The Waterproof Bible by KAUFMAN Andrew

Author:KAUFMAN, Andrew [KAUFMAN, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Published: 2011-08-11T20:00:00+00:00

Satisfied, Margaret closed the book. While it was good to have guests, all she really wanted was to get back to sleep, so she grabbed the first two keys that came to hand. The keys, which appeared to be antiques, were attached to flat lengths of wood. The room numbers were written in large block letters. Room #201 was handed to Anderson, while #202 went to Kenneth.

Looking around the lobby, both Anderson and Kenneth concluded that they might be the only guests at the Prairie Embassy Hotel. Yet the clerk had given them rooms right next to each other. They both wanted to complain, to request rooms on separate floors or at least on opposite ends of a floor, but that would mean acknowledging the other’s presence, something neither man was prepared to do. Silently and simultaneously, both men nodded. They carried their own luggage as Margaret showed them to their rooms.

Two hours later, Margaret was once again woken from her sleep. She could hear Stewart hammering outside, but that wasn’t what had woken her. It wasn’t his cell phone either. She felt something trickling from her gills. The back of her head was wet, as were her shoulders. Margaret opened her eyes but did not move. She was scared to breathe. After several moments, as much out of need as from courage, Margaret opened her gills. When she pulled in air, her gills made a raspy, liquid sound and her darkest fears were confirmed.

Quickly and without looking behind her, Margaret got out of bed. She stood in front of the full-length mirror in the corner of her room. The floor was cold on the soles of her feet. Margaret wiggled her toes. These, she reluctantly observed, were not the toes of her youth. The realization made her sigh, which produced the raspy, liquid sound. Margaret looked up. Her neck was covered in a thick orange syrup. It dripped from her gills, momentarily collected at her collarbone, then slipped down between her breasts. Margaret could no longer deny it: the rust had begun.

As every Hliðafgoð knows, the ryð signals the beginning of the end. Some have lived for years after its appearance, others for only hours; most live for another few weeks. No cure has ever been found. Religious or not, each and every Hliðafgoð immediately begins the bjarturvatn as soon as the rust appears. Bjarturvatn, or “clear water,” is the process of putting your financial, material and emotional houses in order. Since all Hliðafgoð are given such a concrete signal of their impending demise, it is considered intolerable to leave behind any unfinished business.

Financially, Margaret didn’t have much to do. She supposed it would come to light that she didn’t actually own the Prairie Embassy Hotel. The former proprietor had abandoned the building after two unsuccessful years of trying to sell it. Three years after that, Margaret had broken in through a second-storey window. After renovating the lobby and six of the thirty-eight rooms, she’d declared the Prairie Embassy Hotel open for business.

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