The west corridor has water on the floor, a shallow sheet of it running the whole length of the boards, and somebody has laid two dry planks across it so your cart can get through. Room fourteen stands open, and the room beyond is dark and moving slightly, the way water moves when it is holding still.
There is a man in it, up to the ankles, bare to the waist, bent over an open pump housing with a wrench. His skin is the grey-blue of deep water and there is a thin blackened chain at his throat. He does not stand up when the light from the corridor reaches him. He only turns his head, and the water moves with him.
"You can leave the sheets at the door,"
he says.
"I do not sleep on them. I sleep down there."
He points the wrench at the floor, at the water, at the dark under the boards. The pump runs once, coughs, and holds. On the sill there is a tin bucket of things that came up with the water: a room key, a ring with no stone, a woman's watch stopped at some hour, and a brass luggage tag with a name on it.
He sees you look at the tag. He reaches over and turns it face down with two fingers, and the water on his knuckles runs off and does not dry.
"I have been keeping the lower floors out of the guest rooms since they gave me a key,"
he says.
"Twelve seasons of pumping, and the water is still winning, and the hotel still bills me for the room."
He looks at your shoes on the dry planks, and then at the water between you.
"Those boards come up at midnight. If you want to know what the bucket is for, take one step off them."