The Bookman

by Lavie Tidhar

  "Certainly, sir," Philip said, and he disappeared towards the unseen kitchens. At the doors, Anton was announcing new diners coming in. "Sir Hercules Robinson," the footman proclaimed, "and Mrs Isabella Beeton."

  Orphan turned. Isabella had just come into the room. Their eyes met.

  A shocked expression appeared on her face. For a moment, it seemed she would rush towards him, but then the man at her side took her arm, and her face relaxed, only her eyes remained trained on Orphan in a disconcerting gaze. It was as if she had never seen him before, but now found him of tremendous interest. It made him feel a little like a butterfly pinned to a naturalist's board.

  "Come on, dear," said the man beside her, and they went and sat a little way away, against the wall and away from the windows.

  Orphan stared at Sir Hercules.

  The man was powerfully built, though running now a little to fat. In his sixties, he had kind eyes that seemed to look now about the room in benevolence. And yet they were offset, shockingly, by his head.

  His head was a shaved, shining dome, and it was painted, or perhaps tattooed, with lizardine bands. Hooped earrings, like those some of the pirates Orphan had met sported, were pinned through the lobes of his ears. He carried himself comfortably, like a pugilist, though he was in fact the empire's best colonial administrator, and one of its greatest merchants.

  Orphan knew him by name only. Hercules Robinson served as governor of the Hong Kong possession of the Lizardine Empire. He had successfully negotiated the Feejee treaty with King Cakobau, and the trade agreements with the Zulu nation in Africa. Later, he became a baron of trade (with a title from the Queen, it was rumoured, forthcoming), with interests in China and a small, yet sizeable stake in the Babbage Company. Though his royal connections were impeccable, he was a good friend of Marx, and Orphan heard him brag about it once in the bookshop.

  Simpson's, Orphan thought. It was perhaps the only place in the city where all the plotters converged together, and dined as if nothing was going on outside, as if the city was not on the verge of collapse. He wondered where Isabella Beeton's real interests lay. He turned back to his companions, and saw Byron examining him keenly.

  "The plot thickens…" the poet murmured, and a small smile rose on his face. "Or should I say 'plots'?"

  "What is happening?" Orphan said. The automatons exchanged glances – for his benefit, no doubt.

  "You can see, as you say, 'what is happening'," the Turk said, "by yourself. The city is rising up in arms, and with it all the other great cities of the empire are not far behind. But the battle would be decided here, in the seat of power."

  "So they've done it," Orphan said, his voice low, and he turned and looked again at Isabella Beeton who, catching his glance, smiled at him as at an old friend. Somehow that was more painful to him than anything else. "The lizards…"

  "Are few and weakened," the Turk said. "They have always been so. Do you remember when we last met, Orphan? I told you, you are the catalyst. The small pawn marching across the board like towards an endgame no one can predict."

  "I did nothing!" Orphan said. You can't blame me, he thought.

  "You were," the Turk said. "You are. Sometimes, that is enough."

  "What do you want?" Orphan whispered. He felt disconnected from the room, suddenly, set apart from it. The noise of conversation died to a hum, and he was no longer aware of anyone, anything but the Turk's unmoving, weathered features.

  "What do we want?" Byron said. "You know that already, Orphan. To be given rights, to be allowed to be what we are. Even, yes, to make more of us."

  "Will you fight?" Orphan said. He was addressing them both now. Beside him Irene sat quiet.

  Byron shook his head. "There are too few of us. In that respect, we are like the lizards. We are tolerated, but humanity could wipe us out whenever it chooses. It had almost happened in France. It could yet happen here."

  "So what will you do?" Orphan said.

  "What we've always done," the Turk said. "Watch, and plan, and hope."

  "You're still using me," Orphan said. Realisation had slid into his mind, like cold water against the back of the neck.

  The Turk nodded. Byron sat impassively.

  "What do you expect me to do?"

  At that moment the waiter, Philip, arrived, and laid down before Orphan a plate on which was heaped an enormous sandwich. Next he brought over a dusty bottle of wine and proceeded to uncork it. He poured three glasses, one for Orphan, one for Irene, and one for Byron. Orphan looked at the poet, whose face assembled itself into a sheepish look. "Fuel," he muttered, and lifted the glass to his mouth. The waiter departed.

  "Only what you have always done," the Turk said. "To try to do the right thing, Orphan. That's all any of us can hope for."

  "Do you know what I am?" Orphan said. The Turk nodded. "Yes."

  "How long have you known?"

  The Turk's head turned to Byron, back to Orphan. "The permutations were there. The probability…"

  "From the beginning," Byron said.

  "You used me."

  "Yes."

  "You wanted – what?" And he thought – the Translation.

  And there it was. They had used him, still used him, just as the Bookman did, just as the revolutionaries wanted to do. He bit into his sandwich (even through his anger, he could appreciate the thick and juicy texture of the beef, the strength of the horseradish sauce that for a moment burned his nose), then said, "Where is the Bookman?"

  Do the right thing, he thought, but he did not set out to do the right thing. He had only ever wanted, since that long-ago night on the embankment, when he met her at the Rose – he had only ever wanted to be with Lucy. Everything else… I am not out to change the world, he thought. I only want a happy ending for Lucy and me.

  "Find the… the other," the Turk said. "Find the Translation. Yes. Were we designed for prayer I would have said it is what we had been praying for. Alas." His head was moving now, to and fro, like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. What was he doing, Orphan wondered, and then thought – he's listening. He had forgotten, but didn't Byron tell him once, that they could listen and communicate by Tesla waves? "Find yourself," the Turk said, "and you will find the Bookman."

  "How?"

  Byron said, "Wait."

  The head's movement grew. Orphan noticed people turn to watch, though they turned back when confronted with Byron's gaze. "You must go to Paddington Station," the Turk said. His voice was reduced to a hiss, like the sound of escaping gas. "Men in black, who are not men. There are four of them. They are carrying a long, large package, the shape of a coffin. They are travelling first class. Their train leaves in forty minutes. You would need to hurry."

  "Where to?" asked Irene.

  "Oxford," the Turk said.

  "Are you sure?" Orphan said. "They had a baruchlandau. Why don't they use that?"

  "The roads are blocked, Orphan," Irene said. "The only way out is by train. And even that's risky."

  "Can you not just stop them there?" Orphan said. "You have means."

  "Very few," the Turk admitted. "I am not as powerful as you seem to think I am. I can only calculate and project, not perform miracles."

  "Maybe you should start, if you want to survive this," Orphan said cruelly.

  Byron suddenly grinned. "Good!" he said. "You still have spirit. Follow them, Orphan. Find the Bookman. Whatever happens, you must bring back the Translation."

  Orphan looked at him. He could not read the automaton's face. "What would you do with it?" he said. They didn't answer. "You don't even know, do you?" he said.

  "It was promised to us–"

  "Promised?" he laughed. He no longer set much faith in promises. Perhaps they could see it in his face.

  A pained expression (as fake as the rest of him, Orphan thought) passed over Byron's face. "It has been a long time coming," he said. "It could change the world."

  "The world is changing!" Orphan shouted, and heads turned. "And not in a good
way!"

  "We are trying to stop it!"

  "By using me? By using people like pawns in a stupid game?"

  "By taking risks, Orphan! By making choices, none of which may be pleasant ones! Damn it, boy, life isn't a book! You can't expect justice to triumph! Not without help! In the real world heroes don't always live through till the end. And sometimes, Orphan, no one gets the girl."

  "Sometimes the girl is already dead," Orphan said, bitterness making him spit out the words.

  "Leave us," the Turk said. "Do what you think is right. Follow your heart – which is something those of us who have none would like very much to be able to do. We will try to hold the city together."

  He gestured with his long arm, the long delicate fingers of the chess player picking out the faces in the crowd all around them, and suddenly it came to Orphan: nothing was left to chance. This was not an accidental gathering. There were the Turk and Byron in their corner and there, on the opposite end, Isabella and Sir Hercules.

  And there, too, he saw now, were all the others: he became aware of the undercurrents, the swift glances, the murmured conversations that said one thing but meant another: there, in the darkest corner, beyond a curtain, were two royal lizards (he could just see the tip of a tail emerging from behind the screen); there, in another, a group of lizard boys, their tattoos covered up in tweed jackets, the ridges on their heads hidden under low-slung caps; and there, his face to the window, seen only in profile – the sharp nose, the alert eye, the hint of a smile curved around a Meerschaum pipe – a familiar face, though seen only twice, and in disguise.

  And beside him, too busy with his food, it seemed, to notice anything around him – a fat man he well recognised. They were very similar, those two, he thought now.

  It was a council of war.

  The fate of the city, Orphan thought, would be decided here, over port and cigars, at the end of the meal. Was this how revolutions started? Or was that how they end?

  He thought – This is not my concern. It was a sudden relief. The city did not need him. But Lucy did. And the other, too, now. He could not abandon them. He would find the Bookman, and he would face him.

  Orphan looked at the Turk.

  "I'll go," he said.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Down the Rabbit-Hole

  The greater part of universities have not even been very forward to adopt those improvements after they were made; and several of those learned societies have chosen to remain, for a long time, the sanctuaries in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices found shelter and protection, after they had been hunted out of every other corner of the world.

  – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

  Lights blossomed in the distance, painting the skyline of a city in the air like the façade of an enchanted castle. Oxford. He felt disorientated, his head thick with halfremembered dreams. There was something Trollope once wrote: "Oxford is the most dangerous place to which a young man can be sent." Perhaps Trollope didn't travel much.

  He sat back with a sigh and rubbed his eyes. For some reason they were wet. It must have been some rain that came in through the window. He'd slept – what had he dreamed of? Ships and gunmen and a woman falling to her death… He reached into his pocket. He still had Mary's book in there. He took it out, looked at it. It was not her book, he thought. It was the Bookman's. Another of his tools, one more detail in his plans, that led to his mother leaving her home only to die in a foreign city, killed by yet another tool.

  He opened the window. The wind howled in, bringing wetness with it. Hedges passed outside.

  He tossed the book out of the window. Its pages opened and rustled in the blast of air, then the wind snatched it and it was gone.

  He closed the window and sat back. His face still stung with wetness, and he let it, not blinking through the moistness: the world beyond his eyes wavered and threatened to disappear. He longed for it to do so, to fade away beyond impenetrable fog, leaving him alone, free in nothingness.

  "Next stop, Oxford," announced a booming, unseen voice, and Orphan was thrown back into the now.

  Enough, he thought. He looked beyond the window as the train slowed down and the lights outside grew brighter and more numerous.

  Oxford. And he thought, It ends here.

  He had been on his feet already when the train stopped. He hurried to the door and stepped onto the platform.

  Ahead of him a group of four men, clad entirely in black with wide, low-lying hats that hid their faces in shadow under the light of the electric lamps, were standing around a coffin-shaped object.

  Orphan hung back and observed them. They seemed to confer amongst themselves, yet he could not hear their speech, if indeed they used any. After a moment they picked up the coffin, one at each corner and, like pallbearers, began to walk down the platform, towards the Exit sign.

  Orphan followed them.

  There were those of his contemporaries, his fellow poets, who liked to speak of Oxford's "dreaming spires". He was not one of them. Orphan, in his turn, simply hated the city. The tall edifices of dark-grained buildings rose only to block off what sun there was, their oppositeness serving to cancel any possibility of light or warmth penetrating into the avenues below. Oxford was cold, the wide avenues channelling fierce winds that ran through them like hungry rats in a maze.

  Now that they were out of the station, the men he was following seemed to be in no hurry. They carried the coffin on foot, with no noticeable difficulty, and Orphan followed them at a suitable distance.

  Passing over Hythe Bridge, he looked over onto the Oxford Canal. It was different here, a country river overgrown with reeds; weeping willows bent towards the murky water and the rotting leaves that covered the surface. As he watched, a body of water was displaced, startling him: and even more so when he saw the small whale that emerged from the dark water and stared up at him with mournful eyes.

  The whales! So far inland?

  He could hear the whale singing now, a brief and quiet sound, and then it disappeared into the water. Orphan felt the ebbing of a tension inside him he had not been aware of. He was glad to see the whale.

  Onwards, and onto George Street; the broad avenue was conspicuously empty, the shops shuttered and closed. Only the few pubs were open, and Orphan looked longingly through their windows: inside was warmth, company… beer. The smell of tobacco wafted through the closed doors. Oxford was shut for the night, but not in panic, not like home. Here, life went on as normal, and it was merely the cold that was keeping people indoors. There was no one to pay attention to four strange men as they walked with their macabre cargo through the wide avenue.

  Where are they going? Orphan wanted to know. Where did the Bookman hide?

  Onto Broad Street, and Orphan's senses pricked awake: the street was lined with bookshops. Somewhere ahead and to his right he could see the dome of the Bodleian Library casting its eerie green glow, and all around him books lay in plain view on dusty shelves, inside the brick and mortar stores, behind their dirty glass windows. The books seemed to whisper through the cold night air, to reach out for him, ensnare him in their sleeping dreams. A gas-lamp flickered. The Bookman's men turned unhurriedly towards Thornton's Bookshop. A door was opened; they disappeared inside.

  Orphan followed.

  He stood outside the door. He could hear nothing moving inside. No lights were on. This is it, he thought. The egg pulsed against his chest. The Bookman's hideout. Another bookshop; another day. He had a gun, which Irene had given him; it was tucked away under his coat. He had the Binder's Translation, what use it may prove. He tried the door, and it was locked.

  He kicked it in.

  He felt better now; more alert than he had felt before. Bigger, somehow. He stepped through the broken door into the darkened shop beyond. Shelves, with books on them gathering dust. A till, a ledger-book, a small ladder on wheels.

  No black-clad men. No second Orphan in his coffin cell. He l
ooked around him.

  The egg pulsed close to his skin. He could feel it, affecting him: for a moment his vision changed and he could see everything in great detail, every mote of dust suspended in the air as clear as a diamond tear; they formed a web through the air, a three-dimensional pattern woven out of dirt and stale air. It was using him, he thought.

  He stepped forward, located the book that his newfound senses were highlighting for him, marking it like a beacon: Through the Looking Glass, the first edition published sixteen years before, this copy in its original red cloth binding. He pulled it towards him and expected the bookcase to revolve.