What Lot's Wife Saw (38 page)

“It wasn’t my choice, Bateau. The order specified leprosy because it was a Biblical plague, connected to sin and to ‘unclean’, so the benefits were manifold. Black Death cast one’s mind to the Middle Ages, which was pretty useless; syphilis and hepatitis were excluded because the fear might compromise sexual behaviour, and the Consortium sought indigenous productivity; cholera and tuberculosis weren’t horrifying enough. It really doesn’t matter what name was given to the nemesis, and leprosy got the job done superbly.”

“There never had been any leprosy.” I repeated this to drive it past my mind’s refusal to assimilate it, but the fear was so deep-rooted within me that I was unable to get past it, no matter what anyone asserted. All these years I have panicked every time a red patch has appeared on my body, every time my nose bled, every time I stared at my hairs in the washbasin, when my vision blurred. We had learnt the symptoms by heart from the pamphlets. In berlingas we would glance sidelong at our fellow passengers, checking their neck and arms in fear of sitting next to a carrier. When the faithful came to kiss my hand, I would discreetly examine their scalps for scaling and their eyebrows and eyelashes for gaps. I lived and breathed in fear of leprosy and I couldn’t dismantle that any more than change my skin. The Colony’s taboos were crumbling at a faster pace than I could cope with.

The Judge quietly asked the Doctor if no leprosy meant that the desert could be traversed. Fabrizio shrugged and said there was no way he could know. If someone were to try it, however, they would need enormous quantities of water, pills to guard against the fumes of the craters, and some means of transportation as animals couldn’t survive and any fuel was forbidden. In addition, they would need a map which could be read without needing a compass or a view of the sky. The irregular magnetism and the fog would prevent orientation and reduce normal maps to uselessness. Finally the daring escapee had to be fortified by a strong mind since the desert environment could drive you insane.

“And how did Drake manage?” I asked.

For seven kilometres, Drake had apparently followed the faintly visible, dry bed of the River Jordan, before it gets totally buried by sand. The caravan had travelled those seven kilometres, and the berlingas had been interconnected by wires that unreeled from enormous spools securely fastened near the northern-most outpost. If the caravan had not appeared on the horizon by nightfall, the guards could have searched for it along the wire.

“In my opinion, we arrive at the same conclusion, that the desert cannot be crossed. But since the price of salt has skyrocketed on the market, there was always a chance that desperate colonists might entertain certain thoughts. So, I don’t feel that I was committing any crime, as a scientist, by fuelling the myth of the leprosy. Quite the opposite, in fact. I discouraged potential thieves from seeking their certain deaths under the sand dunes,” Fabrizio said in his defence.

I didn’t know what to say to him, and whether I had the right to say anything being, as I was, a Star Bearer myself. I might not have known what instructions Bateau had received as High Court Judge but I was painfully aware of those I’d received for the Metropolis. We all had our secret orders, we all had deluded the colonists, we were all worthy of our Stars.

“The pirate wasn’t far wrong when he said that the sole attribute of the Star Bearers was their ability to deceive,” I admitted.

“Talents can be cultivated,” the Judge countered angrily. “I won’t allow my Pygmalions to cast the blame on me. Inclination isn’t enough, encouragement is necessary as well. The pirate would do well to look at his own faults and at those of his superiors.” He spat into the bedpan and asked the Doctor if there was any alcohol in the Infirmary.

I had to make careful note of the new information, to write it down, to analyse it and prevent my mind from seizing up. I was painfully trying to retain my freedom of thought, but I was feeling more and more exhausted. Calling upon my reserves of will, I opened the Bible to consult my notes and stave off mental capitulation.

“So, what conclusion have we reached? That the Consortium has decided, after twenty years, to open the gates to the desert?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Montenegro, I’m fed up with your conclusions, your diagrams and your ridiculous theories! Can’t you get on with it without asking questions all the time? You heard the pirate; the more we think, the worse off we are!” Fabrizio exploded.

Judge Bateau asked us to be quieter, as there was an invalid in the room. He raised his eyebrows at Fabrizio, asking after Drake’s condition.

“Basically dehydrated and exhausted. His wounds are superficial and we have prevented any infections. It was fear that drained his strength more than thirst. He’ll be better by morning.”

“Do you mean that he’ll be going out there again tomorrow?” the Judge worried.

“From what I’ve been given to understand, he’ll be out there every day.”

He showed us the manila envelope that the Captain clutched in his good hand and told us that it had been brought by Siccouane a little while ago. We examined the envelope from all angles without removing it from the sedated Drake’s grasp. It was sealed and bore the Governor’s monograms at the joins, so there was no way of violating them undetected.

“Did you get anything from the Secretary?” the Judge wanted to know.

Fabrizio shook his head and said that he believed that Siccouane knew less than they did. The Judge didn’t buy it.

“No way could that weasel know less than us. He slithers in and out of his office every day, delivering a memo here, rifling through a sheaf of papers there. Siccouane will be the one to stab us in the back. This outrageous Governor is a dream come true for the complex-ridden Marseillais. He is permitted to attend the Metropolis, he can share our official dinners, all that remains is to get a villa in Hesperides. Siccouane is involved up to his neck, more than you can imagine, mark my words.”

The Doctor said that although he had had nothing from the Secretary, Captain Drake had said something unexpectedly disturbing: that all along the seven kilometres they had not seen a single Mameluke.

“Okay, try this for size. Fifty berlingas groaning under precious salt, kilometres away from the Colony and not a single knife blade gleamed on the horizon?”

We grimaced as we tried to assimilate this. The Suez are not like leprosy, they are not fictitious, nor are their scimitars and their thirst for the violet salt. It was beyond belief that they hadn’t stormed the convoy. We looked down at the supine Captain as if in expectation of an instant answer.

“Did Drake elaborate?”

“The only thing he could think of was that the Consortium had exterminated the whole native population beforehand.” The Doctor shrugged.

Overwhelmed, I clutched at my heart but got stabbed by my Purple Star instead.

“I would say that a midnight visit to Secretary Siccouane would be in order,” the Judge decreed.

SECRETARY SICCOUANE

… I transcribed the documents as requested by the young Governor, blew gently over the ink to dry it, knocked on his office door, dropped them in the in-tray as always and prepared to leave.

“Don’t leave yet, Siccouane.”

I waited. He picked up the papers and leafed through them. He observed that I had the most distinct and elegant handwriting that he had ever seen. I reddened. It was the first compliment that I had ever received in the twenty years I’d worked in the Palace. I thanked him for it and explained that it was the reason that I had been chosen for the position by the late Bera.

“That is not the truth, but your modesty serves you well,” he said.

A second compliment, better than the first, superbly phrased, laced with implied praise. I shyly admitted that calligraphy was the only useful craft I had learnt in jail, since forgery always got me into trouble. In this Colony of manuscripts, with no typewriters being permitted, my dexterous hands would never allow me to become jobless.

“We prefer idiosyncratic scribes to impersonal machines so that there will never be doubt about the originator of a document.”

That sounded very much like a thinly veiled insult. I looked at him suspiciously. I wasn’t sure what he was implying but I’d been serving the Consortium loyally for twenty years, at a high cost. I suffer through working directly with the Governor without enjoying any of the perks that could be expected.

“Truly, Siccouane, can you tell me why you accepted the position?”

I was startled because I hadn’t expected my thoughts to be so transparent that they could be picked up by a Governor. I’d spent many years training myself not to be able to hear my own thoughts and now, had they become obvious to others?

“Pardon? I mean, what is it you wish to know?”

“Well, why did you accept the position seeing that it was on such humiliating terms? You are the Palace’s Private Secretary, the only colonist with an A1 Administrative Level and the only one to have been hired following a personal interview in the Paris Headquarters. It would make sense if your villa was the most spacious in Hesperides and your Box in the Opera next to the Governor’s. Your contract stipulates it. My predecessor improvised on that point, as he did on all the others as well. Why do you think he treated you so shabbily?” he said with hooded eyes. “Especially you, whose skills he had the greatest need of?”

“My position doesn’t allow me an opinion,” I said through grated teeth.

“Tell me at least why you accepted it?”

“I needed the job. Employment isn’t a disgrace.”

“Yours is.”

I drew in a breath. Why was he baiting me? What purpose did all these questions serve? He asked me to approach and take a seat, after shutting the door because Regina was always on her rounds of the ground floor at this time. I obeyed and sat down in the seat indicated. I avoided looking at him.

“Siccouane, I have no wish to toy with you because you are cleverer than the others. To be exact, I suspect that you are the only genius in the Colony. Thus, I will be honest with you and expect you to return the favour. How many times have you opened the Green Box?”

My eyes bulged with the thrust of the accusation. I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t form proper words. I didn’t know whether to deny it, to complain or get up and storm out with the effrontery. Not even the late Bera had ever accused me of such a thing.

“… In your imagination?” he completed the sentence.

It had come too late for me to regain my composure. How often in my dreams? If there was any point to the question, it was beyond me. Wrought, I found my voice before my mind could provide it with any prepared material.

“I … I probed it a few times … when it was firmly slotted in … I caressed it.”

“And what did you feel when you caressed it?” he whispered.

“Insignificant.”

“What else?”

“Limited.”

“What else?”

“Incarcerated.”

I buried my face in my hands and started crying with wracking sobs. The Governor leant forward and pulled my handkerchief out of the pocket of my redingote and offered it to me. His quiet, sharp voice seemed to whirr in my ear like an insect.

“And what conclusion did you reach, Siccouane, using the power of your intelligence?”

“That it doesn’t make sense that the Colony is administered via … a Box,” I ventured.

“Quite right. Then, what is its purpose? Why does it travel locked in a ship’s vault, why is it transported with a thousand precautions to the Palace and opened with the key that never leaves the Governor’s neck?”

“To make us feel worthless, limited and trapped,” I shouted as I buried my face in my handkerchief.

He smiled with contentment and settled back into his chair.

“So, my predecessor was afraid of you. He feared you more than his wife, whom he threw into the arms of the Priest so that they would exterminate each other. As lovers, they lost any hope they had of allying, they became competitive and nullified each other. Their obvious and provocative affair neutralised Dr Fabrizio; Drake was occupied by the Suez Mamelukes and never posed a threat; Judge Bateau was purposefully misinformed that he owed his Star and position to his daughter, so he turned to alcohol to drown his humiliation and was crushed by his contradictory feelings towards Bianca that stemmed from seeing her simultaneously as his ticket to success and as the proof of his inadequacy. He wasn’t just short-circuited, he was vaporised. And that brings us to you, Siccouane. How were you to be nullified? That must have required a lot of nights’ thoughts from my predecessor. You have no real vices, weaknesses or even ambition, and have an admirable degree of self-knowledge, clarity of thought and are brutally logical. How were you reduced to such helplessness?”

“I really don’t know what you are talking about.” I swallowed.

“It’s only what’s been preying on your mind night and day for the last twenty years, and I am certain that you have found all the answers, save one. I’ve asked you here today to tell you that I’m willing to give you the answer you seek on condition that you muster the courage to ask me the question.” He looked at me intently for a few seconds as I sat in silence. “Until you find that courage, you may go.”

I rose stiffly and made my way towards the door.

“And don’t forget, Siccouane, that you are not like the others. Don’t let their stupidity engulf your intelligence. I suspect that they’ll come looking for you tonight.”

I shut the door carefully, for I needed to collapse against it. His piercing voice reverberated in my ears like an open invitation, putting me in grave temptation. “All it takes is to ask the question, Siccouane.” I resisted. In any case, I wasn’t at all certain that he meant that he would solve the thorny puzzle that the appearance of the Black Ship had created. I superficially tidied my little office, pulled on my cap and stumbled out of the Palace, feeling unsteady for the first time ever.

There isn’t a human being alive that doesn’t deserve my contempt, which is why I’ve never feared my fellow men, I just think that they are a necessary evil that comes with the screwed-up world. The pirate, however, had petrified me, because he forbade my contempt. There was not a chink in his armour where my disdain could find a foothold. There was nothing I could offer in place of contempt so I had to conjure up a different way to handle him, to think about him and file him in some comprehensible box. Without contempt I could never manage to co-exist with him. My only escape would be self-destruction.