The Memory of Babel

by Christelle Dabos

  Godfather had pronounced “agujas” like a big clearing of the throat. Great-Godmother frowned, Mommy remained silent. Victoria hadn’t really understood the question, but she could tell that neither of them knew the answer.

  “They’re also known as the ‘Needlers,’” Godfather explained. They’re a branch of the Arkadians’ family tree. I’d never heard of them myself before I met some, and for good reason: they’re extremely rare and extremely secretive. Imagine, ladies, being endowed with an internal compass that allows you to find absolutely anyone, absolutely anywhere. Your target might be hiding on the other side of the world, inside the most impenetrable fortress, but he or she would be unable to escape you. Are you with me? That’s the power of the Needlers! I leave you to imagine now the use our megalomaniac would make of such a power. No one would be safe from his needle.”

  Godfather went quiet, as if to savor the stir he had caused. The only word that Victoria had grasped in this long and complicated speech was “tree.” It couldn’t be an ordinary tree, because both Mommy and Great-Godmother looked pretty impressed.

  “If I found LandmArk, sooner or later, he’ll succeed in doing so, too,” Godfather added, playing with the stub of his cigar. “Which is why I think we should make use of the Needlers’ power before he does. And therein lies the whole problem. The Arkadians, starting with Don Janus, care more about their sacrosanct neutrality than anything else. They want no involvement with the world’s petty affairs, unless it’s lucrative enough. I have spent my whole life being neutral, as my education dictated, and if there’s one lesson I retained, it’s that ‘neutrality’ is a nice way of saying ‘cowardice.’ There comes a time when one has to choose which camp one is in, and, personally, I refuse any longer to belong to that of the puppets.”

  Mommy applauded with her lovely tattooed hands. Victoria, thinking it was a game, imitated her.

  “Congratulations, Archie, you’re growing up a little. What’s this got to do with us three?”

  “I would like to convince Don Janus and the Arkadians to give up their neutrality, but in their eyes, I’m just an ex-ambassador who is the messenger of only himself. You, Berenilde, you are, in a way, the first lady of the Pole. Your word has more weight than mine. Not to mention your charm.”

  Godfather opened his eyes wide, eyes bluer than the fake sky outside had ever been. Victoria wished she could fly into them.

  “No,” Mommy said.

  “No?” Godfather repeated, smiling even more.

  “You are asking me the impossible. If I followed you, I would have no guarantee of being able to return, and, unlike you, I would never take the risk of triggering a diplomatic incident by disobeying a family spirit.”

  “But consider . . . ”

  “I have told you, and I repeat, Archie,” Mommy continued, cutting Godfather short, “my place is here. I am surer of that today than ever: our lord needs to have his daughter close to him. He’s trying to change, he’s trying to change his family, and if he is doing so, it’s because he wants to give her a future without fighting clans, without conspiracies, and without assassinations. If we leave, he will forget why he is making all that effort.”

  This time it was Great-Godmother’s turn to applaud. Victoria, delighted by this little nocturnal game, thought it only fair to imitate her, too. She felt as if she were watching one of those operas Mommy sometimes told her about.

  Godfather ran his thumb over his smile, which just kept widening.

  “The power of the Needlers, Berenilde. Think about it! Persuade them to put themselves at the service of your cause, and they will find Mr. and Mrs. Thorn for you in a snap.”

  Victoria felt Mommy’s body stiffen beside hers on the banquette. When she looked up at her, she saw a kind of pain on her face, as if she’d just burnt herself, but it only lasted a brief moment. Mommy soon had her pretty porcelain mask back.

  “I will look for neither Thorn nor Ophelia as long as they do not wish to be found. On the other hand, I do want them to be able to find me here when the time comes. We’re staying, my daughter and I. That’s my final word.”

  As soon as Mommy, very upright and very dignified on her banquette, had uttered these words, Great-Godmother held a hand out to Godfather. After a slight hesitation, he returned her slipper to her.

  “I have never forced a woman, and it’s not today that I’m going to start. Never mind. I must leave you now, the shortcut won’t last much longer.”

  Victoria’s heart quickened when Godfather kneeled in front of her to take her hand. His golden chin prickled her fingers. He was smiling at her, but in an unusual way. There wasn’t really a smile in that smile.

  “I don’t know when we’ll see each other again, young lady. Between now and then, don’t go changing too much, please.”

  Victoria suddenly felt very cold. She watched Godfather dusting off his big, holey hat, and then shaking it three times above his head, as if saying goodbye to each of them.

  She didn’t want.

  She didn’t want to see him leaving already. It was seeing the real sky, the real trees, and the real birds leaving with him. She moved her lips as she saw Godfather disappearing into the smoking room’s clock, but he didn’t hear her.

  No one ever heard her.

  Without a glance at Mommy or Great-Godmother, Victoria left the Other-Victoria behind her and went into the clock herself. She found herself on the cobbles of a street full of mist, which her journeying made even hazier. Seen from the other side of the clock, the smoking room was now nothing but a tiny patch of light in the middle of a wall. Godfather closed a door, and then reopened it: there was no more smoking room, no more house.

  Victoria wasn’t scared. She could still sense, in the distance, the presence of the Other-Victoria close to Mommy. And then, Godfather was there. Even if he didn’t see her like Father did, she felt blissfully happy being close to him.

  This time, she would follow him right up to the real sky!

  For the moment, Godfather wasn’t moving that much. He remained standing in the middle of the street, hands in pockets, looking searchingly into the mist surrounding him.

  “Ah, at last,” he said, on seeing a silhouette appear. “Lucky that you were, supposedly, standing guard.”

  “Thought I saw someone. False alarm.”

  Victoria recognized the Big-Ginger-Fellow. Even when trying to whisper, his loud voice echoed around the entire street.

  “Well?”

  “Well, nothing,” Godfather smirked, shrugging his shoulders. “There was a time when I could have convinced any woman to accompany me to the ends of the earth. I could have used my old trick,” he said, tapping the black teardrop between his eyebrows, “but I promised myself never to use it again on Berenilde. She must be right, perhaps I am starting to grow up. How ghastly . . . ”

  Victoria leapt from cobble to cobble, trying not to lose sight of Godfather and the Big-Ginger-Fellow. They were walking very fast in the mist. Their murmurings, distorted by the journey, were like the bubbles drinking-straws produce in a glass of milk.

  They plunged into an alley that was even less well lit. It led only to a brick dead end and mountains of garbage. If Victoria had been able to smell anything when journeying, she would certainly have had to hold her nose. It wasn’t here, the sky she had hoped to see.

  Godfather climbed onto a moldy old crate that enabled him to reach the door of an old carriage without wheels. The Big-Ginger-Fellow watched him do so without asking any questions.

  “That’s great, it’s still there,” Godfather whispered, indicating to him to hurry up. “With any luck, Don Janus won’t have noticed a thing.”

  The door had just opened onto a brilliant light, as if the inside of the carriage was on fire. The Big-Ginger-Fellow had to squeeze his broad shoulders to get through the door. Godfather checked with a glance that there was no one aroun
d the dead end, didn’t notice the little girl right under his nose, and slipped through the door himself.

  Without a second’s hesitation, Victoria leapt into the light with him.

  For a moment, she saw nothing anymore. Neither light nor darkness. One day, Great-Godmother had torn the sleeve of her dress by catching it on the drawing-room door handle. Victoria felt as if, like Great-Godmother’s sleeve, she were cut in two. And yet that pain didn’t really hurt her, and a second later, she had already stopped thinking about it. She now saw only the sky above her. A ginormous sky. A sky not content to be just blue, but also red, mauve, green, and yellow, with a dazzling sun and great swirls of birds. The real sky! Even distorted by the journey, it was the most beautiful thing Victoria had ever seen in her whole little life.

  “I told you it was a waste of time.”

  Victoria turned to the Funny-Eyed-Lady. She was standing right beside her, angrily blowing out smoke from the cigarette hanging from her lips.

  “Going over there, that was taking a foolish and pointless risk.”

  Godfather closed and then reopened the door of a shed with an exaggerated flourish. “There we are, all over, no more shortcut! Did anything really terrible happen? Did anyone even notice our absence?”

  “Dunno,” grumbled the Funny-Eyed-Lady. “Me and the cat, we just kept a lookout in the orange grove to stop anyone from approaching your blasted shortcut from this side of the planet.”

  She threw a reproachful look at the Big-Ginger-Fellow, but he didn’t seem overly keen to join in the conversation. He was staring at Twit, who was sniffing his big shoes disapprovingly, as if he could smell that his master had stepped in something not very clean.

  Victoria suddenly realized that they were all standing in the middle of a garden in which hundreds of trees—real trees!—were weighed down with oranges just like the one Godfather had given her. The light here was brighter than all the lamps in the house and all the illusions in the gardens.

  Victoria’s wonderment was soon replaced by a feeling of uneasiness. She could no longer sense the presence of the Other-Victoria in the distance.

  “Let’s stop moping,” Godfather declared, “let’s move on to the rescue plan!”

  The Funny-Eyed-Lady grimaced. “What rescue plan, Mr. Ex-Ambassador?”

  “The one we have to come up with to persuade my cousins to hunt down God rather than running away from him.” With these words, Godfather moved off, peeling himself an orange, braces of trousers flapping on hips. Victoria no longer knew what she was supposed to do. Carry on following him? Stop moving, above all? As hard as she concentrated, she could no longer find the way back. She’d never had to make any effort before; returning home had always come as naturally as waking up.

  Victoria skipped in front of the Funny-Eyed-Lady, hoping that her strange power would cancel the journey, but nothing changed. The Funny-Eyed-Lady spat out a cigarette butt that went through Victoria like a cloud.

  “That fool has no idea what he’s doing. And you, what’s up with you?” she asked the Big-Ginger-Fellow. “Catch a cold in the Pole, or what?”

  The Big-Ginger-Fellow didn’t respond. He had stopped staring at Twit, who was still sniffing his shoes, to gaze up at the sky.

  He was frowning anxiously, all bushy red eyebrows.

  “It’s the end of the beginning. Or the beginning of the end.”

  With a terrible shock, Victoria suddenly noticed them: the shadows under the Big-Ginger-Fellow’s shoes.

  THE OTHER

  The hair dryer was drowning out both the sound of the radio and the patter of the rain, as its big drops hit the window. Ophelia wasn’t listening to either, in any case. And neither was she paying attention to the mechanical servant behind her chair, who was spouting the likes of “BETTER AN AGILE MIND THAN A CRAMMED MIND,” and “THREE SMILES A DAY KEEP THE DOCTOR AWAY,” all while drying her unruly curls. Ophelia had tried to explain to it that a rub with a towel would do, particularly with the stifling heat of the room, but it hadn’t given her the choice. Lazarus wouldn’t be home for weeks, and Ambrose was out being a whaxi driver; in their absence, best not to annoy automatons that could release hundreds of blades at the first misplaced word.

  So she was focusing on her great-uncle’s postcard, armed with the magnifying glass Ambrose had lent her. The figures in the crowd at the XXIInd Interfamilial Exhibition weren’t easy to make out, but one of them was only too recognizable: an old man on the side, sweeping a Memorial walkway, his face hidden behind an indistinguishable combination of beard, eyebrows, and fringe. In sixty years, he hadn’t changed. He had spent entire centuries watching over what remained of the old school that was home to Eulalia and her family spirits. Ever since Ophelia had spotted him on the photograph, she couldn’t tear her glasses away from him. He might be dead, but the terror he had provoked was still screaming inside her. She’d had nightmares about it all night, and it had taken several showers for her to wash the acrid smell of fear from her skin.

  “And yet I came through it alright,” she thought, looking up at the dusty trails of rain on the window. If Fearless’s son had waited a second longer to obliterate that plate, she would have ended up—at best—in the same state as Mediana. Had that young boy been spying on her, knowing that she would lead him to his father’s murderer? If that were so, Fearless certainly had a worthy successor.

  And if the old sweeper she had confronted the previous day was at the Memorial sixty years ago, then he couldn’t be that Other whom Ophelia had released from the mirror. She had to admit that she’d seriously considered the possibility, but it didn’t fit. And it was one thing terrifying people, and quite another causing the disintegration of the arks.

  Ophelia frowned as a smell of singeing came from her own head. “I think that’s enough, thank you,” she said, with a polite sign of dismissal.

  The automaton unplugged the hair dryer, and left with a final “YOU CAN’T PLEASE ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME.” The sound of rain and radio prevailed again. With its elegant furnishings, huge bed with mosquito net, and lovely standing mirror, the room made a change from the austerity of the Good Family. To think that it was right here that Ophelia had spent her first night in Babel . . . She found it hard to believe that half a year had gone by since then.

  She unfolded the little note that Octavio had given her before they had parted.

  Come and see me sometime, your hands and you. Helen.

  It was an invitation she was tempted to take up, but she thought it best to think twice before going near a family spirit again.

  She pressed her nose to the window, and reflected back at her was a tousled head against a background of raindrops. All this dampness was unusual in full dry season. Without really listening, Ophelia heard the radio presenter reporting on the latest Home Improvements Exhibition, taking place in the center of Babel. In the same way, without really seeing, she looked at the lily pools, their water disturbed by that falling from the sky. She fought the urge to open the window, plunge into the rain, and lean from the terrace to keep watch on the entrance portico. Why was Thorn taking so long? Handing over a book didn’t take that much time, surely? Had the Genealogists caused him problems?

  Ophelia jumped at the sound of two commanding knocks on the bedroom door.

  “Would you kindly rid me of this?” Thorn asked, as soon as she opened to him. The scarf had wound itself around his leg. Leaning against the doorpost, Thorn had grabbed it like a cat, by the scruff of the neck, but the wool had caught on his brace.

  Ophelia couldn’t help smiling as she tried to release him. “And there was I, wondering where it had got to. I think it’s developed a taste for independence.”

  Thorn entrusted his dripping umbrella to the automaton that had guided him there, and then slammed the door in its face. Or rather, in its absent face.

  “Where is Lazarus’s son?” he asked, s
ternly scanning the room.

  “He’s gone out for the day.”

  Thorn slid the bolt. “Good. We won’t be disturbed.” He checked there was no one on the little rain-flooded terrace.

  Beyond the scarf, Ophelia cautiously observed Thorn’s tense profile. He had combed his hair, shaved his jaw, and mended his leg brace, properly this time. He didn’t look like a man who had been mistreated, and yet he was giving off a strong smell of disinfectant.

  “What did the Genealogists say to you?” she asked. “Were they disappointed?”

  Thorn closed the curtains, unconcerned that he was suddenly plunging the room into semiobscurity. “They were satisfied. A little more than that, even.”

  “But?”

  “There’s no ‘but.’ The book I brought them fully met their expectations. They are ready to give me a new assignment.”

  “Of what kind?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Thorn’s every utterance fell from his lips like lead. Merely by his presence, he made the atmosphere heavier. And yet Ophelia felt lighter now than she had in his absence. More febrile, too.

  “And you?” she asked. “Are you disappointed?”

  Thorn stared at her in silence, with that intensely serious expression that made her feel exposed. She gathered the panels of her dressing gown around the pajamas given to her by Ambrose. She thought of the automaton and his confounded hair dryer, which had turned her curls into a bramble bush. It was an unusual experience for her, realizing that, suddenly, she would have liked to appear less scruffy.

  “No,” Thorn finally replied. “I didn’t expect to overturn God at the first attempt.” He pronounced the word “God” with a cautious glance at the bolt he’d slid earlier. Since no automaton started breaking the door down, he poured himself a glass of water from the bedside carafe, sniffing it suspiciously, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “And you?” he asked in turn.

  Ophelia decided not to tell him about the old sweeper. She would do so later—she didn’t want to hide anything from him, but she sensed that it just wasn’t the right moment.