The Glass Hotel - Emily St. John Mandel Page 0,107

promise that you’ll send it back.”

“Do you have black tea?”

“You’re in Scotland.”

“Something extra-strong,” Paul said. “The strongest tea you’ve got. A lot of it. The more caffeine, the better.”

“I’ll bring you a pot, then,” the waitress said, “and you can let it brew for as long as you’d like.” Paul had the impression he often had in the United Kingdom, of just having been subtly insulted in an obscure way that would take too much energy to parse, and as always he couldn’t tell whether the insult was real or just a typically Canadian case of postcolonial insecurity. Damn it, I know how tea works, he wanted to say, but it was too late, the waitress had departed and he was alone with Ella, who was giving him that look again.

“Do you still play music with that group? Baltica, was it?” She’d misunderstood, but he couldn’t possibly explain.

“We’ve all gone our separate ways,” he said. “I only see them on Facebook now. Annika’s always on tour with like five different bands. Theo’s a family guy. Is the hotel still there?” he heard himself ask, desperate to change the subject.

“It closed after Alkaitis was arrested,” she said.

4

Eight time zones to the west, Walter was standing by the window of his room in the old staff quarters of the former Hotel Caiette. There was still no cellular service here, but some years ago he’d splurged on a cordless phone, in order to wander around his apartment while he talked with the outside world.

“I can’t believe it’s been almost ten years,” his sister said. “Good lord. You’re still not lonely?”

“I’m not sure lonely is exactly the word. No, I wouldn’t say lonely.”

* * *

—

The last guest checked out of the Hotel Caiette in early 2009, two months after Jonathan Alkaitis was arrested, and the rest of the staff left shortly thereafter. Is a hotel still a hotel without guests? Walter was there on the pier when Raphael departed. “Keep in touch,” he said to Walter, and the men shook hands with the mutual understanding that they’d never speak again. Raphael climbed aboard the boat with his overnight bag—his belongings had gone on ahead to Edmonton—and the chauffeur, Melissa, started the motor. She was being paid through the end of the day but hadn’t bothered with her uniform. She was leaving the boat in Grace Harbour and returning home by water taxi. “I’ll stop by next week,” she said to Walter. “Just to check in on you.”

“Thanks,” he said, moved and a little surprised by this. She cast off from the pier and the boat pulled out into the water, arced around the peninsula and out of sight. It was a muted day, the sea reflecting a pale gray sky, the forest dark and dripping from the morning’s rain. Walter stood on the pier until he could no longer hear the boat and then turned back to face the empty hotel. He walked up the path and unlocked the glass doors of the lobby, locked them behind him. Raphael had ceremoniously switched off the lights as he left, but now Walter switched them back on. The dark wood of the bar gleamed softly. His footsteps echoed. The furniture had all been sold off except for the grand piano, which was too costly to move. Walter played a few notes, unnaturally loud in the silence. It was true silence, he realized, not at all like being in the forest, which even at its quietest was alive with small sounds. He walked past Reception, past the bar, to the staircase.

The largest suite, the Coast Royal, was where Jonathan Alkaitis had always stayed. Walter had thought to move in here—it had a splendor that the staff quarters lacked, and surely the hotel caretaker should live in the actual hotel—but the thought of sleeping in the bed where Alkaitis had slept was repulsive, and Walter liked his apartment. He wandered through all of the guest rooms, left the doors open behind him.

What was strange was that he didn’t feel alone in all this space, all of these empty corridors and rooms. It was as though the hotel were haunted, but in the most benign sense: the rooms still held an air of presence, a sense of occupation, as if at any moment the boat might pull in with new guests and Raphael might walk out of his office complaining about the latest staffing problem, Khalil and Larry arriving for the night shift. He walked out onto