What Lot's Wife Saw (18 page)

The man scrutinised Book’s face and contrasted the deep wrinkling of his forehead and the spasmodic jerks of his facial muscles with his clipped and detached answers which feigned indifference. “Very well, Mr Book, then we’d like to purchase your services. We’ll provide you with a number of letters from which you will design an Epistleword for us.”

He pulled out a folder that he’d placed next to his armchair, ostentatiously opened it and emptied its contents onto the table. Six thick envelopes, each wrapped in transparent film, slid next to Book’s cup. Book recounted them without moving, his mind working to try to figure out what kind of game the Seventy-Five were playing at.

“For a start, the envelopes I see are but six, sir. The Epistleword, as you must have realised, needs exactly seven: three horizontally, three vertically and one, the most important since it holds the answer, for the diagonal.”

The diagonal letter is always that of Mélanie. “Is it the same moon we are gazing at?”
Alas, we do gaze at it, Mélanie, though unfortunately we never look at it as it hangs in the firmament and we merely see its reflection in the water.

“As you see, Mr Book, the letters we are providing are six and only six. Read them, analyse them, cut them, sew them, do whatever it takes to bring me the completed meandros.”

Book regarded him in amazement.

“Are you quite serious, sir?”

“Does it seem to you that I’m joking?”

“What can I say? You’ve offered so much money just to construct one Epistleword? What will you use it for?”

The man didn’t respond, evidently considering that providing answers to his guest’s conundrums wasn’t one of his duties. The inexorable argument provided by the hefty cheque nestling in Book’s wallet and the knowledge of its vast benefit to his advanced years persuaded him to move his head in acceptance. He concluded that if the Consortium was willing to invest such an amount in crosswords like his, then they must have money to burn. He decided to take the six letters to his office and see what kind of meandros he could make with them. The man grabbed Book’s arm in mid-air just as he was reaching to gather the letters.

“Mr Book, I neglected to tell you that these letters are not to leave this room. We shall provide you with an office and anything else you might need to work in here. If you believe you might need more than one full day to finish, we’ll be delighted to put you up.”

Book was startled into immobility as his mind came to grips with this new information. This was certainly not a game. The six letters must have immense value if there could be no question of their leaving the premises. That given, why would the Consortium put their trust in a random Phileas Book to read them? He glanced around himnervously. Once he’d read them, would he be allowed to leave alive?

“I hope you aren’t worried about your safety, Mr Book. As I’ve explained to you, we only seek your cooperation if you freely give it. The Consortium can be proud of the fact that it’s never forced anyone to do something that, at heart, they hadn’t wished to do. Unless you have good reasons to fear what deep down you want to do.”

In the untroubled face of the man it was clearly discernable that nothing was bothering him apart from the wastage of valuable time. Book, on the other hand, was feeling insecure and agitated even if he had nothing to fear apart from his fear itself.
That must be the strength of the Seventy-Five
, he thought,
that’s its source, and how it is based, and it thrives on my own uncertainties
.

DOCTOR FABRIZIO

… We all froze like statues. Judge Bateau opened and shut his mouth several times and with a great effort managed to enunciate, “What did you say, Bianca?”

Bianca repeated that the New Governor was waiting in the hall, or at least someone who claimed to be the New Governor. It was beyond the realm of any possibility that the Seventy-Five had heard of Bera’s death and had expedited his replacement, since everyone who knew of his demise was in this room. The news would take three weeks to reach Paris and the New Governor another three weeks to get here. Unless the Seventy-Five had been mixed up in this affair a lot longer than we suspected …

We all started moving in a panic. Captain Drake covered his naked genitals and moaned, “We’re done for!” Desert tried to use her fingers to comb her hair, which had been singed from the oven and was plastered with sweat, but gave up when she realised that it wouldn’t soften the impact of her naked, ash-smeared and bloody appearance. Montenegro unravelled the strips of curtain that were wound around his face and then began to furiously scrub the blood off himself, while Siccouane’s only movement was his chattering teeth.

I was in the most incriminating position of all, leaning over the Green Box with the instruments of burglary in my hand. What would the New Governor think if he walked through the door this instant? I recoiled from the Green Box and flung the instruments to the floor. Then I began to peel off the ridiculous outfit they’d put on me, the cushions and the pot lids, but thought better of it as I realised they’d cover my nakedness. A foul smell of burning flesh assailed us through the open door as Bera’s body was still slowly roasting in the kitchen.

Desert launched herself at Bianca in fury because she’d told her not to allow anyone into the Palace under any circumstances – how dare she disobey! There was absolutely no time to tidy the room and clean and dress ourselves if the New Governor was already waiting in the hall. Bianca should’ve immediately informed us and made up some excuse to keep him out of the building and not let him in.

Bianca sobbed that she hadn’t let anyone in, she’d been keeping watch behind the front door, as instructed, when he’d gently put his hand on her shoulder and startled her half to death. This man was already in the Palace, but she couldn’t say how he’d entered. He must have had his own key. The most frightening thing, however, was that he’d called her by name and had pointed to the clock in the hall when he’d asked her to inform the six that they were expected to join him in three minutes.

“The six?”

“That’s what he said, milady, heaven preserve me! He said, ‘Go, Bianca, and inform the six that are in my office that I expect them in the hall.’”

We exchanged looks of disbelief, but our wits couldn’t come to our rescue as our brains had ground to a halt. Since the New Governor had known our number and our location, we decided it was preferable not to keep him waiting. We rushed to cover ourselves with whatever remnants of the curtains we found and left the office to the sound of the pot lids clashing against each other on my chest.

We entered the hall with our eyes lowered. Let whoever was standing opposite us tell us to raise our eyes and start what we feared would be a very difficult discussion for us. We stood there silently, side by side, freshly branded with Bera’s blood and trembling in shame at our nakedness.

We expected to hear some thunderous voice, which would strike us like a bolt, but in the room there was an incongruous silence, disturbed only by Siccouane’s soft sobbing, Desert’s nose sniffling and those accursed pot lids that continued their accompaniment, activated by my pounding heartbeat.

Montenegro was the first to raise his head and a barely audible, soft cry escaped his lips. Apprehensively I looked up as well and was transfixed. Facing us was a boy in a red shirt and tall black boots, who couldn’t have been older than twenty. His thick locks were long and curly and almost too wild for his ponytail, which was tied with a simple leather thong. A gold earring glittered in his ear, like a pirate’s hoop. He was sitting in a comfortable armchair with his eyes riveted on us – eyes that were almond-shaped and as black as a desert night.

The stranger was sitting there, not moving, just studying us for who knows how long, while his heavy silence paralysed us. Seeing him, Desert went through a whole spectrum of expressions, panic, shame, surprise, even desire, as it must be admitted that the youth was extremely attractive. Finally Judge Bateau seemed to screw up the courage to open his mouth to speak but the youth raised his arm slightly and struck him dumb.

“The Correspondence Ship sails in a couple of hours. I need the office,” he said.

We were totally taken aback by his voice, as it had nothing in common with his appearance. His voice was frigid, controlled and dangerous, like the hiss of a snake. I felt it penetrate me.

His incongruent voice had a profound effect on us. Siccouane was beset by delirious verbosity, mangling his words through tears, saying that the Governor had died this morning, no one knew how or why, and we’d had to incinerate the body to protect the salt and we’d had to cut it up since it wouldn’t fit in the oven and the regulations didn’t cover this eventuality and so we’d had no guidelines, and we’d only wished to serve the Seventy-Five faithfully and so we’d planned to force the lock of the Green Box to see whether it contained their directives … He pointed an accusing finger at me. “Fabrizio was going to pick the lock.” I hastened to protest that the others had forced me to do it – Drake had been threatening me with a gun, Montenegro bullying me and, in actual fact, it’d been Siccouane’s idea to rifle the contents in the first place. Desert accused us all of taking advantage of her confusion, brought about by her sudden widowhood, to invade the Palace and to act as if we owned the place, looting the wine cellar, pilfering food from the kitchen and ransacking the Governor’s office. Drake thumped his chest and claimed he’d been blind but now that he could see clearly he’d realised his grievous mistake and truly wished to disassociate himself from the villains surrounding him. Bateau stuttered monotonously, “I ask for forgiveness. I’m sorry, I am sorry,” before he finally admitted, trembling, that he wasn’t a true judge, he’d never finished his degree, his University in Barcelona had sunk with the city in the Overflow before his final year and had dragged the archives down with it, allowing him to proclaim himself a Graduate of Law. Priest Montenegro bowed his head and begged not to be banished from the Colony, as he was wanted in three countries for smuggling ancient artefacts.

The dark eyes of the youth carefully observed us all, his silence ground us down like a millstone and caused us to believe that we hadn’t yet told him enough. I then confessed that there is a pending legal case against me for criminal neglect in a hospital in Rome, but that as Rome was no more and Italy was no more, the Seventy-Five could be assured that the old Flagrante was no more. Washed away by the waters that’d also swept away the Colosseum, he’d been replaced by Fabrizio, a conscientious scientist and Director of the Infirmary. In turn, Siccouane, as ever hampered by his heaving sobs, admitted that in Marseilles he’d been sent to prison on charges of forgery – alas, he’d gone to many jails for many forgeries, but the city had been swallowed up, along with his bad name, and the Consortium had given him the chance to begin a fresh lawful life and all he wished to do was to serve the Seventy-Five deep into his old age.

The youth momentarily shut his eyes as if our confessions were causing him immense fatigue, and so we stopped in fear that we’d overdone it. We wracked our brains to imagine what it was that the young Governor had been expecting us to say. He was being no help whatsoever, he just stared at us instead of directing our interrogation. What should we have included in our confessions and which of our numerous sins should we elaborate on? The most important thing had now become to break his barbarous silence, so we prattled on, switching subjects, agonisingly waiting for him to speak.

Desert took the floor, saying that she supposed that it was practical matters that preoccupied the youth at this moment, like his smooth transition into the Palace. She assured him that, as Bera’s widow, she was conversant with the regulations and so she knew she had to hand the keys of the Palace over to him as well all that it contains. Unfortunately she hadn’t prepared the lists with the kitchenware, the furniture, the paintings, the jewellery and the clothes yet; she needed time to produce them. She promised, however, that he’d find everything in order, aside from some wear and tear in Bera’s office. Nothing would be missing but, with an exaggerated expression of dismay, she couldn’t hand over the key of the Green Box because, she swore, she didn’t know its whereabouts, unless Bera had swallowed it, whereupon it’d be melting in the oven. She realised how guilty this must make her in his eyes but, she swore, the key had been nowhere to be found.

“Do you mean this key?” that menacing voice inquired.

The youth unbuttoned the top of his red shirt and showed them the chain that hung around his neck. The chain was identical in both size and shape to the one that Bera had worn around his neck, and a key dangled from it that looked exactly like the one that opened the Green Box. He twisted it slowly in his fingers, giving us the chance to study it and certify its integrity.

When I’d first laid eyes on this exotic youth, so inappropriate for a Governor, I admit that a fleeting thought had passed through my mind that this was an imposter who had broken into the Palace, killed Bera and stolen the key. But any such suspicion had evaporated when I saw the integrity of the keychain round his neck. To remove it from Bera’s neck he would’ve had to have used wire-cutters, but the chain bore no signs of having been tampered with; it was undamaged and fitted perfectly round the youth’s neck, which could only be done in the workshops of the Seventy-Five.

The youth rested his gorgeous head on his palm, like the stem of a flower bending in the spring breeze. We were so moved by the beauty of that scene that it nearly brought tears to our eyes, until his malevolent voice snapped us back to reality.

“I repeat that the ship leaves in two hours and I need the office. Madame Regina, clean it, tidy it and get it ready for work.”

He caressed his cheek and, the Lord forgive me, I’d never seen such a sensuous figure. I could hear Desert breathing heavily next to me while Montenegro allowed a soft sigh to escape. I clenched my teeth in an effort to get a grip on myself – the stress and exertions of the day must’ve weakened me, or perhaps I was gradually going mad. Meanwhile that acidic voice continued to flay us.