The Memory of Babel

by Christelle Dabos

  “You don’t move from here until I return. People have died for just getting close to the secret of which we’re the keepers.”

  Ophelia almost weakened under his leaden gaze. She wanted to beg Thorn to stay with her on this terrace, but if she gave herself away here and now, then, yes, they would both die in the most horrific way. There was just one option for stopping the killer, and for Ophelia, it involved speaking to him in private.

  Somehow, she found the strength to smile. “I won’t move.”

  Reluctantly, Thorn released her fingers, keeping hold of just the book. Ophelia had to stop herself from running after him as he went up the gangway.

  Lazarus dived on the hand she had left hanging to shake it, laughing all the while. “I was positively delighted to see you again, young demoiselle! We won’t talk again that soon, I’m going to have a lot to do over the next few weeks and I surely won’t have time to come back to the house tonight. Make yourself at home! I wish you the best of luck in your quest for the Other,” he added, speaking right into her ear. “Don’t rely on your eyes to find him, no one knows what he looks like, or in what form he will appear to you when the time comes. If you will permit me a final little piece of advice: look closely into the echoes. They’re the key to it all. La barbe!”

  Lazarus charged across the terrace. His white top hat, buffeted by the propellers, had flown off toward the stars.

  Ophelia had barely listened to him. “Let them leave with the book,” she whispered to the wind as Lazarus now went up the gangway. “It’s me you’re interested in, isn’t it?”

  The presence was still there. Without Eulalia’s memory, Ophelia would have probably never noticed it. The aircraft rose in a whirl of propellers before disappearing deep into the night. Thorn was safe.

  The wind and the silence fell once more. Ophelia swallowed with difficulty, and then turned her head right round. The lamps on the terrace, buzzing with mosquitoes, were doubling the shadow of the man who had remained beside her. For the first time since the start of the evening, she saw him very clearly—despite the triple layer of hair, eyebrows, and beard. Even now, it seemed unbelievable to her that this old sweeper, who looked so harmless, could have terrified so many people.

  “That evening I was locked in the incinerator room,” Ophelia said to him, with a calmness she was far from feeling, “it’s you who opened the door for me.”

  He didn’t respond. It was impossible to make out his expression under such a shroud of hair.

  “You were there,” she insisted. “You were there when Fearless was threatening me. You were there when Mediana was blackmailing me. You protected me. Just as you protected my work,” Ophelia stressed, placing all the emphasis she could on the possessive. “You punished Professor Wolf for having stolen one of my books, and Mademoiselle Silence for having destroyed almost all of them.”

  The emaciated figure of the old man, whose balance seemed shaky without the broom in his hand, slowly straightened at these words. Ophelia felt a drop of sweat slide between her shoulder blades. Her plan relied entirely on her ability to embody Eulalia Gonde in his eyes. He confused her with her. She knew it because she had caused the same confusion to Farouk, to Pollux, perhaps even to Helen and Artemis.

  “An other,” Mediana had said. “There’s an other one.”

  “You, too, are a family spirit,” Ophelia declared, calmly. “A family spirit in obscurity, unknown to the world. Because your own role is different. You protect my school. You protect my work.”

  The old man didn’t move, frozen like a statue. Ophelia wasn’t taken in. Wild beasts often stood stock-still before swooping down on their prey.

  “I endowed you with a double-edged power,” she continued, in a voice that was just about steady. “That of inspiring either the greatest fear or the greatest indifference. It’s a heavy burden I made you carry for centuries. Condemned never really to exist for others unless you were terrifying them.”

  Ophelia was articulating truths that the old sweeper already knew, but she sensed a kind of hesitation in him. She had to convince him—convince herself—that she was Eulalia right now, and only Eulalia.

  She had to use all her willpower not to back away when the sweeper moved sluggishly forward, superimposing his shadow on hers. She felt as if, suddenly, she was far too confined in her own body. She would have liked to untie her scarf, which, increasingly anxious, was half-strangling her, but she could barely manage to move her fingers. If she didn’t calm down very quickly, this family spirit wouldn’t need to use his power to make her die of fear.

  “I’m sorry,” Ophelia murmured to him. “You have been alone for such a long time . . . You’re not obliged to do all that for me. The school we knew has ceased to exist. Your brothers and sisters are old enough now. My books aren’t worth people killing each other over them. Everything that was important in the past no longer is today. You must move on to something else, do you understand?”

  Maybe it was a figment of her imagination, but she thought she glimpsed a spark through the old sweeper’s fringe. In two slow strides, he covered the small distance separating them, and then, in an almost reptilian movement, vertebra after vertebra, he leant forward until his back had turned into an anatomically inhuman hump. His grotesque, hairy face was now just a breath away from Ophelia’s. Except that hers wasn’t breathing. Was there even a mouth behind that beard? Were there eyes beneath those bushy brows?

  At the first impulsive movement, hostilities would commence.

  The old sweeper remained like that for a long while, arched enough to break his bones, in a tête-à-tête that was barely decent. When he finally decided to make a move, it was to unfold his long, bony arm, raise a skeletal hand, and lift up his hair.

  The spark Ophelia had glimpsed didn’t come from his eyes, but from an aluminum plate bolted directly onto the skin of his forehead. Engraved on it was a minuscule inscription, barely visible in the wan lamplight. She recognized these letters, but couldn’t understand them, for all that—Eulalia’s memory wasn’t that concerned with detail. They were the same arabesques as those in the family spirits’ Books, a code describing their intrinsic nature and defining their raison d’être.

  This plate was certainly less complex than a Book, explaining the old sweeper’s primitive behavior, but it was no less his life force. Ophelia was just wondering why he was so desperate to show it to her, when he tapped on it with his big nail.

  “You want me to take it off?” Ophelia had got her voice back. Much as she knew that this ancient creature had killed several times, she felt she didn’t have either the courage or the right to kill him in turn. Terrified as she was, she felt responsible for him. Eulalia, on ceasing to be Gonde and becoming God, had abandoned him to his fate. If Ophelia had inherited her memory, for whatever reason, hadn’t she also inherited her guilt?

  “Is that you, Mademoiselle Ophelia? You didn’t leave with my father?”

  It was Ambrose who, having probably heard her from the bottom of the steps, had exclaimed in surprise. For a fraction of a second, Ophelia had instinctively reacted to the calling of her name. It was but a brief, slight head movement toward the steps, but when she looked back at the old sweeper, she knew she had given herself away. He hadn’t moved an inch, still leaning too far forward, one hand lifting his fringe, but the atmosphere around him had suddenly got heavier.

  “I must escape,” she thought. “Call for help.”

  She did neither. Her legs felt as if they were embedded in the marble. Every breath made her feel as if she were swallowing swamp water. Her body was no longer obeying her; it was now nothing but a tangle of entrails, every molecule of which was silently screaming in utter desperation. Never before, including in the isolation room, had Ophelia felt so totally alone. As if, with a pitiless snip of the scissors, her link with all that was beautiful and good in the world had been severed. Even her scarf was
hanging from her neck like a dead weight, drained of all Animism.

  And just as she thought she had reached the depths of terror, the real fear started rising up her body, swelling in her organs, invading and devastating everything until it all exploded.

  It took her a few seconds to realize that the explosion hadn’t happened within her, but on the outside. With her muscles tetanized and her stomach in spasm, she stared at the face of the old sweeper in front of her.

  The plate on his forehead was now punctured with an enormous hole.

  Not a drop of blood seeped from it, and for a while, he remained in the same absurd position, stooped into a hump, one hand holding his fringe up. Then, finally, he collapsed onto the marble like a discarded marionette.

  Dead.

  Ophelia’s legs gave way beneath her. She curled up, regurgitated her tea, and only then did she find the strength to turn toward whoever had saved her life.

  A shadow was crouching on the terrace’s balustrade, hunting rifle in hand. It was so small and lithe that Ophelia thought at first that it was a monkey, but when the silhouette stood up, she saw that it was a child, wearing just a loincloth.

  The son of Fearless-and-Almost-Blameless.

  Without a word, without a sound, he turned and disappeared into the gardens.

  “Mademoiselle Ophelia!” Ambrose’s alarmed voice called out. “What was that noise? You’re not hurt, are you?”

  She looked at the body of the old sweeper, with that hole in the center of his forehead. He was gradually losing any substance, becoming more transparent by the second, and soon the marble he was lying on showed through. A few moments later, he had disappeared altogether. As though he had never existed.

  “I’m fine,” she finally replied.

  Never had she felt so relieved to utter those words.

  FOOLISHNESS

  Victoria awoke with a start in her bed. Loud screams reached right through the house. It wasn’t long before Mommy turned on the bedroom light; she was wearing just a silk robe, and her hair was covered in curlpapers.

  “Don’t be scared, darling!” she whispered, taking her into her arms.

  Victoria wasn’t scared. She hadn’t been scared since Father had gotten rid of the Golden Lady and all her shadows. With sleepy eyes, she looked at the fake stars twinkling beyond the window. She was still curious to know the cause of the screams. It sounded like Great-Godmother’s voice, and, if it was her, she seemed mighty angry.

  “Madame Rosaline? What is it? What’s got into you?”

  Mommy went down the stairs holding Victoria close to her. There was no one in any of the small sitting rooms, no one in the dining room, no one in the study, but the more doors Mommy opened, the more Great-Godmother’s screams hurt the ears.

  “What a foolish idea! I might have killed you! You are . . . you are . . . you are more exasperating than a tube of toothpaste!”

  Victoria stared wide-eyed when Mommy entered the smoking room with her. The gas lamps were all dimmed, but there was light enough to see. The place was in a mess the likes of which Victoria had never seen before in the house. No item of furniture was in its proper place. The lovely checkerboard table was knocked over, its four legs in the air. On the carpet, the contents of an ashtray were mixed up with the black and white pieces.

  Great-Godmother, in dressing gown and nightcap, was standing in the middle of the smoking room with a fearsome expression on her face. One of her feet had lost its slipper.

  Victoria clung to Mommy when she spotted a shadow crouching behind the sofa.

  “Just turning up with no warning!” Great-Godmother exclaimed, with outrage. “Inviting oneself into people’s homes at an ungodly hour! I heard a noise downstairs, I thought . . . I thought it was a murderer!”

  The shadow behind the sofa stood up into the light. It was a man who, in fact, wasn’t remotely like a shadow. His cheeks and beard shone like the sun, and, in the middle of this blaze of light, a wide, delighted smile sparkled. He was holding a cigar like those lined up in the smoking room’s cabinets. With his other hand, he was rubbing—but not managing to make disappear—a strange red mark on his forehead.

  “Madame Rosaline whacked me with a waffle spatula. She’s quite extraordinary.”

  Victoria felt herself quivering from head to toe. It was Godfather!

  “How did you get in?” Mommy asked.

  “Through a little shortcut of my devising. I’ll cancel it when I leave.” With his cigar, Godfather pointed at the large pedestal clock ticking away at the back of the smoking room. Or rather, that should have been ticking away. The pendulum had disappeared behind the glass; in its place, Victoria thought she could see the cobbles of a dark street.

  “Right. I’m going to prepare some tea.” Even when woken up in the middle of the night, and finding her home turned upside down, Mommy never forgot her manners.

  “Don’t worry about that, my dear. We haven’t much time.”

  Godfather leapt over the sofa and sat perched on its back, unconcerned about dirtying the cushions with his shoes. His trousers were riddled with holes, and he hadn’t even bothered to pull their braces up over his shirt. His face, neck, hands, every bit of skin not covered in clothes, were all incredibly tanned. Victoria had never found him so handsome.

  “In fact,” Godfather chortled, in a cloud of cigar smoke, “I don’t have the right to be here. But you know me, don’t you? The more I’m prohibited, the more I disobey!”

  Mommy sat Victoria beside her on a banquette and delicately placed a handkerchief over her nose to avoid her breathing in the cigar smoke. “You’re beyond belief, Archie. But your explanations will have to wait a little. First, I must ask you a question of the utmost importance. Did you, yes or no, place an order for an illusion with Madam Cunegond?”

  “What an idea! Why would I go and request something that I find repellent?” Godfather had burst out laughing, but Victoria noticed Great-Godmother and Mommy exchanging a nervous look. Neither of them seemed to find his reply amusing.

  “So we were dealing with an impostor. When I think that I opened my door to her ten times, and let her near my daughter! Whoever it may be, that person is looking for you, Archie. So I hold you responsible. You put all three of us in danger.”

  Beneath Mommy’s gentleness, Victoria sensed a kind of hardness, but without understanding its nature. Far from diminishing, Godfather’s smile became twice as wide.

  “If you mentioned my activities in front of this imposter,” he said, placing a strange emphasis on that last word, “you’re a little responsible yourself. Never mind! I’ve come to put all three of you out of said danger.”

  From a pocket—likewise full of holes—Godfather took out a ball, which he playfully threw to Victoria. It was so heavy and smelt so good! Mommy immediately confiscated it, as if it were a dangerous object.

  “An orange,” Godfather declared. “Before your birth, young lady, they graced every table in the Pole. I picked this one barely a quarter of an hour ago.”

  “You succeeded?” Great-Godmother asked, with amazement. “You found LandmArk?”

  “Not without difficulty. We had to cross towns, mountains, and forests to change connection between each Compass Rose! And if it’s not easy to reach LandmArk, leaving it is even harder. The Arkadians may be my distant cousins, but they didn’t welcome me with open arms.” As he explained this, Godfather rubbed the waffle-spatula imprint on his forehead. “Don Janus, their family spirit, gave me express orders not to leave his ark, and to stop using his Compass Roses. Having said that, it would be no great hardship—there are some superb gardens in LandmArk.”

  Victoria breathed in deeply the scent the orange had left on her little hands. Mountains. Forests. Gardens. For her, these words just meant gloomy illustrations in books from the library, but when it was Godfather saying them, she heard “sky,” ”trees,�
�� “birds!”

  “And you promptly disobeyed him,” Mommy sighed, gently. “You disobeyed a family spirit.”

  “Only half so,” Godfather said. “I came to the Pole without using a single Compass Rose! It took me a lot of time and effort, but I managed to summon a shortcut between our two arks. It won’t last very long, so gather your things together quickly!”

  Great-Godmother pressed her nose to the glass of the clock and wiped away the condensation preventing her from seeing the cobbles. “You mean to say that this . . . ”

  “No, that’s just a street corner, Madame Rosaline. My shortcut to LandmArk is in a different neighborhood of Citaceleste. Come now, I’m saving you a journey of several thousand miles; a little outing’s not going to put us off, is it?”

  “Why the devil do you want to take us over there?”

  Archibald picked up the slipper Great-Godmother had lost and used it like a fan. “Sunshine, coffee, fruit, spices, I hand you paradise on a platter, and you ladies are reluctant to go?”

  There was silence, heavier even than the orange resting on Mommy’s silk robe, so heavy that Godfather himself suddenly lost all his flippancy. He took a long time to stub out his cigar in an ashtray. His mouth still had that mischievous little kink that Victoria so adored, but his voice was deadly serious when he spoke once more:

  “The imposter you had dealings with is a megalomaniac. He’s got nearly all of the political institutions in his pocket, without mentioning his ability to assimilate and then reproduce the family powers of anyone who crosses his path. Men have died, and I very nearly did, too, just because a baron wanted to please him. And that’s certainly not an isolated case. There exists just one place in the world, just one, that this megalomaniac hasn’t yet managed to get his claws on: LandmArk. And I’ve finally understood what he’s after there, and why the Arkadians keep him well away.” There was a flash of light in the middle of Godfather’s beard as his smile bared his teeth. “My cousins, you see, possess a most fascinating power. Have you ever heard of the Agujas?”