The Fourth Circle (32 page)

I did not get far, though. At the bottom of the stairs I ran into the constable whom Mrs. Simpson had, in the meantime, managed to call. The impact of our collision was of some force, so that we both fell down; probably our foreheads had collided because as he rose to his feet, he clasped a hand to his head and rubbed a quickly-growing lump above his eyebrow, while I also felt a dull pain in the front of my head. Upon seeing my face, he drew back slightly; he must have perceived on it an extremely unhinged expression. Mrs. Simpson, who arrived
after the constable in her hobbling run, confirmed this: seeing me, she covered her mouth with both hands, to choke back an outcry of terror.

We stood like that for a few moments, staring at one another. It was clear that they expected some sort of instruction or at least information from me, but I was still in the throes of panic, so that no words came to my lips. What finally released me from this state of immobility was an awareness that only slowly and with great effort penetrated my mind: there were no more sounds from above, nothing except a very quiet crackling. No more sounds of fighting, no inhuman roars, nor the breaking of things.

"Up...there...fire," I managed to stammer, pointing with a shaking forefinger up the stairs.

The policeman, now fully on his feet, gave me a hand up as well and then started up the stairs. His gait was not very resolute; twice he stopped and turned to Mrs. Simpson and myself, who remained at the bottom of the staircase, but he did not receive much help from us. Quite the contrary; had he gone by our looks and attitude, he would most likely have rushed back downstairs.

When the constable had finally reached the door of the drawing room and grasped hold of and turned the handle, the two of us exchanged looks of incredulity, for the door was no longer locked, and he stepped in without obstruction.

A few long moments passed, filled with dreadful uncertainty; the only sound from above was that of crackling, now slightly louder. The fire, it appeared, was still burning in the drawing room, but it sounded nothing like the earlier roar of a full-blown blaze.

Finally the constable reappeared at the door. Observing him from below, we saw only his silhouette around which danced the flickering reflections of the flames. Under normal circumstances, no encouragement would have been necessary: we would immediately have come to the rescue, to help extinguish the blaze. The circumstances, however, were not such, and so several seconds elapsed after his invitation to us to join him before we snapped out of our immobility and began to act.

To my disgrace, Mrs. Simpson managed to do so first. "Oh, what a mess there'll be in the house!" she exclaimed, hurrying to fetch something from the dining room, while I, after a further moment of hesitation, ran upstairs. It seemed to me that I faced many more than nineteen steps, an ascension without end, but this did not bother me. Impatience urged me to climb as quickly as possible, to find out what had happened to Holmes, but on the other hand, an evil presentiment as to his fate dampened this urge of mine.

Inevitably, though, I found myself at the open door, which only a few moments ago I had been unsuccessfully attempting to break down. As I had expected, the drawing room was a shambles. The carved-wood chest of drawers was overturned and the books from it now lay scattered and mostly torn. (What would Sir Arthur say? the thought passed through my mind.) The couch stood unnaturally slanted to one side (causing me to reflect on how much strength would be needed to move such a heavy piece of furniture), and shards of broken glass from a ripped-out window-pane and two devastated glass cabinets glinted in the carpet, giving the impression of a multitude of small pearls mixed with pieces of smashed chinaware. Shards of glass also covered Holmes's violin, which lay broken in one corner, apparently having served as a convenient weapon. Liquid dripped from an old-fashioned pharmaceutical flask that lay on its side on the edge of the fireplace, accumulating in a small bluish puddle on the floor. I could not identify the substance, but if the contents of the flask were the source of the stench of sulfur, which had filled my nostrils as soon as I stepped into the drawing room, it could not have been anything pleasant.

Of Holmes there was no trace, of Moriarty even less. The only person in the drawing room, except for myself, was the constable. He had seized the brocade cover from the couch and was now using it to swipe at the fire, which was still flickering in the center of the room, in an attempt to extinguish it.

It was only then, watching his panting attempts to put it out and not knowing what to do to assist him, that I became aware that the chaos around me was not, after all, complete. In the very center of the general disorder, as at the eye of a powerful tornado, all was perfectly calm.

The fire, which had consumed a number of Holmes's papers and pages torn from books, had formed a perfect circle on the floor of the drawing room—a circle that could not possibly have been created by pure accident in all this chaos. The constable's blows with the heavy dark red cloth were slowly but surely putting it out, but on the carpet remained a singed, sooty trace that, miraculously, retained its perfectly round shape. In the middle of this flaming circle lay a single sheet of paper, one which could not be harmed by ordinary fire. The unique creation of the maestro Murratori of Bologna, with the dark initial of Holmes's demonic rival who had been summoned to this place by some secret knowledge from the other side of nothingness, a knowledge on which my medical learning was wisely silent. Summoned—but to what purpose? And where was Moriarty now? Above all, though: where was Holmes? What had been the cause and what the consequence of their fierce duel? To begin with, why had it been necessary to accept this ultimate challenge, to venture on a search that extended to the other side of the rational?
The questions began to pile up, but I suspected that I would never obtain answers to them. Who was I, after all, that ultimate mysteries should be revealed to me? A humble London doctor who had neglected his medical practice, private life, and everything else to become the shadow of his remarkable friend, hoping in his vanity to receive a share of his friend's glory.

Now, with Holmes's disappearance, that vainglorious hope vanished at once, making me even more insubstantial than the shadow I used to be. What course of action was left open to me? The faint hope that Holmes would return? It really was not much—in fact, it was infinitely little, but I could find no firmer base to stand on.

And so I helped the constable put the fire quite out, and when Mrs. Simpson timidly appeared, out of breath and carrying a pail of water, I had to invest great effort in subduing her compulsive tendency to put all things in order. Everything in the drawing room had to remain as it was, without alteration, particularly this burnt circle on the carpet, in the middle of the room. I had a presentiment, for which I had no rational explanation, that that circle was especially important for Holmes's return.

All I could do now was to wait. It might turn out to be a long wait, but I felt certain I would not be bored. Mrs. Simpson would be with me, and the
Medical
Encyclopedia
was an inexhaustible source of topics with which to while away the time pleasantly.

188

The Fourth Circle

WHO ARE YOU?

I am Rama.

Are you a spirit?

No.

Then how is it that I do not see you or hear you, and yet I speak with you?

I am in your head.

Why would you be in my head?

To help you, among other things.

Do I need help?

Yes. You are as helpless as a newborn babe.

But I am an old man....

You were.

And what am I now?

Something new....

What?

Be patient. You will find out when the time comes.

Am I...dead?

Dead? You're not dead. There's no dying, in The Circle.

In what Circle?

In the final one.

I do not understand you.

I'm telling you to be patient.

I want to, but I am afraid. It is so dark and quiet here, like the grave.

Or the womb.

Why did you say that?

Because it's closer to the truth.

Are you, then...my...mother?

No; you will be my father.

Father? How?

Miraculously. You will give birth to me.

How could I give birth to you?
From your head.

You will come out of my head?

Yes. Don't be afraid, it won't hurt.

But I...cannot....

You'll be able to, quite easily, when the moment comes.

What happens after? I mean, I will not...be able to live...alone.

You won't be alone. The others will be with you.

Which others?

Well, the Master, Sri...Everybody. They'll take care of you.

Oh. Where are they now?

They're watching us and waiting.

Waiting for what?

For you and me to fulfill the purpose.

What purpose?

The purpose of the Circle.

You mean...that I give birth to you?

Yes.

And you? What happens to you after that?

I'll not be here any more.

Where will you be?

That I can't explain to you. But I'll be safe.

Will I see you after you...are born?

No. I will come into the world in another place, very far from here.

I would like to know what you will look like.

What would you like me to look like?

I do not know...Like Marya...perhaps.

All right, I'll look like Marya.

What should I do, in order that you...come out of my head...be born?

Oh, that's not difficult at all. This darkness is bothering you, isn't it?

Yes...It frightens me.

Summon light, then.

How?

It's simple. Say it.

You mean...like....

Yes.

But I am not...I cannot....

You can. Believe me. Please.
I believe you, but....

Say it, Father. Now is the moment.

Let there be light!

CIRCLE THE FOURTH

THE BRASS KNOCKER on the front door sounded thunderously, like the first crash of a summer storm. Mrs. Simpson and I had just sunk into the kind of silence that ensues when all possible topics for conversation have been exhausted.

We sat in silence, each preoccupied with his or her own thoughts, surrounded by the semidarkness of the early evening. Preferring darkness, the old woman had no intention of lighting the lamps; I did nothing to encourage her to, since the gathering gloom was quite congenial to my somber state of mind.

It was the fourth day after Holmes's enigmatic and violent disappearance. As soon as I had dispatched my medical obligations—which I endeavored to do as quickly as possible—I hurried to 2.21-A Baker Street, led by a still living, but increasingly idle hope that some miracle might transpire, that I would once again set eyes on the dearest friend I had ever had—that unique man whose vain and irrepressible thirst for forbidden lore had brought upon him a fate far beyond my ability to comprehend (and his also, I suspect).

Mrs. Simpson, whose previous attitude toward me had been rather reserved, if not cold—obviously for some reason disapproving of my close association with Holmes—now went to the other extreme. She welcomed me not merely eagerly, but with unconcealed joy, undoubtedly finding in my presence a consolation such as relatives can sometimes give to mourners.

This insight at first angered me because Holmes, as far as we knew, was not dead, though, on the other hand, one could hardly have claimed that he was alive, at least in the usual sense of the word. But my anger soon dissipated when I realized that our feelings were identical and that I also found her company pleasing: in Mrs. Simpson I saw the only living link to my missing friend, a link that began to mean more to me than all the familiar objects in this house, much as these reminded me of him.

And yet, although we shared the same pain, it was our tacit agreement never to mention Holmes, not even by allusion. It was as if we both feared not only that
we would, by mentioning him, commit some kind of desecration, but also that we might awaken the mysterious forces that had once worked in this place to claim their evil due.

For the same reason, we made no mention of the odd scene in the drawing room above us. On my advice, Mrs. Simpson left everything as we had found it in the room from which Holmes had vanished, although this went deeply against her almost perverse tendency to put the house in order. She did not even demand an explanation as to why the drawing room should be left untouched. She simply accepted my suggestion with relief and gratitude, being loath in any case to meddle in things that she did not comprehend and that frightened her.