Samedi the Deafness (20 page)

—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,

please do not knock or make any noise. i am considering certain matters, and can't afford to be disturbed. i'll be ready for your visit at nine. until then, please breakfast, or amuse yourself as you like.

my apologies

stark

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.