Voices in the Dark

by Catherine Banner

  ‘Please, fix it.’

  ‘I’d have to get out Papa’s old tools and do it properly. Can’t it wait until the morning?’

  ‘Please, Anselm.’

  She was crying in earnest now. ‘I didn’t mean to break it,’ she said. ‘Please, Anselm!’

  I got up, making much of it, and went to our pile of crates in the corner and found the old woodworking tools from the shop. Jasmine clutched the box to her and kept a close watch on it all the time it was in my hands. ‘Be careful,’ she said at intervals while I tried to force it back together.

  ‘Shh,’ I said. ‘You’ll wake Grandmama.’

  ‘Is it going to be all right?’ she said. ‘Anselm, don’t break it!’

  ‘I’m not breaking it!’ My irritation got the better of me. I had been fighting it for several minutes without success. ‘Jasmine, you were the one who broke it,’ I said. ‘Stop complaining and let me work.’ She put her thumb in her mouth and regarded me in silence. ‘There’s something wrong with this – it won’t go together. Sit back and let me have the light.’

  Jasmine shuffled back a few inches, without taking her thumb out of her mouth.

  ‘I have enough to worry about already,’ I said. ‘Jasmine, we have no money, and if someone doesn’t do something about it, I don’t know what’s going to happen, and now you ask me to fix this bloody—’

  ‘Don’t do it after all,’ said Jasmine, taking it back. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  That only infuriated me more. I threw myself back down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Jasmine was still studying the box, trying to push it back together herself. I let her. ‘Anselm?’ she said when several minutes had passed. ‘Anselm … ?’

  ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘What’s this?’

  She put the box down on my chest and pointed to something in the base of it. I picked it up and looked. ‘What?’ I said. ‘I can’t see anything.’

  She gave an impatient sigh and said, ‘Feel there.’

  I traced the line she was pointing to and felt a small dent in the wood, like a fingerprint. ‘Give me the candle,’ I said. I got the file and edged it under the base of the box. The mechanism had broken since Jasmine had dropped it, but it was a hidden compartment. The base creaked and came loose. Inside was a folded sheet of paper.

  We stared at each other for several long seconds. We should have known, I thought suddenly. That story Aldebaran had told Jasmine about the smugglers and the fact that this box looked like it was from somewhere else. And yet I had never expected him to resort to a trick out of a story to pass his secrets on to us.

  ‘Shall I open it?’ said Jasmine.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  She took out the paper and unfolded it. Aldebaran’s familiar writing wrenched my heart now that he was gone. The date on the top was more than a year ago.

  Dearest Jas [the letter read]. If you are reading this, I am already gone from you. I have been worried for some time that I am in danger. I want you to know that I was only cross with you because it made you a better student. Also, that time when you stamped on my foot, you were quite justified. If you decide to give up your powers, I will always understand. Yours with great affection, Uncle.

  Jasmine laughed and then started to cry. ‘Let me see,’ I said. It was Aldebaran’s writing for sure, the firm downstrokes and the letters that sloped as though they were on an arduous journey. ‘What’s this?’ I said. There was another sheet. It was only a few lines, and I read them in a minute:

  Magic is dying, and a time will come when no one remembers the old ways. I name my last descendant as your hope in times of trouble, a very certain help in the darkness of the road. But there are those who will not return, those who will go forward into another place. Have courage.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Jasmine’s face had turned very serious. ‘It’s a vision of the future, Anselm,’ she said. ‘I think it is.’

  I tried to take the letter from her, but she was studying it in the light of the candle. ‘It is,’ she whispered. ‘And he meant us to find it and no one else, so he put it in this box.’

  ‘His last descendant,’ I said. ‘Who is that?’ Jasmine read the page again, then folded it and put it back into the compartment and closed it. ‘Hey, Jas,’ I said. ‘I wanted to read that.’

  ‘I’m tired,’ she said, and blew out the candle.

  I could not tell if she slept that night, but I could not. I was thinking about what Jared Wright had said. That he would pay a good deal of money, thousands of crowns perhaps, for Aldebaran’s last prophecy. And so would any political man. And here it was, in that box of Jasmine’s, and I could not help seeing it as the answer to all our troubles. I knew it was dishonest of me, but I could not help seeing it like that. For the first time, I thought I could see a way out.

  My mother was worse in the week that followed, and the thought of that prophecy haunted me. Father Dunstan called one evening; he came back with my grandmother after Mass. ‘How are you, Maria?’ he said, taking her hand and sitting carefully on the side of the bed.

  ‘Not so bad,’ she said.

  ‘And when is the baby due?’

  ‘Not for another few days. Or weeks perhaps.’

  The door fell closed at that point. Jasmine and I were in front of the fire, pretending to do homework that we had not looked at for weeks. My grandmother was making tea and laying out biscuits on a plate.

  ‘Grandmother,’ I said, looking at the ornate china. ‘How much is all this worth?’

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘This furniture. How much is it worth?’

  I had not spoken to her properly for days. She looked up at me, stirring the tea without noticing it. ‘What on earth do you mean?’ she said.

  It was something I had been thinking about for a long time. ‘How much are the contents of this house worth?’ I said. ‘I just wondered, because of the hospital—’

  She shook her head. ‘Anselm, do you think I haven’t thought of it already? When your grandpa Julian died, he was in that hospital for three weeks. Everything of value went. My little sewing table and the silver, and all my jewellery. Look at what is here. It wouldn’t fetch above a hundred crowns in an auction.’

  I must have looked unconvinced, because she raised her voice. ‘Look at it. Do you hear me? Get up and look at it!’

  I got up and examined the furniture properly. It was true. What wasn’t worn out was worthless, and the few things that might have had some value were chipped and broken and stained with use. Life can be deceptive – that was what I thought, looking at it. You can give yourself airs and a high-class accent and really have nothing at all. The care with which my grandmother dusted this old furniture had always made me believe that it was worth something.

  In the bedroom, Father Dunstan murmured a question, and there was a pause. Then my mother burst into tears. We listened without looking at each other. My mother’s voice went on like a river, speaking and crying at the same time, and I knew she was telling him about the hospital and the two thousand crowns we did not have. I sat there and watched the fire, but I could not really see it.

  Eventually Father Dunstan came back out. ‘I am sorry for your trouble,’ he said. ‘I would have asked the congregation to contribute to a small fund. You are all such respected members of the church that I’m sure they would be willing. But we won’t raise two thousand crowns. Not in a year.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said my grandmother. ‘It’s a kind thought anyway.’

  ‘I would advise you to borrow the money somehow,’ he said. ‘I will underwrite the loan, if you wish. It’s all I can think of to do.’

  It was a brave offer. All the moneylenders were controlled by gangs, and if we could not pay, they would come down on him instead. But he was only a priest. His cell beside the church had a table and a bed and a narrow kitchen with no window; that was all. His word against a loan was worthless. ‘Father,’ I sa
id. ‘Do you think she really needs to go to the hospital when the baby is born?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think so. My knowledge is limited, but I think it would be safest.’ I rested my head against the side of the fireplace and stared into the flames. ‘If there is any way you can afford it,’ he said.

  ‘I think I can get the money,’ I said.

  There was a pause while they both looked at me.

  ‘How?’ said my grandmother then. ‘How will you get it? Honestly, Anselm! You live in a world of dreams.’

  I did not reply. We sat with the priest, drinking tea, and he left soon after. Jasmine fell to sleep early, with Aldebaran’s box beside her. My grandmother went down to fetch water, and I took my chance. I knelt beside Jasmine, levered open the secret compartment, and took out the paper.

  I set out not long after that. I put on my Sunday clothes and my overcoat and that old hat of Leo’s because it made me look older. I felt like I was preparing myself for a great ceremony – a marriage or a funeral – or like a soldier going to war. I glanced at myself in the hall mirror as I passed, but it did not make me feel any better. I looked like Ahira. I tried to forget that picture of my face and started towards our old part of the city.

  I went to Citadel Street first. I knew it was a faint hope, but no one had lived in that apartment since us, and a few nights ago, I had remembered a high cupboard in which my mother kept everything of value. I had worked it up into a whole story, this cupboard, in my efforts to find some other way of raising two thousand crowns. There might be something left in it. Had any of us checked before we left? Perhaps it was a strange kind of morality, but if I went to Jared Wright, I wanted it to be my last resort.

  I struggled with the rusted lock on the side door of our old building. Leo and I had got in once, I remembered, a long time ago. I had the file from the shop in my pocket, and with some leverage, the door opened. The blackness inside was like drowning. I lit a match and went up the stairs as quickly as I could. I wanted to run, but I concentrated on keeping the match steady in the freezing air. I had a candle, but I was saving it until I got inside our old apartment.

  I reached the third door and walked a few steps forward before I lit the candle. The flame steadied uneasily. I made out old packing cases, and a pile of fallen ash in the fireplace, and broken glass glinting in front of the nearest window. Dust and frost sparkled on the floorboards, and spiderwebs hung as thick as wedding garlands in the corners. Over the mantelpiece, a scrap of paper fluttered in the breeze from the doorway. I crossed the room and took it down, then recognized it. I had drawn this at school, when I was a little boy; we must have forgotten it when we left. Three grinning figures stood in front of a tall black building. I had printed words underneath it: Mama, Papa, Anselm.

  I checked each of the rooms. The kitchen window was broken, and birds must have got in, because the floorboards were strewn with dirty feathers. A patch of damp had spread on the wall of the smaller bedroom. The other was completely bare. I stacked up two packing cases and raised the candle, flooding the cupboard on the wall with light. It was empty. My courage failed me at that point, and I turned and ran.

  As I was leaving the alleyway, I saw the words on the front of the building, faded now because of the frost that obscured everything. THIS IS THE PLACE. This was where he had died. And I could not help thinking again of Leo and the man he had shot. Had that man and Ahira been the same person? How could they have been? I fell to my knees in the dust and thought of Ahira falling there while I was a baby sleeping in the house above him. I wondered if I had woken and begun to cry. I wondered if he had known it was our house.

  I did not want to think about it, not now, when I had to talk to Jared Wright. I knew suddenly that I was losing my way. But knowing it doesn’t help you when you are already lost. I got up and made myself set one foot in front of the other. On the way, to put Ahira out of my mind, I worked out my price. It was what Leo had always told me to do. It was dishonest to cheat people, he said, like Mr Pascal did, but there was no shame in knowing how much money you needed to make. There was no shame in deciding how much money you needed to come home with, in order to survive.

  I wondered what we needed. Two thousand for the hospital. A thousand for Dr Keller – it was two months’ rent that we owed him, plus the price of the windows. He had backed down over the three thousand crowns but not over the rest. A hundred or two, I thought before I could stop myself, to get out of this city. A few hundred crowns for the journey west. Because if the invasion really did come, what else could we do? Really we needed five hundred, I decided, in case we had to stop at inns on the way, and to buy clothes and things for the baby, and to transport our belongings with a shipping firm. And Christmas presents, I thought, because Jasmine expected something. Another twenty crowns would cover that. But then what about Michael? How would I ever go and find him again, without money saved now to go and do it?

  By the time I reached Jared’s shop, the figures were reaching dizzying heights, and I knew it. I stopped outside the door and brushed the cobwebs off my jacket and straightened out my hair. There were no lights in our old shop, but the windows of J. W. Fortune, Esq., were lighted. I could see Jared behind the glass. He was sitting with his feet on the counter, smoking. One thing I had decided on the journey to his shop: I would ask him to lend me the money first. And only when he said no would I resort to the other plan.

  Jared got up and came to the door at last. ‘Anselm,’ he said. ‘How long are you going to stand outside my shop before you come in?’

  ‘I was about to come in.’

  He gestured me through the door and closed it again behind me. I did not know what to say. ‘Well?’ he asked me at last. ‘What can I do to help you?’

  I hesitated, then gave up altogether and said it. ‘Lend me five thousand crowns.’

  To his credit, he did not laugh. He sat down heavily behind his counter and said, ‘Five thousand? You are serious?’

  I could not swallow – my throat was dry. I nodded.

  ‘Come here,’ he said quietly. ‘It is a lot of money. A hell of a lot.’ I nodded again. ‘What’s your security?’

  I had not thought of that. ‘I have a watch that belonged to my grandfather,’ I said. ‘It’s at home, but I could go and get it.’

  ‘How much is it worth?’ said Jared.

  ‘One hundred and thirty,’ I said.

  Jared did not laugh as I had expected him to. He just watched me, his eyes narrowed, then sat down at the counter. ‘I’m a rich man,’ he said. ‘I did not become so by giving out loans, but that is of no consequence for Maria Andros’s son. Who wants your money?’

  ‘It’s for the hospital for my mother’s baby.’

  He gave a twisted smile at that and ran his hand over his oiled hair. ‘She needs a hospital?’ he said.

  ‘The midwife thinks there may be complications.’ He glanced up. ‘I would pay it back,’ I said, playing quickly on his concern. ‘I swear I would.’

  ‘Not this year, though, surely? Not for a long time.’

  ‘As soon as I could.’

  ‘And what would you do in between? To prove that you were no liar?’ I stood there helplessly. ‘As far as I can see, you have no income,’ he said. ‘You are at school. This country is about to fall altogether, and there are a lot of people who are borrowing far beyond their means, because they think they can get away with it.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘I will be honest with you,’ he said. ‘Five thousand crowns would not bankrupt me. But I would need more than a hundred-pound watch as security.’

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  ‘All right what?’

  I caught sight of my reflection in the gold-framed mirror and glanced away again. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I was only thinking; I have things I can sell instead.’

  ‘Do you? I’m glad to hear it.’

  I wanted to mention the prophecy then, but I could not do it. My initial courage had passe
d. I stood stupidly halfway across the shop with my hat and coat still on.

  ‘Come in,’ said Jared. ‘Will you have a drink, and we’ll talk about it?’

  I nodded. He poured out two glasses of spirits and carried them into the back room. I followed him. Jared motioned me to a chair and set a glass down in front of me. He raised his own, and the crystal glittered. ‘To better times,’ he said. ‘No – to freedom. Why not drink to that?’

  ‘To freedom,’ I said, though I didn’t know what he meant by it.

  He drained his glass in one swallow and lit a cigarette. ‘More doom and destruction,’ he said, pushing today’s newspaper towards me. According to its account, the Alcyrians had taken the villages surrounding Ositha and had started north to cut the city off. ‘The government is growing desperate,’ he said. ‘Have you heard its latest story? Apparently the king has a secret child somewhere, the son of a former lover. I suppose the suggestion is that this boy can somehow be brought forward to rule the country if King Cassius is assassinated. Do you know what I think it is? I think the king knows that he is in danger of his life, and he’s trying to make himself look immortal.’

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ I said. ‘Who is your allegiance with?’

  ‘Who is my allegiance with?’ He frowned. ‘No one. I thought you would know that by now. But I am a close acquaintance of several members of Joseph Marcus Sawyer’s government. I knew them in the old days. I have some influence.’

  ‘You support the king?’ I said.

  ‘I support the king’s government … and the king, I suppose, until a strong leader comes to take his place.’

  ‘But you have nothing to do with the Imperial Order?’

  ‘Good heavens, no.’ He leaned forward on the table and grinned. ‘Apart from anything, there is no money in it. Not yet anyway.’

  ‘They think they are going to be rewarded,’ I said. ‘When the Alcyrians come.’

  ‘Anselm,’ he said. ‘Let me tell you something. With those regimes, no one is rewarded. No one wins in the end. It might take twenty, or thirty, or a hundred years, but in the end, the cards are all down and everyone loses. Everyone is deceived.’