“I need another glass before I dive after that little fable.” Senlin said.
Despite the gruesome execution, despite his hopeless floundering search for Marya, despite the hods and the vindictive Commissioner, Senlin felt a glimmer of peace. Their argument and the wine had given him what he had numbly pursued in the streets: a sense of control and order. The feeling reminded him of the many summer mornings he spent crawling across his schoolhouse floor, hammering in nails that had been squeezed up by the wood’s swelling. Alone and shuffling along on bare knees, trousers rolled up in thick, snug cuffs, he raised the hammer over the heads of old nails. Each blow echoed among the rafters like the report of a gun. It filled him with a small but warming sense of accomplishment.
Though every summer, the same nails sprouted anew.
Tarrou caught the attention of their server who soon arrived with another bottle of tart plonk: cheap acrid stuff that worked mercilessly on Senlin’s stomach the following morning. They respected a truce while the wine was poured, but before Senlin could resume the subject of Tarrou’s endless bon-voyaging, Tarrou diverted their attention to the painter working on the sidewalk beside their table.
Tarrou made a habit of heckling the middle-aged, hunchbacked artist. The artist, who hardly ever spoke, had paint in his hair and eyes that seemed always in motion. Other than painting, the only other activity he seemed to enjoy was smoking, which he often did, the sour yellow smoke rising straight as a flagpole in the breezeless atmosphere. Rows of his paintings leaned on the rail of the patio and around the spindly legs of his easel, but his work attracted little attention from passersby. Tarrou enjoyed teasing the painter for his style, which was distinguished by thick daubs of unblended paint. The effect wasn’t bad taken from a distance, but on close inspection, his canvases reminded Senlin of a cutting board where a fish had been scaled.
“Painter, are you seeing spots? Have you suffered a blow to the head? Or perhaps you have only yet to connect your dots?” Tarrou laughed, obviously trying to move Senlin toward a merrier topic. He continued in a stage whisper to Senlin: “Notice how the artist reeks of old woman’s perfume? Who do you think funds all these splatters? Widows and spinsters. Homely as a dog’s hinder, but rich as the Tower. They model for him, I’ve heard, in the buff, and that’s why he’s half-blind and all his brushes have cataracts!” Tarrou leaned over the partition rail, sloshing wine onto the walk. “Look, painter, I have a talent, too,” he said, pointing at his spill.
The crooked painter patiently ignored Tarrou, though Senlin could tell he was affected. His already shortened neck seemed to shrink even further into his hump. Senlin felt a little scolded by the painter’s persistence, his resoluteness. Tarrou, on the other hand, had gotten drunk and had raised his voice and had felt content, and there was no time for any of that. What was he doing with himself?
A woman in a fur stole stopped to consider some of the artist’s work. Tarrou gestured grandly at the paintings leaning nearest them. “We’re having a breakage sale! These, madam, are half off. And they come with a pot of paint so that you may repair them, if you like.” The woman crossed the fur at her neck and hurried away. Senlin raised his finger to intervene, but was interrupted by the painter whipping about.
His large eyes were raw and red and dry with hate. Senlin half expected the painter to shoot Tarrou dead. “You tease away my livelihood, Tarrou.” His voice sounded thin as a clay flute in comparison to Tarrou’s theatrical baritone, but still it made Senlin recoil a little.
Tarrou looked only more entertained, but before he could reply, Senlin clapped his hands to dispel the joke. “Leave the man to his work. We haven’t finished with our conversation.”
“Did you just clap at me?” Tarrou rubbed his face, blunting one point of his beard and turning the other in a crazed direction. When he opened his eyes again, they were unfocused. The drink seemed to be steering the ship now. “No more conversations, Headmaster! The world is rotten. Leave it there. Why be upset?”
“I am upset because we have pooled our human genius into the building of an elaborate Tower and have filled it up with the same tyrants that have plagued our race since we crawled from the sea. Why does our innovation never extend to our conscience?”
“My conscience compels me to not throttle you or tackle the painter. That’s progress!”
“That’s not progress, it’s fear of the law! And the law is corrupt! The innocent are still brutalized and murdered. I saw proof again of that today. The Commissioner...”
“I do not endorse the man!” Tarrou said too loudly, and the painter’s head swiveled around at him, his expression now one of incredulity, as if Tarrou were an idiot in addition to being a drunken wag. The look tempered Tarrou, and he continued in a more contained, though hardly more sober tone. “He is a sneezy, wheezing little piggy. He is allergic to air. He sickens more easily than an infant. Every fortnight he hosts a buffoon’s ball at his mansion where he poses as a human and a patron of the arts. A human! A patron! Bah! He employs a harem of art appraisers who tell him what a painting is worth. He is a conny... a conny...” Tarrou spit to one side to clear his dry mouth. “A connoisseur of accounting. If we want to see his collection, we have to be invited; we have to dress like a virgin sheik; we have to look at the art through inch-thick panes of glass because the vapors disturb his sinuses.” Tarrou thumbed his nose mockingly.
“Here I was concerned about murder. I had no idea the Commissioner was also a bore,” Senlin said acerbically, trying to sober himself now to compensate for his friend.
Tarrou only laughed. “Always so sour, Headmaster! What can we do to cheer you up?”
“I need smaller tyrants, Tarrou. Give me a stingy baker or a mayor who nods off during the spring recital. It is time I went home. The school year starts in a few weeks, and I must prepare.” And, Senlin neglected to say, he was increasingly worried that home was where he would find Marya, long since returned by some easy means he’d failed to imagine. She was probably enduring all sorts of gossip and speculation. What had she told their neighbors? That her new husband had abandoned her? That she was perhaps a widow? What choice did he have but to go home? He was running out of money and his ticket wouldn’t be honored forever. If only he could afford to fly, he could bypass the whole slog back down the Tower!
“I am going home,” Tarrou said, chin on his chest.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“How long have you been here, Tarrou? Six months? A year? You seem more a fixture than a visitor.”
The large man’s jaw worked, sawed nearly, until the words hissed out. “Sixteen years.”
“Years!” Senlin’s voice cracked with surprise. “Why?”
“I don’t have to explain.” The bottle seemed to chortle as he refilled his glass. “Suffice it to say, I lost track of time. And then, after a while, going home was impossible. What would I say to my wife? She took over the business years ago. The gold came out of the ground as easily under her watch as mine. We are not as essential as we’d like to think! She sends me a monthly allowance, has for years. I write her letters I don’t send… pitiful, pitiful letters.” At the mention of the letters, he winced as if suppressing a shudder. Senlin imagined what the letters must contain: a litany of promises. Tarrou sagged in his seat with a tragic sigh that rattled like a snore.
It was late. They were drunk. The imported light of the moon swam like silver minnows on their skin and the iron lattice of the tabletop. It was a slinking glow fit for melancholy. He ached to think that he would have to remember it alone. He would never want to describe it to Marya. It would only recall their spoiled honeymoon.
The chimes rang the ten o’clock hour, wrenching open the lengthening silence between them. The artist began packing up his easel and paints.
“I must gather my effects and buy a ticket,” Tarrou said firmly, though his voice was still thick with wine. “Meet me at the south skyport in the morning, Senlin. I want a proper se
ndoff. I will bring a bottle for you to dash on the stern. Or on my head. You are an all-weather friend. Goodnight.” Tarrou jarred the table standing up, upsetting the empty bottle, which Senlin narrowly caught with the tip of his boot. Tarrou blundered then against the rail, and this started him laughing. He passed around the gate onto the walk, and whether out of intention or inebriation, he staggered into the artist, knocking his sling of paintings and box of paints from his hands. The artist careened forward, and fell, splayed out under a lamppost.
Tarrou turned and bowed at the fallen man unsteadily. “Long dies the revolution! We have wasted our lives, painter. But I, at least, have not burdened the world with proof of it.” He began a leaning gallop away down the flagstone sidewalk and onto the cobbled street, his feet clapping flatly into the polka-dotted dark.
His conscience pricked, Senlin rushed to the artist, now sitting in dismay with his long fingers pressing the lines on his forehead into waves. Senlin apologized profusely for Tarrou, who was, he admitted, too often a bully to the poor painter. And while the painter stayed posed as a stone, Senlin began gathering the tubes and jars that spilled from the cornucopia of the painter’s box.
Mercifully, the wet canvas he’d been laboring over had landed face up. The paintings that had been on display were not so fortunately delivered. Many lay sprawled glory-side down in the street. Senlin inspected each piece in the lamplight for signs of damage, continuing his string of apologies while gently wiping scuffs of dirt from edges and blunted stretcher corners. His words quickly tapered, however, when he grasped the last of the toppled paintings.
The painted scene was of a bench. Behind it, the reservoir scintillated with morning sun, and the conch-like silhouette of the Fountain spiraled upward, jets of steam whistling out in white spokes. It was an evocative scene, if not an unusual style. But it was not the style or backdrop that struck him now. Sitting on the bench in the near foreground was a woman. Her form had been captured in just a few strokes, yet Senlin couldn’t mistake her figure or the crimson-colored helmet.
The humiliated painter had finally risen and was brushing the street dust from his knees when Senlin hooked his arm tightly, holding the canvas before him.
“Where did you paint this? When did you paint this? Where is this woman?” He asked desperately, and pointed to the captured image of Marya.
Chapter Five
“There are endless currencies beyond the bills and coins in your pocket. Sometimes a ticket may be bought with a smile; a glass of wine may be payment enough for an entertaining tale.”
- Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel, IV. XI
Senlin stood on the rooftop terrace of a two-story perfumery. It was the artist’s apartment. An intense but muddled scent suffused everything: the rough stucco walls and the rounded stairs they had climbed, the tapestry draped over the entranceway, and the bouquets of paintbrushes blooming from terra cotta pots. The air was so cloyed with perfume it smelled almost like rot. Senlin would’ve found the air intolerable if he hadn’t been so distracted by the elation and doubt that warred within him. What if it wasn’t Marya in the painting? The style of the painting was so vague! Even if it was her, what if she had emerged only briefly from the anonymous crowd, only to disappear into it again, this time for good? And if she’d been so nearby, how had he missed her? Though he was filled with turmoil, he maintained his customary outward poise.
The majority of the terrace was devoted to the painter’s workspace. A sturdy four-posted easel dominated the floor. Stacks of canvases leaned against the parapet that encircled the roof, and other than a modest cot and a frayed chaise lounge, draped in colorful fineries, the only furniture was a flimsy card table and two cane chairs.
“I don’t understand why people pay for a second roof when we already have one over our heads. Custom, I suppose,” the artist said, retrieving a stubbed-out cigarette from a full ashtray and lighting it. The painter had yet to respond to Senlin’s initial outburst over the familiar figure in his painting. Senlin felt the artist was circling the subject, and it made him uneasy.
The painter formally introduced himself as Philip Ogier. He had a nervous habit of tucking his thin jaw-length blond hair behind his ears, which were round and prominent. His facial features were noble enough, his bright darting eyes and active brow serving to offset his long, slightly aquiline nose. The hump on his back seemed to swell a little more to the right, which made him appear always slightly crooked when he stood still or sat. His voice and expressions were almost feminine, but Senlin detected a powerful ego beneath his mild facade.
Ogier invited Senlin to sit and he did, though he stayed vigilantly on the edge of the seat, partly to keep his besotted mind from wandering. “I know you are new to the Baths, but I can’t say I like the company you’ve chosen to keep,” Ogier said.
“Tarrou is too often drunk and too much broken hearted.”
“Drink and self-inflicted sorrows hardly excuse it.” Ogier smiled humorlessly. Senlin thought he understood Ogier’s subtext: he was unlikely to be sympathetic or generous to a man who cavorted with his enemy. Senlin could only hope the artist was susceptible to bribery. Though he had little enough to bribe him with.
Ogier retrieved a bottle and two etched flutes from a blue-painted cabinet. Before taking his seat again, Ogier set a large skeleton key on the table just before him. It was a black menacing thing with a ringed grip large enough for two fingers to pass through. Senlin didn’t recall there having been any locks on the doors they had come through.
“You seem to prefer wine, but would you take a little sherry? It’s viciously dry, I’m afraid, but good.” Ogier said, and Senlin, feeling he could not refuse, accepted the pour. Ogier toasted Senlin’s health, and Senlin graciously returned the gesture even as dread and wine made his stomach churn. This was exactly the situation Finn Goll had warned him against; exposing his desperation to Ogier had made him vulnerable. He was entirely at the man’s mercy. But since the day he’d lost sight of Marya, this was the first glimpse of her he’d had. The thought that she might still be, or at least had been, in the Baths gave him hope enough to endure Ogier’s agenda.
“How do you know this woman?” Ogier asked, gesturing toward the painting that had gripped Senlin’s attention. The painted board now leaned on the sturdy easel facing them.
“She’s an acquaintance, if it is her. It’s difficult to tell.”
“An acquaintance? If that’s the extent of your connection, I hardly feel comfortable sharing her particulars,” Ogier said, picking up and fidgeting with the substantial iron key.
“I misspoke. We are family, of course.”
“Ah, yes. An absent-minded cousin, perhaps?” Ogier lit a second cigarette and then pointedly muddied the air between them. The addition of the smoke to the fragrant air made Senlin’s eyes tear. “You know, your initial reaction seemed genuine, and so I thought that you might really be in need of some assistance. But now you are so cool. I wonder if you aren’t perhaps some vile opportunist. Some deviant with a gross agenda.”
Senlin’s calm cracked a little; a pleading light weakened his gaze. “She is my wife, though I have no proof of it. I promise that she will confirm it.”
Ogier smiled at having coerced this revelation. His smugness made Senlin want to leap across the table at him. The urge surprised him. “And she is lost?” Ogier coaxed Senlin on with the draping smoke of his cigarette.
Senlin could think of no advantage now to concocting a story for their separation. He had gone as far as looking could take him. He was nearly out of funds. He could go no further without some assistance. Ogier seemed reasonable enough. A trifle hurt by years of scorn from Tarrou, perhaps, and a little smug, and perhaps conniving... but he did not seem to be a criminal. Besides, what choice did he have? He decided to tell Ogier the entire truth, though it pained him.
Senlin dryly and succinctly described their arrival on the train, the tumult of the Market, his error in letting her go, and the moment of
their unexpected parting. He summarized his search, leaving out (he scarcely knew why) Edith, their perplexing imprisonment, her torture, and his abandonment of her. He didn’t wish to complicate the narrative of his devotion to Marya, and so he hurried on to describe his inefficient scouring of the Baths.
Having never been very good at emoting, Senlin worried that Ogier might mistake his reserve for indifference. He could only hope that the frankness of his confession would be enough to elicit some mercy from the artist.
“So, she has been lost for... nearly five weeks?” Ogier asked, and Senlin confirmed it.
The artist sat considering the pots of orchids that enlivened the terrace wall, and even in meditation, his eyes never ceased darting about. The artist seemed to weigh the merit of Senlin’s tale. After a moment, he shrugged himself from his reverie and refilled their glasses. “You wonder whether it’s really her, the woman in the picture. It’s so difficult to say, really, from a few strokes of paint,” Ogier said without a trace of sympathy.
“It is.”
“And also, I imagine, you wonder if I know where she is now, or if she was just sitting there by chance one day while I worked.”
“You have a wonderful imagination, Mr. Ogier.” Senlin could hardly keep the sourness from his voice. Though he risked everything if the painter took offense, he was embarrassed that his honest confession had been met with such austerity. “I’m sure you’re proud.”
“Pride is a funny thing.” Ogier drained his little flute and smirked. “It’s enjoyed most by those who deserve it least. Take our friend Tarrou. He is proud, but he has lost his purpose. Some time ago, there were those who loved him. There were those who thought him a great man, but now... Well, you know how available his evenings are. He has many acquaintances but few friends, Mr. Senlin.”
“You certainly are more gregarious when he’s not around to defend himself. Or do you want me to report your opinions to him?” Though Senlin couldn’t disagree with any of Ogier’s assessment, he still felt it necessary to defend his troubled friend. “To be frank, I played no part in that history. I have treated you only with respect.”
Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel Book 1) Page 15
