Samedi the Deafness
One morning in the park James Sim discovers a man, crumpled on the ground, stabbed in the chest. In the man's last breath, he whispers his confession: Samedi.
What follows is a spellbinding game of cat and mouse as James is abducted, brought to an asylum, and seduced by a woman in yellow. Who is lying? What is Samedi? And what will happen on the seventh day?
day the first
James Sim rose on a Sunday morning
and dressed quietly in the dark. He did not switch on the light before descending the stairs. He did not put on the light in the hall.
— I came in the front, he said beneath his breath. Best to leave by the side door.
It was early yet, and the clouds that had gathered near and made of themselves rain all through the night were now intent on going elsewhere. But it takes the minds of clouds a long time to effect their prodigious actions; the immediate result was solely a sort of paleness, a lightening of countenance.
At the nearest market, a balding man with an angry nose was crouched counting in the till. James bought from him a newspaper, folded it under his arm and continued. The change that James gave the man was put on the counter, separate from the business of counting that had been going on.
Is it too much to say that there was in James a small sadness for his change kept apart from the rest?
Sunday was always the best of days for being the self you had intended to be, but were not, for one or another reason. This was true most of all for those without families, those without friends. He thought, then: We of the mnemonist profession are always discrete in our ways. This pleased him. He said it aloud as he passed again into the morning as though entering some familiar hall.
— Of course, we of the mnemonist profession are always discrete in our ways.
A boy of about eleven was on a footpath soon to join that of James. He looked up as James spoke. The footpaths were passing by a row of houses. In one, another boy was sitting on the edge of a dilapidated sand-box strewn with broken toys and faded color.
— Farrell is a weakling! Farrell is a weak weak weakling! yelled the boy at James's side.
The boy in the yard looked up with pained recognition. Immediately he put his hands over his eyes and hid his face.
— A weak weak weakling! A weakling! shouted the boy again.
— Listen, you, said James, raising up the back of his hand.
But the first boy had already run off. He was mostly gone in fact. Boys change so quickly at that age, it was hard to say certainly that the boy away now beneath the trees was even the same one.
James continued. Behind him, the boy sitting in the yard was lost to sight. Is it crueler to be cruel when alone, or to be cruel in front of others?
When alone, perhaps.
That's why they say people who are cruel to animals should be punished so badly. For everyone's good. Not really for the animals.
James set the newspaper beside him on the bench. The park ran beneath a cliff that hung above a river. Three bridges crossed the air above, and it was his way to sit beneath the third of these on a bench upon a small outcrop of rock. Away to his right a field stretched.
Perhaps it was crueler to be cruel when in company.
Birds were diving back and forth between the limbs of trees, and an ephemeral greenness cast by the morning hung over the late-autumn park. He would have liked to tie strings to all the birds, to all the branches of trees, to all the whirling leaves and the swells upon the river, and pull with his hand, here and there, the glad enormity of morning, of that very Sunday morning. To take up in his hand the paths across which he had come, the boy running ahead upon the path, the boy behind, face covered, the bald shopkeeper with his regimented monies, the small door in the side of his house. . But what then would he do with them?
A sort of shout came. James looked up. In the field, the figure of a man, bent over. James stood. The man shouted again, and lurched to the closeness of the ground. James looked about him. The park was empty. Leaving the newspaper, the bench, the path, he ran across the flatness of grass.
The man was lying in a crumpled fashion.
— Are you all right?
The man turned on his side. His coat was open and the skin of the front of his body was like a rent and torn shirt. He must have been stabbed at least a half dozen times. James hesitated.
— I'll fetch an ambulance.
The man made a painful sort of noise.
— Did you see them? the man asked. Did you see them?
— What? asked James.
— They must have gone past you.
How could the man be alive? It must have happened within seconds. But where had the attackers gone?
The man was crouched in a way that James recognized. It was the manner of a dog that had been severely wounded by another dog in the presence of people and other dogs who all had done nothing to stop any of it. Furthermore, he, as such a dog, might feel sternly and clearly that any help soon to be forthcoming would be of no use to him, and that rather, perhaps, it were better that he be left alone, and certainly not looked at in this horrible manner.
— I'm going to get an ambulance, said James.
— There's no time for that, said the man, grimacing and puffing with his cheeks in an unpleasant way. I'll be dead before it comes. And what if they come back?
The man began to cough. James looked away at the river. Its surface was wet, and pierced with innumerable ripples and deformities. The liquid came up against the shore, leaving marks of wetness along the sand, along the bases of trees, upon everything it touched. It made him want to vomit.
— That's no way to talk, said James.
He had put his hands into his pockets. He drew them out, but suddenly didn't know where to hold them. He put them back in again.
— What's your name? he said.
He looked at his feet as he said this.
— Thomas McHale, said the man. They've killed me.
— Did they take anything of value? asked James.
— That's useless, said Thomas McHale. That's useless to say to me.
He was quiet for a moment.
— I was one of them, but I left, and they didn't want me to leave. Have you seen the paper? Samedi? The conspirators? I was one of them. I didn't have the stomach for it, and I left.
The man groaned and rolled onto his back. This prompted a fresh pulsing of the wounds; more blood issued forth out of his broken chest.
— What's there to do? McHale groaned. You must do it. You must expose them.
James stood a few feet away, uncomfortably watching. He wanted none of this.
— I don't know, he said. I don't know what you mean.
— Listen, said McHale, there's no time.
He was wretched with his dying. James didn't want to look, but there is something hypnotic about such final speeches, and he listened even as his eyes slid along the filthiness of the river.
— The man, the man in charge, Samedi, is tall and fat but carries it well, if you understand. A mole beneath his left eye, and he—
McHale broke off with a fit of coughing. Blood began to come out of his mouth.
— He never goes out in public, or in the sun. His skin is pale. He is with a younger man, who dresses well, scornful, black hair, a childish face.
— But how would I find them? asked James. What would be the point?
— First, look for a man, Estrainger, his name is. He lives near the Chinese district. Poses as a playwright, but really he's an agent of. . Samedi's. About fifty. Fifty or sixty. Gray hair. Small.
McHale's efforts were dwindling. He lay for a while, just breathing with his eyes closed. James decided to go for the ambulance. He started to move off, but McHale spoke again.
— Another under the name of Sermon. Supposedly a psychologist. Young and conceited. Surrounds himself with women.
— What's this Samedi's name? asked James. Who are these people?
— It's useless, said McHale, it's useless.
He trailed off, mumbling.
— They've ended me, ended me. I knew they would. I told Thomas. I told him they would; he put me away.
— What are you saying? asked James. I don't understand.
— The daughter, Grieve, said McHale. The handler, Torquin. Many of them in a house, I can't even say where. I was held there. I jumped the wall, ran for hours.
His speech trailed off again into a mumbling of names and phrases. James could not make them out. All around McHale the grass bore the deep stamp of his bleeding. His chest heaved and bucked and slowed. McHale was right — there wouldn't have been time for an ambulance. But who was to blame? The thought came closer, became more definite. Whoever had done it must still be near.
James stood and looked hastily about him. No one was upon the meadow or on the near paths. He could see past the second bridge, but not all the way to the first. There were boats upon the river, but too far to make out figures. There were people on the bridge. None seemed to be watching, though in truth he couldn't tell.
The best thing to do, of course, was to leave immediately. This is what comes of going out for a walk in the morning. Anyone who leaves their house deserves what they get.
McHale was absent when James looked back; his body, unmoving, was now more a part of the ground than of the world itself.
I shouldn't stay, thought James. Again, he hesitated. He felt better now that the man could no longer demand anything of him. By being dead, he had made himself no longer James's business.
And so James hurried away, and when he had reached the street and boarded a bus, and ridden the bus for seven blocks, he felt much better, and for the next hour he pretended that none of it had happened.
The Hour After That
James bought a newspaper — the first was still on the bench where he had left it.
AN ITEM IN THE NEWS:
QUESTIONS REMAIN OVER MAN'S SUICIDE OUTSIDE WHITE HOUSE
Washington, September 27: Federal authorities have commenced a probe into a suicide yesterday that occurred outside the White House gates.
According to eyewitnesses, at nine A.M., William Goshen, thirty-eight, a native of Washington and practicing psychologist, cut his own throat with a knife as he stood facing the White House. He was pronounced dead upon the arrival of paramedics.
The letter, which gives no addressee, was made public at an afternoon White House press conference:
SEVEN DAYS AND THEN THE ROD. PATHS THAT HAVE BEEN TAKEN ARE WRONG AND MUST BE CORRECTED. THOSE WHO CAN SHOULD NOW DO WHAT THEY WILL TO CHANGE THE WORLD AND LEAVE THEIR NATION IF THEY DO NOT LIKE WHAT IT DOES.
SEVEN DAYS, THEN. SEVEN DAYS AND THEN THE ROD.
SAMEDI
As of press time, authorities have few insights into the incident. The signature “Samedi” has returned no clues, and it is unclear whether the moniker refers to Goshen himself, or some other member of a possible organization. Despite exhaustive research, Goshen has not been linked to any terrorist groups or fringe religious organizations.
Goshen is survived by a wife, from whom he separated earlier this year, and a son, age nine.
A Few Minutes Passed, Then James
motioned with his hand. The waitress, sitting at the far end of the counter, rose and came over.
— What'll it be, then?
Her mouth was pursed as she said this. She was of the sort who purse their mouths in order to defend themselves from a thing that people cannot defend themselves against. This undefined thing, this bleakness, arises much in those who work late at night in places lit by fluorescent lights, places attended by people who are strangers to each other and will always remain so.
— More hot water for the tea. Also. .
James tapped the menu above a particular item. In this way he made it clear that he preferred to be served rather than to speak. He prized such gestures, and kept them in a sort of wooden box. That is, he thought of them as being kept in a wooden box. It was his specialty, of course, to think of things in particular ways, and thus have hold of them whenever he should need to.
What Should Be Done
There was a pencil on the counter. James wrote on the back of a napkin:
Beneath it, he wrote:
This he crossed out. Beneath that:
He looked at the napkin. He felt then that there were two of them in the room, he and the napkin, and that one of them would have to go. He crumpled up the napkin.
The waitress came back. She had with her the specified items. James took them. He felt somehow that by placing them upon the counter in some way, a solution would unfold itself. He poured more hot water into his cup. Steam rose. That was good, he thought. Steam was good. It had often been a solution to problems. Why not now? The eggs and toast that he had ordered no longer interested him. He ate them methodically, looking up every now and then as one does in public places to see if anyone was watching him. Someone was.
Someone Was
a girl in a well-tailored yellow dress came over when their eyes met.
— Say, James, she began.
— I'm sorry, he said, do I know you?
Certainly he had never seen the girl before.
— I shouldn't think so, she said.
Her face was framed by short black hair. She spoke with a thick accent. I will not marry you, thought James. You are not suitable at all. I don't like your yellow-dress. I don't like your hair-cut, and I don't like your approaching-of-men in public places. But, he was smiling.
— You dropped this, I think.
She was holding James's wallet.
James took it from her. He examined the contents. Nothing was missing.
— Nothing is missing, she said.
He took a long look at her.
— How could you know that? he asked. Someone could have taken something before you found it.
— Not true, she said. I saw you drop it, and then I picked it up.
— When was this? James asked.
— On the bus.
They looked at each other. James felt that he had been outmaneuvered. He did not like this feeling very much.
— Well, then, you must have followed me off the bus to here. You must have sat here against the wall a whole hour before deciding to give me my wallet back. Who would do such a thing?
He said this somewhat triumphantly.
— I did, she said. Only this moment did I decide to return your wallet to you. Before that, I was making up my mind.
To this James had no reply. Her eyes were like arrow slits. He shifted slightly on the stool.
— Anyway, she said. My name's Anastasia. Just like the murdered Tsarevna. I know all about you, but you don't have to worry.
She started to walk away.
— I mean, she continued, you shouldn't worry. There are always things to worry over, but we can't help that, can we? It's better not to get involved in things that we don't understand, I've always thought. I make it my business to understand only what's in front of me. I don't cause trouble, and trouble isn't caused me. Do you know what I mean? See you around.
She went out the door.
The waitress came over.
— She said you would pay for her meal. I hope it's true.
Her face was frank, and a little concerned.
— Of course, said James shortly. Of course.
The waitress gave him the two checks, his own and Anastasia's. Anastasia had ordered a ham sandwich cut into twelve pieces. This was specified on the receipt. There had been an additional charge of 40 cents for the cutting. She had also ordered a glass of pressed orange juice.
He pictured her in her yellow-dress eating the ham sandwich piece by piece, drinking the orange juice and watching him. He felt that he had been used in some way.
James uncrumpled the napkin and looked at it again.
He had had his wallet when he got off the bus. After all, he had used it when he bought the newspaper. The girl was lying. Where had she followed him from? If she was the agent of someone else, and they in turn were working for someone, then who, ultimately, had given the order to follow him? She wouldn't have done it on her own, not a girl like that.
Someone must have seen him speaking with McHale. But they mustn't be sure. They couldn't know how much he told me; otherwise they wouldn't let me walk about like this. It'd be too dangerous for them.
The one thing I have, then, he thought, is that they don't know what I know.
Fifteen minutes passed in this frame of mind. An hour. The diner was now full of different people, all seeming to be ordering, seeming to be eating, seeming to be conversing intently. James felt comprehensively suspicious.
And furthermore, the clouds had turned from their dispersing to gather again. Beyond the walls of the diner, sheets of rain were strung all through the streets, upon the houses, the buildings, the trees and yards. Such a rain seemed to conceal within its clothing things dangerous to James Sim. He was suddenly certain that the letter in the newspaper was real, that Samedi somehow did have a strange power, and could, if he chose, cause the catastrophe that was now contemplated. But could he really? Perhaps.
A trembling then, slight, at the ankle and thumb. Someone could say to someone else in a far place, once acquainted with all the facts of the case, that it had been he, James Sim, who could have done something to prevent it. This afterwards, of course, after the tragedy, in an altered world.
This far conversation in mind, James went out into the rain and was soon completely drenched.
day the second
As though at the announcement of his own accomplished execution,
James approached 2 Verit Street. This was the address he had found that morning when, instead of going in to work, he had begun his inquiries at the various theatres near the Chinese district.
Soon enough he had spoken to a girl who had auditioned for a part in a play directed by the man, Estrainger. She had gone to his home to do so. It was her considered opinion that the man was no good as a director, but that his plays were quite well written. She wondered how it was that anyone could write a play at all. Basing things on real life, she thought, was easy enough. But to make things up entirely, well, that was something else. I mean, it seems like you would have to be psychotic. How could you remember what was even real? James had loudly agreed with her; he too, he said, wondered how anyone might remember what was real. Then he disengaged himself from the conversation and left.
An hour later, he stood before 2 Verit Street.
None of the buzzers was marked. James looked them over slowly. A man was smoking a cigarette on the stoop. James turned to him.
— Do you know which is Estrainger?
— Going up to see Estrainger, eh, that old fox? You don't look the type, if you don't mind my saying.
The man spoke out of the corner of his mouth in a sort of insolently apologetic way.
James repeated his question.
— I could tell you which buzzer was his if I thought it would help you. But he won't let you in no matter what you say. He's terrified of the police. Are you a cop? You look like a cop. Man, it's bad to look like a cop if you ain't one. Is that your thing? You go around looking like a policeman? Wouldn't do it if I was you. Not for one hour. Not even for an hour. Get yourself hurt.
He threw his half-smoked cigarette on the ground, rubbed it into the ground with his foot, and then cocked his head to look at James.
Just then a boy came up, slipped in the door, and hit the buzzer. A man's voice, then, came through the intercom.
— Who is it?
— Willy. .
— Come on up.
The boy entered the building, and James followed, leaving behind his new acquaintance.
— Won't do you any good, the man said.
The Boy Had Entered the Apartment
James heard the door close after him. He had stayed behind on the stairs, so as not to arouse suspicion, and had listened carefully to hear which door it was. Now he stood in the passage outside. Through the door he could hear the sound of voices, arguing. A girl's voice, and the voice from the intercom. Must be Estrainger, thought James.
He waited. What was he going to do anyway, once he'd found him? Estrainger was supposed to be small. Maybe James could intimidate him into giving up the information. He stood in the hall. Should he knock?
A door opened behind him, and a voice whispered.
— Come, here, quick. Quick! You!
James spun around. The boy who had been downstairs was gesturing to him. James went through the door. Inside was a washing machine and a dryer. It was clearly the apartment's back door. The boy leaned against the closed door.
— You're with the police, right?
— No, said James. Not me.
— I know you are, said the boy. I want you to arrest the man in the next room. He's hit my mom. They're fighting right now.
Indeed, the noise of an argument could be heard quite clearly.
What an opportunity, thought James. He would burst in on Estrainger. The man would be confused, taken aback. He thought of the great advantage he would have over such a man at such a time.
He readied himself, threw open the door, and stepped through.
It was a rather shabby apartment that greeted his eyes. A man stood in the center of the room; a woman leaned against the wall, in tears. Both gasped as he came in.
— They've come for you, said the woman. And I don't mind a bit.
— You won't get me so easily, said the man.
There was a pistol on the dresser. He leapt for it, but James was quicker. In a moment the pistol was in his hand. He leveled it at the man.
— Now listen, said James.
— I won't go to jail, said the man. Not again.
In a second he was at the window; in another he had leapt through.
The woman screamed.
From outside, an impact, a loud noise, and screaming.
James went to the window. A tableau had been drawn below by a master draftsman. All the elements of careful composition were present. The body, at the drawing's center, splayed out on the concrete, and around it, in concentric circles, the varying degrees of affectedness. Already it seemed a crowd had gathered. People were looking up. James pulled back and drew the blinds.
The woman was looking at him.
— Are you going to get a medal for that? she asked.
She seemed profoundly unhappy. James did not remark on this. He couldn't believe Estrainger had jumped. It was a disaster. The gun he was holding he stuck in his pocket. He pulled open a drawer. A letter was in there. He took it out and examined the envelope.
Leonard Mayne
2 Verit Street
God damn it, thought James. Who is Leonard Mayne?
— The man who jumped, said James suddenly, turning towards the woman, what was his name?
— What was his name? she asked coldly. What kind of idiot are you? You come barging into an apartment and you don't even know the man's name?
— What was it? he asked.
— Leonard, she said. Leonard Mayne. And if you want the pills, he kept them in the box under the bed. Six different kinds. A real big shot.
She spat openly on the ground.
— I'm glad he's dead, she said.
From the door, the boy had watched the whole scene. He looked at James with a kind of happy awe.
— Is he gone, is he really gone? he asked.
— Yeah, kid, he's gone, said James.
2 Verit Street, again
Once, at the zoo, when he was a small boy, James had watched his older brother torture a large monkey. The monkey, some kind of chimpanzee, had bounded around its cage squealing, as James's brother threw rocks. His brother had a good arm, and many of the rocks struck the monkey, knocking it down repeatedly. In fact, James remembered how bloody it had been. He had never seen so much blood. When his parents came, they took James and his brother away, and left the zoo immediately, without a word. The incident was never spoken of, but when James's brother was run over by a bus less than a week later, James was sure he knew why.
The system of connections between things that brought about such a reprisal seemed to James somewhat visible, though it was not ever spoken of by others. He governed his actions carefully, according to the dictates of this system, being cautious to take into account the postulated feelings even of inanimate objects and carapaced insects.
James hurried away from the building. He had feared that the first man would still be there at the foot of the stair to laugh at him, but this fear was groundless; the man was gone when he reached the door.
Prudently, he did not go to look at the scene of Mayne's death. He had, after all, stood a moment in the window and might easily be recognized.
Was Leonard Mayne the same as Estrainger? Now that he had time to think it through, he remembered that Estrainger was supposed to have been older, fifty or sixty years old. It was certainly not the same man. But now James would have to keep away from 2 Verit Street. Did he feel even a little bad about causing the man's death? No, no, thought James. The boy had been so happy. Certainly a boy could not be made happy over James having done a truly bad thing. The woman had not been happy, but she had not been sad either. Her worry was the worry of now having to decide what to do next. Ultimately, yes, James said to himself in a conciliatory fashion, you have acted well today, yes, rather well.
But he knew too that he had made an awful mess of things. Just then, he reached the station. A newspaper stand was beside the turnstile. He could make out the headline.
SECOND THREAT FROM SAMEDI
James bought the newspaper and, when the train came, got into the third subway car.
SECOND WHITE HOUSE SUICIDE DRAWS INCREASED CONCERN
Washington, September 28: A man's suicide yesterday outside the gates of the White House renewed investigations by federal authorities into the possible existence of a potentially dangerous religious cult. The demise of the man, Albrecht Moran of Bethesda, mirrors that of William Goshen, a local psychologist who slashed his own throat in the same location on Sunday.
Moran, a distinguished professor of political science and philosophy in his home country of Ireland, had recently submitted an application, pending at the time of his death, for American citizenship.
Like Goshen, Moran's body was found with a cryptic note, signed by an entity called “Samedi.”
DAY THE SECOND
MAN LIVES THE WAY HE WANTS TO LIVE. WHEN HIS WANTS CHANGE, SO TOO CHANGE HIS METHODS, SO TOO CHANGE HIS CONDITIONS. WE LIVE THUS NOT BECAUSE WE MUST, BUT BECAUSE WE HAVE LEARNED TO. BUT THERE ARE OTHER WAYS THAT CAN BE LEARNED. AN EXAMPLE IS TO BE MADE HERE. THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN DEAF SHALL BE DEAF. A PLACE SHALL BE MADE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE WAITED IN THE EAVES.
SAMEDI
A handwriting analysis confirmed that the two notes came from the same hand.
No connection has been found between the two men, apart from their high degree of education. Any threat posed by “Samedi” is currently being considered “not a high priority,” according to White House officials.
James held the Phone Book Open
and sat upon his bed. The phone book read:
Seph, Yaqin 546-445-4493 Sepwin, Russell 546-948-3321 Sepwith, Morris 492-889-0093 Sepwith, Nancy Smith 492-337-3309 Sepwith, Shep 492-349-8893 Seril, M. 492-228-3384 Seril, Theodore 393-818-0989 Seril, Wendy 492-349-2304 Sermon, Bill 492-405-4483 Sermon, Dr. L. N. Xavier 492-817-8717 Sernick, Anthony 492-576-4004 Sernick, Elinore 546-298-3038 Sernick, William 492-889-5807
— Office of Dr. Xavier Sermon. This is reception.
— Yes, I'd like to make an appointment.
— The Doctor does not take any forms of health insurance, also he insists on seeing patients only during weekday afternoons. We have a spot open tomorrow afternoon, well, let me see, three. How is three? Can you do three?
— Three is fine. The address?
— Forty-nine Octavo Place. That's at the corner of the park. We're on the third floor. What is your name?
— Caleb Morton.
— And. . phone number, in case anything changes.
— I don't have a phone. But I'll be there at that time.
— Well, actually, you should come fifteen minutes early, because the Doctor will want you to fill out a form with your previous history, etc., and a description of the present ailment.
— Then at quarter to, said James. Good-bye.
— Have a good day, Mr. Morton, said the receptionist cheerfully.
James was alone in the room again. It occurred to him that things were happening very slowly. What would Thomas McHale think, were he still alive? What had McHale's plan been, anyway? Presumably to go to the police. McHale knew all the details; he had been a conspirator; he would be believed. What did James know? Nothing. And now he certainly could not go to the police — he would have to explain the suicide of Mayne.
He picked up the newspaper again and read through the front-page article, entitled “Identity of Samedi Unknown.”
It seemed the police, the FBI, the government in general, had little to go on, and were so far unsuccessful in their hunt.
There was a short letter to the editor saying that Samedi was really no threat at all. It was the position of that writer that the newspaper should under no circumstances continue to publish the letters.
That's foolishness, thought James. The letters are clearly news, and as long as they continue to be, the newspaper will print them. He turned to the next page. It was an extensive article on the work of handwriting analysis that had been done on the notes.
A profile of Samedi followed, describing him as: an older man, highly educated, vain, used to having his own way. Certainly wealthy, perhaps born to wealth. Right-handed, or ambidextrous, with an injury to the right wrist. Exceptionally long fingers. A nonsmoker. Most likely no history of criminal involvement.
The phone rang. James picked it up.
— Excuse me, this is Dr. Sermon's office calling to confirm an appointment for tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock.
— Please do not call this number, said James. It's my work, and they're very touchy about such things.
He hung up the phone.
Immediately, he thought, I have not gone to work in two days.
Then he thought, Going to work now would be useless.
At that Moment, the Doorbell Rang
James went down the stairs slowly. Through the curtain he could see some kind of deliveryman standing on the porch. He opened the door.
— Delivery for Sim.
The man held out a small, flat package.
James took the package and signed for it. With a nod, the deliveryman went away, back into the world of large, empty trucks and small, flat packages.
James shut the door and sat down on the hall-bench. He had always wanted to have such a bench. As he grew older, slowly he had procured for himself more and more of the things he had wanted slightly. Finally, it was the bench's turn, and he had procured it and set it down in this hall. Really, he never sat on it. Certainly, this was the most momentous thing that had ever befallen the bench.
James opened the package. Inside there were two smaller packages.
James opened the first. It was a letter that had been folded upon itself many times. He unfolded it.
It was quite short and forcefully clear:
The letter was not signed.
James opened the other small package. Something soft was inside. For a moment, he was afraid it was human skin, but his recoiling was checked by the smell of rubber. He pulled the rubber-thing out and let it hang. It was some kind of mask, some kind of Halloween mask. He held it up. It looked like a human face, but what sort he could not say. A man's, certainly.
He went in front of the hall mirror and tried the mask on.
With horror, he realized it was a rubber mask of his own face. They had sent him a rubber mask of his own face. He tore it off, but could not bring himself to throw it in the garbage.
How had they made it? For how long had he been observed?
There was nothing to do but to bury the thing.
James's Fear of Masks
Over the cradle in which James had lain, it had been the habit of James's father to make peculiar faces. The young child, unbeknownst to himself or his father, had then formed a deep-seated fear of masks that would plague him all the years of his life. His mother, witnessing these displays, would often chide his father roughly, saying,
The Hall Mirror
The hall mirror too, in its way, had been guest to a series of uncomfortable events. Previous to its life above the bench in the front hall of James's house, it had been owned by a procuress, being that it was such a fine and beautiful mirror, so nice to look upon. She had required that the various women who came beneath her hand smile gently into the mirror whenever they passed it in that house of assignation. It was thus the receptacle of a great many lovely likenesses and mocking eyes.
James stood then in the hall, holding the note. He became aware suddenly of a feeling in himself — he was being watched. He looked slowly over his left shoulder into the mirror, and through the mirror, through the hall door into the kitchen and the window beyond. Sure enough, there was a face there. He did not give away this sudden knowledge, but pretended to examine his face in the mirror. He turned away then, and took a step down the hall. Whoever it was at the window could now not see him. He ran quickly to the cellar stair and down into the cellar. Across the cellar he ran. Slowly he unbolted the second side door. He could see the coated figure of the snoop through the narrow windows that ran the length of the cellar.
What to do?
He opened the door, jumped through it, and tackled the man from behind.
The man fell beneath him. It was not a man. It was a girl. But she had not shrieked or made any move to escape.
Now, quite quietly and simply, she spoke.
— Would you mind getting up? You really don't know me well enough for this yet.
He got to his feet. She did as well.
She was wearing now a sort of prefabricated factory coverall drawn tight around the waist. Over it, a coat with a high collar.
— What's the meaning of this? he asked. Why are you snooping about?
— What do you mean? she asked. Nobody's snooping. I've just got a crush on you, and I've come around to see if you'll take me on a date.
— That's a lie, said James. Who sent the rubber mask?
— I did, said Anastasia. I thought it would be funny.
— It's not funny at all, said James. And furthermore, you're part of. . something else. I know you are. This business in the paper.
— Well, that's not a very nice thing to accuse a girl of, just after having met her, and her having returned to you your wallet that you dropped, and furthermore her having come around to your place. And besides, I'm not the sort of girl who chases after men. You should feel lucky that I'm being so forward with you.
To this James said nothing, but looked at her with narrowed eyes.
It was his favorite toy. What was it? A little wooden bird painted the color red. It was a red color, it really was, a shining lovely red such as a boy might dream upon, looking at it in sunlight, in shadow, with candles, and at firesides. But do not suppose that it was a songbird or any such frivolous sort. No, his bird was an owl. He had found it one day when Ansilon told him to look under the floorboards of his room by knocking everywhere with his hammer. When he found the red owl, Ansilon was pleased. It is your father's owl, he said. Do not let him see it. He left it there many years ago with a filament of his bone wrapped around a piece of ivory at the toy's heart. He believed it would bring him good luck, and it has. But now, my little friend, that luck will be yours. Oh, thank you, James had said. Thank you. No one ever had a friend like you. Nor will they, said Ansilon, nor will they. And when he would take the red owl to the seashore, he would hide it from his father in a Russian fur hat which James insisted upon wearing at all times. No one but James and Ansilon understood this absurd practice. Why was the boy wearing a Russian fur cap to the seashore? But James was always finding things, old coins, arrowheads, and such, which he gave away freely and generously, and so no one said anything to him about the fur cap until one day his father burned it while he was off at school. Regrettably, the bird was inside. That day his father became very ill and was never the same again. In fact, he died within the hour.
IN THE KITCHEN
Anastasia sat at the kitchen table. She no longer spoke with an accent. She confessed that her name was not Anastasia. It was, she said, Lily Violet.
— You've obviously made up that name, said James, who was busy setting the pot to boil on the stove.
— No one would make up a name like that, said Lily Violet. It's too far-fetched.
James considered this. Perhaps she was right.
Lily had taken her coat off. She came over and stood behind James.
James turned around and pushed her away.
— What's the big idea? he said loudly.
— Nothing, she said, and sat down again. What is it? You don't like girls?
James ignored this question.
— So, your position is that you are not a part of the plot that's in the newspaper, that furthermore, you have nothing to do with it, and that you have met me only by chance?
— I have met you, said Lily Violet, only by chance. The rest is too silly for me to even answer. Anyway, don't you think I'm a nice sort?
— I will not marry you, said James. You are not suitable at all. I don't like your yellow-dress. I don't like your hair-cut, and I don't like your approaching-of-men in public places.
— You don't like my hair-cut? said Lily Violet, looking then at herself in the window. It had become dark outside, and the room was reflected and distorted in triplicate, for alongside of the kitchen there were three broad windows. She ran her hands through her short hair and looked at him.
— Well, to be fair, said James, it's all right.
He felt suddenly thoroughly tired. He felt he had been outmaneuvered again, but this time he did not even know how it had happened.
He went into the hall and sat down on the bench for the second time that day. The mask was still there. He didn't like it, not one bit. There are certain items that one does not want to have in one's vicinity, that when one learns of their existence, one feels a bit worried that perhaps one day they will be present in the vicinity of oneself. Such was this. But who would expect to be sent a rubber mask of one's own face?
— Really, said Lily, entering the hall. It isn't as bad as all that.
She sat beside him on the bench.
— Why don't I be your girlfriend, and take care of you, and we can go on little outings?
— What are you doing here? asked James. This is completely ridiculous.
— You ask so many questions, said Lily Violet.
She went and got her coat, then looked James carefully in the eye and curtsied in an exquisite and practiced manner. The door closed softly behind her, and James was left once more alone.
day the third
Shall we say, James did not arrive at his appointment at the doctor's office? He was at the door, at the door to the building, upon the stroke of three, having decided he would not bother to come early, when two men in large overcoats forced him into a waiting car.
An Item in the News
THIRD “SAMEDI” SUICIDE BAFFLES AUTHORITIES
Washington, September 29: The suicide of an unidentified man outside the White House yesterday, the third such death in as many days, has resulted in increased concern on the part of federal authorities, while yielding no further leads into the identity of “Samedi,” the author of the cryptic notes found with all three bodies.
The suicide of the man, whose face was mostly destroyed by the blast of the forty-four-caliber pistol that ended his life, differs slightly from the first two suicides, in which William Goshen and Albrecht Moran slashed their own throats. Nonetheless, the note found with the latest man has been confirmed through handwriting analysis as the work of the same author, signed “Samedi”:
TO GROW GOLD ON TREES FOR MEN WHO OWN ALREADY ALL THE ORCHARDS? HOW FAR HAVE OUR IDEALS, OUR PRINCIPLES FALLEN? AN EXAMPLE SHALL BE MADE, FOR THE LIVES OF MEN ARE LONGER THAN THE LIVES OF NATIONS.
SAMEDI
In a White House press conference today, the president decried the incidents. “We must not give in to fear, or the threat of violence,” he said. “Democracy is and always has been our right. Individuals cannot control the mechanisms of popular government.”
No further details into the nature of the investigation had been given as of press time.
The man in the front seat set the newspaper down.
— Quite a note, ain't it? he said to the one next to him.
— That it is, that it is. What does our new friend think? said the man, looking over his shoulder.
James sat in the backseat. Beside him, the third man.
— What do you think, sweetheart? asked the third man. It's written so nicely. So short. How could you not like it?
— I like it plenty, said James. Where are you taking me?
— He wants to know where we're taking him, said the third man to the second. Sweetheart wants to know.
— Of course he does, said the second man. Isn't it just like sweetheart to ask, and so nicely, where his new friends are taking him? Isn't it nice?
— Enough out of the two of you, said the first man. Everything worth saying already got said.
He seemed to be in charge. He put the car into gear and pulled out into traffic. The car had only traveled a few blocks after picking James up, for they'd stopped almost immediately thereafter to get the newspaper. Now they were heading in a northwest direction, out of the city center. That would be. . James closed his eyes and saw in his head a map of the city, clear as though he were looking at it set on a table before him; that would be. . towards the wealthy section, large houses, estates, and so forth. James had gone there before on the company dime. Of course, nothing was definite; the car could be going anywhere until it stopped.
James had thought about struggling against the men, but it had happened quickly, and something in their manner suggested that there would be no violence unless he began it. Such men were practiced at conveying such subtleties. Or perhaps it was a lie. Perhaps they would take him to an empty sump and bury him there, where he would never be found. In his head, James had memorized the faces of the men, the license plate, make, and model of the car. He knew their voices, each, by heart. But it was useless to even bother. The men hadn't frisked him; that much James knew. His hands were tied, but in his coat pocket he could feel the weight of the pistol he'd taken from 2 Verit Street.
Of course, he couldn't be sure that it was loaded. Mayne had gone for it as if it were, but that was no assurance. He should have checked last night. If he drew it now and it was empty, it would be his own fault. That and everything else.
It was a fine autumn day, really, and the air through the open windows smelled like life. James could feel on the backs of his hands and his face the crispness of the day. The car wound on pretty roads through hedged estates. They had indeed come where James thought they would. After many turns, all of which James marked in his head, they pulled up to a gate. The second man got out and walked up to an intercom where he spoke for a moment, presumably with a guard on the interior. The gate swung back, the man got back in, and the car drove on up a curving drive. The hedge ceased along the sides of the road; an immense lawn and a large mansion could be seen. There were several cars pulled up in front of it.
I wonder, thought James, am I being brought before Samedi? The weight of the pistol in his coat reassured him. Since they'd tied his hands in front of him, he could still reach it if he had to. Not that James had had much practice firing a pistol. But he felt he could, if he had to.
The car stopped. The men got out and pulled James upright.
— Into the house with you, said the first man.
He led James up the walk towards the house. Through the windows, James could see the vague outlines of people watching. Have they, he wondered, made up their minds about me? Then he thought of the letter in the paper. Perhaps it's not me at all they're looking at. After all, the future is always outside of the room one is in, beyond the windows, beyond the doors. If this is Samedi's house, who could live here and not think constantly of the seventh day?
James was taken to a sort of sitting room. His hands were unbound, and his coat was taken from him. It was hung over the back of a chair on the far side of the room. Too far, really, for James to jump for it. Anyway, this gun wasn't lucky for jumping at. Mayne had learned that lesson.
The room was done up in a sort of eighteenth-century style. Engravings on the wall, were they Hogarth?
The first man was standing behind James's chair. It was an awful habit, very rude, thought James.
Five minutes passed.
— Where are we? said James to his captor.
The man said nothing.
Five minutes more went by. The door creaked, and opened. Thomas McHale entered, dressed neatly in an expensive-looking suit.
James could not hide his shock.
— I see, said Thomas McHale. You have met my brother, haven't you?
He laughed. The man behind James laughed also.
— Torquin, said Thomas, you can go now. I'll keep an eye on him.
Torquin, thought James. The other Thomas McHale had said that name. Could they really be brothers? Twin brothers? The odds were against it. But certainly it was the only solution. A man could not die so convincingly and then stand again before one in such a bold and shameless way.
Thomas McHale shut the door after Torquin, and then turned to face James.
— You've met my brother, then, he repeated. Did you like him? No, no, I guess there wasn't time for you to meet properly, was there? Very sad, what happened. Do you know the story? I'm sure he told you something.
— If you're going to do to me what you did to him, you might as well do it now. I don't like waiting around for nothing.
— Hmmm, said Thomas McHale. What we did? What I did? Hmmm. I wonder what he did tell you. . Do you know, do you know my brother had gone quite insane? Thought he was in the middle of a spy novel, really. The strangest thing. Nothing could convince him otherwise. I didn't want him in an institution, of course, frightful places, so I kept him here. But then he escaped. Persecution mania. He told everyone we were against him. Then before I can find him again, he gets mugged, assaulted, and dies. We had his funeral just yesterday up at Mount Auburn.
James tried to follow this line of thought. Had the first Thomas McHale been mad? He had been right about where Estrainger lived. Or, at least, he had known that a man named Estrainger did indeed live near the Chinese district, and was indeed a playwright.
Suddenly, McHale's information seemed less and less sure.
— Then why the mask? burst out James. Why send me the mask?
— The mask, yes, said McHale, tapping a letter against his sleeved arm. The mask, yes. . well, that was a sort of mistake, really. You know, Grieve, she's an odd one. Her father likes to give her little jobs to do. She's quite a case. Lies about everything. Can't help it.
— What? said James. She said her name was Lily Violet.
— Of course she did, said McHale. Yes, well, it was said that someone had spoken to my brother before he died. The police said someone had been there, but they couldn't figure out who. We managed to speak to someone who'd seen you there, and Grieve's father sent her to ask you what it was Thomas said. All of us here, of course, are very interested to know what his last words were. My dear brother. .
McHale said this with real feeling.
James desperately tried to clear his head.
— None of this makes any sense. Why did Lily Violet—
— Grieve, interposed McHale.
— Grieve, continued James. Why did Grieve steal my wallet, why did she send me a strange mask, and why did she come to my house to spy on me?
— She came to your house? said McHale. Interesting. We didn't know that. She did slip her minder yesterday and go off into the city. We weren't sure where she went. Well, he said, that's one mystery solved.
He examined James closely, pulled another chair over, and sat beside him.
— The truth is, she took your wallet because she is a very good pickpocket, and we were interested to know about who you were. She had been instructed to simply ask you, but that's not her way.
James nodded, following along.
— As for the mask, well, she must have taken photographs of you, and then taken them to a mask factory. I can't imagine how that sort of thing could be done so fast, but evidently it was. . What can I say, she's an odd sort of girl. If not for the watch her father keeps on her, she'd have gotten into a lot of trouble a long time ago. I can tell you that much.
There was a knock at the door. McHale rose.
— Yes, he said peremptorily. Come in.
The door opened. A young woman dressed as a maid stood there, holding a tray.
— Bring that over here, said James.
She did so, setting the tray upon a table close by James's elbow.
— Of course, said McHale, we became even more interested in you after the death in Estrainger's building. You were there looking for Estrainger, were you not?
He took something out of his pocket and unfolded it. It was the napkin James had had at the diner.
— Were you thinking of telling the police the story McHale told you? You wouldn't be the first to go to them. Before he ran into those muggers, my brother spoke to at least four people, and convinced them all to go to the police. They all did, every one, each with the same story. He was away from this house for four days. Don't you think it's strange that
— I don't know what to think, said James. It's all rather strange to me.
— Yes, well, think through what he said. We know your profession. Of course, you can tell us exactly how his last minutes passed. We would very much like to have that information, as all of us here miss him deeply.
James nodded.
— Should I write it out?
— Yes, that would be preferable.
McHale pointed to the tray. On it there was a metal bell, the sort for concealing cakes and such.
— That's the key to your room, said McHale. We'd like to extend an invitation to you to stay here a few days. There are many of us who live here, many who knew my brother intimately. Some of us would like, I'm sure, the chance to speak to you personally, as you were the last one to see him alive. We have here a very fine chef, and a staff that is quite accommodating. Anything you want can be seen to. There are, however, a great many rules that govern our life in this house. When you get up to your room there is a little book where they're written. We ask that you observe them while you're here. You see, there are patients, many of them, and staff as well, and then there are those of us who live here on a rather different basis. Everyone here observes the rules, save Grieve, of course. She can be difficult, as you've learned.
McHale noticed James's puzzled expression.
— This is a verisylum. There was only ever one before this, built in 1847. We believe it is the only real treatment for dramatic cases of chronic lying, cases where the lying ends up compromising the identity of the individual. Instead of giving medications, or applying truth-rubrics, Margret Selm came up with her own method. She established the parameters for the creation of a country house in which all behavior would be governed by a set of arbitrary rules. There would be no prohibition against lying, but the individuals present in the house, the chronic liars, would find in the arbitrary rules, which, as you'll come to see, are many, a sort of structure that allowed them, as time passed, to construct an identity for themselves. The idea is that when many lies are told, unfettered by immediate comparison to fact, they end up comprising a kind of truth. On that truth too lies can be based.
This was all a bit too much for James, who after all had just been abducted for the first time in his life, abducted and carried away in a car.
— Then I can go up to my room now? he said. I can go where I like? And leave when I like?
— We ask that you stay here for the next few days, just so you're around to speak to our little circle of intimates. It would mean so much to us. .
— I just want to be clear, said James. I'm not a prisoner?
— A prisoner? said McHale, laughing. You were never a prisoner. I'm sorry if Torquin gave you that impression. He and the others were just a bit worried after the business on Verit Street. You did, after all, throw a man out a window.
— I did not! said James. Who do you think I am? That man jumped! I didn't even know him. He jumped!
— Yes, yes, said McHale, laughing. They always do, don't they?
He went to the door, opened it, and went out into the passage. After a minute, he stepped back in.
— Oh, another thing: we ask that you leave the pistol in your room. If you want, of course, we can dispose of it for you. Better certainly that you not keep on your person anything linking you to Mayne's murder, don't you think? Yes, well, think about it. It's yours, after all.
And with that, he went away.
Beneath the Bell
there was indeed a finely wrought key. The metal of the key handle curved in a circle, in the midst of which had been formed the number 17.
— Number seventeen is this way, sir, said the maid, who stood now in the door, holding across her arm his coat.
Up James stood and crossed the room, taking not a moment to look back as perhaps he ought to have at the relative position of the two chairs. McHale's was pointing at the chair in which James had sat, while James's chair looked meekly off towards the empty fireplace.
With a curt nod, the maid closed the room and locked it so that no one thereafter could get in.
Room no. 17
was upon the fourth floor. As houses in London, so rooms in this mansion, their numbers and assignments varying not to suit their neighbors. Beside 17 was 3, beside 3 was 22. How many rooms there were, James could not say for sure.
His room was quite nice, however, and neatly set up. A large bed before a bay window, easy chairs by a fireplace, a broad reading table with stationery stamped upon with a peculiar sigil. All bore his look well.
To his great surprise, the wardrobe set against one wall contained his own clothing. How it had come to be there was a question he could not answer; nor did he feel capable even of asking it. So totally was he overcome by doubt as to that which he could be certain of, that he needed some time to reassemble in his mind certain tenets that he could rely upon, the others to dismiss.
Upon the reading table, the newspapers of the last three days. Also, the book of the house.
The Book of the House
Beside the book of the house was an envelope addressed to James Sim. He opened it. Inside was a letter.
The Book of the House
James folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. Why give such a letter to him? Why send the girl to follow him anyway if she was prone to lying? She hadn't lied in her report. Maybe she never lied to her father. That could be true.
And they had searched his house? When had they had time to do that?
He sat down at the reading table. His thoughts ran back over his conversation with McHale number two. What was wrong with it? He tried to think over McHale's logic.
There were several holes.
The book of the house was on the table in front of him. James picked it up and opened it at random.
rule 37
It is necessary when proceeding from hall to hall and along the stairways never to speak with anyone you see, aside from servants. Should you wish to speak to someone, ring the bell that has been provided to you. Everyone in the vicinity will stop his or her movements. Count then to fifteen and approach the other person, giving them time to gather their thoughts. Then you may pose your question or voice your concern.
Also, a better method of interaction is afforded by the system of note-sending. All the rooms of the house are provided with a small mail shelf on the near wall beside the door. Simply place your note on the shelf, and it will be received and responded to at the person's leisure. If you suspect that the person is within the room, and you are leaving a note when time is of the essence, you may knock once upon the door knocker.
See rule 14 for the particularities of the use of the door knocker.
The light coming through the window was quite pleasant. He wondered if the glass had anything to do with it. Often he had wondered about the effect of glass on a room. He had even thought of writing a monograph on it, for he had been a reclusive young boy, given to long hours of study, and seldom, if ever, playing with others. Such a monograph, though he did not in fact write it, would have been typical of his occupation during those countless solitary hours. In fact, from the monograph, which, I grant you, does not exist, we could extrapolate much that would be useful in considering James's psychology. What are his feelings for thin glass? For thick? In what ways does he characterize light? Into how many categories? A monograph, in fact, might be written to interpret the first monograph. However, as we have said, neither has been written.
James turned to rule 14.
rule 14
The door knockers, in relation to private rooms.
no. of knocks; function.
1: announcement of note.
2: announcement of prearranged visit. 1 + 2: maid service.
3: announcement of sudden visit (discouraged).
2 + 2: emergency, fire, etc.
There was a knock then at the door. Just one.
James went to the door and opened it. No one was there. Upon the shelf outside the door, however, there was a note.
It said:
James looked at his watch. It was six thirty.
Nearly Three and One Half Hours
since he had been abducted. He had never imagined, when he had thought of how his life would be, that kidnapping would be part of it. Certainly, as a mnemonist, he had entertained the idea. If he would undertake to commit some state secret to memory, surely there would be dangers. But he had been put forward for no such detail.
In any case, they had not abducted him. Supposedly, he had been invited to come to the house.
Also, they thought he had pushed Mayne out the window. Furthermore, they thought that, and had not gone to the police.
This, James realized, was a pretty piece of reasoning, and might go a long way towards puncturing McHale the second and his rationalizations. Yes, the first McHale must be correct, must have been correct about everything. Only criminals would fail to turn in a man they thought to be a criminal.
But what, thought James then, if there was actually only one McHale? What if the whole thing is an elaborate psychological experiment? What if they have been changing the newspapers on the newsstands that I pass?
This made a great deal of sense to him. However, the implications were too frightening to bear.
A bird that sits in a cage is likewise endowed with the fortune of domesticity and the failure of civilization. That is to say, he shall be provided for against all but death and jealousy, and one will always come before the other.
But it was impossible, thought James. The first McHale had not been acting. Also, the newspapers were not rigged. They couldn't be. The threat was real and, James felt sure, would be carried out unless he, James, could stop it.
He stood up, circled his chair, and sat again. He took off his coat, removed the pistol from his pocket, and whistled a little tune.
It was a fine tune, a few notes he himself had strung together one night in a dream. He often whistled it, but was never aware of this whistling. If he had had a wife or friend, someone by now would have pointed it out to him, and the small beauty of this unconsciousness, and this invisibly pleasurable whistling, would have passed out of the world.
The gun has a real weight, thought James. It was a revolver. He found the release mechanism and checked to see if the gun was loaded. It was. Eight bullets neatly in a circle.
Well, then, he thought. If I
Just then another knock came at the door.
James went out into the hall. There was another note on his shelf. He picked it up and went inside.
This note read:
The Visit of Grieve
Grieve stood by the window. She was NOT as expected. The reason was this: James had never seen the girl before.
She was young and rather plain with a fine figure. She wore a short dress and her hair was pulled back in a yellow scarf.
— They're just dreadful, dreadful, she said.
and
— I overheard them talking, and you sounded so nice, and it was
so unfortunate what was being done to you.
and also
— I just thought, I will see if I can help him. And so I came here.
— Well, said James. Thank you.
It soon came out that she was a maid in the house itself.
— But, he said, I thought that Grieve was—
— No, no, she said. That's Grieve whose father is the owner. I am named after her. Before I came here, I had a different name, but we are encouraged in this house to take the names of others whom we admire, and so, after several years, I became Grieve. Of course, I'm not the only one. There are other maids named Grieve. We all adore her so.
The Visit of Grieve, Part 2
James sat down on the bed.
— So they intend to keep me here until after something has happened?
— I'm not sure, said Grieve. I just heard him say, I won't have Sim putting them onto our scent.
Grieve laughed as she said this.
— It's kind of silly, isn't it? Onto our scent!?! I'm sure that's what he said, though.
Again there was a knock at the door.
Grieve looked over her shoulder.
— Just a note, I think, said James.
— So, you're getting used to the rules, eh?
— A bit, said James.
— I have to go, said Grieve. I'm not supposed to be here when I'm off work.
She looked at the floor and then looked at him.
— Truth be told, she said, I lied to you. I saw you coming in all tied up, and I thought, how dreadful, and also, how nice you looked, and so I dodged around where McHale was with the others, and listened on purpose to see if I could hear something useful. I have been useful, haven't I?
— Very, said James.
He went to the door.
— I'm going to get the note, he said. Thank you. If you hear anything else. .
— I'll leave a note, said Grieve, but not outside your door. It isn't safe. I'll put the note in your pillowcase, where no one but you or I would look.
The note read:
—
He looked at his watch. Supper, had he missed it? He went for the book.
It read:
The appropriate attire for dinner is this: wear something you will not embarrass yourself in. Certainly, the qualifications for wearing one garment are different from those for another. One man may look good in a smock, another in an evening gown, while a third cannot go about save in full evening dress. To each one, then, his fate.
Supper will be had alone or in arranged company, in one of the various chambers near the kitchen. In summer, or when weather permits, food may be eaten upon the veranda or on the lawn, or even, depending on the individual involved, upon the roof, as has been done at least once in my own experience. The hour for supper is nine. A nightcap will follow at either eleven or one, depending upon your habits.
James wandered about aimlessly for a while, his bell dampened by a flat cloth. Surely he could find the dining room.
In the vicinity of the kitchen there were many small rooms, and other larger rooms. He wandered through. Some of them were occupied.
A man was standing leaning against a window. His eyes met James's. They looked at each other carefully. The man's face clouded over. He stood up straight and was at least a foot taller than he had been before. He had only one leg, and it was made of curved ivory. No, that wasn't true. But he was
The man was glaring at him. Maybe he did have one leg. One or three? Did he?
James averted his eyes and hurried away, not looking where he was going. He passed through first one room, then another. He looked over his shoulder. The man was still there, following after. James ducked into a hall and crossed over an enclosed bridge. Certainly he had lost the man.
He was in another series of dining rooms. One of these would do.
James sat at a table by himself. Several others entered immediately. A girl in a hospital gown, an orderly, a well-dressed man, perhaps her husband.
They sat at the next table.
— I won't dispute it, she said quietly.
— There's nothing to dispute, said the man.
The orderly looked apprehensive.
— And what if I was in love with someone else? asked the girl. Suddenly, I mean. Suddenly in love with someone else. You there, she cried out to James.
James looked behind him. There was no one else.
He looked back.
The girl stood up. The orderly stood up too. The wealthy man
had a pained expression on his face.
— Grieve, he said, don't.
This Grieve untied the back of her hospital gown and slid it off. She winked at James.
— What do
James coughed and looked away.
The orderly pulled her gown back up and forced her to a sitting position. She began to cry and hid her face in her hands.
The wealthy man stood.
— I'm going, he said.
— Same time tomorrow? asked the orderly.
— Same time, he said. God damn it. She isn't any better, is she? It's a damned trick.
The orderly began to explain very patiently how she was very much improved, in fact, and this was a setback but he needn't worry himself because all that could be done was being done.
The man left.
No one had come to James's table. He saw that there were waiters serving the other tables in the room. He thought of the manual. Had there been a section on ordering supper?
When he looked back at the near table, the girl was looking at him.
— They won't come serve you, you know, she said. That's not your table.
James looked at her sharply.
— It's not your table at all, she repeated.
The orderly nodded in a very professional manner.
— It's their table, he said, and pointed to a group of men, some of whom were wearing hospital gowns, some of whom were wearing moustaches and three-piece suits, smoking cigars. All stood at the entrance to the room. They were scowling and looking over at him.
How long have they been standing there? he thought. He got up and started towards the door. As he did, the men moved past him towards their table. One bumped him rather rudely with his shoulder as they passed.
James turned to look. The man spat on the floor. James blushed and looked away.
— You'd better go, said the orderly, who had come over.
He put his hand on James's arm.
— Don't you know where your table is?
A woman dressed up like a nurse came over.
— Is there a problem? she asked the orderly.
— Yes, he said. This man doesn't know where his table is.
— I just arrived, explained James. I'm only staying a few days.
The nurse and orderly exchanged a look.
— Why don't we take you over here, said the nurse, and find out where you should be.
— I don't have anywhere I should be, said James. I can be anywhere I want to be. Nobody tells me where I can be.
— Of course not, said the nurse.
The orderly hesitated.
— Do you want me to stay? he asked the nurse.
— No, she said, it will be quite all right.
— Come with me, she said to James.
— Where are we going? James asked.
— This way, she said, and bobbed neatly away across the floor. James stood a moment, and then followed after.
The room opened into a series of other dining rooms. Each opened into the next. She proceeded through two, and then took a right through a small door. James caught the door as it was closing and went through.
They were in a narrow passage. A dog was running along it. It seemed to be trying to bark, but no sound came.
— All the dogs, said the nurse in explanation, have their vocal cords removed. You have no idea how much trouble they were before, but now they can't complain and they're just darlings. Aren't you a little darling! she said to the dog. It dodged her hand and ran on.
There was a desk in the middle of the hall at the end of the hall. Another nurse, very large, sat looking through some kind of ledger.
— Margret, called out the first nurse.
This second nurse looked up as they approached.
— I've got a man here; what's your name? she asked James.
— James Sim, said James.
— James Sim, repeated the first nurse. I found him roaming around in the fourth dining room. He didn't know what he was doing there.
— That's not true, said James. That's not true at all.
The second nurse stood up.
— None of that out of you! she said loudly.
She gave the pages of the book a cursory examination.
To the other nurse she said,
— He's not in the ledger. Never came in, leastways not through here.
The two nurses looked at James. He tried to look as indignant as possible and gathered himself to say something really definitive.
At that moment, a man came around the corner. He wore a simple gray suit. The two nurses ducked their heads.
— No, no! he said, as he came up. No, no!
James looked at him.
— There's been a mistake, said James.
— Of course there has, James, he said, touching James's wrist lightly. No, no! he said to the nurses. James is not a patient. You're not a patient, he said to James. Come with me.
The nurses looked at James resentfully.
— Not a patient? said the second nurse.
— But Mr. Graham, said the first nurse.
— No, no! said the man.
and also
— Come along, now.
He took James by the shoulder and led him away.
(D. Graham)
— You really, said the man, shouldn't be wandering about until you know where you are and who you're speaking to.
and
— I'm David, by the way.
James said that he was James but that David knew that. David agreed that he knew that.
— There is, after all, said David, a rather serious business going on here. Did you know?
— No, said James.
— Yes, rather, said David. We treat an illness, an illness peculiar to our times. The cure was first assembled by a nineteenth-century theorist, Margret Selm. All the nurses are named after her.
— Of course they are, said James.
David smiled.
— Ah, then you're getting it, are you?
— I think so, said James.
— That's good. But anyway, you'll only be staying a few days, no?
— Yes, said James. I'm just here to be available to those who knew Thomas McHale. I was there when he died.
— I know that, said David. It's ever so nice of you to come. I for one should like so much to hear what it was like.
— Anytime, said James. I'm staying upstairs, in room seventeen.
— Of course, of course, said David somewhat dismissively. We shall see if I can find the time. I am very busy. But as for you and your roaming about, yes, I was listening behind the corridor.
James had narrowed his eyes at the words
— Yes, continued David, I was listening. I can't help but enjoy such situations when they occur. Mistaken identity.
He rubbed his hands together.
— Until we can get you a proper badge, you will eat supper either with someone, or alone in your room. Tonight I'll have it sent up. I'll send someone to find out what you want, and that person will have it sent up. Yes, yes, that's it. Your supper will be sent up. Almost immediately.
He seemed pleased to have settled the matter.
The whole time they had been talking they walked at a furious pace. David had made many turns here and there down halls and through rooms. James could no longer say what part of the house they were in.
David stopped at the door to a room.
— Well, he said. I have to go in here. See you.
He slipped through the door and shut it.
James looked up and down the hall. Where exactly was he now? The halls all looked the same. All the walls were neatly painted, all the rooms were neatly numbered, but none of the numbers were consecutive.
Should he knock and ask David the way back?
A woman appeared behind him out of another door.
— Sim? she asked.
— Yes, he said.
— Don't know your way around, do you? Don't you? Do you?
— No, he said.
— Well, she said. It's no crime. You won't be punished, no, no. Have no fear of that. Come along with me. She led James up a set of stairs, and through a bridge back into the main building. Apparently he had passed into some sort of exterior set of buildings. When that had happened, he could not say. Had he been underground? He tried to remember if the rooms they had passed through had had windows. He closed his eyes and thought back. No, they hadn't.
— Here we are, said the woman.
James recognized up ahead the stairwell at the top of which was his bedroom.
— Someone else will be coming along shortly, said the woman, and left him to the kind attentions of the stairwell.
And so it turned out that the house was nothing like James had supposed. It was perhaps some kind of hospital, a sort of asylum, but the particulars had so far escaped him. Also, there was a clear-cut distinction between the House Proper and the Hospital, although their rooms mingled. Evidently James had crossed from the one into the other, and had thus gone foul.
— Tonight, said James in the quiet of his room, I will read this manual from beginning to end. I will have no such troubles again.
And also he thought that perhaps it was true that McHale had been mad. Perhaps the Samedi threat had nothing to do with these people.
There was the newspaper on James's side table. The note, of course, was there, which James had had read to him in the car. There were other articles, however, that were of interest.
James picked it up and began to read. It seemed that the government had stepped up their attempts to catch this Samedi. They had caught three men and two women, all having some connection. Of these, they had managed to make none speak, three having committed suicide in jail, one escaping from a closed cell, and the fifth, a woman, not responding verbally to any address whatsoever. There had been many others they had caught who, after questioning it was soon realized, had nothing whatever to do with the threat.
The suicides and arrests had made the police even more apprehensive, and had cemented the threat as a real possibility. Cameras had been set up to watch possible mail drops. The government was, the newspaper assured James, doing all that it could to protect its populace.
Meanwhile there were many theories on what the reprisal would be. Some thought a dirty atomic device. Others supposed anthrax or some kind of manufactured virus.
There was a knock. A moment later, two knocks.
Maid service, thought James.
— Come in, he said.
The Visit of Grieve, Part 3
It was not the maid. Instead, Grieve. That is to say, Lily Violet.
— Hey, you! she said, and kissed him on the cheek. So you finally got here!
She had two suitcases. They were James's suitcases.
— I stopped by your house, she said, and got the rest of your
things.
— You what? said James.
— Got your things, said Grieve. I thought you would need them.
She put the suitcases by the wardrobe, and then sat heavily in the cushioned chair. She looked rather nice.
— Well, I'm tired out. So, what do you think?
— What do I think? asked James.
— Of the place. What do you think? Isn't it nice?
James said that the place was indeed nice but a bit strange, and he wasn't sure he really understood why he had been brought and also that it seemed to him it was her fault, but maybe not, and what had been the reason for the rubber mask, and also perhaps it would be possible for her to arrange that he speak with her father.
Grieve laughed when he said this last.
— You can't just speak with him, you know. It doesn't work like that.
— No? he asked.
— No, she said. He's very busy, but busy in a different way than you might think. He's not to be approached, not to be asked questions. If he has something to say to you, he will. Certainly he will ask you about McHale, and maybe about your work. He is intrigued by mnemonists, so you have that in your favor.
Grieve stood up, walked over to the bed, and jumped onto it.
— Not bad, she said. I've never been in this room.
She stood up again.
— I'm going to go and have supper. But perhaps I'll stop by again later on.
— I never got my supper, said James. I tried to, but it didn't work out.
— Hmmm, said Grieve. Well, you can have something sent up, I suppose. I would invite you to come with me, but it just wouldn't do.
She thought about it a moment.
— No, it just wouldn't do. You'll have to work something else out. She smiled.
— Anyway, I'll drop in unannounced. I always do.
James was leaning against the wall with his arms drawn up in front of him. She leaned in and kissed him on the mouth.
— Isn't it nice being here? she asked, and was gone.
A Visit from Grandfather
— James, he said. Come out of there.
— No, said James, I won't.
— You'll have to come out sooner or later.
— No.
— If you don't come out, I swear I'll send you to a work camp. James laughed.
— Grandpa, I know there aren't any work camps. Not for boys like me.
James's grandfather laughed too.
— Oh, I think I can find one. They'll have you peeling potatoes and making zippers. Did you know that all zippers are made by people? Machines can't make them; it's too difficult. But making zippers will eventually cripple your hands. Yes, in the countryside somewhere there are zipper factories full of children with crippled hands. Perhaps I will send you there.
— Grandpa. . said James, laughing.
He came out from his hiding spot. His grandfather lifted him up and gave him a great big hug.
— What is it you like, young sir? asked James's grandfather.
— Gladiators, said James. And tigers. And falcons.
James's grandmother could be heard then, calling from the house.
— I think supper's ready, said James's grandfather. Shall we go in?
day the fourth
James went to the window. He could see that two police cars had made their way up the main drive. They parked blocking the driveway; policemen got out.
From out of the house came two men, Graham and one other. Who was it? He looked like a doctor. Probably Sermon.
Graham and Sermon spoke with the policemen for some time. They made gestures with their hands. To these the policemen responded with nods. These nods were in turn responded to with nods and further gestures.
After a little while, the policemen got back into their cars.
— What's going on? called Grieve from the bed.
— Nothing, said James. Some police came.
She stood up and hopped over. She had sewn herself into a bag the night before. She said she and James didn't know each other well enough to sleep in the same bed otherwise, but that certainly there was no other bed that she intended to sleep in that night but his, and he had better get used to it. He had said nothing but had watched with a great deal of astonishment as she had honestly and truly sewn herself inside a bag.
Now she was standing next to him.
— Sweetheart, she said. Hold me up, will you?
She leaned against him, and he put his arms around her. He could feel the warmness of her skin through the thin layer of cotton.
He thought then of how he had seen her in the diner and had immediately liked her. He'd liked her so much that he'd decided against her for his own good.
— You know, she said. They came for
— What? asked James.
— It's not the first time, she said. They came yesterday too. Of course, they know that you killed Mayne. They think it was for the drugs. Apparently there wasn't much money in the house. Anyway, his wife and kid have testified that you threw him out the window. So. .
She paused, slid around in his arms and kissed him hard on the mouth.
— Father sent the police away when they came here looking for you. I guess you left the mask at the house with the package I sent it in, and they traced that here. So, they thought maybe you came here.
She turned back to the window. The police cars were now making their way along the road in the distance.
— Don't worry, she said. They'll never come to get you here. Father will see to it. And if we want to go someplace else, like Provence, or Andalusia, well, he'll see to that, too. Don't you like having me around? she asked.
James said that he had not killed Mayne, not at all. Mayne had jumped, he maintained. There was no reason for him to kill Mayne. It made no sense at all.
— But why were you in the apartment in the first place? she asked. That's what no one understands. Not that we need to. No one would ever ask you about it. It's your business, of course.
In fact, don't answer. Don't feel that you need to. Anyway, come back to bed. It's cold here by the window.
She hopped back over to the bed, flopped onto it, and crawled under the covers.
James continued looking out the window. It was Wednesday, he thought. Wednesday. Three days till Saturday. He wished he could speak to McHale again, and judge if the man was mad or not.
He turned. Grieve was up on one elbow, looking at him. Her bare shoulder and arm were out of the sewn bag. What fine skin.
Grieve cocked her head, and made a noise like a crow.
— That's the noise, she said, that crows make to warn the other crows when something that isn't a crow is coming through the woods.
The Garden
In the center of the house there was a garden. James stood by it and watched a man with scissors. First the scissors were sharpened for a very long time. The noise was somehow cruel.
Never, thought James, would I want to hear such noise through a window, to hear such a noise and not know why it had come.
The shears trimmed the plants held by the man. So sharp were they that they did not seem to touch that which they cut. The man did not look at James. All his great attention was spread throughout the garden. He was broad of face and feature, broad of limb and leg. He moved with a slow precision. Nothing seemed to escape him. His effect on the garden was noticeable. As he moved it seemed to order itself around him.
James was sure that it was Samedi. Never had he felt so lessened by the presence of another. Like a child, James turned in his own hand. Like a window he shut.
He stepped back, stepped back again, and found himself at the door. He stepped back through it, shut it, and leaned against the other side.
— What do I know? asked James. What do I give myself to know?
And he knew then that the task before him was too large, that a man like Samedi could entertain him like a passing notion, but would never be persuaded by his speech or swayed by his actions.
A gravity then, as of a sickroom bound to the passing of its few.
James went along the hallways, went upon the stairs. What he would do he did not know, but at times he heard the ringing of bells; at times he froze. Yet none came to him, and there were no words in his head but those he himself spoke in indecision.
Today he said, I will explore the house. I will learn what I can, and then make my escape.
Upon the porch he passed McHale, dressed as though returning from town. James made as if to speak, but McHale scowled and passed, shaking his head.
Good lord, thought James. I forgot the rule. He looked at the bell in his hand.
James had breakfast on the porch. It was brought to him by the maid, Grieve, but he pretended that he did not know her. He supposed she would have been fired if it was found out that she was helping him. So, he gave her the cold shoulder. This seemed correct; she did the same to him.
The omelet was quite good. He ate it with satisfaction. Peppery, he thought. And the toast had been buttered while still hot. Perfect.
On the grass, children were playing. Where could they have come from? thought James.
And then he realized that there were children everywhere. Children on the porch, children on the lawn, children behind him in the house. Never had he seen so many children in one place.
— Why so many children? James asked the man seated next to him.
As if out of a long sleep, the old man answered slowly:
— It is a field trip. Every year the children come. Oh, how we who live here long for and await this day. Can you see their little hats, their little shirts? Have you ever seen a shoe so small?
The old man snatched at one of the children running past, catching the back of the little fellow's overalls and dragging him to him.
— No! said a nurse, suddenly appearing out the doorway.
She slapped the old man's hand with a ruler. He let go of the child, who ran off happily to the lawn.
The nurse gave a long, considered look to the old man.
— Olsen, we don't want to put you back in, do we?He said nothing, but grumbled quietly and looked into his lap.
— I said, we don't want to put you back in, do we? Do we, Olsen?He said that he did not want to go back in. Not for any reason.
— Good, said the nurse. Good.
It was the afternoon, and James went down a long staircase. He found it at the back of a linen closet, with a sign posted:
WINE CELLAR
Certainly James wanted to see the wine cellar. For instance, what might be in the wine cellar? Hidden things, etc.
James proceeded down the staircase that was one long unbroken stair, perhaps two stories long, with very flat slanted steps. It was virtually a chute. At the bottom, a small room for coats and such. He was not wearing a coat. He proceeded past the coatroom.
The next room was a while in coming, for his eyes had to adjust to the low light. Small pulsing bulbs were set into the ground. The wine cellar was enormous and stretched away into the darkness.
— The best of what we have is near the back, said a voice.
James turned.
A man was standing there, handsome but severe. James recalled McHale's description.
— Hello, he said. I came down to—
— No, no, said the man. No need to explain anything to me. I'm not the one in charge of you.
— You say, said James, the good wines are at the back?
He looked away down the long aisles.
— Yes, said the man. By the way, I'm James, James Carlyle.
— Sim, said James Sim. James Sim. But I guess you—
— Know that, yes. We've been having our little chats about you. Yes, we have.
He gave James a certain knowing look. He was severe as McHale had described, severe in the way that one expects from someone who devotes himself to an unrewarded discipline, a discipline not unrewarding in itself, but unrewarded by the world in general. The strangeness of meeting the world's greatest botanist in the late twentieth century; the strangeness of a tailor who makes clothing only for puppets. These people are severe on themselves because no one else will be severe on them, and if they are not, then their art will no longer exist in its fullness.
Yes, thought James, I like his sort.
They walked together down the aisles, not speaking.
— I wonder, said Carlyle, what it would be like to be shut up in glass and tucked away in the ground like this. To have one's redness of blood sway slightly at the world's turn, at the pull of the moon, at the tremor of a near footstep. But to be passed again and again and never chosen. Do you think they want to be chosen, James?
— I couldn't say, said James. For myself, I would want to be broken against the side of a ship by a distinguished-looking older man in front of a cheering crowd prior to the sailing of said ship on its maiden voyage, which would also be its last, as the ship would sink when it reached deep water and no one would survive. Songs would be sung of the ship. In that way I would survive.
— Well, said Carlyle, I can see why Grieve likes you.
James turned his head sharply. Carlyle, surprisingly, seemed to blush slightly.
— We've been friends since childhood, he explained, and she confides in me.
Finally they reached the last row of bottles. There must be thousands of bottles down here, thought James. He had never seen so much wine in one place.
— I am told, said Carlyle, that this is one of the finest collections outside of France. Of course, it is not just wine. There are fine sherries, cognacs, whiskeys. Stark delights in waiting for the experts to declare that there are no more bottles of such and such left in the world. Then he produces one and sells it for a huge price, and then gives the money to charity. He is a great man.
— How did you meet him? asked James.
He turned down the last aisle and walked along, running his hand over the wine bottles. In the low light it was hard to tell, but they certainly looked old. He took one out. ST. GROUSARD, 1806,it said.
— That's certainly not drinkable, said Carlyle. Just for show, for pleasure. Did you know that when Napoleon lost and the vineyards of France were stripped bare, the wine cellars robbed of all their bottles, it turned out to be a sort of boon, because after the great mass of armies had receded to Germany, to Austria, to England, to Russia, to Poland, to Spain, after some years had passed, and France was rebuilding itself, orders began to pour into the same vineyards that had been robbed. The soldiers, the officers, they remembered the glorious wines they had found, and they wanted more.
James felt himself liking this odd young man. He repeated his question.
— How did you meet this Stark?
Carlyle twitched at the word
He must not have meant to reveal that, thought James. I've gained something.
— My parents died when I was quite young, said Carlyle. He took me in and raised me as his son. I always thought I would marry Grieve, but then, five years ago, I began to get horrible headaches. I changed. I became withdrawn, refused to speak to anyone. Stark had doctors come. They told him I had a tumor in my head the size of a fist, and that I would die within the month.
— But that was five years ago?
— I didn't die that month, said Carlyle.
A gentle smile touched his lips.
— Nor any of the months after that. But my ideas changed. I decided I would not betroth myself to anything, not to an idea, not to a person. That's when I began my studies in earnest.
He looked away into the dark and nodded to himself.
— I always thought, said James, that a sudden death would be best.
— They say mine will be preceded by days of intense headache culminating in a blinding pain that feels, as others have described it, like the light of the sun descended into one's eyes. I have read accounts of it, accounts of such deaths. I do not envy myself what's to come.
— But it's been five years, said James. The tumor must have shrunk.
— I have it looked at every now and then. On my birthday, actually. It's a sort of joke. It hasn't shrunk. Not a bit. But it hasn't grown.
James thought it over.
— So you and Grieve used to, you know. .
— No, said Carlyle, laughing. We only thought we would be for each other, one day, long into the future.
James and he had begun the walk back to the stairs. He continued laughing.
— You are welcome to try keeping her happy. No one, of course, has ever succeeded in that.
Carlyle was gone. They had parted when they reached the hall. James felt uncertain. He seemed to be staring at a broad sheet of paper spread out upon the ground, and all the letters were wiggling and moving of their own accord whenever he looked closely.
He would go back up to his room and see what the day looked like through the windows of the room in which he had woken with Lily Violet.
In the Pillow
In the pillow no note from Grieve. No notes either upon the shelf.
An hour passed. He fell asleep and woke in the chair. Somehow the maid had been and gone, for in the pillowcase was a note from Grieve.
It said:
This was disturbing to James, who, like anyone, did not like being so easily forgotten. After all, he thought, I spoke with the dying McHale. I know the whole plot. They can't forget me so easily. Besides, he thought, Carlyle said they'd been speaking of me. But he thought of McHale's brusqueness on the porch.
You know nothing, came the room's quiet reply. And it was true. What had he found out? If this decimal were to be placed like light in a tube then in what becoming would he have failed? He could name three: the first, his dying trust; the second, that owed those he loved (who did he love?); and the third, his own.
And so in the room James sat and thought how useless the pistol was to him, and how if only he could find his way through these habits and rules to the heart of the game being played. .
He felt a horror at incidental things, at the dust in corners, the folding of cloth, the feel of paper.
James had seen two men die in the space of two days, and both of their dying was partly his fault. He had kept the thought far from him, but it was undeniable. In the brackets and boxes of his voluminous memory were all the impressions, labeled and fitted, of both deaths. There would be for him no easy forgetting.
A Lesson
When James had applied for the work, taken and passed the necessary examinations, been shown to the back room, fitted with a suit, fingerprinted, voice-tested, lie-detectored, he came before a powerful man, the owner of the firm.
— You are young, no? said the man. Younger than we like here. You know, we like a man to have a bit of experience before coming to us. We feel it puts him on better footing with those he will find it necessary to interact with as a professional.
James said then that he certainly had been around, had traveled extensively, and was well versed in the fields adjoining that of this profession.
— But that's the thing, don't you see, the man had said. There's no way to know what will be required. You have to make a study of everything. And, of course, he said, once you put something in, it never comes out. The training is quite effective that way.
He took James by the arm and led him to the window.
— How old are you? he asked.
— Twenty years to the day, said James.
— To the day, said the man quietly, as if musing. To the day. You have to know what you're getting into. It is a strange life, that of the mnemonist. It is most difficult to form relationships. Many of our best find their lives are lonely. Of course, the remuneration is great. You will find the work easy, though the travel is time-consuming. And truly, I mean it. You will hardly forget a thing once you have gone through the training. When are you scheduled?
James said that he was to begin the next week.
— So, you will be twenty-three when the training is done, said the man.
He pressed a buzzer on his desk. A man came to the door.
— Sir?
— This Sim. I would like his progress monitored. I would like to be personally apprised of it.
— That can be done. Certainly, sir.
— Very good.
The owner made an away-with-you gesture with his hand, and the man disappeared through the door.
I wonder, thought James to himself. Will I begin to remember older things more clearly, or just things from now on?
In his exploring, James had somehow managed to enter a locked room. Consternation then among the technicians.
— What are you doing here?
— I'm sorry, said James. I didn't realize.
— But this is the egg room! cried one of the attendants, a young man dressed head to toe in white.
— I can see that, said James. It looks like an egg room. I can't imagine what else it would be.
— You have to leave immediately, said one of the technicians.
The others all nodded their agreement.
— If you leave now, no one will say that you were here. We will all say that you have never been in the egg room.
— Okay, said James. I'm leaving.
And he left the egg room through the door by which he came. It locked after him with a definitive click.
Never again, thought James. Never again, the egg room.
RULE 143
When entering a room one must always wait until one is spoken to to speak if the room is occupied by 3, 5, or 7 people. If there are 2, 4, or 9 (or 8 on Thursdays), one has the right to speak first. Otherwise, 8 is the clouted numeral and one mustn't speak at all until one has slept and woken. This may of course be laid like a trap, like a setting at table, but such deeds will be recorded and rewarded as they are done, whether good or ill. If 1 is in the room, the bell applies. The library is exempt: a rule of silence save between those in love and alone. Never should there be a gathering of more than 9. That room cannot be entered. One would knock, and request, by dint of paper, the leaving of the room by an occupant. OF COURSE, if one enters in a pair, the rules are more complicated. The pair may speak first, save when three are within, but the pair must speak in turn, and each finish the other's sentences. A pair opening a door onto a room of three must bow their heads in shame and one must speak for the other for three days, during which they mayn't be parted. Groups of more than three traveling in tandem through the halls, entering rooms willy-nilly, should consult the appendix for further rules of behavior, as this ought not to be a matter of course and therefore will not be approved of by situational mention here.
Grieve found James where he sat reading a book in the library. He was on a sort of balcony that ran both lengths of the library, and connected across every now and then with a little bridge. She walked up behind him.
— Hello, said James.
She smiled.
James rolled over to look up at her, and put his arms behind his head.
— What have you been doing all day? he asked.
— I shouldn't say, said Grieve. You wouldn't like me anymore.
— No? asked James.
— No, said Grieve. I go on Thursdays to a hospital and sew people's arms and legs back on. I'm not a doctor or anything. I just discovered one day how good I was at sewing on arms and legs. I'd done it often enough with puppets and stuffed animals, and so, I thought, well, a person can't be much different. To be honest I tried it first with a dog, but the human arm was much too big and the dog just kind of dragged it around.
— What are you talking about? asked James.
— Nothing, said Grieve. I was just thinking out loud.
She was wearing a short pleated skirt with a cream-colored blouse. From where James was lying, he could see most of her legs.
He told her about this fact.
— Well, she said, what do you think about that?
and lay down beside him.
They looked up then at the ceiling. Words had been painted across the entire ceiling of the library.
— What does it say? asked James.
— It's in a cipher, said Grieve. My father painted it himself. It's an entire book, in a cipher, a book he wrote. No one has ever read it.
— Oh, said James.
He looked back and forth across the ceiling. Back and forth he looked. When he had looked back and forth five times he knew he had memorized this strange book. He would write it out, he thought, he would write it out and decipher the code at his leisure.
This looking and thinking, though sudden, had taken perhaps ten, perhaps fifteen minutes. Grieve had fallen asleep. Her head was on his shoulder. He shifted his arm beneath her neck. She moved in her sleep and put her arm on his chest. Her leg slid up and across him, and she settled comfortably. Her breathing became regular again.
James ran his hand lightly over her back and listened to her breathe.
What next? he asked himself.
James stood near the front door. Grieve had woken up and gone off. He had gone off too. When someone wakes up and goes off, it never feels right to stay in the place where you were with them. One should always go off and find something new if one is to keep oneself perennially young and happy.
What's next? he asked himself.
If, he thought to himself, the whole thing is a dream, then it would all work out properly. How could he know if it was a dream? He could ask someone, certainly.
He approached a woman who was folding towels on a long wooden table. Her hair smelled like trees in the out-of-doors.
— Is this a dream? he asked.
— Please don't talk to me, she said, and smiled in a really fabulous way.
He began to try all the ordinary ways of getting out of dreams, pinching, etc. These did not work.
There was a phone in the hall next to the long table.
I will call someone on the telephone, said James to himself, someone who knows me, and I will ask them whether or not I am asleep right now.
James went to the telephone. He called the house of his wife, and asked her if he was in bed at that moment asleep.
— I'll go and check, she said.
After a minute, she came back. Her voice sounded so warm and happy. He could tell that she was glad he had called.
— Yes, you're asleep. I wouldn't worry about it. The covers had come off your feet. I put them right, and laid an extra blanket across the bottom. I think you'll sleep really well now. And besides, I'll be coming to bed in a minute, and then I'll wake you anyway and I will not have any clothes on and neither will you. That will be nice.
— Yes, said James. That will be nice. I will look forward to that, then.
— Good-bye, said James's wife. I love you.
— Good-bye, said James.
He hung up the phone. The girl who was folding towels had stopped. She was looking at him curiously.
— Who were you talking to? she asked.
— I wasn't really talking to anyone, he said. The phone doesn't work. It's just a toy phone, made out of wood.
And it was true. The phone was made entirely out of wood.
James lifted it off the wall hook and set it on the table. The girl and he looked together then at the wooden phone.
— I wonder who made it, she said.
— And why, said James.
— It must have been a very long time ago, said the girl, before there were ever phones. This probably only resembles a phone by chance, and in fact, in tribal culture had an entirely different significance. Perhaps it was used to feather arrows or bring to term unwilling births.
— I should think so, said James.
Suddenly the ringing of a bell. The two froze where they stood.
David Graham came into the hall. He rang the bell again. Everyone stood quietly as they counted together to fifteen. Then Graham came up to James. He was smiling and his pants were soaking wet.
A Visit from Sermon
— We've been looking all over for you, James, he said. Sermon's coming. He'd like a word with you.
— Certainly, said James. When?
— It's unclear right now, said Graham. But be ready. Also, don't worry — you can tell him anything. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that. He won't have to testify.
— I was going to ask you, said James. The police. .
— Yes, said Graham. It's a bad business. A bad business. They keep coming around. I know it must worry you, but it really shouldn't. After all, he was just some drug dealer. Estrainger knew him, hated him. The whole building knew he was beating his wife. No one's sorry he's dead. But the police have to do their job, I suppose. Yes, it's good you're here. They won't find you here, you know. We'll keep them away.
He patted James on the shoulder.
— It's best today, I think, said Graham, that you zip around and explore the place. See what you can see. Get comfortable. Navigating can be a bit of a problem. You see, the hospital wing has some mechanized hallways that switch occasionally. But there's an hour-schedule for it all in the book. Have you read the book?
James confessed that he had not yet read the whole book.
— Well, do that as soon as you can. It'll really be worthwhile. And, of course, there are some people around here it wouldn't do to offend. No, not at all. Very sensitive. Yes, read up. Read up.
He walked away.
An Hour Passed
and James sat in an interior room with the shades drawn. An older man, apparently a permanent resident, was seated and playing rovnin.
Rovnin! It was so rare to find anyone who even knew the game, though of course in the sixteenth, the seventeenth, the eighteenth centuries, Swedes and Danes and Russians lived and died in its mad dictates.
FIRST:
a sort of stringed set of sticks with markers
a calling out of numbers
a switching between systems: base ten, base nine, base seven
the creation of “proxies,” fictional players who aid, abet, or at times foil one's own newmade schemes
There were books in James's childhood home on rovnin. His father had loved the game. James remembered the days they would spend in the cottage, playing at rovnin in the long hours, and roaming the fields and wood. He cleaned himself, preened himself in this memory as a bird might in a puddle. And as a bird, he had no notion of the true size of the world, or of its careening path through the larger sky beyond the sky.
It was then he remembered Cecily
The girl Cecily. Her hair brushed back, wet from a swim. The dress over her arm as she stands naked on a past day as though crossing a stream. Take off your dress, Cecily, it is too fine and the stream will ruin it. Take it off and cross the stream. In the dimness of it he saw how lovely she had been, how young. He had held up the stem of some flower and she had followed him, saying nothing. Her voice now was lost to him. So many other voices he could conjure, even speak with. But Cecily's was lost there in the dimness of the water. Her body and the light gone trailing after.
Years of this, years of remembering Cecily. James had read somewhere that the truly fine and beautiful always die as children. They can't grow up. Something won't allow them.
About Rovnin
The man beat him the first time, easily, and laughed.
— Not very good, are you? he said.
— I don't get much chance to play, said James evenly.
— So that's your excuse, said the man, and laid the strings and rods back into their initial positions.
He leaned back in his chair and looked James up and down.
— It's not an easy game, he said finally. No one knows how to play it, anyway.
— I have some books, said James. I like to play through the old games.
— Old games are useless, said the man.
He spit into his hand and rubbed the top of his head.
— If you want, I can teach you to play well. It will take me one day. But it will cost you some money. James looked at the man warily.
— Do you think I'm some kind of fool? he asked. You're not that much better than me.
The man only laughed. Looking past James he called out,
— Next!
James turned to see who was there.
Obviously, no one was.
The man laughed again.
— Come back if you want, said the man. We'll play. But don't let the others see that you're so miserable at it. Though I don't, of course, not me, no, the others might think less of you.
I love, said James to himself, this idea of the doctor being pitted against death in a game of chess. The patient is between them, the night is long. Some village girl is standing near. She is concerned but cannot speak. Perhaps she cannot see death where he crouches beside the bed. But they are old enemies, death and the village doctor, met a thousand times. In the doctor's eye are the memories of the encounters he has won, and beside them, the encounters he has lost, larger in size, but unfocused. This is his strength, but also his weakness, for death is without memory, holding in a gray place the world's passing. It is a fallacy that death judges. He chooses, but does not judge. The doctor knows this. Delicately, he makes his move. The curtains blow in a sudden gust of wind. Death is gone from the room. The patient has been saved.
James went out to the porch. He sat down in a rocking chair. Out of the pocket of his suit, he took a small knife. He leaned down out of the rocking chair and cut a thin line in the wood of the porch all around his chair so that he was sitting then in a sort of circle, broken by the chinks between the planks. But serviceable still.
What do I know? asked James.
He had seen Samedi pruning the garden. As a mnemonist he had learned to trust his intuition. The gathering of facts created lattices of meaning that could not be known, but only trusted. He was sure of it. What was the disaster? Should James send an anonymous letter to the police, revealing his accusations? How could he even get off the grounds, though? Could he get off the grounds? Would they allow him? Perhaps he should test them on that point.
James stood up, brushed himself off, crossed the porch and proceeded down the driveway. As he went, he thought about something Grieve had mentioned that morning.
The Idea Was That
there were three types of people. The first were those who became immediately angry about what had just happened, and who then thereafter lessened in their anger. Any danger from such a person came in the moments after the first difficulty.
The second type seemed only slightly angry about what had happened. They might even say to you, Oh, don't worry about it. It's just fine. It's fine. But as time passes they become more and more angry. An hour after the incident, they are steaming. Two hours and they would murder you with their bare hands if they could. Their anger then enters into a long winter, hibernating, and when and if they can, they will do you unconscionable and incommensurate wrong.
The third type is not troubled much by what you did. Although it was in fact one of their favorite belongings, and although they realize precisely what it meant to them, precisely how sad it is that the object in question is gone, and also precisely how inconsiderate you must have been to have broken the thing in the first place, nonetheless they forgive you for it, and the matter is not spoken of again, save perhaps in soft and gentle jest.
At the foot of the driveway, a gate. The gate, locked. There was, however, an intercom.
James pressed the button.
— Hello, he said.
— This is the house, said a man's voice.
— I'd like the gate opened, said James. It's me, James Sim.
— Right, said the man. Hold on a moment.
A few seconds passed.
— Give me actually two minutes.
The line went dead.
James stood quietly between the lines of hedge. It was like a glass panel, like an inked negative, the day spread out in glorious colors of leaves and hours. He began to hum to himself.
The gate began to swing open. James jumped back, for it was heading straight for him with its massive iron arms.
A car pulled through. When the driver saw James, he stopped. Torquin was driving. James flinched.
The back window of the car rolled down. A young doctor, dressed nattily, was seated in the back. Beside him, a very beautiful woman could be seen.
— Sim? he asked.
— Yes, said James.
This must be Sermon, he thought to himself.
— Have you come to speak with me? asked James.
— For that, and other reasons. Do you have a moment?
— Of course, said James.
— Get in, then, get in, said Sermon. On the other side.
James went around to the other side of the limousine. The door was unlocked. He opened it and got in.
The girl had slid into Sermon's lap to make room. The doctor looked at him inquisitively.
— So, out for a walk?
— Yes, said James.
Sermon ran his hand up and down the girl's leg.
— It's nice to go for a walk, he said.
— I like walks, too, said the girl. I'm Leonora, she said, Loft. Leonora Loft. We haven't been properly introduced.
— Of course, said Sermon, how cruel of me. Leonora, James, James, Leonora. Leonora, he said, is the authority on Prussia. Aren't you?
— An authority, said Leonora patiently. Frederick the Great. You know, he was good friends with Voltaire.
— I didn't know that, said James.
— Xavier, said Leonora, is a psychologist. Be careful what you tell him. He reads volumes in specks and specks in volumes.
— My life, said Sermon to no one in particular, is a battle against sarcasm. No one understands the dangers of irony. If only we could all be like the aborigines or the Hopi, living unfettered by other states than the immediate.
The car had stopped in front of the house.
— Shall we talk here? asked James. Or do you want to go inside?
— We shall talk, said Sermon, over a coffee, if you don't mind.
— Frederick the Great, said Leonora, drank enormous amounts of coffee. He hated sleeping, and tried to go for as long as possible drinking coffee and not sleeping. He was forced to stop, however, when he began to hallucinate.
Sermon's hand had crept up beneath her skirt.
— Have you no tact? she said. We just met this man.
— He might as well, said Sermon, know how things are around here.
She opened the door and slid out.
Sermon shook his head.
— It's a long life. People say that life is short, but I don't believe it. One day, one long day after another, and nothing to fill the days but complexities and cancers. Do you know, the word
— I don't think that's true, said James.
— No, it's not, said Sermon. It's not true at all. The effect of untrue statements on casual conversation is one of my great loves, my great ongoing investigations. Shall we go inside?
As they approached the house, McHale came out the front door. He rang his bell. Everyone froze. Leonora seemed in particular to take a severe pleasure in freezing even her expression. She stared off in a dazed fashion towards the gardens.
After the count of fifteen, McHale approached Sermon.
— Stark wants to speak to you.
Sermon nodded.
To Sim he said:
— Later. I'll send a note.
He held his arm out. Leonora took it, and the two followed McHale back into the house. McHale had not looked at James Sim at all. He had acted, in fact, as though Sim and Leonora were not present. Perhaps that was the proper way to use the bell technique. James thought back to Graham's behavior earlier in the day. Had Graham ignored the maid who was folding towels? He had, certainly he had. But then, everyone ignored the servants, so that meant nothing.
He looked up at the exterior of the house. Many windows ran along it. Hmm, he thought, that's odd. There was a window on the outside of his room that was not on the inside. How could that be?
The Eavesdropping Booth
He went up to his room. Sure enough, there were only three windows. Yet from the outside there were four. And the fourth was plainly in the middle, as he could see his room through the other three, while the fourth was dark.
There was a section where the room sloped in, but it was only half the height, perhaps two-thirds the height of the ceiling, and on an angle. A statue had been placed there, a wooden gargoyle seeming to climb through a lattice of carved leaves. Curious, thought James. The window is behind there.
He went down one flight of stairs to the area beneath his room. There was a door, locked, where his door would have been. It was no. 53.
The noise of his trying the door handle had disturbed the occupant. The door opened. A sallow-faced man stood looking at him.
— Can't you read? he asked.
— Read what? asked James.
The man snorted. On the door James saw there was a drawing of an elephant being eaten by vultures. The elephant's eyes had that strange quality of some eighteenth-century portraits: they seemed to follow James from side to side.
— Isn't that clear enough for you? asked the man.
— I suppose, said James. I was wondering, is there a ladder in your room?
— Look for yourself, said the man.
He snorted again.
James started to go past him into the room, but stopped. There was no room. There were no windows at all. A wall crossed, cutting the room off after only a few feet. There was only space for a pallet and a pillow, a sheet. The walls were covered with more drawings of elephants being eaten by various things. Pigeons, men, women, dogs. All the eyes were the same. The ceiling of the room also was sloped and low.
— It's quite a small room, said James.
— It's all they'll give me, said the man. But I'd like to see them live in it. Shut the door? he asked.
— I'd rather not, said James.
He stepped back out into the hall.
— Suit yourself, said the man.
He went back inside and curled up in an odd way on the bed with his leg sticking up. He leered at James and scratched his oddly rounded belly.
James stared back.
The man sat up suddenly.
— Close the goddamned door, you little shit.
James shut the door.
Therefore, thought James, there must be another room beyond the first. But how to get to that room? Beside the door to the tiny room, there was another door. James knocked on it, three times, for a sudden visit.
The sound of voices, then footsteps. The door opened.
James looked in. There was a little table and a small window. Several chairs were pulled up around the table, and in the chairs were perhaps four or five of the maids he had seen around the house. Grieve was there too. He pretended not to notice her. For her part, she looked at him with surprise.
— I wonder, he said, if you could tell me. .
— You're not supposed to be here, said the maid who opened the door. Don't you know—
— how to get to the room behind that room, said James, pointing to his right.
The question put all the maids into a flurry.
— You have to leave right now, said one.
— Certainly, you must go.
— Don't stand around. What if you're seen?
The maids pushed him together softly out of the room and shut the door. He took from his pocket a glass tumbler and held it against the door, putting his ear to the glass. He could hear them talking.
— How does he know about that room? Who told him?
— Should we tell Mrs. Nagerdorn?
He heard Grieve's voice then.
— We should just forget it. Act like it never happened.
— Oh, you're just saying that, said another voice, because you like him, don't you, Grieve? You like him so much. You like him, you like him, you like him. I've seen you mooning after him.
— And I have too, said another. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if you think about him before you go to bed, if you know what I mean.
— That's nonsense, said Grieve. I don't know him at all, and I don't know what you mean. I just think we should forget it.
Then a voice came from behind James in the hall.
— Interesting business, isn't it, listening at doors? One can find out many things. Many helpful things. Of course, they usually lead to tragedy. Small tragedy, small, yes, but tragedy nonetheless. Household tragedies, you understand.
James spun around.
The man standing there was none other than Samedi, or perhaps-Samedi, Stark, Grieve's father. Beside him stood Sermon. Beside Sermon, Leonora and McHale.
— That's the maids' room, said McHale quietly.
The Best Hiding Place of All
The best hiding place of all, said James's friend Ansilon, from his perch atop James's shoulder, is inside something hollow when no one knows it's hollow.
Ansilon was James's one friend. He was an invisible owl who could tell the future and also speak English, although he preferred to speak in the owl language, which James understood perfectly.
— But if no one knows that it's hollow, said James, then how would I manage to know that it's hollow? Should I just go around with a little hammer, tapping things?
For that reason, said Ansilon, I have purchased for you with what little money I have this lovely little gold hammer. He brought out from a pocket somewhere in his feathers a tiny gold hammer, and handed it with his beak to James.
James took the hammer in his hand. It had a nice weight to it.
Tap everything, said Ansilon, with that hammer, and you'll soon find hollow places in which you can hide, or in which you can hide your precious belongings. But be sure no one else is around when you use the hammer, or you will be found out. It has, after all, he said, happened before that someone who didn't want to was found out, and it happens especially much to boys your age.
James hated it when Ansilon talked about how young he was. Ansilon was 306 years old and knew everything there was to know. But while he was very helpful he was also a bit arrogant, and presumed too much.
— I'm not that young, said James. I'll be seven in three days.
And that's why, said Ansilon, I've gotten you this hammer. Don't you like it?
— Very much, said James. You're my best friend.
It's good, said Ansilon, for a person to only ever have one friend in his life. It makes things simpler. Shall we be each other's one friend?
— Yes, said James. I will be your one friend, and you will be mine.
Ansilon moved about on James's shoulder in a happy way, and his eyes opened and closed.
We shall spend a great deal of time awake at night, then, said Ansilon, for that is my favorite time.
— I don't mind, said James. For we shall have such adventures!
Everyone was looking at him. They were waiting for him to speak. Their patience seemed inexhaustible.
Behind James then, the maids' door opened. The maid who had opened it saw the scene, squealed, and shut the door. Within the room then, more squeals, and the sound of feet.
— I was just, said James, looking for the fourth window in my room. It's strange, you know, to have a window go missing. I believe it can be reached by ladder, perhaps from the space behind. .
— Do you see what I mean? McHale said to Sermon.
— Precisely, said Sermon.
Leonora Loft shook her head.
— I think, said Sermon, we should have our little talk sooner rather than later, James. There's been a problem. The police have come again. They're outside.
— Outside? said James. But I didn't do anything. Why are they looking for me?
— Didn't do anything? said McHale. You told me yourself you pushed Mayne out the window.
— I never said that.
James looked helplessly back and forth. What was going on? Why were they all down here in the first place?
— Well, I suppose you didn't, but it was obvious. After all, why would you be in his room, in his home?
— We should go downstairs, said McHale. The police are waiting.
James looked from face to face. Leonora looked intrigued by the whole thing. McHale was impassive. Sermon was grave. And Grieve's father, a large man with a mole, whose presence seemed to fill the hallway, Grieve's father was smiling.
— I know you're the ones, said James. I know you killed McHale, and I know that you, he said, pointing his finger at Grieve's father. I know you're SAMEDI.
Grieve's father laughed.
— My daughter, he said, thinks very highly of you. I understand that you've been put into a series of trying positions, and that certainly in such positions no one would look their best. Nonetheless, I had hoped to see you do a bit better. Of course the police are not outside; of course we will not give you up to them. Have you not already been assured of that much? Here we find you listening at doors, and not even at the doors of influence and power, instead at such a trivial door as this? The speech of maids is like the speech of jaybirds, giving nothing, taking nothing away. A chattering, a noiseless, noiseful clatter. And you listen to it through a glass?
He sighed, and ran one of his hands across the other.
— We shall, of course, be speaking more before long. You understand very little of what goes on here, and your head is full of poor Tommy's foolish words. If only he had been kept here, that unfortunate accident would never have occurred.
The others all looked at one another in sadness.
— However, he continued, you are here, and here to stay, I assume. My daughter speaks of a trip abroad with you. Well, it can occur; I will not say it cannot occur. But as for your making yourself useful, your finding some useful employment, well, I should think a man like you would want to do that, would want to do more than simply hang around a place all day doing nothing, living off the work of others. You wouldn't want that, would you?
James admitted that he did not like to be a burden on others. In fact, he did not intend to be.
— Then I suggest you come and speak to me, tomorrow, about ten in the morning. The light in my rooms is quite fine then and encourages clear thinking and lucidity of action. We shall come up with something for you then. After all, you are quite talented, I hear. Is it true, as Grieve says, that you memorized my entire book?
There was a general gasping in the hall. McHale and Sermon looked at each other incredulously.
— It can't be, said Sermon.
— He is one of the best, said Grieve's father. We have his dossier from Beckman's.
Let them think that over, thought James proudly, very pleased with the looks on McHale's and Sermon's faces. He slipped the glass tumbler into his pocket.
— Yes, I have it, he said.
— Tomorrow, then.
The group moved off down the hall and was lost to sight. James heard a knocking.
— Are they gone?
A Gift
— Yes, said James. They're gone.
The door to no. 53 opened, and the sallow man came out again. James took a step back. The man did not smell very good.
He was holding a drawing in his hand.
— I did this for you, he said, just now.
James looked at the drawing.
There was an elephant, and its features vaguely resembled his own. The elephant was being eaten by many small furred devils, who also vaguely resembled him. They were led, however, by a man with a large baton. His face was entirely blank.
— Who is this supposed to be? asked James.
— Don't let them do that to you again, said the man. I couldn't bear it. I just couldn't.
He shut his door, leaving James with the gift of a drawing.
James went back over to the maids' door. He took out the glass, thought better of it, and simply placed his ear against the door.
— Grieve, said one voice. What happened out there, did you hear?
— No, Grieve, said another. I didn't hear a thing.
— But, Grieve, said still a third, I think it's all got to do with that James Sim.
Grieve's voice came then.
— I wish you wouldn't talk about him.
The others began to sing a sort of song they had made up to make fun of Grieve for liking James.
They
James approached it. The doorknob turned easily. Behind it was a small passage, and a mild light fell all along it. The passage was lined with small paintings, each no larger than a book, but well-done and obviously expensive and old. Many were landscapes, some impressionist, some more figurative. James looked at them. One he recognized as Cézanne. It must be an original, he thought.
The passage was only five feet wide. He continued on. At the end there was a turn. The passage continued back until the point where it would be immediately below James's room. There was indeed a ladder.
Up the ladder James went.
He emerged into a tiny room, a room even tinier than the previously tiny room that he had inhabited. The room was full of pillows, and the window to the outside was thrown open. On the walls were sort of old-fashioned devices for listening and seeing into the room beyond. Into his room!
But the most surprising thing was that he was not alone in the little room. There was someone in among the pillows.
— I knew you would find me here, she said. I longed for you to find me here, and I said to myself, if he is such a man as can find me here, then I will give myself to him. Not today, you understand, but one day, perhaps, provided that you continue to show yourself to such advantage.
It was, of course, Grieve, Lily Violet, Anastasia, among the pillows.
— I love you, she said. I find it splendid to have dropped you like a witful lobster into this boiling pot. But you are learning your way out. You are. Come here! she said.
James sat down in the pillows. She pulled him on top of her.
— Why is this room here? asked James.
— I should think, said Grieve, it would be obvious.
And she bit him very hard on the neck.
— If you like, we can take off our clothes, but we cannot sleep together, and if you do anything I don't like I will scream and someone will come immediately.
— I wouldn't want that to happen, said James, thinking of the scene in the hall.
— So be good, said Grieve, and began to unbutton his shirt.
day the fifth
When James woke, it was dark. He was still lying in the tiny room. A small light came down from the moon, found purchase in the glass of the window, and met with him and with the walls.
Grieve was gone. James was naked. In fact, his clothes were gone as well.
He went over to the wall where the listening and seeing apparatuses hung. He flicked open the seeing apparatus and looked through it. He was looking at his own bed, on which Grieve lay sleeping soundly.
The devil, he thought. She got up and left me here sleeping. What kind of girl would do that?
And across the end of the bed he saw his clothes, neatly folded. That's not right, he said. That girl is not right in the head.
He thought of the walk he would have to make, along the hallway and up the stairs. It wasn't far. He could make it if he hurried, perhaps, at this hour, without seeing anyone.
He would try. He had better, he thought. Otherwise he would be stuck until she took mercy on him. Somehow he thought that it would not do to be at the mercy of Grieve Cochrane.
James raced along the passage, padding softly on his bare feet. He came to the hall door and eased it open. Out it he looked carefully. No one was there.
Good, he thought, this is going to work.
He stepped out into the hall and cautiously made for the stairs.
A cough, then, from the shadows.
One of the maids, an older woman, perhaps forty-five or fifty, stood holding a broom.
— Good evening, she said. Are you lost?
— No, said James. Good-bye.
— Good-bye, said the maid softly, as if she were patting a kept field mouse upon its furry head before closing the cardboard box of its home. Good-bye.
Back in the room, James slid into bed beside Grieve. She too was still naked. His arrival did not seem to disturb her, however.
There was a note in the pillowcase. James climbed back out of bed and went to the window. The light that had entered the small room returned to him there and then, and he looked with it upon the note.
Well, I knew
James thought this over. He returned to bed and curled against Grieve's warm sleep, which crept over him even as he surrendered himself to it. It was like a wooden puzzle, and all the people were distinct oblong shards of wood jutting out. Pull one, pull all, and none would move. But there
He could hear Grieve mumbling in her sleep. She had done it last night too. But the words didn't make any sense. He listened now, and marked well in his mind what she said.
James lay on his side and looked at Grieve. He turned onto his back and looked at the ceiling. His eyes crept about the room. No. 17, he thought. The room I have been given, complete with observatory.
He wondered whether all the rooms had such observatories. No, of course not. Of course not.
He realized suddenly that he had left the elephant drawing of himself on the floor in the tiny room. This worried him immensely. A gift like that certainly should not be left on the floor.
But that room is composed solely of floor. Floor and pillows and nothing in between. There was nowhere else I could have put it, he thought.
But he knew that this logic would not hold up. The man must not see that James had left his drawing discarded on the floor. Yes, he would go first thing in the morning to fetch the drawing. What he would do with it, he could not say. He would like to bury it along with the mask. But apparently the police had the mask.
He pictured in his mind the sallow man climbing out of bed, opening the door that was almost as large as the room itself, going out into the hall, turning left, opening the door to the passage, going along the passage, up the ladder, and finding then his drawing discarded. It was terrible, terrible.
And then he would be at the aperture, listening and watching. James looked towards where the fourth window should have been. There was no way to know if the man was there now watching him.
I will walk about in the halls and see what comes of it, he thought.
An afternoon and wind in fields. He knelt in the middle of a path.
Something or someone had set off the trap. The metal teeth were closed tight. James tested its action, opening it with all his strength, cocking it, laying it again on the ground, and shoving a long stick through to the trigger.
SNAP! The stick was snapped clean through.
James set the trap once more, satisfied with its workings, between an oak and a sycamore, in a little drop of land.
— They won't see that, he said. Not though they're standing over it. Not till they're in it.
And the little boy danced off chuckling and stomping along the road and looked back twice from the crest of each increasing hill.
— To speak of observation, and observation holes,
— I was looking for a bit of chocolate and a bowl of milk, said James.
— Not on your life, said Grieve. You can't lie to me.
— All right, said James. I was looking for the egg room.
— The egg room! said Grieve, exclaiming. The egg room, the egg room!
— But what were you, said James, doing in the room beneath the argot?
— It's a cemetery, said Grieve. We call it Mount Auburn. My brother is there in a fold of grass. I covered him with thirty-nine stones but one went missing. Where could it be?
James drew from his pocket a book, drew from the book a pressed flower, and shook from the flower a bit of stone shaped like a crescent moon.
— Here it is, he said. I found it in the passage by the cellar.
They were both silent. Grieve took the stone.
— You mustn't go there again, she said. You might meet me there, and then we would be through.
A dark name like a walking stick broken in anger.
— When I am out on the wind, said Grieve, I wear four arms and the trails of my dress consume me.
— Before you say any more, said James, say no more.
And so no more was said.
The fact of the matter, James decided, was that a theory was not a good theory because it was right or wrong. A theory was good for entirely other reasons. Because it presumed to be right? Presumed to be wrong? A theory could be very good that presumed to be wrong. And certainly there were theories that presumed only to be helpful in small ways. So many theories are peculiar to their centuries, and never get a second go around the merry-go-round.
My theory, James thought, is that SAMEDI decided long ago to do whatever it is he is going to do and that nothing can stop it. The trigger has already been pulled, the knife set in motion, somewhere far from here. And though we here may be affected by it, we can do nothing to alter it, nothing to stop it.
James felt very much that this was a correct theory. Of course, it was not a useful theory.
What theory would be useful? James thought for a moment.
A useful theory, ah — that Grieve's father was not Samedi, and that everyone in the house was delightful because this was the beginning of a new and unexplainable life.
It was late in the morning when James woke. Grieve was still there. She was reading from the newspaper.
— You won't believe it, she said. This wacko has sent another suicide.
There was an odd tone to her voice.
— What? asked James carefully.
— This madman, said Grieve, this Samedi. It just means Saturday in French; what kind of name is that? Anyway, he's sent men to suicide in the capital, one every day this week.
— What does the note say? James asked.
— It's the same thing every day, said Grieve. He's going to murder us all, somehow.
She turned a little pale. That was odd, thought James.
— What do you think? he asked.
Grieve said nothing, but looked down at her feet. Her face had gone blank. She had been trying to play a game, but the gravity of it had gotten the better of her. James was sure now. She knew. She knew what her father was going to do. Now if only she would tell him.
He started to say something.
She tossed the paper on the floor and slid up on top of him. He started to kiss her, and he could feel the length of her against him. He thought of days then in October when he was a boy and he had seen in the windows of houses candles lit at night, and how happy it had made him. There were waters in the middle of the ocean that met having come great distances, dispersing through great distances but keeping still some character, some inimitable character of water, and then, to have that, and meet, in the midst of a great ocean, water from a far place, and mingle with it in the midst of the ocean's lapsing. He felt her tongue along his chest, her legs wrapped tight around his legs. She tightened and he could feel himself like the sound in a room when a door is opened, rushed out into intervening space, unable to counter anything, accepting all, expanding, meeting, taking upon itself all space, all motion, trembling, entering other rooms, other bodies. Grieve was trembling, and her face was hot against his. She kissed and kissed him.
— I was lying, she whispered. What can I tell you?
And then he was inside of her and they were together in the lost deep ground where no one had gone until they, and where no one could go, where everyone had gone, of course, and did go, but not at once, just one pair and then another, never passing one another on the way, each taking of its own accord a seldom path that cannot be found by the eye, but is traced irrevocably in pageants of color and light. She was saying something, talking and talking. He could hear her but he could not.
And then they slept.
And afterwards it was late morning, and the light had not left or been made less by clouds. His arms about her, James wondered again if someone was watching. He wondered if someone had been watching the whole time.
It would have been quite a show, he thought, and pictured Sermon and Leonora Loft kneeling in the small room and winking to each other.
And also, he wondered, in the broad vagueness of his thought, what did Grieve know? What could she tell him?
A note beyond the door:
James rubbed his eyes — it was a good thing the meeting was canceled. He'd forgotten to go in the first place.
What was the origin, James wondered, of Grieve's lying? He remembered she had said something about the matter. What had it been? He thought back. They had been standing on the roof of the house. First they had gone up the stairs into the upstairs bathroom. Grieve had gone in. She had waved to him. He had gone in. She had locked the door with a key from the inside.
— Here we are, he said, in the bathroom.
It was very small. Just a porcelain sink recessed in the wall, a porcelain toilet with a chain pull, and a window in a roof that slanted down, halving the room. Grieve opened the window with a practiced gesture.
— This is the way.
Out then the window onto the roof that proved to be only an initial roof. Many roofs stretched in all directions, some up, some down, most across, all away.
— I want to have sex with you right now, said James, for Grieve's dress was being blown very tightly against her by the wind.
— You shall not, she said. At least, not while he's watching.
James looked over his shoulder. The cat had come up with them, had entered the bathroom unseen, and now was limping across the roof, dragging its hind leg.
— Oh, Mephisto, she said. What a darling you are.
She scooped up the cat.
— I thought its name was something else, said James.
— Around here, said Grieve, we think about naming a little differently than you do. As you understand it, people have names; things have names. But the weather. . if it is sunny you call it a
— But he was never scared of me, said James.
— No, said Grieve, not in the least. But that's because he could tell that I liked you so much. It's really all that matters to him.
— How did he break his leg?
— It was terrible, said Grieve. He was my one real friend when I was a girl. Back then he used to talk to me. You wouldn't believe the things he'd say.
— I daresay not, said James.
Mephisto jumped then out of Grieve's arms and made his way in a half trot, half drag across the shingled roof.
— One day, said Grieve, Mephisto went into the egg room by mistake. My father was furious. No one is to go there, no one at all.
James said nothing about the egg room.
— So, he took Mephisto in his arms, at that time we called Mephisto Cavendish, and held Cavendish's paw up. Cavendish, said my father. Never in the egg room, Cavendish. And he broke the cat's leg by bending it back and forth quickly. During all this Cavendish neither cried out nor tried to escape, but sat watching my father with a still sort of patience. When he had broken the cat's arm to his satisfaction, he dropped him to the ground and the cat ran off, dragging its broken leg. He is no longer Cavendish, said my father. Now he is Benvolio. And from then on, Benvolio would not speak to me or tell me things. He stayed out of the egg room, though, and was mostly close by my side as before.
She kicked at the shingles of the roof.
— It seems that talking was a part of Cavendish, not a part of Benvolio or Mephisto or Xerxes. As soon as Cavendish went away, the cat became dumb. I felt I had to speak for him.
She smiled, a delicate smile like a bookish otter.
— You know, he used to say the most ingenious things. Anyway, I felt that if he was no longer going to be saying them, then someone should. So I began. I talk for both of us. I got so used to making things up for Gone-Away-Cavendish to say that I have never been able to change the habit. Besides, I don't see why I should.
— That is not, said James, why you really lie.
— No, she agreed. That's not why at all.
They walked along the roof to a place where the next roof began. Up it they went to another roof, and another after that. Slowly they ascended the house until they reached a sort of gazebo set at the highest point. There was a fine wooden rail about it, a lovely cupola above, and benches within. Yes, benches and a table.
— Is this the only way up here? James asked.
— Yes, everyone who comes up comes out that bathroom window.
— It's nice, said James, to discover this upper world, a place complete in itself. Yet the window to the bathroom has been left open and there, our little foothold in the old world is preserved. The door to the bathroom is locked. Someone might even now be standing there waiting. They think we are in there, and we are! It's as though all of this, everything that takes place up here, all these roofs, all these vantages, are all shuttered together in that tiny bathroom. We'll go back inside, unlock the door, and present ourselves to the person just beyond. My, we'll say, how the time passes.
— But if that's true, said Grieve, then when a fellow sneaks out his bedroom window at night in order to go wandering in the country and meet his girl on a covered bridge beneath which some slow water passes and passes again, when he leaves and returns before daybreak back through the window, shutting it tight and climbing neatly into bed, before dressing and going back out the bedroom door into the actual world when the cock crows, then, then the countryside, the whole countryside, the covered bridge, the slow river, the girl, the running through the night, all of it, is within that room, as if it all climbed back in the window with him, to sit there as dawn returned in morning's clothes, with an old stick and a stone it keeps rubbing for a reason no one will ever know.
— Well, said James. I don't see what you're getting at. I would agree with that. That doesn't contradict anything.
Grieve moved her face close to his, then lunged down and bit him quite hard on the shoulder.
— Ay! he cried out, and fell from the bench onto the wooden slats of the gazebo.
Then she was upon him and bit him again.
But why had she begun to lie in the first place?
As James went about the house, he noticed that all the maids were crying. One maid crying. Another maid crying. All the maids, crying. He rang his bell. The maid at the end of the hall froze. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. He approached her.
— What are you crying about?
— It's Grieve, she said, turning. She's killed herself.
James felt a cold shock over him. Had she killed herself?
— Grieve, he said slowly. She's killed herself?
— Yes, said the maid. And the baby, too. She drowned herself in the bath. And her eight months pregnant. No one can say who the father is.
She began to cry.
Pregnant, thought James. Which Grieve was this?
— Do you mean, he said, a young girl, about. .
He described the maid, Grieve, to this maid.
— Oh, said the maid, drying her eyes. Not her. No. Why, she is named Grieve also. That's why you thought that she had. . Oh, no. I mean, I'm named Grieve too, but I haven't done myself in, now, have I?
— No, said James. You haven't.
He explained that he would have to be going.
— But you mark my words, said the maid. There'll be a penalty for this.
She shook her head violently from side to side like a bird in a leather trap.
— Mark my words.
Within a short while all the water had drained from the bath. The room was quiet. No room can be so quiet as a quiet bathroom in an empty house. Everyone has left for the country, James thought, though he knew it wasn't true. Everyone has left for the country and I am still here. And he remembered small things he had done wrong here and there throughout his life and felt that this was some accounting of blame — he was being paid back in kind. And then he thought of kind voices reading old stories. He thought of the ease of paper boats on a Victorian pond. He thought of marzipan and weasels, of Easter on easels and trees shed of last year's leaves. Many were present then in him, and one was his brother. I will say, said he, that the lily when it blossoms is the name of four-fold ovens. But that's meaningless. No, no. Four-fold ovens and the cleverness of hands. A man with the skill of setting traps. A bird with one eye because he has been painted only in profile. We shall not let him turn, not until he has sung his supper.
Is this the broom closet? wondered James. He took a piece of paper out of his coat pocket. The paper was very flat. It said:
He had made it through the hospital without incident. He had made it up the stairs without incident. Now he was before a closet. He presumed it was a closet. All the other rooms had numbers painted in neat black paint over dark wood. It must be, he thought.
And he opened the door.
Begin with me, said the bird. James reached out, took hold of the bird's neck and head, and gently but firmly twisted it off.
Within the little metal bird was a rolled-up piece of parchment.
It said:
— I saw in the distance a harbor approaching, a harbor walking arm in arm with the sea, and upon the sea great catastrophes of ships, constellations of storm and fright. Distances. How much then I knew that distance was always our greatest enemy; distance was always the obstacle that could not be overcome. Steam trains bring us closer. Airplanes. Elevators. Rockets. But how can we be beside the one we love on that particular day when it would suddenly, inexplicably, mean the most? For small distances, a street, a room, the length of an arm, these divide like a sword. They are the worst, the most devilish, the most puzzling. Ask me again when I go into the hall, will I hate to be parted from you, will I call out the moment I am finished with what I must do? Instead, my love, arrive. Arrive quietly as I finish. Surely that is within your power.
James put the book down. Carlyle was looking at him.
— That is beautiful, he said. What happens next?
— It's the book's end, said James. But I think it is a suicide. The woman is speaking to her lover who is far away.
— This taking leave of life, said Carlyle. For many it is not easy.
Carlyle was wearing a short brown jacket with dark wool pants and a white cotton shirt. He had a hat on indoors, slouched across his head, and had been writing in a book when James arrived.
— I finished reading the manual, said James. It's fascinating.
— Ah, the manual, said Carlyle. There are many opinions, like insects, about the manual. Some flutter but do not fly; some fly but do not flutter. Some stay close to the ground unmoving. It is an old book, you know. From the nineteenth century. The idea had been put into practice once, in England. But not since then, until Stark discovered it and realized it was the perfect way of treating today's illness of chronic lying. And, he thought, a sort of lovely way of living in general. At any rate, he likes it.
— Do you have all the rules memorized? asked James.
— God, no, said Carlyle. But one gets a sense of what one ought and ought not to do. After a while it becomes instinctive. Of course, every now and then there is a transgression, and when one is excited, one often doesn't count to fifteen, et cetera, but mostly, yes, the rules work just fine. It is very difficult, of course, to train the maids. But they like it very much here, I think. Certainly they get paid well. Everyone who comes into contact with this place is rewarded for it in some way.
Carlyle said this with a real belief.
I wonder if that's true, thought James.
— How did Stark make his money? he asked.
— I believe he inherited it. He's always had it, and there's never been an explanation, as long as I've known. Where he lived as a boy, these sorts of things are a mystery. He doesn't talk about himself very often. He's the kind of man who obsessively controls the work that he is upon, and thinks of it and only it.
— What is his work?
— Well, psychology, to start. But his writings are complicated and verge into social theory and other realms. He is the acting head of this hospital, the one that we are on the edge of here. It runs partly into the house, as Graham tells me you discovered in an unfortunate way.
Carlyle laughed when he said this.
— I was just trying to get some supper, said James. I didn't know where to go.
— The few of us who live here and are not patients generally eat in our rooms, or in the private dining rooms. But you know that if you've finished the manual.
James nodded.
Carlyle looked at his watch.
— I have to go. I have to meet someone.
He looked quickly at James, quickly away, and stood.
— Sorry to run off, he said.
— No worries, said James. He stood too.
Carlyle put his arm on James's shoulder.
— I like you, he said. I think we could be friends.
— I think so, said James.
— If you like, said Carlyle, I'm having supper with McHale and Grieve tonight in my room. You can come. I'll send a note.
— That would be fine, said James.
Next to the chair where Carlyle had been sitting was a pile of newspapers.
I should have a look, thought James.
Both yesterday's and today's were there. The Samedi matter was front-page news on both. There had been two more suicides and two more notes. The area of the White House was now sealed off for ten blocks in every direction.
The two men who had died were American citizens. The first, an Alfred Mitchell, had also shot himself in the face. The second name James recognized, and a chill ran up his spine.
Good God, he thought. I have been right all along.
The second man, who had poisoned himself, then staggered three blocks to die on the White House lawn, was Marvin Estrainger.
James went to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He downed it, poured himself another, and downed that. Then he began to cough. He looked around the room. He had taken the curtains off the windows and laid them all across the section of wall he knew to be the observation panel.
Let them try to look now, he thought.
and also
Why are they doing it? Why are they sending these men to die?
The two notes had been more of the same, a strange sort of puzzling rhetoric. Martin Stark, thought James. Martin Stark is Samedi.
What good was the information?
He walked to the door, opened it, shut it, walked back to the bed. The information was only useful to him if he could use it, and he realized how well they had trapped him. They knew that he would never go to the police now that he was implicated in Mayne's death.
Then a thought occurred to him. Had Mayne been ordered by Samedi to suicide just as the others had been?
But this thought passed quickly. It would have been just as easy for them to take him, James Sim, away, as to arrange the suicide of a random man. No, he had just happened to play into their hands. What a fool he'd been.
Of course, he thought, even if I decide now to go to the police, they'll never let me leave the house. I'm sure of that.
There was a knock at the door. James stepped towards it. But it was not followed by another. He reached the door, opened it. On the shelf was a note.
Now, thought James to himself, the only question is, who here knows what's going on, and who doesn't? Grieve seems to know. But does she know because they've told her, or because she's found out on her own? With Estrainger dead, the cat must be out of the bag for more people than just Sim. It must be obvious to everyone.
And if they know Stark's handwriting, they'll have seen the facsimiles in the papers, with the posted notice: Have You Seen This Handwriting Before, and a number to call. They'd know it was him.
Everyone, thought James. Everyone here must know that Stark is Samedi.
What day is today? he thought to himself absently. Thursday. Then there're only two days left.
I have to find out, he thought. Even if I can do nothing about it, I have to find out what's going to happen.
He Opened the Window and Saw a Woman Below With Her Hat Just So
and it reminded him irresistibly of a day in April when he had just left home. April all through the day, like a skein of cloth. Warmth upon the hands, the feet. The first day of spring is like the first principle. Life ought always to be like that. Perhaps it could be. He wondered if that was what life was like at all times for someone who'd been enlightened, a saint, someone with perfect equanimity. To be called out of yourself so entirely, it required the orchestration of every living thing. For half the world to have died in winter and be reborn at the saying of spring's name.
Another knock brought James out of his reverie. It was followed by two, and then by two, and then by one.
What does that mean? thought James. That's not on the chart.
The door opened before he could say anything. Grieve came in, carrying a cat.
— It's broken its leg, she said. We have to fix it.
The cat looked perfectly fine.
He said so.
— No, no, she said. Something has to be done.
She deposited the cat in his hands, kissed him on the cheek, took off her coat, and threw it on the bed.
— Let's have a look, she said.
James turned the cat onto its back and cradled it like a child. Three of its legs were fine, but the third did look a bit odd. The cat was quite friendly, and licked James's nose when it came in range. It was purring softly.
Hmmm, he thought. Is this Cavendish, Xerxes, Mephisto, or Benvolio? Not Cavendish. Not Benvolio.
He put the cat down on the floor. It trotted over to Grieve, and as it ran he could see that it did indeed drag the one leg.
— Grieve, he said. Xerxes' leg has been like that a very long time.
— I know that, she said. It's my cat. Of course I know that.
He shook his head.
— Then what do you mean, we have to operate? You don't make any sense.
Grieve got up and came over. She was dressed in a light blue cotton slip that covered her down to her knees. A small black scarf was tied stylishly around her neck, and another around her wrist.
— Sweetheart, she said. It was just something to say. You know how I like entrances.
— I can't imagine for a moment, she said after a long silence, that it would be the same man. James was holding up the newspaper. There was a photograph of Estrainger. He looked precisely as McHale had described him, a small man.
James said this to Grieve.
— Everyone looks small in death, she said. Didn't you know that?
The window was still open. Grieve went and leaned out it. She had not seen the paper. He had surprised her with the information.
James came up behind her. He ran his hand along the line of her shoulders, and pulled at one of the straps aimlessly.
— Grieve, he said. I don't understand. Why is your father doing this?
She turned and looked up at him.
— They don't want me to tell you anything. They won't tell me anything. But I know.
He touched her face. She was crying.
— Saturday is so soon, she said. And we've only just met.
A Rule
If somebody asks you for something, you have to give it to them.
They get to keep it for as long as they like.
However, if the person knows that they shouldn't have asked for it, then they will be punished. If you know someone shouldn't ask for something, however, that doesn't change the fact that you have to give them the thing in question.
If a person has no idea about whether they should or should not have a thing, and the thing that they ask you for is a thing that they should not have, then you have to give it to them.
The only case where you should not give to someone a thing that they ask for is if it is clear to you that they know they should not be asking for it, and that furthermore, the item is something that is a danger to them.
Also, if you have money you are not to let it be visible within the hospital. You are not to give any to anyone. You are not to explain what it is if the person in question does not know.
James was determined. He went out into the hall, leaving Grieve, crying, on the bed. He had to see Stark. He just had to.
But he didn't know where Stark's rooms were. That should be easy enough, he thought. On the first floor he stopped a nurse, neglecting to use the bell.
— Where is Stark's office? he asked.
— Most out of the ordinary, said the woman.
She started to walk away. He grabbed her arm.
— Tell me, he said.
— Up the fourth stairwell, she said, that way. There's nothing else at the top. The whole floor is his.
She sniffed loudly and walked away.
James continued. He felt out of breath suddenly and realized that he had hardly been breathing since he'd spoken to Grieve.
She was convinced, he thought, that they were all going to die.
He passed two staircases, then another. The house was enormous, he thought, and the arrangement of rooms made no sense. Modern hospitals were laid out for efficiency. Not so this place.
Although he thought of the manual and remembered that there was a sort of efficiency to the place, a cloven, carefree efficiency.
How much hope there has been in the past, all spent like forgotten currencies.
The fourth stair, there it was. UP IT and UP IT. At the top there was a door. A man stood outside of it. He caught sight of the man's face as he rounded the stair. Torquin.
God damn it, thought James. How can I get past him?
As he came up to the door, Torquin was smiling.
— You don't have an appointment, he said.
— But I do, said James. It was made yesterday. Stark told me himself.
— It was made yesterday, said Torquin, and it was canceled this morning. You can't go in. That's that. It's impossible. You'll have to come back tomorrow.
— But tomorrow, said James, will be Friday. That's too late. I have to speak to him now.
The door opened behind Torquin. McHale poked his head out.
— What's all the noise? he asked.
— Nothing, said Torquin. He's trying to push his way in.
He pointed a thick hand at James.
McHale looked at James.
— Sorry, James, he said. Your appointment's been changed. Something came up. Maybe I can help you.
He came out into the hall.
— Let's go for a walk, he said. Some things are clearer when walking.
He began down the stairs. James followed reluctantly. The man he wanted to talk to was Stark, not McHale. But from Torquin's expression he knew there was no chance of admittance.
He followed after McHale.
As He Reached the Stairs He Found in His Pocket
a note. Grieve must have slipped it in at some point.
— Death came then about the houses, the streets, the cities, like a skirt of leaves that could not be cast off.
McHale was talking.
— What? asked James.
— It's from a book, he said.
He held up a thin volume.
— They're poems. My brother wrote them.
He stopped halfway between the first and second floors and looked at James.
— Listen, he said. The pretense is over. You're here and you're not going to go to the police. That much is over for you. Estrainger's dying made things obvious. Now you think things are clear. But things aren't clear. You don't understand anything. Not why Stark is doing it, not how. You don't know anything.
He took a deep breath.
— The trouble is, Grieve's the trouble. She's where the problem with you came in. We had someone else watching you, ever since you found my brother in the park. Someone else was finding out your information. Our man was going to keep you tied up for a week in your house until it was too late and you could do us no harm. But Grieve was listening at the door; this house has too many doors. She got interested in you and went to take a look. She'd been depressed for months, had scarcely moved from her room. When Stark saw her take an interest in someone, he was frozen. I've never seen him not know what to do.
McHale started again down the stairs.
— We'll go outside, he said.
James nodded but kept quiet. He wanted to hear everything.
— And so, our man kept back and Grieve went and saw you in the diner; she went to your house; she sent you the mask. It was soon too much, especially after what happened at Estrainger's apartment. What did you think you were doing with Mayne? Did he get violent? Why did you throw him out the window?
— For the last time, said James. I didn't do anything. He jumped. He thought I was a cop.
— Anyway, said McHale, that brought on way too much heat. The police were looking into the affair. There was nothing to do but bring you here. Or kill you. It was a close bet. But Grieve seemed so changed. Her father made the decision: bring you here and keep you in the dark about everything as long as possible.
They reached the door to a covered porch and went through. There were benches and deep hooded wicker seats for two or three. McHale sat in one of these. James sat beside him. Shadows and light ran along the porch in an odd pattern. James recognized it — it reminded him of
— Rovnin, said McHale.
A smile appeared and disappeared just as fast on his face.
— The screen's woven to make shadows that look like a rovnin game. It's an old design. Stark's obsessed with rovnin. He's written monographs on its political applications.
He shrugged his shoulders.
— The point is, it was Estrainger's turn. Once he died, we knew you would know the truth. At that point, a decision would be made about you.
— And that's why Stark won't see me, said James. He's deciding whether or not you're going to let me live.
There was an odd clarity to it all. James felt his shoulders tense. There was room to maneuver here. He had the gun upstairs, after all. If he just played it calm and acted unconcerned, he might have a chance to make it to the gun, and then try to get out, to get over the wall like the first McHale had.
And then he remembered what had happened to the first McHale.
— Stark won't see you, said McHale, not because he's deciding about you. You, my friend, are the furthest thing from his mind. He has more to think about than you. No, the decision about you will be made when he has a free moment. Probably after talking with Grieve.
— How could you do it? James asked suddenly. How could you do that to your own brother?
McHale was caught off guard by the question. His face tightened.
— You don't understand anything yet, he said. Once you understand, you'll feel differently, I promise. You'll talk with Stark, and then you'll understand.
They sat, staring out across the porch to the lawn and the grounds. Neither said anything for a long while. Finally McHale spoke. His voice was thick with emotion.
— He was my brother, but he was Stark's son. He's Grieve's brother too. It wasn't easy for anyone; you have to know that. But he was going to leave. He was going to give us all up. No one could convince him not to. We tried. We tried for months.
He stood up.
— I have to go back. We've been talking too long anyway.
James stood.
— Where are you going back to?
— Upstairs, said McHale. There's more to be done. I can't talk about it.
He walked away.
James sat again and looked at his hands. He took Grieve's note out of his pocket and read it through again.
So, he thought. Grieve's the one who's been protecting me.
He thought back in his head and went one by one through every memory he had of her, from the first in the diner, to the last in the room above.
How strange, he thought, for her to fall in love with me at the drop of a hat, in an instant. The wrong instant for everyone else, but the right instant for me.
He wondered too what it was that Stark planned. From the sound of it, it would be horrible indeed. Yet the hospital didn't seem a likely place for housing the mechanisms of some enormous disaster.
I must have been right, thought James. Everything must have been put in place long ago. It must have all been hibernating.
It wasn't so much that James cared what would happen to the people in general. Bad things were constantly happening to people. People were constantly doing bad things to one another. That would be nothing new. But he wanted to understand. He hated that everyone kept telling him that he didn't understand.
He thought of the book that was inscribed on the library ceiling. Maybe that was a clue.
If I could break the cipher. . he thought. And he closed his eyes and thought very very hard.
ANSILON
arrived and removed his coat carefully in the leaden foyer.
— The news? asked James, who stood with a tea service and a stick of wood for the fire.
It was quite cold. Too cold for going out, save gravely.
He hasn't got a chance, not a chance in hell, said Ansilon, who knew very well about chances in hell.
All owls, he had once told James, end up in hell. There they sit in the branches of scalded trees and whisper their wisdom into the blighted ears of vain scholars who are carved in the shapes of kites by smooth-skinned dusk children in trembling tunics of white.
— I will not go there, James had said.
See that you don't, said Ansilon. For I cannot help you then.
Ansilon hung his coat on a hook and followed James into the house. A storm had appeared that afternoon, uncaused. For miles the ground was thick with snow. And was it not July?
There were accidents on the road, said Ansilon.
— Did you take the road? asked James.
Only to see the accidents, said Ansilon. I smelled the disaster through the cold air and came to see. There was a couple trapped in a Studebaker beneath an overturned timber truck. They were speaking to each other very quietly, saying what they supposed were their last things.
— Were they saved, then? asked James.
No, said Ansilon, they were quite right, of course. She kept saying, My hands are bent and broken. How can I sew your clothing for tomorrow? To which the man replied, No tomorrow, no sewing, no clothes.
— What a great fellow you are, said James. People can only talk like that in recounting. No one talks like that anymore.
Once they did, said Ansilon. And not so long ago. If you want the truth, I gave him the figurine and he gave me this.
Ansilon produced a wad of banknotes. James took them.
— That'll do nicely, he said. When shall we leave?
— So you understand, said Carlyle, the nineteenth century was overrun with liars. So many small corners of the world had been left unexplored that fact held no hegemony. Margret Selm, psychological theorist and unacknowledged artistic genius, came up with a strategy for rehabilitating chronic liars. It was based on her country-house experiments, where she would isolate problematic communities or ideas, and see what happened when they operated independent of the world itself.
— How did she fund these experiments? asked James.
They were in the kjoll room. The walls, ceiling, even the doors were painted over with a crowd of women, all in the process of trying on different dresses. So many there were that the scene itself could not be made out. The detail of the dresses was so finely painted that one could approach to within inches and see perhaps a fly that had landed a moment on a woman's shoulder as she bent to straighten a stocking.
— She was born to a wealthy Swiss family, continued Carlyle. At that time, the official position of the Swiss was that there were no liars in Switzerland. Accepting this as gospel, despite the rigor of her genius, she left at first for parts unknown in her quest to study a population of chronic liars. She next appears on a steamer bound up the Mississippi. She is known to have learned English in a miraculous four days with the use of a half-burned Bible and a volume of Christopher Smart. She made her way east and north, and established in the Adirondacks a large and well-stocked manse. To her then she drew many wits and intellects, and they fell all to helping her in her good works. She wrote a book, the manual you have on the table upstairs, that graces in fact every room of this house. As you know, it holds the rules, all the rules by which life here is conducted. She decided that the difficulty with chronic lying is that at some point it begins to efface identity. The reason for this is that the liar's lies are constantly being approached and rebutted by truth. Then they are destroyed and the liar is left with nothing, not even with the original truth, because the original truth has been forgotten, and in any case cannot be accepted once it is the destroyer of his/her own arrived-at fact.
Carlyle leaned against the window casement and lit a cigarette. He nodded slightly to himself, as though fixing the details of his own continuing narrative.
— Because, said he, the truth is, liars are very rooted in identity. Their passion for identity might even be said to be greater than that of honest folk. An honest man is content with his identity, content with the facts of the world. A liar goes past the world's facts and the world's state and says, I am not as has been seen; what I have done is not what I have been seen to have done. They replace what has been seen with what they have supposed, with what they have hoped for, with divergent accounts of greater or lesser fabulousness. This passion for the assertion of identity is like a vessel at sea that sails with great speed and ability in the open ocean. Fetch it up against rocks, however, and it is torn to bits, it, the crew, the captain. So, the idea was to take a population of chronic liars, put them in an isolated environment, Selm's country house, give them a number of complex and arbitrary rules, no one of which prohibits lying, and allow their lies to go unfettered. Out of unfettered lying, in a structure of obeyed regimens and rules, Selm believed new identities would be constructed that could gain a sort of internal integrity that eventually would pass into truth. After all, the facts of yesterday do not always hold more bearing than yesterday's fictions. So she said.
— Did it work? asked James. Why haven't I heard of it?
— Well, said Carlyle, the manse burned down in a lightning storm. A few studies had been done of the place. They were optimistic but unsubstantiated. Several copies, however, existed of her manual, and also the architectural plan of her ideal country house. Dr. Stark found these, read them, and was fascinated. He thought that the arbitrary rules she had set down were a work of genius, and would bring pleasure to any life. Also, as a psychologist himself, he was interested in the application of the process. So, he had this place built according to her blueprint. He printed many copies of the manual. His mandarin assurance and prowess guaranteed the project some degree of notoriety. Therefore, patients came, not generally of their own free will, of course, but most have been pleased with their stay. In fact, often, they prefer life within our walls.
— The results, though, said James, have shown the experiment to be a success?
— Experiments, said Carlyle, are not ever successful. Or they are always successful. Have it either way. An experiment simply procures information that was hitherto unclear.
— Fine, said James. But does it help cure chronic lying?
— Cure it, no, said Carlyle. But it makes the lives of liars happy, and allows them to live either in the world, or in this closed space as others live in wealth. Stark has theories about the imagination, its prowess, its possibility.
— And you've lived here many years, you and the others who aren't patients, everyone in your family? Here with the rules, the nurses, the orderlies? Is there any countereffect from living in this house? Do you grow used to constant lying?
— Yes, said Carlyle. We do, we do. As I said, lies are often simply stated desires. How can such a thing be untrue? It's untrue only in its reception, not in the manner of its appearance.
He opened the window and threw his cigarette out onto the long green-gray lawn. The sound of laughter and also footsteps on the porch beneath joined them in the room. Carlyle smiled. His eyes met James's.
— Lying is like breathing, he said. When you notice that you're doing it, there's a sudden fear: if I stop, will I die? When I was a child, I had a little wooden boat with a cloth sail. I put a metal figurine of Charlemagne in the cabin, and pushed it out on a lake near the house where I first lived. I held on to it with a long string. Do you know what happened then?
James said that he did not.
— What happened then? he asked.
— A man in a skiff came. I saw him from far away, and thought something bad was about to happen. But I did nothing. Curiosity is often what makes us powerless. I watched as he came closer and closer on the lake. He wore a brown worsted suit and had unkempt hair. His eyes were different colors. He sculled up with a single-minded intensity, right up to my little boat. I stood helpless on the shore, clutching at the string. From his pocket he took a knife. He cut the string, put my boat in his skiff, and sculled away. I was horrified. I stood there, string in hand, and when someone came to fetch me, I could give no answer about what had happened. In fact, I've never spoken of it until now.
The light then in the kjoll room bore the shape of a mansard. Six leaves blew one by one through the window and landed at the feet of the two men.
Should I reach down and pick one up? thought James. If I did so, what would it mean?
A moment, then another moment.
Carlyle shut the window.
— Let's go find the others, he said. Hours of evening are ahead.
James stood on the landing outside of his room. Another note had come. He read it and dropped it into the basket on the floor.
He went into his room. No one was there. There was a note in the pillowcase. He set it on the table next to the bed and did not read it. He went over and shut the window, which was still open.
There was a kind of odd efficiency to his movements. He marked it in himself, but could do nothing to prevent it. What will happen next? he thought.
He changed into a nicer suit, looked at himself in the mirror for a moment, then went back out into the hall. Grieve was standing there. She had been there all along.
— Let's go, she said. I know a shortcut.
Ansilon said something unintelligible.
— What did you say? asked James.
Something I'd forgotten, said Ansilon. I said it in the old language owls used to use when we took the shapes of men and became at times kings and kings' counselors, beggars and troubadours, ladies and saints, viziers and villanelles.
— Did you then? asked James.
He scratched his ear and shifted his weight from right to left.
They were under the pier down at the harbor, and small shafts of light sliced down through the rotting wood. James's pant legs were rolled up, and his feet were in shallow water.
Not I, said Ansilon. That was before my time. But my father did. He sired a family in ancient Rome and died with them. Owls can do that, you know.
— I don't understand, said James. If he was dead in antiquity, then how could you have been born in the Middle Ages?
Where, said Ansilon, does a boy like you get words like
— What was your father's family like? asked James.
A sailboat could be seen running by in the distance along the surface. Its sail was full with wind, and though it is true that there is nothing in nature that hurries, everything happening of its own accord and in its own time, in this case James felt the wind was hurrying the boat out to sea.
What will it find there? he wondered, and he dreamed of shipwrecks.
Not special, said Ansilon, but he loved them all the same. My mother would come to the window and try to call him away, but he would never come. He told his wife the truth of the matter, and she took to throwing stones at every owl she saw. Her children threw stones. Even my father, yes, he threw a stone or two.
— That's awful, said James. What happened then?
They put a bounty on owls in the neighborhood, and my mother was forced to leave forever. I wish you could have heard the song she sang when she came to his funeral, dressed as the shadow of a gypsy. The gypsy himself had gone away. Only the shadow was there, moving across the grass to the place where my father lay.
The supper was not as expected. No one was there. The table was set, the food had been put out, but only James and Grieve had come. Even Carlyle was absent. A sign had been put on the door.
COME IN, it said. BEGIN WITHOUT US. MY APOLOGIES.
They ate in silence. James's mind kept running back over the cipher book. Things did make more sense now. They had been right about that. But he didn't believe; he wasn't sure that what Stark intended was what ought to be. Had the time come for such a thing? He didn't know. Who could be responsible for so large a decision? he thought.
For he had figured out the cipher. It was simple, really, a substitution. The only difficulty was realizing what the substitution was. The key had been present at the beginning, in the unciphered epigraph.
Now, passages from the book floated here and there in James's head.
A major fact cannot be avoided any longer — man does not learn from small mistakes, but only from large ones. Man learns only by trial of disaster. History is not clear on this fact because history is the science of looking at events in only one kind of looking glass. The danger of this vagrant causality is that we are blind to other ways that things may have occurred.
James drank a sip of the wine. It was, of course, quite good, and cold. A sweet white, to go with the first course of smoked fish. He ate with his left hand only, a peculiarity that others had always commented on. But Grieve said nothing. Perhaps she had already noticed this, in the diner.
In the book, Stark explained his theory. Mankind had grown to be so skillful in controlling his own environment, in managing his affairs, that nature could no longer govern him as it properly had in the past. Disasters, object lessons on a grand scale, had once been nature's preferred method of lecture. But now they were mitigated, averted. Man had grown to swell the borders of states and lands. There was a chaos of meaning. It was difficult to say for sure what might be learned from this lesson or from that. And through it all, the primacy of certain nations, and their oppression of others.
What must be done is that an artificial catastrophe must be made to take place along with a specifically stated explanation. The method of this explanation must be biblical. Men are used to taking such instructions. Biblical too must be the disaster. The nation that must be humbled is the nation in which the most had once been possible, in which the greatest chance had been squandered. To Deafness, we must send a plague of Deafness, that the world learn the need to hear.
What did that mean? James had read and reread this section. He had gone to the library and checked to be sure he remembered it correctly, a thing he had never done before, for his recall was perfect, his confidence perfect.
To Deafness, we must send a plague of Deafness, that the world learn the need to hear.
What could it mean?
The door opened. McHale entered, along with Carlyle.
— She's back, McHale said.
Grieve sat up straight. Her expression changed.
— How can that be?
— She's upstairs. She's been up with him all day.
— But did she. .
— No, said McHale. She's alone.
— What's going on? asked James.
— Nothing, said Carlyle. I'm sorry to be just a terrible host. I've invited you for supper, and here it is, the day when you learn the truth, and then I come late, and you've already eaten the first course.
— You said, my friend, to begin without you, interrupted Grieve.
— And I meant it, said Carlyle.
An odd environment was being perpetrated, thought James.
— I meant it, he continued.
He looked at James.
— Stark will see you first thing tomorrow. He wants you to come by at seven A.M. There's much to be said, and little time.
— Certainly, there's little time, said McHale.
Grieve kicked James under the table. He looked up at her. Her face was concerned.
Don't worry, he thought. Worry is a thing for those with agency. We who have none of the one can have none of the other. But he did not believe it.
As soon as he returned to his room, he lay
down flat on the floor; flat on his back.
Grieve came in. She saw him lying there.
— I don't like this new James, she said. I didn't want to meet him ever, and now here he is in my bedroom.
— This isn't your bedroom, said James. It's mine.
— The whole place is mine, said Grieve.
— I broke the cipher, James said. I read your father's book.
Grieve looked at him carefully.
James got to his feet. He pulled off his suit coat and threw it over a chair. He took off his vest and his shirt. The window that had been open earlier, that he had closed, he reopened. The air was cold on his chest and arms. Grieve came up behind him, just as he had come up behind her earlier in the day. She put her arms around him.
— No one else has managed to read that particular book, she said. But we have all heard him talk of it. The ideas are in his speech, in his manner.
She breathed slowly in and out. He could feel the curve of her breasts against his back.
— What do you think? she said at last. Please don't judge. Not until he's spoken to you. It's different, I'm sure, when he talks to you.
— I know, said James, that the world is complicated. I know there are problems. I just. . I've never tried to think, How can they be solved? I feel instinctively that they can't be. I don't believe we are moving towards any eventual philosophical end. I don't think anything will be perfected. The world has always been chaotic. Suffering is a fact. I don't see a perfect future anywhere. I can't. People like your father, they act out of some enormous stock of hope. I was never given this. I feel only. .
He tried to think of how to say it.
— You live your life, you try to live compassionately, and that's the end of it. You do a little more than you should have to in order to be a good person, but you don't go making big changes in the world, trying to fix things. It presumes too much to do so. There's only this: if everyone acts quietly, compassionately, things will go a little better than they would have otherwise. But people will still suffer.
— Come to bed, said Grieve.
She took his hands.
James opened his eyes. It was completely dark in the room. That didn't make any sense. The blinds were drawn. Who had drawn the blinds? James turned on the light. A woman was sitting in a chair pulled close up to the bed, looking at him. In the darkness he couldn't see her at all, just a vague outline.
— What are you doing? he asked.
At the sound of his voice, there was a stirring beside him. He looked over. Grieve was still next to him in bed. He looked at the vague figure in the chair, then at the one in bed.
— Grieve, he said, and shook her awake, keeping his eyes on the woman in the chair.
Grieve sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes.
— What is it, James? she said.
And then she noticed the woman. Her voice changed, became harsh.
— You've come back. They told me, but I didn't believe it.
— Oh, believe it, said Grieve's sister.
— So, said Grieve. Has he told you?
— Yes, she said. He told me. I don't like it, but he told me, and he told me too not to try to leave, or that bull of his, Torquin, will sit on me for a week.
— You'd better not, began Grieve.
— Oh, don't worry, said her sister.
She took a cigarette out, lit it, and took a long drag.
— I never like to miss anything big.
She smiled at James.
— Where'd you find him? she asked. He's not so much to look at, is he?
— Leave him alone, said Grieve.
To James she said:
— She always starts that way, insulting boys to get them to like her. Don't pay any attention.
Grieve's sister stood up and moved away towards the door. James still couldn't see her face. She seemed thin, and about Grieve's height.
— I'll see you tomorrow, she said.
— Don't count on it, said Grieve.
The door closed. Grieve leaned across James and turned on the light.
— You can't imagine, she said, what my sister can be like.
— You never told me you had a sister, said James.
— I pretend that she doesn't exist.
day the sixth
— I don't understand, said James. Your father orders these men to kill themselves, and they do?
Grieve was sitting in the window seat. James was dressed. She was not.
She smiled weakly and took his hand with both of hers. Her hands were very thin but warm. He could feel her through her hands. She wanted him to be with her, and that meant being with the others.
— He's a hypnotist, she said. The men believe mostly in what they're doing. But men are weak. At the last moment they turn against themselves, no matter how brave. His work helps them to do what they themselves want to do.
— But no one can be hypnotized to kill himself. It's not possible.
— Do you really believe that? asked Grieve. Why? Did you read it in a book somewhere?
The pattern in the carpet was very complicated. Whorls and lines, leaves and vines.
— I'm sorry, she said. I'm just. . I woke badly. Do you know when that happens, when you wake up and your sleep has gained you nothing? You've lost the time in which you slept, but you aren't rested, you didn't dream. You return to yourself with none of the customary gifts.
James nodded. He kissed her on the neck.
— Well, sleep some more, he said. I've got to go meet your father. It's ten minutes to seven.
— You'd better go, she said. Come back to me when you're done.
Her face was completely expressionless, but he felt a thorough affection surrounding him. He was moved by it. He touched her face with his hand.
As he went away, he thought, If they are in a conspiracy, how is it that they spend so much time just sitting around this house, doing nothing? But if they are conspirators, and everything has been set in motion, then there would be nothing to do but wait. Where better to wait than a wealthy man's country house? It did make sense after all. And furthermore, if they were not conspirators, then how were they employed, all the members of the little group? Did they all just live off Stark's wealth working in sinecure positions in the hospital? It would be the perfect cover.
He shut the door, looking through it as it closed at Grieve's pretty face smiling after him.
It was the second time he had gone to her father's chambers. He knew the way very well, and was soon on the stairs, and then before the door.
No one was there. He had expected to see Torquin.
He knocked. No answer. He tried the knob. The door was locked.
What could this mean? he asked himself. He knocked again, louder. Then he noticed a piece of paper taped to the wall beside the door.
James wished that he had seen the note before knocking. But there was nothing to be done about it. He hurried back down the stairs.
Where to go? How to pass these two hours? He did not want to go back to his bedroom. Grieve would be sleeping, and he did not feel like sleeping, or like disturbing her. The poor girl had been confused enough by her sister's return.
He turned down a hall that he hadn't been down before. After a while he emerged into an atrium garden, similar to the one in which he had first seen Stark. Two patients were sitting quietly on a bench while an orderly looked on. They did not start at his arrival.
He continued past. There was an archway and beneath it a passage to the outdoors. He followed it and, going through a set of doors, found himself behind the main house and hospital at the foot of a wooded hill.
I'll go to the top of the hill, he thought, and sit there awhile. That'll clear my head. I have to be clear when I speak to Stark. I have to find out what I can.
He reached the top of the hill in very little time. The woods were mostly pine, and had about them the silence of pines, the flat bed of needles prohibiting undergrowth, and the thick boughs shielding the ground from the sun. He found a place beneath one massive tree, and lay down.
When James woke, an hour had passed. He got to his feet, brushed the needles from his back and legs, and proceeded on down the hill. The day was glorious, and from the hilltop he could see the many houses and enclosures stretching away towards the city.
He wended his way through branches and trees, and came at last to the bottom, and then to the door through which he had come.
How I hate, he thought, to return the same way I came.
He walked around the outside of the house. As he did, he passed window after window, and was afforded many glimpses through, as the light pouring in from behind him suffused the rooms and their inhabitants. A small half porch had begun, and the ground-floor rooms all had French windows. Most were closed, but a pair ahead were open. As he approached he could hear moaning sounds and a sort of thrashing and thumping. He walked quietly closer.
As he passed the open French window, the noise increased.
— Oh, oh, OOOOH.
He could not help but look.
To his horror, there was Grieve, his Grieve, his Lily Violet, naked, her arms and legs wrapped around a man whose face he could not see.
— Grieve! he shouted.
She jumped up. The man stood up, naked, and came towards him. He was quite large and muscular. I'll kill him, thought James. I don't care.
But the man only gave him a reproving look and shut the French windows. James could hear a lock click into place. The man went back over to the bed and climbed on top of Grieve. The moaning began again.
James leaped onto the porch and started banging on the window, but it had no effect. The window wasn't even glass, he realized. It was some sort of plastic. He couldn't even break it. He could see Grieve's head laid back on the bed, her mouth open, her hands on the man's shoulders. They were ignoring him!
Ah, it was too much! In a blind rage, he ran around the back of the house to the back entrance and through. He would find the door. He would find the door and then he would kick it down.
As he rounded the atrium, he heard a voice calling out to him.
— James, James.
He turned.
It was Carlyle.
— James, what's wrong?
James's face was red. He was breathing hard.
— Grieve, he said. I left her this morning asleep in my room, and now I just saw her in bed with some man. I tried to get into the room, but they locked the windows.
Carlyle was smiling.
— That wasn't Grieve, you know.
— What are you talking about? asked James.
— No, it wasn't, said Carlyle. She's crazy about you. She wouldn't sleep with anyone else. It was her sister. Her twin sister.
There was a sinking feeling in James's stomach. Her twin sister. He hadn't been able to see her face in the darkness, but she had seemed like Grieve the night before. Hadn't he spoken to her as if she were? Oh, he had made a fool out of himself.
— I've been a fool, he said to Carlyle.
Carlyle put his arm around James and walked him over to the bench. They both sat.
— Don't worry about it, said Carlyle. Your feelings do you credit. In fact, Grieve will think it is all quite funny, although I doubt Grieve's sister will share in that. What did the man look like?
James described the man.
— Oh, him, said Carlyle. Very bad. He's one of the orderlies. Lara knows she's not supposed to be doing
He had a quiet laugh that James liked very much. All in the air about the atrium there was a grand relief. It had not been Grieve; it had not been Grieve at all. But she had looked so much like Grieve. Exactly. It was a bit hard to believe. But he had met her, after all. He knew she existed.
— What time is it? asked James.
— Half past nine.
— Good lord, I'm late, I have to go. I've got to see Stark.
— I thought that was at seven.
Carlyle's face looked a little worried. Apparently it was not acceptable to miss one's appointments with Stark.
— No, it changed to nine. God damn it. I've got to go.
— I'll see you a bit later on, said Carlyle.
James rushed off down the hall.
— It's quite all right, Stark was saying. I was busy anyway. It's better that you came now.
— That's kind of you, said James, walking past him into the room.
He wondered if he should tell him about what had just happened. He decided it was better not to. What father wants to hear about a man having sex with his daughter?
Stark's office was quite lovely. The ceilings were high and plated with colored glass through which the sun shone. There was a ladder to a balcony with chairs and a table. The walls were lined with books. A gramophone stood in one corner.
Stark himself wore a long Chinese dressing gown embroidered with flowers that resembled dragons. It was a purplish blue and gleamed pleasingly in the light.
— I wanted you to come here because I think you have had a great misunderstanding. Also, certain people, I won't mention their names, think that it's funny to confuse you and lead you astray. They've actually been making a concerted effort to do so since you arrived.
He turned and looked off across the room.
— What can I say? They're my children. They cause me joy; they cause me some grief. There have been times when I have told them what to do. But now they're grown, and must be permitted, must be given their head. Isn't that what people say about horses? That sometimes they must be given their head?
James said he did not often ride horses.
— You came here, said Stark, confused in the first place by what Tommy, by what my son Tommy, had told you. He in turn had been confused and led astray by a man who used to be in treatment here, a man you know, or at least have heard of: Estrainger. Estrainger told Tommy that he was involved in a conspiracy against the government. The two spent a lot of time together. We don't know exactly what Estrainger told him, but we think he explained much of the scheme that he was a part of, without naming the other key players. Then, of course, Estrainger's treatment ended, and he went back to live in the city. Tommy's mind, not knowing who the other people in the conspiracy were, took to thinking that those of us in this house were a part of it. Imagine? It's insane.
His large face took on a look of profound sadness.
— Yes, Tommy had gone somewhat insane near the end. We had to keep him here and make sure he did not hurt himself. Our restraining of him only seemed like further proof that his theories were correct. He was sure that our family was the conspiracy Estrainger had spoken of. Even bringing Estrainger back, which we did, and having him tell Tommy that it wasn't true, that was no good.
He took a deep breath.
— Of course, at that time we didn't know that Estrainger was actually involved in a serious conspiracy. If only we had known then, we might have been able to stop whatever is happening in Washington.
He sat down in a leather chair by a massive window that overlooked the front lawn. He motioned for James to sit as well.
James sat.
— As time passed, his mania grew. He finally broke out, injuring an orderly, jumping the wall, and making off. We could do nothing but send out private investigators and such to search for him. I myself drove the streets in a car day and night looking for him. Oh, Tommy. Why did it happen?
Stark's hands covered his face a moment. James could see that his grief was a fresh thing, newly made, and not yet mediated by time or distance.
— It is a terrible thing, Stark said, to lose a son. A terrible, terrible thing. Words have little meaning in the midst of tragedy. I say terrible, but what does it mean? It means nothing, sheds no light on the expanse of Tommy's life, of all the things he did, the people he loved, the mornings when he would come into the room, into our bed, the bed where I and my wife slept. She has been dead five years now; Tommy has gone to her.
James felt a little embarrassed. He tried to think of something to say.
— I'm sorry, he said. I'm sorry about Tommy.
Stark's posture changed. He sat up.
— The killers were found, you know. Yesterday. That's why I couldn't see you. Two men. Apparently they robbed him, and when he resisted, they stabbed him to death.
His voice was full of anger.
— The men had been to prison before. Both had been released in the last month. What a terrible system it is. It makes men less able to live in the world. It changes nothing for the better. Ah, me.
He came to in a way and realized James was sitting there.
— But the main thing is, some people, McHale, Torquin, the others, their grief was allayed a bit by having you here and playing on your misunderstanding of the situation. Of course, I had you brought here so that we could learn of McHale's final hour. But when it was learned how Tommy's silly conspiracy ideas had gone into your head, well, they decided to confuse you still more. Also, my young friend, I have to tell you another thing, and you won't like it. Grieve was in on the whole thing as well. I'm sorry to tell you, but you would do well not to trust her too much. She is younger than the others, and spent much of her early life alone. Her imagination has a force that. . well, she often forgets that people can be hurt.
— She spent her early life alone? asked James. But her twin sister, didn't they play together?
— Her twin sister?
Stark's face looked confused.
— What do you mean? he asked. She has no twin sister. Her sister is six years her senior, and is far from being her twin.
James sat back in his chair. He felt like he couldn't draw breath. He'd been fooled twice. It had been Grieve. Good lord, she had been in bed with that man. He felt his heart beating fast, and a panic raced through him. What was he to do? And Carlyle. . Carlyle had deceived him. Carlyle must have been laughing at him all along.
— I have to go, he said.
— But we have more to talk about, said Stark. I wanted to offer you work here with us. You mustn't forget the trouble you're in, after all, that business with Mayne. Unfortunately, even if you didn't throw him out the window — which, by the way, can't be proved, as both Mayne's wife and his son say that you did — you would at least get manslaughter. After all, you were in the room holding a gun.
It was too much for James. His arms felt stiff against the leather. He was stuck here. What was he to do?
— I have to go, he said. I'm sorry. There's something. . there's something I need to see about. Can we talk at a different time? Tomorrow? Or later?
There was an odd glint in Stark's eye.
— Later, then. Later is better than tomorrow. Return at four.
— Thank you, said James. Thank you for telling me all this, and for shielding me from the police. You're very kind.
Stark nodded. He leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes, and drew his dressing gown tight about himself.
Grieve, thought James in anger. I have to find Grieve.
He walked slowly to the door of Stark's suite and went through it. Torquin was on the other side. He said nothing to the man, but walked quietly to the stair. As he began down the stair, however, his pace grew faster, and he was soon running. He reached the bottom and ran towards his room. Somehow he thought he would find her there. If she was as duplicitous as it seemed, she would be there. Yes, he thought. She had known he was going to be stuck with her father for an hour or so, and as soon as he had left, she had gone to meet that other man. Pure chance had delayed his meeting with Stark and made it possible for him to know her real nature.
He burst through the door into his room. Grieve was lying on the bed. She looked up at him.
— How could you? he said. How could you have done it?
— What are you talking about?
Her face wore an expression of complete surprise.
— I saw you downstairs. I'd have gone for you both if the window wasn't locked.
— What? You just left. I've been here, sleeping.
— You goddamned. . you. . aaaagh,
James yelled and yelled at the top of his voice. He picked up the coffee table and threw it. It smashed into the wall and one of the legs broke off.
Then the room was quiet. Grieve was hyperventilating, curled against the wall.
— I should never have trusted you, he said. But I did, and you go off with somebody else.
At this Grieve began to shake violently and cry.
— You're crazy. I hate you.
— I saw you, he shouted. I was behind the house. I saw you.
Grieve rubbed her eyes. She stopped crying.
— You fool, she said coldly. That was my sister. My identical twin.
— Carlyle said that already. And I believed it.
James shook his head.
— What? Then why did you come here like this?
She started to cry again.
— Because of your father. Yeah, your father. I talked to him. He told me it was all a lie. You don't have a twin sister. Your little game is over, by the way. He told me the truth about the whole scheme, you goddamned rat. I can't believe I ever liked you at all.
He got up and went to the door.
— I never should have, he said again.
— James, she said, and her words came in gasps: He's lying. I don't know why. He's lying. You. . you've got to believe me.
James slammed the door and went off down the hall.
That was when he saw Grieve, dusting a table. He came up beside her and pretended to be looking at a painting on the wall.
— They've been tricking me, he whispered. You were right. They can't be trusted.
— We shouldn't talk here, she said. Too many people are around.
— All right, he whispered. If I need to tell you something, how do I contact you?
— You remember the maids' room? she asked. Where you came that time? In front of the door, there's a part where the carpet peels up. Put a note there for me.
She hurried away.
James stood now, actually looking at the painting. It was a portrait of a man holding a fowling piece, standing in the foreground of what looked like an Italian landscape. His face was very shrewd.
You've been in on it, too, haven't you? thought James. You should have warned me.
Just then a man came up.
— Excuse me, he whispered.
James looked at him. He recognized the servant as a man he did not like. The man had brought drinks when James had been playing rovnin, and had laughed when James made a bad move. Both of them had laughed, the man James was playing against and the servant.
He must be in on it, too, thought James.
— What do you want? he asked suspiciously.
— I just think you should know, said the man, be careful whom you talk to. That maid, Grieve, she's not to be trusted. She's not on your side. I've seen her talking to Stark and the others. They planted her so they could know what you're up to.
James couldn't believe his ears. How transparent. It was just like them to try to make him distrust the one person who had been true to him.
— I won't listen to this, said James. Your little trick hasn't worked.
Go tell your master, whoever he is, whoever she is, that I'm on to you.
He stormed off down the hall.
James walked in his anger out onto the lawn. He stood in the bright sun and felt how miserable he was. It was no good trusting anyone, he thought. What a fool they must think him. And he had been a fool.
He sat down in the grass and drew breath.
All this time he had been so sure something was going on. They'd just been fooling him. He would have to come up with a new plan for himself. It was no good being here. He would have to leave the country. Could he go to his firm for help? He wondered how far they would extend themselves for him. After all, they had a lot to lose by helping an accused criminal. The business ran on its reputation alone. No, they would not help him. He felt sure of it.
I could try to leave by myself, he thought. But who would drive the car? He wished that Grieve had not cheated on him. She had been so wonderful. He remembered what she had said about leaving the country together. How fine that would have been. He pulled the grass up with his fingers. The autumn had already yellowed it. The grass was all dying, all withering.
He stood up again. He would stay here as long as he had to. But he would have nothing to do with Grieve.
He went back into the house. Down the hall, he saw her. She must have come looking for him. She turned. She saw him too. He ducked down another hall. The last thing he wanted was to speak with her now.
Down this hall was the room where they played rovnin. He could hear voices. He opened the door and went in.
The young James undertook then a description of his own circumstances.
I am young, he wrote.
My youth is still before me. I live in a fine house among genial, indeed kindly, outspoken hills and dales. My mother is perished. My father as well. Did I have a brother? I did, but he was drowned by a felon. Who keeps me? An old couple, claiming to be my grandparents. I do not understand what this means, and so I cannot examine for myself the truth of their claims. Instead I go silent at supper or stare mornings through glassed windows and thinly paneled doors.
On bright days I go to play in the fields. If it is early and the sun is convincing, I go to the woods, where a darker watch is kept and mosses conspire with badgers' wakes and the tresses of muskrats. Believe me, I tell them, and they do. How many times I have been admitted to their companionship only to wake at the wood's edge with dusk laying a street over the hills, a street like a Roman road, stone for centuries, and myself beneath the hills, spurred by the touch of strange cloth.
And Cecily, and sometimes Cecily. Sometime-Cecily, sometimes she comes in and out the trees from that far house. We never arrange to meet, and never speak as though we've seen each other ever before. She holds my hands and I hold hers and we climb the climbingest trees and lie out upon thick branches. She says small things in small ways and talks mostly of the season and the coming night. She draws with her thin hands on the surface of water, and I swear to her — she makes me swear — that I can see the things she draws, though she never asks me what, and I would never say.
McHale and Graham were playing. James came over. They nodded to him. He sat. It was soon clear that they were both very skillful. The first man had not been lying about James having a miserable standing in the house. The whole thing was very surprising. He hadn't even met anyone in years who knew what the game was, and now he was in the midst of a slew of experts. Had they all been playing together for years? He supposed that it was so, and lost himself in the game, watching as move by move they interlaced their objectives, their assaults, defenses. Clearly McHale was the better of the two, but Graham was allowing nothing. There was a knock at the door, three knocks.
— Come in, said Graham.
The door opened. Grieve was standing there. Her face was covered in tears.
— James, she said. Come talk with me.
James turned his back on her.
— James, she said.
Graham and McHale had turned to stare at them.
— Come with me. Come talk with me.
— I won't, said James. Leave me alone.
Grieve burst out crying again and ran out of the room.
Graham and McHale exchanged glances. McHale got up.
— We can finish later, he said.
He gave James a disapproving look, and hurried off after Grieve.
Graham and James were left then together in the room.
— What was that? asked Graham.
James rubbed his forehead.
— I caught her cheating on me this morning, in bed with some man, someone from the hospital.
Graham's face had a puzzled look.
— I saw Carlyle earlier, he said carefully. He told me about this. He said he'd told you it wasn't Grieve; it was her sister.
He too seemed disapproving.
— You have to be gentle with Grieve, he said. She's very attached to you. You can't go doing this to her.
— It wasn't her sister, said James. Her sister is six years older and looks nothing like her; that's what Stark said.
Graham narrowed his eyes.
— Stark said that to you?
— Yes, said James. He also told me you've all been trying to trick me into thinking you're part of the conspiracy Estrainger was part of.
Graham drummed his fingers on the table and thought for a moment.
— James, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but. .
At that moment, a maid poked her head through the open door.
— Sir, she said to Graham. There's a man at the door, says he's a detective.
— Oh, dear, said Graham. This again.
He got up and left without a word.
An Addition to the Record
They permit me, these wards of mine, to go out where I will. They do not require school of me. They give me things, a butcher knife, a javelin, the poems of Keats in leather miniature. I say these to myself, my feet in water off the old dock. Grandfather says it was once an ocean, that all the plains and this were once beneath water. I look upward then through the water to the sky beyond. The only safety, I suppose, is to build one's house upon a mountaintop.
Do people who live on mountaintops live forever? Or only nearly so?
James returned to his room. Grieve had gone. Some of her things were still there, however, a dress laid over the back of a chair, a handbag, a notebook.
He picked up the notebook and opened it.
It had just been begun the day before. There was only one entry.
James put the notebook down. There was more, but he didn't read on. He felt awful. Could it have been true? Graham seemed like he had been about to tell James that Stark was lying to him. But then he had gone.
James saw that a note had been slipped underneath the door. He must have walked over it when he came in.
He went over and picked up the note.
Stark had been lying! The police were downstairs. James could go there now. He could alert them. Even if he were dragged away too, there would at least be a chance that the plot could be stopped.
He ran out of his room and down the stairs. As he drew closer to the front entrance, he could hear through the foyer door the sound of voices.
He peeked through.
Stark was standing talking to a man in a suit. There was a bulge under the man's left armpit — that must be the detective, thought James.
— Yes, Stark was saying, Estrainger
The detective said something that James didn't hear.
James pressed back against the wall. The man was so close. All James had to do was jump out and speak. Then he thought of Grieve. If Stark had been lying about Estrainger, he must have been lying about Grieve and her sister. They were twins. Why would he lie about that?
James thought of Grieve's face, of how wronged she looked. At the time it had filled him with hate, but now he was overcome by remorse. He thought of her crying, of her standing outside the rovnin room, calling to him. And him with his back turned. . It was more than bore thinking of.
He went back into the hall. He realized he could not give up Grieve's father, Grieve's family. By doing so, he would be betraying her. And he had hurt her so much already.
I have to find her and apologize, he thought.
An Item in the News
On the table in the hall, he saw the newspaper. He picked it up and glanced over the front page.
There had been another suicide. This time it had been a man dressed as a police officer, who had managed to penetrate the security surrounding the White House. The uniform had been traced to a District of Columbia station nearby, where it had been stolen from a storeroom.
Impersonating a police officer, the article noted, was a serious crime in its own right. This man, Spiers Jones, had been a prominent writer on civil liberties, as well as a noted lawyer in the Dallas area. His involvement in the conspiracy had sent waves through the liberal community.
The note he was bearing was the shortest yet. It was only one word long, and that word was
James shook his head. He loved Grieve; he knew now that he did. But she was only one woman. How many people would die if James did nothing?
He turned back down the hall, and as he did, Stark and Graham came back in. The sound of a car engine could be heard in the background, then the noise of tires on gravel. The detective was gone.
Stark and Graham walked past James as if he were not there.
— Hey, he said. Graham! Graham!
But Graham did not turn. They continued down the hall.
It's completely unfair, thought James. It was Stark's fault that he had been confused about Grieve and her sister.
There was only one thing to do. First he would find Grieve and apologize. Then he would send a letter. He would send the maid, Grieve, with a letter to the police, explaining everything. She was allowed to leave the house, to leave the grounds.
James paused in his search, midway along a hallway on the third floor. He had no idea where Grieve's room might be. He had asked the maids and servants he had come across, as well as a nurse and two orderlies, whether they had seen Grieve. None had.
He saw McHale at the far end of the hall, standing by a window, smoking a cigarette. He approached him.
— Thomas, he said. Do you know where Grieve is?
McHale turned to look at him. His face became scornful.
— We should never have helped you out in the first place.
— I just want to know where she is.
— She doesn't want to see you. Can't you understand that?
McHale threw his half-smoked cigarette out the open window and walked off.
James stood by the window, the smell of smoke still clinging to the air.
It came to him: she would be where she had first waited for him.
James paused in the hall. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, wrote on it:
He folded the note and tucked it under the carpet at the entrance to the maids' room. Then he went back, past the door of the man who had drawn him the elephant, through the next door and into the thin corridor. I wonder, he thought, if that man ever found the drawing. I never went back for it.
He came to the end of the corridor, turned, and went to the ladder. He listened carefully, to see if he could hear any sound of breathing. He could not.
Up the ladder he went, slowly. He could feel the roundness of the rungs, the closeness of this odd room. Grieve must be here. She must be. If she is Grieve, then she is here.
At the top, there was only darkness. Someone had pulled a shade across the window. In the dark, he
— Grieve? he said.
He crossed the tiny room slowly and pulled the shade. Light fell through and he could see Grieve looking at him, Grieve pressed against the wall.
— I'm sorry, he said.
Her eyes were red from crying.
He moved towards her. She sat up, and he put his arms around her. He could feel her shaking.
Then a voice came from the ladder's top.
— Lara, what are you doing? Lara, don't you dare!
James turned, still holding Grieve tight. At the ladder's top, he saw Grieve looking at him, Grieve wearing the dress she had worn the day before.
He let go of the Grieve who was in his arms.
— No, James, she shrieked. She's lying. She's lying.
She began to cry again.
He looked at the Grieve on the ladder, and then at the Grieve at his side. How could he know which was the right one?
— James, said the one on the ladder, I'm sorry about what happened before. I should have told you more; I should have explained everything.
James fought to think. How could he know? He addressed the Grieve on the ladder.
— At the diner, how many pieces did you cut your ham sandwich into?
That Grieve answered immediately:
— Twelve pieces.
— That's not fair at all, said the first Grieve. Of course she knows how many pieces I cut my sandwiches into. She's my sister. We grew up together. Ask something that she couldn't possibly know, that only I would know.
— Don't listen to her, said the Grieve on the ladder. I answered the question. Ask her one. You know she's lying. She's the one you saw this morning in bed with the orderly.
James held up his hand.
— Quiet for a moment, both of you.
The Grieve he had been holding began to cry again.
— Don't cry, he said, just wait.
To the Grieve on the ladder, then:
— When you stole my wallet, which pocket of my pants was it in?
Grieve climbed the rest of the way up the ladder.
— Listen, she said, this is stupid. I love you. No more of these questions. I answered one already. She hasn't.
— Answer, said James.
The first Grieve's sniffling could be heard behind him.
— Answer, he said again.
Grieve on the ladder unbuttoned the front of her dress and opened it. She was naked beneath, and all was as he remembered it.
— Don't you recognize me? she said. Don't you remember me?
The other Grieve let out a wail.
— I hate you! I hate you.
— Answer my question, said James, backing away.
— The back pocket, she said. The right back pocket.
Aha!
— But it wasn't in the right back pocket, said James.
— I meant, right when I'm facing you, she said. Not the other way.
— It wasn't in my pants at all, he said, drawing the crying Grieve to him and putting his arms around her.
— It was in his coat, you bitch, said Grieve.
— God damn it to hell, said Lara, buttoning up her dress. Well, it was worth a try.
— I hate you, said Grieve. You always try to ruin everything.
She buried her face in James's shoulder.
Lara climbed back down the ladder. Her footsteps could be heard away in the corridor.
— Grieve, said James. I'm sorry about what I said. Your father confused me.
— Don't worry, she said. I forgave you while you were saying it.
James climbed underneath the root of the tree. It soon became dark. He pushed between other roots with his little arms and found his way into a sort of DEN. There was a little firepit with coals and a Dutch oven. The smell of fresh-baked bread rose in the thick dimness. But the light was kind and steady from the coals, and his eyes grew steadily clear and accustomed. He soon made out seven tiny shapes, animals seated and washing their paws in flat, high-rimmed water bowls.
— Come sit with us, they said.
And James did.
They took off his dandy little coat and gave him too a bowl of water.
— Wash, wash, said one.
— Wash, wash, said all.
James washed his hands.
Grieve said something quietly. James did not hear what she said. He asked her to repeat it.
— I'm horrified, she said, a little louder, by this drawing. It really looks like you.
James looked at the sheet in her hand. The elephants again.
— It does, he said. I want to bury it with the mask. You know, I hate that mask. You should never, if you're ever trying to catch a guy's eye, give him a convincingly made rubber mask of his own face. It's really not the right thing to do.
Grieve laughed, still sobbing a little.
— I know, she said, but I couldn't help it.
— And why, he asked, the threatening note that came with it?
She slid down and curled her head and shoulders in his lap.
— Because, she said, I was trying to be a part of what the others were doing. I knew they had sent someone else to do the job and talk to you and fetch you back, but I wanted to do it, so I went ahead anyway. That note was a bit silly, though. After all, we didn't want to scare you away; we wanted to bring you here!
James ran his hands through her hair.
— Your sister is a bit crazy, he said.
— Yes, said Grieve. Do you know how you can always tell which one is me?
— How? asked James.
— Because of this, she said.
She lifted her left ear.
— Look here.
He looked behind her left ear. There was a little tattoo there, a flower. But it was an odd-looking flower.
— I drew a lily and on top of it a violet, and blended the two, and then had it tattooed here. That's how you'll know it's me.
— I think, said James, she moves a little differently from you also. She moves like a weasel.
— Yes, said Grieve. Lara is a weasel. I've always hated her. The only happy week I had as a child was when she fell from the roof and went into a coma. She came out of it, though. Everyone was so happy.
— Is that true? asked James.
— No, said Grieve. But they would have been happy. Everyone thinks she's so clever. And I would be happy if she went away and never came back.
Another hour had passed. James was sitting in his room, holding the pistol in his hand. It was loaded still. A note had been wrapped around it, presumably by Graham or McHale. When the note had been put there, he could not say, as he hadn't looked at the gun in days.
The note said:
James threw the note in a basket on the ground. The door opened suddenly, and Grieve came in. She was still wearing her maid's uniform.
— I'm a bit early, she said. What's urgent?
— This, said James.
He handed her an envelope.
— I want you to take this to the police.
He had come up with a plan and he intended to stick to it. Using the gun, he would escape with Grieve from the house and grounds. He was sure she would go with him. Her father and these others were so demented. She couldn't possibly stay. In the meantime, he would have sent the maid Grieve with a letter to the police, explaining everything. The police would come to the house, apprehend Stark and the others, and take them away. If Stark was out in the open and could not reach his shelter, he would act to stop the disaster, as he would certainly not want himself to be caught in it. Of course, he might have underestimated Stark's dedication, in which case, he and Grieve would be out in the world on the seventh day.
The maid took the envelope out of his hand.
— You want me to go right now? she asked.
— Right now, he said. It's important. And when you do, don't come back here. I don't know exactly how much you know about what's going on, but it's very bad. Things are going to get bad around here. You're better off gone.
Grieve looked at the pistol.
— Are you going to use that? she asked.
Her voice sounded concerned.
— Only if I have to, he said. They killed McHale, I think. They wouldn't flinch from killing me.
Grieve went to the door and paused, looking back at him.
— Then it's good-bye.
There was a tear in her eye.
— Good-bye, he said, but did not get up.
She came back across the room.
— I'm sorry, she said. I'm sorry, but. .
She leaned down over the chair where he sat and, before he knew what was happening, had kissed him on the lips.
— Grieve! he said.
— I'm sorry, she said. Good-bye.
Her face was bright as she stepped out the door.
Now, thought James, Lily Violet will come back here to meet me and the two of us will bust out. He looked the gun carefully over and wished he could test it to make sure it worked. He clicked the safety off. He clicked the safety back on.
He waited ten minutes. He waited twenty minutes. And still she did not come.
There was a knock on the door. He slipped the gun into his waistband and went over.
They can't have seen me through the observation post, he thought. I've blocked that. But maybe there are other windows, other false doors. There was a mirror on the wall. He went over and took it down. But there was nothing behind it, no camera, no window from another room.
He went back to the door and slid it open a crack. No one was in the hall. He took the note from off the shelf.
A panic ran through him. He pulled his coat on, hiding the gun, and went out the door. If he had to, he could force them to let her go.
He got onto the stairs. He could hear a conversation at the foot; it sounded like McHale and Carlyle talking, but when he reached the bottom, they were gone. He heard the sound of a girl's crying in the front room by the entrance, the room in which he had first met the second McHale.
As he reached the door, the crying intensified. He went through and saw Torquin standing over Grieve, not James's Grieve, but Grieve the maid, who was lying on the ground, sobbing.
— Torquin, he said. What's the idea?
Torquin turned to look at him.
— No, James, Grieve cried. Get away!
Her face was bruised all over, black and blue and yellow. Her dress had been ripped nearly in half.
The door slammed shut. Another man had been hidden behind it, one of Torquin's accomplices from the first day. Torquin came towards him.
— Don't try to get smart, he said.
James pulled out the pistol and leveled it at Torquin. He unlevered the safety.
— Don't, he said.
Torquin kept coming.
James gulped. The room drew in on him. Torquin swung a fist. James ducked. He stuck the gun in Torquin's face and pulled the trigger.
The gun did not go off.
Torquin was on top of him.
Furious, James tried to throw him off. They'd fixed the pistol. Of course, they'd fixed the pistol. He was such a fool.
He fell over with Torquin on top of him, but his elbow caught the bigger man in the face. Torquin rolled away, clutching his nose. James jumped up and ran for the door. The other man stood in front of it. Wielding the pistol like a tomahawk, James swung at the man's head. The man threw up his hand, but was too slow. The heavy pistol butt caught him above the eye, and he dropped to the ground like a sack of flour. James turned. Torquin was rising.
James opened the door and ran out. There was nothing to do now but find Grieve and escape.
It was a long, far distance down the well, a long distance down the slope beside it. Who would build a well at the top of a steep and narrow hill? thought James. He seated himself with his small back square against the well's wall, took out a small wooden figure, and began to carve. And off before him the whole of that country.
Yes, once I touched her face, my Cecily's. We had gone into a sett, for we had observed the badger on his way elsewhere, wherever badgers go in early hours. Down into the sett on hand and knee, along a warm tunnel, and then in the dim fastness she was beside me, and we lay close together, still, our faces touching. We lay so long I do not think the rest has any bearing, all this life since. I mean to say, I am still lying there, and feel about me as much the brown-kept walls of the sett as I do this light of afternoon.
Down one hall, then another. Grieve had told him where her room was, on the landing below her father's suite. He took the stairs two at a time. He reached her door, no. 3. It was unlocked. He went in,
and instantly was struck by how much it reminded him of her. Some people have rooms that are consumed by utility, others by elegance or decoration. Hers reflected clearly some essential part of her character. It was a fine room, thought James, looking at the bed, which was built into the wall like children's beds in old Scandinavian drawings. Scenes of animals, trees and plants, flowers and stars, had been carved by hand into the walls, and stood there in relief.
On racks her clothes hung. And on the table, a rovnin set.
Then he remembered why he had come.
He looked around the room for signs that she had been there recently. The basin before the mirror bore traces of water. And in the basket by the door there was a note.
Damn it, thought James. The nasturtium room? He went out the door warily. But no one was outside. Plainly, he had lost Torquin in the halls.
A nurse was coming up the stairs. James pulled the bell out of his pocket and rang it. She froze. They counted slowly to fifteen.
— Where is the nasturtium room? asked James.
— Second staircase, third landing, fifth room from the end.
James thanked her.
When as a boy, he went often to the trees
where he could not be found
he thought of his owl, who had one day ceased to join him, ceased to go about on his shoulder. This is the trouble, he had realized, the trouble with an invisible owl. When he does not care to come, he cannot be found. So then there were two of them that could not be found, he and the owl, and though they were not beside each other in truth, they were beside each other in this.
The saddest thing, of course, and he cut it with a knife into the bough of the tree in which he sat:
Ansilon was pledged to be his only friend. Now he might never have another, and he had lost the first.
And he thought too that Ansilon most probably had not gone away on purpose, but had become lost in a storm or a fire. He pictured the little owl's tiny form on the forest floor. Would it have, he wondered, become visible at last in death?
He went through the house, looking around each corner before attempting passage. Soon he was up the stairs and before the door of the nasturtium room. His hands were trembling. He listened at the door, and this is what he heard.
—. . and so there's nothing else to be done?
— Nothing except to wait and go into the bunker. We have all been waiting some time, I know. But we must only wait one more day.
The first voice had sounded like Carlyle's. The second was Stark's.
Stark spoke again.
— You all must remember that what we do is a gift. It is a difficult gift, but a necessary one. Henceforth such gifts must be occasionally be made, or history will not flow as it should. No longer do we allow rivers to go where they like. We dam them, we lay them into canals, we run them through pipes, and take of them in our living rooms. Why then should history, should the course of events be left loose like an untended line?
There was quiet in the room. A long pause. Stark began to speak again, but his voice had changed slightly, as voices do when reading from a book.
— All our learned teachers and educators are agreed that children do not know why they want what they want; but no one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod. And yet it seems palpably clear to me.
Another pause then.
— Men govern each other not through regimes, not through dynasties. These are the housekeepers of history. They tidy up eras, and maintain ideas that have been made for them by other, better men. Who are those who truly govern history? The makers of the great religions, the greatest of the scientists, the greatest of the theorists. It is by thought alone that history is altered. By thought, and by its commensurate physical example.
James tried to understand what it was Stark meant. He seemed to want what he was saying to be understood by his children. It mattered to him that the world continue. Whatever he does, thought James, is at least done with good intention.
At that moment, James was struck from behind with a blackjack. He dropped useless to the ground. As his vision swam, he saw two figures standing over him: Torquin and the maid, Grieve. She was holding the blackjack and her face was clear and pale, not bruised at all.
James came to in Stark's chamber. He recognized first the painted glass above. Then he smelled a smell he knew: Grieve's skin. She was beside him. She smiled down, and as he looked up at her, she touched her ear with her hand and winked. He nodded.
— Has he woken? asked a voice.
It sounded very far away.
He could hear Grieve reply. She sounded far away, too, but he could feel her hand on his arm.
— Yes, I think so.
The voices came closer together, in a pair, winding and intertwining. He thought of colors in a string, and how light wasn't really what they said, wasn't really a ray, but more a substance, like water, that could be gathered and kept.
— James, James.
Grieve was shaking him.
He opened his eyes again.
— Hello, he said.
— I'm sorry, said a woman's voice. I hit him a bit harder than I should have.
— Next time, said a man, you leave that to me.
— Yes, said Stark. Leave all knocking down of people to Torquin. He is our expert.
— Some expert, said the woman, who he realized was Grieve.
They had really tricked him, he thought, making her up like she'd been knocked around.
— Hey, you, hey.
It was his Grieve now.
— Wake up.
He could feel her lift him up. He drew a breath and opened his eyes again. He looked across the room. Stark was there, and Grieve, the maid, and Torquin.
She mustn't have been a maid at all.
But why would they send me the note about Estrainger? That didn't make any sense. And then he remembered: that note had not been in the pillowcase like the others. It had been under the door. Someone else must have given it to him. Then he remembered the servant who had told him not to trust Grieve. Oh, he should have listened to him. What had he said? Something mean. All along he'd conducted himself in the worst possible way, never thinking about the consequences of things, or who was behind what.
He leaned back against Grieve. Stark had come over and stood now in front of him. He was a large man, especially in that overcoat.
— Why are you going to do it? he asked Stark.
It was a useless question. He knew the answer.
— Come now, said Stark. You've read that book, the one you took down from the ceiling. There's no need for further speech.
He was right. James nodded.
— We've been holding back on you. It hasn't been fair, but we were testing you in some ways, and passing the time in others. You must wonder, why have you been brought here? Why didn't we just dispose of you? If I could order my own son killed, then why would I hesitate with you? It's an interesting question, and one that you must have considered.
Stark picked up a cane that was leaning against a table. He twirled it in his hand. With his long black coat and high collar he looked vaguely like a priest.
— The truth is, there is one major reason you are here, and it is not, as you may have suspected, because my daughter is in love with you, although plainly she is. That was not part of the plan. In fact, she was not to have anything to do with you. Yet Grieve does as she likes. History will observe that my greatest failing was in my tolerance of my own children.
Grieve laughed. He could feel her laughter all through her body, as he leaned against her.
— The reason you were brought here, and entertained, kept here so long, is simple: we were on the brink of making history, and I wanted this period in the life of our house to be recorded. But how to record all the moments of this life, all this time, how to record it in a manner that lends it easily to retrieval? You might say put it down in writing, or film it, photograph it, put it on a disk from a computer. But after that which we intend, it is not clear that any of these methods will be easily brought out of this country into the one to which we go. Any such account could easily be found out. No, no, I decided, having thought long on the matter, that a mnemonist would be the perfect device. You were watched; you were observed. We knew you went on Sundays for your walks to the park. Your seizure had been intended, so that you might accompany us in our last week. Then when Tommy escaped, and Torquin caught him right in that neighborhood, when Tommy became violent in escaping again, and his unfortunate death occurred, the masterstroke occurred to me. We would place you in the midst of it immediately, by dropping Tommy's body close by you in the park.
James felt Grieve's hands, cold for once against his own. He had felt before in his work that others considered him a kind of machine. But events had moved so fast. He had never supposed that it was because of what he could do that they had brought him to Stark's house.
Stark had turned away and was leaning on his stick, thinking of his next words. He was obviously picking them carefully, imagining that James would remember them all.
Grieve whispered in James's ear:
— I love you.
— Don't lie, said James quietly.
Grieve pinched him.
— Does your head hurt?
It was a long, dull pain that came and went.
Grieve kissed him on the back of the head.
Stark twirled his stick, came over, and knelt again by James and Grieve. Torquin and the maid were still by the door.
— I want to explain to you, said Stark, exactly what's to happen.
You must be curious. It has already long ago been set in motion. There's nothing anyone can do to stop it now, so you can give up for good any ideas of heroism. Besides, you should see as I do, as we do, the rightness of our actions.
He smiled. It was a bold smile, full of confidence and majesty.
— The rod. You heard through the door, didn't you? Biscuits, the rod? Yes, we are going to set the rod upon the populace of this nation such as has never been done. Fifteen years ago, I came upon a method, a scientific method for accomplishing a particular design. That design I will reveal in a moment. At the time it seemed too drastic to me, and the consequences certainly unknowable and dire. But as time passed and my ideas progressed, I came to see that what had to happen, what I would cause to happen, would be of benefit, if not to this nation, then to all others.
— I don't understand what you're saying, said James.
— But you will remember it? said Stark, a question in his voice.
— Of course, said James. Of course I will remember it.
— There is a sort of gas, said Stark, that when released in the upper atmosphere creates clouds that will extend outward to cover an assigned distance of geography. These clouds emit a tone, as certain chemical processes occur amidst their gases. The tone is not one that human beings can hear. It is so high-pitched, in fact, that dogs and others who hear high pitches cannot hear it either. It addresses, in fact, a different sonic range entirely. What I discovered was that in this sonic range there was a particular range that complements and mimics the range of our hearing. By creating a cloud that would sing, that would emit the note I wanted, it seemed I could broadcast the tone across whatever landscape the cloud hung then above. The note is so high-pitched that it is not stopped by conventional walls, or even by ordinary soundproofing.
— But what does the sound do? asked James. What's the point of it?
— The point, said Stark, and James could feel Grieve stiff against his back, is that the sound destroys the ability of any human being to hear. Anyone caught beneath this cloud will be made permanently deaf.
Stark rose to his feet. His face took on a faraway countenance.
— Those who have been deaf to suffering will now be deaf in truth.
— But what about airplanes? asked James. What about airports? What about in the cities? People driving cars? No one will understand what's happening. Millions of people will die.
— Millions will die, said Stark. Within a hundred years they would all be dead anyway. And no one has ever proved that a long life is better than a short one. In fact, the evidence is much to the contrary.
— If that's true, said James, then why don't you kill yourself now? Why didn't you go to the White House? Instead you sent others with your warnings, your little notes.
— I would have, said Stark, but for the fact that there were many who wanted to do this thing for me. It was right that they go, because it was a thing that they could do, while there is a thing yet that I can do, that they cannot.
— What is that? asked James.
— To interpret the disaster to the world. Part of that, of course, is in your keeping. You are to have the record of it all. In the floor of this building there is a stair down beneath the ground. It leads to my cellar, where the wine is kept. Beneath that, there is another stair that leads to a bunker. I have built this bunker so that we may preserve our hearing and emerge, in three days' time, to find the clouds abated. You will stay with me this day, and memorize all that I need you to memorize, and then in the morning we will all go down into the ground together. Do you see?
Stark put his hand on James's shoulder.
— Do you see that you have been singled out from the rest to be saved?
James looked from Stark to Torquin to the girl. Torquin and the girl were looking at him with a kind of awe. How lucky he was, they seemed to be thinking.
There was something hypnotic to Stark's rhetoric. James spoke.
— I haven't got a choice. I will do what you say, if only because of Grieve. You should know, though, that luck has played a part in your plan. It's because of her that I'll help you.
— Luck is the key to every plan, said Stark.
James leaned back against Grieve. He could feel the side of her face against his. He looked up. Through the colored glass, he could see clouds moving and changing with the wind.
They sat a moment and Torquin came over. He asked James if he would have a word with him.
James got up, in much uncertainty. He followed after the man to the far side of the room. Torquin was looking at him in a somewhat menacing manner. Then all at once Torquin stuck out his hand for a handshake, and a smile broke across his blocky features.
— I didn't know what you were made of, said Torquin, but when you pulled the trigger on me, I knew you were the right sort, even if the gun didn't go off. I like a man with guts.
James shook his hand.
Torquin leaned in closer and said in a whisper:
— Some of them around here couldn't paddle a baby. You'd be disgusted if you saw how spineless they can be.
He laughed in a conspiratorial kind of way, stepped back and spoke again in an ordinary tone of voice.
— Anyway, I wanted to say there's no hard feelings on my part. We're going to be in close quarters for a while now.
James smiled.
— That we are.
Torquin gestured to the maid.
— Her name's Margret. I don't want any bad blood between the two of you either. She's a good girl, was just doing her job. Matter of fact, we're engaged.
James agreed that it was so; she had just been doing her job. He smiled at Margret.
Torquin nodded and went out the door. Margret came over. She stood very close.
— You know, she said. Don't tell him about how we. . I mean. . I was just acting, but he wouldn't like it, you know.
James assured her he would say nothing about anything to anyone.
— Thanks so much, she said, almost curtsying. I'm going now. I'll see you later — I mean, tomorrow, I suppose.
— James!
Grieve was calling.
Margret left and James went back across the room.
— Come back in an hour, said Stark. There's much for you to do.
He gestured at the desk on which sat various papers, leather ledgers, and assorted books.
James nodded. Grieve took his hand and led him out.
The hospital was empty. Much of the work of the past few days had been the transfer of the truly afflicted liars to other institutions.
These patients are particularly undesirable in psychiatric institutions, but Stark's hospital had been dedicated solely to them. It was the only institution of its kind in the world.
They wandered through the empty halls, looking in rooms and running together in a sort of anxious glee. James felt a lightness in his soul. The disaster was impending, and it horrified him, but the fact that he knew he would slip it, that he would escape it, and that Grieve would as well, gave him a joy like mercury that ran through his limbs and legs. I want her to be happy, he thought, and he looked at Grieve, skipping beside him. He felt too a gladness in knowing the extent of what was true and what was not. He had been plagued for days by versions of things, which had yielded enormities of misunderstanding and difficulty. Now at least he knew something, and he could hold on to it.
Grieve drew him down onto a bed in a long white room full of pallets. Thirty white pallets in a row, and on one they lay together. His head still swam in a slightness of pain from the blackjack, but he felt Grieve about him and in him, and he in her, and the immediacy of what was to come gathered them up like cloth lifted at the corners. The room was lifted like cloth at the corners and carried in a haze of motion. James held Grieve in his arms and she held him. What more could there be?
A dozen minutes passed, a dozen more, an hour, and the light had gone out of the windows, gone long into the corners and edges of the room, making shadows of the beds, and shadows of the hung linens.
— We are for each other, said Grieve. How fine that is, how perfect. Do you know that my father was an adviser once to the king of Siam? He learned all the king's secrets, and then controlled the king like a puppet. He does so still today. That's where we're going after the clouds come.
— It's not even called Siam anymore, said James. But do you know where we're going? Will we leave the rest and go, just you and I somewhere?
— Let me have at least one secret, she said, and they left the room and the bed, leaving it unmade, one unmade bed in the midst of thirty.
And, of course, the birds all fell immediately from the sky. Afterwards one would exclaim often relating a new observation to this long-ago occurrence; it was in that day that all the birds fell from the sky. Here and there in the street you would see them, lying in long rows sometimes, their having toppled off a telephone line or out the eaves of six companionable neighboring houses. Of course, none of us could hear then, so it was not so much the sound of the birds that we missed, but the sight of them, their fluttering at the corners of sight, their taking up happily all the little incidences, all the little portions of architecture, making use of tree branches, of far-flung high places where no one else could go. There is a feeling things have when use is not being put where it might. Shall I say the world soon bore this feeling? Yes, the world bore this feeling like a loose scarf that flaps insolently against one's perhaps too frivolously jacketed shoulder.
And so as evening came, James sat with Stark, and Stark spoke of intentions. He gave James documents and journal entries to memorize, the which he would, after James's perfunctory nod, immediately destroy in the fireplace. Grieve stayed in the room, roaming about from one side to the other, coming over at times to rub James's shoulder or whisper some comment in her father's ear. It seemed to James that she wanted to remain close to him in all the hours to come. He thought then of her room, and of how happy he had been to find it. He wondered if they would ever have the chance to lie together there. For, on the day they emerged, would they not try to leave the country? Indeed, it didn't make very much sense to James that Stark had stayed in the country if everything had already been set in motion. Why not leave now, while it would be easy? After the inevitable disasters, nothing would be certain, least of all travel out of the country.
Supper was brought them by a servant, the man who had told James the truth, whom James had wronged. He did not look the man in the eye. He felt embarrassed, and also did not want the man to be found out. Why did the man help me? he wondered.
The material that James held mnemonically was Stark's contraband body of work, his revolutionary writings on what he called
The volume of the writings was large, perhaps six hundred pages of somewhat technical theoretical writings. Ordinarily, James would have given himself far longer to memorize the work, but he knew he was equal to the task of committing it in one night. There was a fear among mnemonists, a fear of stretching the mind to the point where it would actually be broken by stress. It was a fact in chess playing. In certain exhibitions, a grand master would play twenty or thirty games at once, keeping his eyes closed, keeping all the pieces on all the boards separate in his mind, and making in turn his move on each board. Soviet Russia had banned these simultaneous blindfold exhibitions because they shortened the careers of great players.
The door opened. The servant entered again, carrying a tray with a pot of tea, two cups, a tiny milk pitcher, and a plate of sugar cubes.
James looked up from his work and realized he was almost done. The pile at his side had vanished. He closed his eyes and could see the trailing strands of all the books, all the papers. It was a feeling like flying to carry oneself off along these strings of thought and memory and see in long parades of swirling letters all the words, all the pages. He felt confident. He had it all. But there was an odd feeling too. He was preserving the work of a lunatic, of someone who, if the danger was real, would turn out to be one of the most reviled men in history. Did Stark even realize that? Did he expect the world to preserve him and raise him up? If the truth was ever known, he would be vilified, harried from nation to nation. Who would take him in?
— Stark, asked James. What is the plan for when we come out of the bunker?
Stark chuckled to himself.
— Wondering about that, are you? he said.
He went back to the letter that he was in the middle of writing.
— Really, said James. Is there a plan?
— Of course there's a plan. Have you read Boulinard's
James confessed that he had not.
— Well, Boulinard was a medieval French priest. His writings were discovered only in the last fifteen years. It turns out that in the fourteenth century he had come up on his own with a body of work dealing with probability and chance that exceeds not only the work which had been done up until that time but, in fact, all the work done in the centuries since. He's thought of by academics and scientists as probably the smartest human being who ever lived. The discovery of his work was a revelation and spurred a small sort of scientific leap. He's thought of as the founder of modern probability theory, even though his work is in some ways enormously experimental and recent.
Grieve put down the magazine she was reading and came over.
— Where was the work hiding? she asked.
— He wrote it in the margins of illuminated manuscripts, working it into the design so that his writing was imperceptible unless you knew what you were looking for. Once you did you could see that the pages of the Bible were lined with other pages, page after page that he had written. The three Bibles lined with this work had been in a vault unlooked at, save when the occasional high-ranking priest or medieval researcher wanted to look at a sample of original illuminated manuscript.
— How could they look at it and not know? asked Grieve. If it's probability, that's math. Don't the numbers look odd in the midst of the scripts and figures?
Stark went over to a bookshelf, looked for a moment, and pulled down a large volume. He brought it over and laid it flat on the desk, open to a page somewhere in the middle. It was a facsimile of one of Boulinard's Bibles. James looked carefully at the ornament all around the page. At first he couldn't make out anything, but then the figures, the numbers began to appear.
— It's like looking at a carpet, he said.
— The point, continued Stark, is that Boulinard also wrote about plots and strategies. He organized a system that might be used in the creation of conspiracies and coups, and outlined general precepts and guidelines for the administration of such a system. One of those precepts, James, is that, in general though not always, someone who doesn't need to know sensitive information should not be given sensitive information. You will find out where we are going when we go there. Just be glad you are to be saved.
Grieve patted James on the cheek.
— Sometimes you learn more from my father saying no than you do from his yeses.
Stark laughed.
— My daughter loves to tease. How sad I would be if you hadn't been born.
Grieve wore her winningest smile.
— You would be a nomadic horse lord who encamps each night in a tent city far larger than the faces of seven earths unsewn and stretched side by side.
Stark threw back his large head and laughed.
— My daughter, he said, is one of the great fabulists. But she does not like to be found out.
Grieve pretended to pout.
Everything from now on in is a leavetaking, James thought.
— What do you think will happen? he asked Stark. Tomorrow and in the days after?
Stark leaned back in his wide leather chair.
— At first, enormous pandemonium. The populace will discover all at once the fate that has befallen it. Millions of people will make their way through cramped, crammed streets to hospitals, causing untold devastation in motor accidents. Mobs will cause enormous damage. The hospitals, of course, won't be functioning: there is no cure for this. And furthermore, all the workers in the hospital will have gone deaf as well. The fact is, going deaf is the least of the troubles. It will be the lasting effect, and certainly the moral, but the worst danger will be in the economic collapse. The other nations of the world will be in a strange position. It will be interesting to see how they act.
Stark's face was grim, but set in a strange expression of curiosity.
— It will be seamless.
He took a deep breath. Beneath the desk, James could see his hands clench and unclench. A good person, which he may be, thought James, must be torn apart by doing what he's doing. Has any man ever believed he was this right?
Stark was still talking. James realized he had drifted off; he had not been listening.
— We have balloons hidden in hundreds of caches across the country. They will be released up into the atmosphere mechanically, from a remote location. When they reach the proper height, they will burst, and the gas inside will disperse and alter, as it meets with the atmosphere. Then the clouds will form. They will begin to drift and sing. The entire continental nation will be affected. The clouds will maintain themselves for two to three days, long enough to affect the greater part of the population.
Grieve and James were silent for a minute, then another minute, watching him.
Finally, James spoke.
— How do you know how it works? Have you tested it?
— On one person, said Stark. My partner in the laboratory. Morris, Andrew Morris. We drew straws. I would have done it if I had drawn the straw. But he was the expert. He was the one who made the gas.
He smiled vaguely, unsettlingly, as though he were looking at something far away.
— I have his description of the experience, of what it's like to hear the tone from the cloud. In fact, it's the last thing I wanted you to memorize. I've been looking for it all day. I just found it.
He held up a transcript.
— I'll read it aloud.
— And then we'll be done? asked Grieve.
— Then we're done, said James.
What was to come felt so vague and unreal that he did not feel any guilt yet at being a part of it. He remembered McHale's death. That had been real. These people had done that. He remembered the picture of Estrainger in the newspaper. How could he have been such a fool? He had been standing there outside the building talking to Estrainger himself, and hadn't known it. He could still see the scornful turn to Estrainger's lip. Where had all his scorn gone now?
Stark began:
— Eight February, nine P.M. Test of the effects of Gas E-thirty-eight. I was tied to a chair in the clean room. All precautions were taken to limit the sound to that room alone. The duration was one hour. As soon as the gas was released a visible cloud formed near the ceiling of the room. I heard nothing at first, but after a while had a feeling of dizziness. This feeling grew. If I had not been strapped to the chair, I would have lost my balance and fallen to the ground. A noise began, a quiet tone, like a single harp string. It grew in volume, but then faded. Colors swam in my sight. The dizziness was overwhelming. I began to vomit and a shuddering pain came in back of my eyes. The colors in my sight blended together and I began to hear a sort of music. It sounded like voices singing, voices underwater. I realized what it was, abstractly, but was drawn away from my own thought, and took up the sound again. The music was the memory of past sound filling the sudden void made by my loss of hearing. As the hour passed, the music faded and was gone, and I was left in a silence more profound than any I had known. I have lived with that silence nine days, and know now I shall never hear again.
At the Small Ferris Wheel Abandoned in the Woods
James blinked in the harsh light. Where was Ansilon? He felt along his shoulder with a free hand. Yes, the owl was there.
Ansilon strained slightly against his hand in greeting. Both were deathly quiet, for had they not come at last to the Small-Ferris-Wheel-Abandoned-In-The-Woods of which they had so often heard?
There it was on the far side of the clearing, all rusted and bent. The clearing was in a deep, deep depression of land, and the trees around were all very old, so although the Ferris Wheel was in fact of an incredible height, it did not rise above the highest height of trees, but stood among the treetops, veiled from any distant sight.
— Up we must go, said Ansilon.
and also,
— My friend, I have brought a gift for you, a final gift of my friendship.
For indeed, James had not seen Ansilon for many a year, he having been presumed dead and most certainly gone away.
— What is it? asked James. I have got something for you, too.
Ansilon laid on the ground a little piece of hay woven into a ribbon.
— Tie this in among your locks of hair and you will know the sound of lying when you hear it; you will know the sound of truth.
James took it and tied it in his hair.
— What then for me? asked Ansilon.
And James sang quietly a little rhyme for owls that have gone away. This Ansilon took gladly into his heart, and he perched happily on James's shoulder, sometimes moving this way and sometimes that.
Then up they climbed on the Ferris Wheel, sometimes out onto a tree limb and up and back onto the wheel, so complicated proved the ascent, yet after some minutes of climbing, they found themselves far above the ground seated in a lovely iron car.
— Here we are, said Ansilon, and here we'll stay.
— What ever do you mean? asked James. I must go back after a little while.
Must you? asked Ansilon. Must you?
And James knew then that all children at some time mistake themselves and choose to leave childhood. Yet once it is done, it cannot be undone, for it is a very small door that shuts in a long, long wall.
— Good-bye, said James.
— Good-bye, said Ansilon.
And then it was pouring rain, and James was standing in the street with his grandparents, wearing a rain slicker, many years later, and he felt clearly that he had lost all that was best.
But who has the means to preserve such as that? he thought. And the world continued.
James and Grieve were standing in the hall. They had left Stark still seated at his desk, just a single lamp lit in the long room.
— What happened to Andrew Morris? James asked.
Grieve turned away from him; her face stiffened.
— He was a sort of uncle to us. It was partly his idea, the whole thing. He's the one, he's. .
— What? said James, turning her by the shoulder back towards him.
— He's the one, James. Right now, he's waiting in a hotel room in Washington. Tomorrow is his day. He has the final message.
A Burgeoning Sense of
grayness was the gift of the greatest draftsmen. In a way they saw color as a series of progressing grays, gray moving to black, to white, gray in blue, gray in yellow, gray in purple and green. The direction of lines provoked the imagining of color, the sweep of shading. James was no good at drawing, but he loved master drawings, and went often to the museums as a young man.
He didn't care for painting. It was too easy, too mannered. In drawing, there is the pencil and the paper. Two things, distinct. There is the black of the lead, and the white of the page, and together, anything can be created, can be called to mind. Painting was like a flourish, an unnecessary flourish thrown back in the world's teeth. There isn't time, thought James, for everything to be drawn, but only once all things in the world had been drawn, that would be the time for painting to begin.
James stood outside Grieve's door. She had asked that they sleep there, and he had wanted to. She had asked that he stay outside the door a moment, for what reason he did not know.
The halls were quiet, the stairwell long. He went to the landing and looked down and up. Mirrors were on the ceiling at the top, and on the floor at the bottom, so that the stair appeared to progress forever farther into itself.
A place for ridding people of chronic lying, thought James. It was scarcely that. He had never met such a bunch of liars in his life.
The man had said,
Grieve opened the door to her room. She was standing there in a long nightgown, with the straps loose on her arms. Her shoulders were bare, and her mouth was parted slightly.
He stepped forward.
— I'm sorry, but—
He caught her chin in the palm of his hand and turned her head to one side. With his other hand he lifted her ear. There was indeed behind her ear the lily-violet.
— Am I proven? she asked.
He shut the door with his foot.
— There are fifteen lies, and you can tell them all, he said. I will listen carefully.
Then they sat together by the window where she had lain as a child, and she told him many of the things she had thought and done. For in the gathering of hours towards this seventh day, it was clear that whoever they would be together, they would not be the same, and could never say to each other the things they might say now. For things go out of the world and things come into it, and one cannot account for, suppose, or presuppose these vanishings and their whereabouts. One can only speak slowly all the things one has thought while out drowsing in a world broken up not as we think, into places, separated by space, but broken up solely by time, which moves fast then slow then fast again, while all else holds still.
As he sat her words, her lies, her hopes ran through him, ran beside the running of Stark's words, the thousands which were strung up fresh and wide and somewhat cruel, the Ss like sickles, the Is like gun barrels. Violence, thought James, what is the change. I don't see how violence is any change at all. And Grieve's words blended into a sort of song, and he felt his life, his responsibility was not to the larger world, but to this small one, this thing they were creating. Her words came again, came and went, came again, lies and wishfulness. He peopled the space between her words with things he thought could compose a day. Who could compose a day? A day in all its intricacy, a day like a polished wooden toy made long ago and left in its perfection in the window of a shop. . And Grieve was with him, and her hands were cold. Her hands were cold; her hands were thin. Who was she? What could it be to them, this catastrophe? There was no doing of things for them, only undoing, only gathering together and bringing forth again.
In such thoughts they lay, speaking, murmuring, drowsing, and passed into sleep.
day the seventh
James woke. He was in his room. Grieve was gone. It was very quiet. As quiet as it had ever been.
The light through the window was an afternoon light. What happened? he thought. Did they leave me? Did they let me sleep?
He pulled a shirt over his head and went to the door. He opened it. There were no notes on the shelf.
The hall too was empty. He went down the stairs. There was no one about, no one at all. He began to run. He ran along the halls; he ran upstairs, downstairs. He went up the fourth staircase to Stark's room. It was empty, the long space replying with the same household quiet.
— Have they left me?
The thought came to him: they were in the bunker.
He ran down the first set of stairs, down the second, the third, the fourth. He turned and made his way down the hall. He found the door and the stairwell down to the wine cellar. The stairs were much longer than he had remembered, and seemed to curve. But at the bottom, the cellar was the same, glowing lights and stretching rows of bottles.
The door is here somewhere, he thought. I have to find the door. He began methodically to go up and down the rows, looking on the ground for a trapdoor, or on the wall for an entrance. He saw nothing. Row after row and still nothing.
His head became feverish. His vision swam. It must be here somewhere. Stark said it was here somewhere.
Then in the second-to-last row, on the far end, far away in the dark, where there were no glow bulbs, he saw the outlines of a door.
That's it. He ran to it.
The door was quite wide, one and a half times the width of an ordinary door. There was a handle in the middle. James pulled on it. The door didn't budge.
They've locked me out, he thought. God damn it.
He pounded on the door, pounded with his fists, kicked it with his feet.
They've locked me out.
He pulled on the door again. He took bottles from the shelves and hurled them at the door, where they shattered and littered the ground with shards.
It's no good. They won't open it.
He went to the door, stepping carefully through the broken glass. He put his ear against the door.
Faintly, faintly, he could make out the sounds of an argument.
He heard Grieve's voice, and the voice of her father.
— We have to let him in. If we open it for just a second. We have to.
— No, said Stark. The door is closed and sealed. It will not be opened again. The matter's closed.
— But he's out there.
James could hear Grieve crying. Then he heard the scuffle of feet.
— NO! Stop her.
Stark's voice was loud.
What's happening? thought James. Grieve must be trying to open the door.
— I've got her.
It was McHale's voice.
— Grieve, Grieve. Calm down. It will be all right; I promise.
— I hate you, she said. I hate you all.
— You'd better give her a shot, said McHale.
— Noooooooooo! No!
Grieve was screaming, and then she was not.
James pounded and pounded on the door. His hands ached. It was useless.
James stepped away from the door. It was useless to stand there. He made his way back across the wine cellar and up the stairs. Then he was in the hall.
Outside, he thought. I shall go see what's outside.
He went by the front entrance, and out the door.
The first thing he saw was the city, on fire, in the distance. At least half the city burning. The smoke was everywhere, with a hot red core.
Dear God, he thought, and looked up.
Above, pale, wispy clouds covered the sky like ribbons.
The clouds, he thought. Those are the clouds. He recoiled in horror. Then the noise began. He heard it in his ear, in the space behind his eyes; he heard it on the planes of his face, and in his mouth. Singing. A great noise of singing, like a chorus. The sound swelled. It hurt. The pain grew. He fell to his knees. All along the avenues cars were still, smashed into one another, smashed into walls, smashed into houses. Fires grew, consuming buildings, houses. People fled, screaming, lost to the sound of their own voices.
On the lawn James lay, and the pressure of the sound of singing grew in his head. It grew and grew, and he thought then that he might die. But then it stopped, and everything was silent.
— James, James! Wake up!
James opened his eyes. He was lying in a bed built into the wall of a long, airy room with broad windows. They were thrown open and a light breeze was blowing.
A girl was standing there, beautiful, with short black hair and bright eyes. She was dressed as if to travel, in a wool skirt with knee socks, a short fleece coat, and a scarf. A cat was under her arm. It too was looking at him.
— James! she said. Everyone's waiting for us. It's time to go.
She came over to the bed and leaned over him. Her face was very close.
— Come on, you! Come on. The light is changing. Father says we have only minutes before it begins.
appendix a Note on the Naming of Characters
In Scotland, in a town called Rosewell, there is a small cemetery. I lived for a month nearby.
I would go sometimes to the cemetery in Rosewell, and for this novel, as a tribute to the land on which I wrote this book, and to the people there, I have named many of my characters out of the cemetery.
Most of the names I chose were men who died in mining accidents, though some died in the Great War, others in their sleep.
Nothing in the book has anything to do with the lives these men and women led. I felt a gratefulness to the place, to Hawthornden, Rosslyn, the River Esk, and to this Rosewell graveyard, and it seemed the right thing to do to fill my book with the vague shapes of their letters.
Here is a list of the names I found there.
James Carlyle
John Sutherland
Cpl. Arch Renwick, died in France, age twenty-one, 1918
James Sim
Pat Jordan, died at Kelty, 16 April 1929
Grieve Cochrane
Will Watson, killed at Whitehill Colliery, 10 June 1929
Andrew Morris, Whitehill Colliery, 1934, age twenty-four
Samuel Mathieson, Whitehill Colliery, 1940
Charles Higinson, Whitehill Colliery, 1935, age twenty-one
Leonora Loft
James Leslie
Lily Violet
Martin Stark, died at Hawthornden, “There is no death”
Robert Wallace Wight, killed at Bilston Glen Colliery, 1965
Spiers Jones
John Clechorn, age twenty-one, “who fell asleep at Midfield Cottages” 12 October 1908
Thomas McHale, pit accident, 1935
Thomas McHale, accident, 1933, age twenty-one
David Graham, Whitehill Colliery, 1937, age thirty-three
James Abernathy Stewart, Whitehill Colliery, 1932, age forty-seven
Margret Grieve Cochrane, “Asleep”
A NOTE on Sources
One source employed that Stark reads, on the sixth day, is from
I have used the excellent translation of Michael Hulse (Penguin Classics, 1989).
Acknowledgments
Thanks be to:
B. Kingsland
J. Jackson
G. Costello
E. Schreiber
C. Despont
Kuhn Projects
Purple Fashion
Hawthornden Castle