Not a Clue
Page 22
The number 9 does have one particularity. If you multiply it by any number and add the digits that make up the answer, the sum is always equal to 9, except when you multiply by 0 but that doesn’t count for us, for us 0 isn’t even a number, it’s more like an entity, a kind of genetically modified entity that uses us as doormat whenever it wants. We’re very impressed by 9. It has fans among all the numbers, not only among its own variations. The number 9 stirs up controversies in our society. Some see it as a model of resistance, a mass of tenacity. Nothing can corrupt it or make it give in. They consider its endurance as a kind of sovereignty, recognize the performance as a speech act, a shared message, Solidarity Forever! distinctly voicelessly refuses the operation. Some think it’s narcissistic, completely bogged down in the mirror phase. Others say that in fact 9 thinks it’s fat and is actually anorexic. It subtly avoids multiplication to avoid gaining weight.
Personally, I like to watch it work.
9 x 1 = 9 => 9 + 0 = 9
9 x 2 = 18 => 1 + 8 = 9
9 x 3 = 27 => 2 + 7 = 9
9 x 4 = 36 => 3 + 6 = 9
9 x 5 = 45 => 4 + 5 = 9
9 x 6 = 54 => 5 + 4 = 9
9 x 7 = 63 => 6 + 3 = 9
9 x 8 = 72 => 7 + 2 = 9
9 x 9 = 81 => 8 + 1 = 9
9 x 10 = 90 => 9 + 0 = 9
9 x 11 = 99 => 9 + 9 = 81 => 8 + 1 = 9
9 x me = 2,961=> 2 + 9 + 6 + 1 = 18 => 1 + 8 = 9
9 x 4,000 = 36,000 => 3 + 6 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 9
I’m number 324 and no one pleads with me. You never get me except after a series of accidents. I’m not expected anywhere and no one’s on the lookout for me, and by no means does anyone provoke me. Since I don’t make any sense, no one tries to find me, no one encourages me, no high school girl has ever flirted with me in order to pass her exams and seem more convincing. No magic idea makes me appear. No one ever prays to me, no one ever quotes me except in the margins of school notebooks or Excel spreadsheets. I’m not even present in stores, I don’t work as an invitation, I’m not sexy or impressive enough, I’m not tempting. No ad exec is going to hire me to mimic a year on a beer label, as proof, or who knows what. I’m the gray mass of anonymous numbers, a link in the chain of scattered accounts, I work in the shadows, faithful to the company, but with gutted pride since the Beginning.
That’s why I’m so happy tonight. For once someone said I’m something. Me, unique, singular but without connection, imagine my joy when I was invited. As the years, the decades, the centuries have gone by, I’ve seen many of my brothers idolized in games. Some even have ivory-spotted consecrated dice, the game of 421 rules in French bars, cards adopted other numbers as their own, Uno doesn’t need a translator on rainy Sundays and me I was always alone, terribly, horribly alone. Earlier I learned that I am important but so implicitly that I didn’t even know it. I’m not naive. Dr. Black came for me but not because of my vital role, I’m not vital, no number is, not even the most sought after, the most valued, the most laden with symbols or financial promises. We’re indispensable as a whole, because of our familial succession, never individually. We never act alone, well, only very rarely. Dr. Black came for me because numbers belong to mathematics, we live in the land of calculation, are sons of a language, but certainly not a tongue. We don’t belong to the community of fictional characters, we always work without ever asking for anything at all in return. We all work at very reasonable rates. Lately Dr. Black has been quite aggravated, he told me so himself, he’s looking after a very complicated trial, he needs proof for the case and at the same time he has to manage certain internal conflicts that I must admit I don’t understand at all. It doesn’t matter.
I am number 324, ordinary enough, I was saying, I am 324 and I do have some importance, relative as it may be. In the game of Clue, there are 6 suspects, 6 weapons, 9 rooms. I am the answer when they are multiplied together. So, out of all the combinations I’m the probability. There’s one chance out of me when the game starts that it will be so-and-so, with such-and-such a weapon in such-and-such a room who killed the good Dr. Black. There’s one chance out of me that Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, Mrs. White, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. Peacock, or Mr. Green will be the culprit with the monkey wrench the candlestick the lead pipe the revolver the rope the dagger in the Kitchen the Lounge you know the rest. There’s a well-known fact about Racine’s plays: as soon as one of his heroes sets foot on the stage you know he’s guilty and already lost. There’s a well-known fact about Clue: as soon as one of its heroes sets foot on the board there’s one chance in six that he has a little dried blood hiding under his nails. I am the number of precision, in my greatness I encompass the absolute completeness of the crime. There’s one chance out of me that Aline Maupin bashed in Dr. Black’s skull and gave free reign to her keen appetite. Before your very eyes I reduce predestination.
In Clue the probability that a murderer is this one rather than another, uses this weapon rather than the one that was sitting in the entry, and commits his or her misdeed surrounded by this wainscoting rather than standing on that old rug is quantifiable. Dr. Black gave me the mission of calculating the destiny. He hopes to draw certain conclusions that will shine a light on his investigation. In the back of his entirely perforated mind I could see right off he had an idea.
Every combination has one chance out of me to be the right one. The number 1 divided by 324 = 0.003086419753086420. In other words
0.3 percent, or 3 out of 1,000. It seems obvious, given how small the result is, that all the characters are to a great extent subject to free will. This number is required for the modalities of the murder, in advance they were presumed to be guilty (1 chance out of 6, or 16.6%). Dr. Black ordered me to find my brother embodying the similar probability outside Clue, Dr. Black can’t settle for a percentage that only expresses the amount of cruelty or murderous ingenuity he fell victim to. The choice of weapon—and of place—is linked to psychology and not to math, as he explained to me.
As the Fifth Officer, me, Number 324, a number that now carries a fun fact, expert in statistics due to my station in life, after conducting research and obtaining documentation, I affirm that: the six fictional characters accused of Dr. Black’s murder had one chance out of infinity to commit their crime if they hadn’t carried it out inside the game of Clue. Given that their presence on the board follows the crime, though justifiable for reasons of transposition, any reenacting remains symbolic in nature: each culprit acted only in accordance with their own good conscience without any interference or help from an Olympian influencing their choice of no return. Throughout history there have been murders known to have been committed sleepwalkingly, the hand holding the sword twisted in its veins by damned alienated blood genealogical cells corpuscles. Guilty innocents according to Aristotle. Their destiny was approaching 89.7 percent. Here that’s not the case. One chance out of infinity: they crossed the line on their own, attenuating circumstances: none.
Mrs. Peacock
You’re very beautiful Esther, even more beautiful today than yesterday less than tomorrow, as beautiful as love when it’s a lie, on your skin, on skin of your face, you have written love Esther, intensified the corners of your mouth the blade was sharp, you have a Glasgow smile Esther, you hollowed out this now permanent smile so Mathias would see it from far away where he was hiding, so he’d know from very very far away where you couldn’t find him that you were radiant and your lips so wide agape that you needed excess to emphasize their self-assurance.
Self-assurance while you wait, Esther, proclaimed slaves only linger at the old willow after mutilation, every night in your bosom your root whispered the old scarification-laden adage. How much time passed, Esther, how much time more than a year before you found his trail, your sense of smell was fading, your nostrils tired from sniffing street maps and Métro guides, it was to revive their original efficiency the sharp slicing along each side of your nose.
You’re sublime, Esther, you bear the stigmata of your
unending quest, unlike Madame de Merteuil you don’t let your soul show on your face, you got to it first. Your soul is pained. Do you know that spelled pane that word used to be used in sewing, an extended opening in the fabric of a piece of clothing that let the lining or the piece beneath be seen. You are Mathias’s lining, Esther. Your flesh is slashed in vain there’s no piece of clothing beneath and no clothing at all. Do you understand, Esther. The emperor has no clothes. And your only crown is your scars verging on decomposition, decorated with gems of bloody topaz pearl scabs. No empress arises from the crumb-collecting kingdom.
You’re tenacious, Esther. Optimizing your body to flesh out the bloodhound secreted by the machine requires sacrifice and a certain vigor. You’re very strong, Esther. Maybe the strongest of all the accused. It’s well-known that genius sometimes blossoms in collusion, the power of worms in the shadows is unknown.
When you were little, Esther, your Grandmother Duval liked to tell you the story of the earthworm that was in love with a star. You’ve grown so much. What would her corpse say if she set her eyes on her granddaughter now a white tapeworm taken with
Mrs. Peacock in the Library
a shooting star. You have strange ideas sometimes, Esther. You wanted not only to be Mathias’s shadow, but also that of the limelight, obviously. Don’t be surprised at how long it’s taking your phoenix heart to be reborn. It is ash, Esther, at whose contact all will be burned, that’s what happens with coal that strikes out against certain vanities with a pyre.
Your root, Esther, did a good job guiding you. You found your last tango in the Parisian depths of this dear wing. You were clever, strategic even you could say. Such obscure magic spells and clear schemes to finally arrive at the right conclusion. Dr. Lagarigue didn’t see you coming. Neither did Mathias. Mathias isn’t aware of your soul, don’t hold it against him, Mathias can’t read you or anything else anymore, his eyes are worn-out, novels as merchandise cause blindness, it’s a well-known fact.
You see him everywhere, Esther, from morning till night. You see him everywhere but you never bump into him, you don’t touch him either, talking to him doesn’t make sense. Mathias doesn’t see you, Mathias doesn’t see anything anymore, he’s off waltzing somewhere else, I’m telling you. Your root hurts now that it’s dying.
You’re trapped, Esther. Your widened mouth would so like to take advantage of its ability to say more and talk louder, what good is that mouth to you now that it’s impossible for it to smile, what can it be good for except copiously grinding up your words but your words, Esther, your words wish they could brag about the past, Mathias’s past, his past when he was yours and then past possession ricochets, so right, Esther, grinding up the words only betrays no one but you, scares Dr. Lagarigue who will soon transfer you far away, far far away as far as possible from Mathias, and even if it’s all dried out your root can’t tolerate that.
You’re perfect, Esther. Because within perfection, there’s nothing to change. Until now, you see, I, Dr. Black, I’ve always settled for just accusing. But now it’s up to you, I’m the one looking at you, everyone’s looking at you, everyone except Mathias, Mathias who can’t see anything his eyes are so riveted on the polished floor, he must really be bad, a pretty lousy dancer if he has to watch his feet like that. I’m the one looking at you, Esther, who can distinctly see the grimace of your cuts, your cuts like so many multiplied wounds so that your blood can
Mrs. Peacock in the Library
with the Rope
sign the pact, the pact that Mathias will never offer you, that he’s never offered, I’m the one who’s looking at you we all see you, soul face ravaged by a phantom contract that never let you get your foot in the door. Thanks to you now I know the loops taken on by punishment when it cracks down in calligrams.
Falling for the enemy, Esther, is more than dying a little. Falling for the enemy is always easier than fighting yourself until you give in to your own prayers. The grass is always greener, many are the greedy who allow the invader to perform scorched earth hoping to profit from the season of new growth. You wished that the mud Mathias’s skull imagined fertile would splash upon your body, eager on the hem to display the stain as incontestable proof that you had contributed an ounce of participation to the forced labor. Don’t believe the nurses when they talk about hygiene as they bring out the clippers. From time immemorial I’ve exercised a certain influence over the personnel.
Your root, Esther, wasn’t a cord umbilically linking your limbo to the scrawny heart of that murderous pimp Mathias Rouault. Your root is nothing but a pretext, we could even say a tool, it’s your murder weapon. You strangled me, Esther, strangled hoping to smother any scruples, to string up high inside of you any hint of decency in this blasphemy-ridden Library.
You’re not only an accomplice, for Mathias you’re nothing, especially not an accomplice, you acted alone and nothing is the cause except your impatience to experience the glory of the remains while they’re still warm. You did me in, horrendous twisting, the rope grasped in the shadows squeezing me to the marrow, don’t be surprised if there’s nothing left to you but a mix of bones and wounded flesh, your soul dragged through the mire, its tatters covered in blood and your awful limbs. And remember, Esther, as you leave the board to go back to the others, yes, remember, Esther back in the smoking lounge that the identity you’ve worn in the game was not given to you by chance. Because its creeping rhizome develops in the undergrowth: the periwinkle on the peacock’s tale is a melancholy teardrop.
Swamp
Sixth Officer
I’m the reflection in the mirror. In general, always, therefore yours. You ruined me without even realizing it your blindness started so early in the morning. One day I had to shout in your face. Dorian Gray in person would have noticed sooner. My complexion is spangled with Mercurian pox, I owe my boils to your carelessness.
I know from getting to know you on a daily basis that one day your eyes stopped seeing me head on. I’m not inside you, I never hear anything of your interior tumult. I’m too far you know on the other side for the slightest word and slightest thought to reach me without getting lost. Nonetheless I’ve seen and heard so much of you that inside of me I’ve understood the extent of the disasterLet me talk, that’s enough now. I’ve never seen such a thing, it’s literally scandalous, I was an omniscient narratrix before some deranged mind ever even thought of you, I was on my hundredth book before you were even born, you don’t seem to understand it’s like you need someone to draw you a picture: you’ve only been around for a few days, but I’ve been around for ages. You are completely incompetent and have no rights as far as narrative technique is concerned and you go so far as to cut me off frankly it’s unbelievable. Who do you think you are, are you trying to get me to use capital letters, bold, 72-point font, and a whole armada of punctuation marks to get you to calm down, you are aren’t you, just say so honestly. Dr. Black asked me to speak in my own name, so be it. But what do you think. I wasn’t waiting for him to learn my job. He shouldn’t have come to get me at all if he was just going to keep me from doing my work afterward. I show a little professional conscience and that’s what I get. No really. Not only do I get insulted, and accused of the worst wrongdoings, I get excluded, and everyone starts conspiring. That’s enough out of you you air-quoted officer, nobody asked you, you’re only here to occupy space just in case you hadn’t noticed so shut up. It’s no surprise what a mess it is in here: narration done by a fictional character, even with a lot of experience, things are bound to go wrong, it’s only logical. Obviously you’re completely incompetent, Dr. Black, there’s no mistaking it. Your medulla’s got to be pretty damn atrophied to even imagine that a whole book based on such an idea could ever stand up. Nowadays they really hand power over to anyone at all. Of course, I’m better at deciding what should happen than you. Because that’s what I was made for, see. It shouldn’t be that complicated to get that into your heads. Look. Okay, let’s talk about manipulation, j
ust for fun. Maybe you think I couldn’t see you coming from a mile away, with your abusive claims and your pitiful playacting. Yes, pitiful. The interview for a job in a video game, I’m supposed to believe Chloé Delaume came up with that bright idea all by herself. You expect me to believe you hadn’t convinced her in advance to find a way to get me to quit. You think I’m stupid I’m going to lose my temper. You set me against a fictional character who’s ontologically resistant to the story, and you think I’m dumb enough to trust her, that I’ll let myself be lulled by her nice advice about some not-a-clue holocaust, you’re out of your minds my poor friends. I don’t deny that her presence would’ve suited me. Nor that I wouldn’t have burned this dump down a long time ago if my role allowed it. But since Miss Delaume, despite the disgust she feels toward you, preferred to take your side I’ll manage on my own. No it’s not a threat. Just a notification.
You’re a bunch of amateurs. All of you, every single one of you, deserves to be fired for very serious misconduct. Let me remind you that a fictional character’s primary duty is to serve the story, not your own personal interests. Especially when they do nothing more than pamper your egos. You’re losing the plot, it’s absolutely ridiculous. You were hired to embody specific archetypes. Let me remind you once again since it doesn’t seem to be sinking in, you are not actors you’re fictional characters and therefore you are nothing but what you illustrate. If you weren’t such assholes you wouldn’t have ended up here. So, forgive me, I completely understand that hearing the recitation of the list of your misdeeds isn’t particularly pleasant, that being accused, ridiculed, and denounced page after page is difficult, but I beg you to stop talking about abuse it’s completely inappropriate. Anyways, given your profiles it was inevitable for you to end up in a book where things would happen to you. With one notable exception no one in here is dying in agony, your lack of experience is obvious because it happens more often than you’d think and to very respectable people. No, not two, Dr. Black was already dead before everything started, are you not paying attention or what, and does Fifth Officer even exist that’s something else, where did you find that one, oh come on why not let some object or other do the next chapter while you’re at it.