by Rob Summers
Chapter 11 Invitation to Leasing House
“So that’s it, sir.” The invitation lay on the table in Grace’s sitting room, and Dignity felt he had little more to say about it. “We’re asking your advice. Should we go see my Mom and Dad or shouldn’t we?”
“We just don’t know what to expect when we get there,” Reason added.
They had already confessed the story of their raid on Leasing House, and had found that Grace had curiously little to say about it. He seemed to take it as the kind of thing weak mortals do when encountering new and disagreeable circumstances. They temporarily err, he had said, until they have had time to adapt their normal good sense to the changed conditions. He had advised them not to lose sleep over it.
Much more serious was that, on this morning following the raid, Gentleness was still missing. They had begun to have real fears. On this subject Grace had responded less calmly. They might have expected it, he had said. Hadn’t they shunted the boy aside with no thought about his safety on the night streets and at a time when they might have known the City leaders were looking for stray and unprotected Heavenites? But though it was a deep concern, this too he asked them to put out of their minds for now. He thought it likely that, should they visit Leasing House, Guiles—with his City connections—would be able to tell them what had happened to Gentleness. He would leave it to Guiles.
The old man took the invitation from the table. Consisting of a few lines from Neglect, it had arrived that morning, asking them to visit Leasing House at seven that evening. The wording was cold and the message closed with no love or regards. No indication was given of the purpose of the meeting.
“You must go,” Grace said, answering Dignity’s question, “since you can learn something about Gentleness, but mainly because, if you don’t, you’ll torment yourselves wondering what might have happened concerning your parents. You are no doubt telling yourselves that this could lead to the reconciliation you’ve been hoping for?”
“Couldn’t it? Won’t it?” Dignity said eagerly. “We can take Reason’s pictures of the contract with us and show them to Mom and Dad.”
“No, it’s too soon for that,” Reason said. “We need to reestablish normal relations first. We can’t appear to be prosecuting Guiles.”
“Sure, OK. We can just go and talk friendly, like breaking the ice”
Grace took something from his jacket pocket and handed it to Dignity. “You’re going to encounter an unsettling situation over there, and you’ll need this. It’s the latest techno toy from the Heavenite Catalog. I had Honesty order it last week.”
Dignity examined the plain, white little box made to attach to the wrist. He fastened it on.
“What does it do?”
“Very little really. All it does is respond with noises to the emotion-laden, plausible things that people tend to say. If someone says something that doesn’t quite square with reality, this little box just makes its report. It makes different noises for different levels of untruth: for exaggerations a crackle, evasions a screech, lies a buzz, and for real whoppers a sound of thunder. Its trade name is the Fib Tripper”
“Do you mind if I try it, sir?” asked Reason.
“Be my guest.”
“OK, then let me just say that, um, it’s hot and humid outdoors.”
A long, loud roll of thunder followed, so realistic that it seemed to come from outside.
Dignity looked with awe at the little box. “How do you get those echoes?”
“Heavenly technology,” the old man answered. “It puts Bose to shame.”
“So when we go to Leasing House, we’ll know when they’re lying,” Reason observed.
“Oh, I think you’ll hardly need technical assistance for that. The point is that they themselves will know.”
Dignity slowly let this sink in. “This little box could spoil the reunion,” he said with dimwitted understatement.
“It won’t affect the outcome,” Grace reassured him. “Now go with my blessing. Don’t stay any longer than you have to, of course. Get along with you.”
Dignity and Reason found the second floor parlor crowded at Leasing House. Of course, in the shattered ruin, everyone wore coats, hats, and gloves. From time to time a flurry of snow found its way down the stairway to where it was accumulating on the mold spotted carpet in a small pile. But no one said anything about this.
Oblivia, who had let them in with smiles, led them to side by side chairs and sat down facing them beside Neglect and Folly. Guiles, however, preferred to sit turned away from them, and was actually attending to the screen of a laptop computer. They had had no greeting from him, and his expression was sour. Also present were Dignity’s Aunt Arctica, who was his mother’s sister, and Arctica’s ne’er do well second husband Mockery (who Dignity had met long ago during a miserable night in prison). Prevarica had found a seat beside her new nanny Confusion. The younger children played on the uneven floor.
With such a crew as this on hand, Dignity and Reason could scarcely hope for a good outcome of their visit, and both wished that they had not come. Nevertheless, for a short time they exchanged small talk with Neglect, Folly, and Oblivia. Then, as if on cue, Neglect pulled out a small notepad and announced that the serious part of the evening was to begin.
“Son, I don’t need to tell you that some things have to change. This is breaking my heart and—” a crackle emanated from Dignity’s Fib Tripper, and his father paused in perplexity “—and we’ve gotta become family again. We’ll go back to the way things were, so we can all have a nice Christmas” He lit a cigarette. “Now there’s two things that you’ve just got to do. I was very hurt when you, uh…” He looked at his notes under his bifocals. “…when you tried to make your mother and me swallow that Heavenite teaching of yours. I’m furious, hm, furious (giving the word a little emphasis on the second try) about you trying to take over my affairs.” The Fib Tripper crackled again and Neglect jumped in his seat. “Uh, so never do that again. Secondly, you’ve got to stop bad-mouthing Guiles. No more of that. He’s a sensitive man.”
Dignity was generally a little slow on the draw, but this evening he understood instantly and clearly what he was demanded to do. If he would simply go back to the usual family silence about the Leasing House roof and so forth, then he could resume the status of a family member, albeit a minimally acceptable one. Accept being gagged, and we will accept you. Despite the cold his forehead was damp. This felt unmistakably wrong, even devilish.
“Just a moment,” Reason said, raising her hand as if she were in a schoolroom. “Just to clarify—if Dignity doesn’t promise never to talk about such things again, then when we leave here, we’ll be locked out again, isn’t that right? No more visits with his parents?”
“That’s right,” Neglect said softly after briefly consulting his notes, and Guiles, who was still staring at the laptop, said the same with firmness.
Dignity glanced at Guiles, who seemed to be practicing a form of ventriloquism, and looked back at his father. “But Dad, I was never trying to hurt Guiles. I was just trying to protect you and Mom from harm because this house is unsafe.”
“Oh, that’s rich, that’s just rich,” Guiles growled without turning his head. He added, looking to Arctica, “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him.”
“Actually, Dad, I wasn’t going to mention this, because I thought we could just discuss more pleasant things this evening, but you ought to know that there’s a solid contract between Guiles and the City government that says this house goes down in a few years.”
“A maximum of four years,” put in Reason, always a stickler for accuracy.
“Right, and Guiles has given up every legal right to fight it. If only because of that, you and Mom really need to come spend the holidays at Grace House as usual.”
“No, I don’t think I believe all that,” Neglect said mildly.
“He’s a windbag!” Guiles expl
oded, still looking away.
Instantly, the Fib Tripper buzzed loudly, as if for the wrong answer on a game show, and everyone in the room started.
“Well, if you don’t believe it, Dad, then just look at what’s around you,” Dignity said. “We’re sitting here in a ruin with no back wall and no roof.”
Aunt Arctica stirred in her corner and raised a warning finger in front of her long, aristocratic face. “This house is perfectly sound, I’ll have you know.”
When thunder rumbled and the chandelier swayed, all the non-Heavenites looked frightened.
Recovering first, Guiles again directed a comment ostensibly to everyone present except Dignity. “I’d like to know why he thinks it’s any business of his!” he snapped.
Screech!
“It’s my business because I’m their son,” Dignity said.
Guiles laughed as if he thought this a ridiculous answer.
Dignity wrinkled his nose at the moldy smell in the room and tried to continue. “So Dad, like Reason says, it may not be as long as four years. This place is dangerous now.”
“It is not dangerous!” Guiles shouted, finally turning his head for a moment.
Buzz!
“Guiles, it’s snowing in here,” Dignity said with annoyance, pointing toward large flakes floating down the stairway.
“Oh, is it? Don’t listen to him, Neglect. Nobody here listens to him.”
Screech!
As Dignity pulled down his glove to look at the Fib Tripper in dismay, Guiles at last saw what was the source of the noises. “Will you turn that damn thing off! It’s driving us crazy.”
Crackle!
Dignity examined the smooth surface of the white box. “Uh, that’s odd. There’s no on-off switch.”
“Then you shouldn’t have brought it.”
“I know, I’m sorry. But if we all tell the truth, it won’t make any noise.”
Dignity found that this was not the most tactful thing he might have chosen to say, for as he looked around, the other faces, already closed, stiffened with anger. That is, except for Oblivia.
“Is that so?” she said brightly. “Then let’s all tell the truth.” Guiles winced at this. “So Dignity,” she went on, “just make nice with Guiles and everything will be all right.”
Buzz!
“Heavens! What did I say?”
“I hate that thing. Get rid of it,” wailed Prevarica.
“All right, what have we got here?” Guiles said, finally turning to fully face Dignity and Reason. “I want to know, is there going to be some sort of apology or isn’t there?”
“No, not really,” Dignity said mildly, and at the same moment Reason shook her head and said, “Huh-uh.”
Guiles snapped his fingers, and Little Rage, who had been playing placidly on the carpet with Plausible, instantly flew into a fit. The boy’s face turned purple and he jumped up and down, screaming and pointing at Dignity and Reason.
“You’re dumb, you’re wrong, get out, go away! Out, out! You’re dumb, you’re wrong, get out, go away! Out, out!…”
During the rest of the mercifully brief time Dignity and Reason were in the house, Little Rage did not stop screaming these words in rotation, except when gasping for breath.
“I hate you!” Prevarica added in a shriek. “I did not see big lizards. I did not!”
Others too began to shout various things. “This house is sound as a dollar!” (Arctica) “So you think you’re the big smart man? Well, you ain’t as smart as you think you are!” (Mockery) “You’re headed for the same little cell that Heavenite boy is in. They’ll get you too!” (Guiles) “You shouldn’t have disturbed Mr. Leasing. He’s a sensitive man!” (Confusion) “The family won’t be together for Christmas, and it’s all your fault! (Folly)
And adding to the cacophony, the Fib Tripper somehow managed to keep up with all this, emitting a percussion accompaniment of crackles, screeches, buzzes, and thunderclaps.
With hands over their ears, Dignity and Reason hurriedly exited Leasing House.
On the walk home they were so shaken that they were quivering.
“Dig,” Reason said, “there was something strange about what just happened.”
“Oh, only one thing? Reas’, everything that just happened was strange.”
“Yes, I know, but what I mean is that they attacked us with everything in their arsenal except one.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Not a word said about our sneaking in and photographing the contract.”
“Isn’t that odd?” she said. “The one thing that we feel guilty about, and they don’t mention it. Could Guiles still not know that we did it? Maybe Oblivia didn’t tell him?”
“She tells him everything. My guess is that because Guiles has no scruples himself he can’t imagine what would make us feel guilty. If he had known how tender our consciences are about it, he surely would have ridden it to death. But he’s playing the game blindfolded.”
“I’m sure that’s true, but it just occurred to me that he’s so embarrassed about what the contract actually says that he won’t mention it even if he suspects how much he could hurt us. I already knew that he wouldn’t take legal action against us because of the embarrassment to him, and I guess maybe he can’t stand to even bring it up privately.”
“Yeah, maybe so. I guess we’ll never know exactly.”
They walked on.
“Reas’, did you hear what he said about Gentleness as we were leaving?”
“Oh, how I wish I hadn’t heard! To think of that innocent boy in a City jail cell! And all our fault—I can’t stand it. Maybe it isn’t true. Even if it is, Grace will surely get him out?”
He nodded unhappily. “I was thinking how I wish he’d been with us tonight. We could have used him.”
