came in the mail yesterday from Bulgaria, and I think we should make sure he gets it for Christmas Eve.”