Some distance away, Mouse’s shoe-wagon waited, a steely law on four wheels.
“You would really just give it to me?” she asked doubtfully.
He beamed like the imitation gold on the walls. “I can’t do anything else with it anyway.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“I want to just give it to you.”
He doesn’t like you, her inner voice warned. No one here likes you.
“Agreed!” she burst out. Her heart raced yet again, as fast as it had when the Roundsman had grabbed her. Only now for a better reason.
“Right then,” Maxim said, stepped with her into the hall, closed the grate from the outside with a key, and affixed a metal sign on it with the label Out of Order. Mouse found that to be rather daring. But presumably one such as Maxim could be allowed such escapades.
Mouse followed him down the hall, to a door whose inscription pointed out that only hotel personnel had entry. Behind it lay an even narrower, darker hallway that led to the dormitories of the employees. No carpet, no pictures on the walls. Here pipes lay in the open over the plaster, not behind wood paneling.
Maxim went with Mouse to the end of the corridor. An emergency exit was located there, a heavy door with iron bars; Mouse had no idea what lay behind them. She knew the outside of the Hotel solely from the paintings in the ballroom, and there only the splendid facades were to be seen, not, however, the backs or other sections of the buildings.
“Wait here,” said Maxim. The doors of the bedrooms were located on the left and right of the hall. Every six men had to share a room. The rooms of the female employees lay a floor below.
Mouse nodded to him as he disappeared with an encouraging smile behind the last door on the left side. A musty cloud of bedroom scent wafted over to Mouse.
Here she felt anything but well, and already regretted taking the offer. If anyone chanced to come out of one of the rooms, she would not be able to flee out of this dead end. The door of the emergency exit to her back seemed at once to be even taller and heavier.
She had no fear of a beating – the other girls and boys never went that far – but it would be enough that they would keep making fun of her. Mouse had long ago stopped wondering why, even though she had never done anything to harm anyone. Her only sin was her lowly work. And the way she looked.
Perhaps Maxim’s uniform would change something about that. If possible, she could win a little respect with it. This fantasy alone was worth the risk of standing around in the corridor of the men’s quarters in the middle of the night.
The door of the room swung open again. Maxim stepped into the hall.
“That was quick,” she said, with a shy smile.
In his hands he held an old blanket like a bundle of rags. Completely tattered and rumpled.
“The moths were quicker,” he said, and it sounded just as friendly as he had before in the elevator. For the first time Mouse realized that treachery did not always have to accompany malice and mockery; sometimes it hid itself behind a façade of courtesy and charm.
No comments:
Post a Comment