The Memory Theater

by Karin Tidbeck

  “The watch moved,” Augusta said. “Here and there. And then the lady Mnemosyne found me in my bower. And then I was here. She banished me.” The enormity of it.

  “I see. And do you remember the beginning of the Gardens?” said Pinax.

  A jumble of parties. Drinking, dancing. Beyond that, a void. The before. Augusta crossed her arms and stared up at the castle.

  “This is familiar,” she said. “A city, much like this. But also very different.”

  They sat in silence.

  “He called himself Phantasos,” Pinax said eventually. “I found him right here, under the lilac. He said he was the lord of the Gardens.”

  Augusta scoffed. “There is no lord of the Gardens. Mnemosyne is our lady.”

  “Ah. Mnemosyne. Yes. He was her consort.”

  “Where is this Phantasos?”

  “He left.”

  “Where is he? I need to find him. If he left of his own free will, he could take me back.”

  “He has another life now,” Pinax said.

  The moment was still. Augusta tried to move, but it was still the same. It sat on her like a stone, making it hard to breathe.

  “It’s difficult, isn’t it,” Pinax said. “Being outside.”

  “Yes,” she managed.

  Pinax took her hand. “Come.”

  Augusta didn’t have the energy to pull away.

  * * *

  —

  Pinax led her down the hill from the castle. The city was waking up again. Eventually they turned onto a street where linden trees rose up beside granite buildings, and the noise of traffic died down. Pinax stopped outside a two-story stone house nestled between two taller buildings.

  “This is where I live,” Pinax said, and unlocked the heavy door.

  Augusta stepped into darkness. Her feet echoed on marble. Pinax flicked a switch on the wall, and the space flooded with yellow light. They stood in a long, narrow corridor lined with doors on either side. Pinax walked ahead to the end of the hallway and opened a door.

  “Here,” they said, and motioned Augusta inside.

  The room was entirely lined with books. Augusta had never seen so many: fat volumes, slender notebooks, tiny books, and huge folios, all ordered in neat rows. On an ornate carpet stood two leather armchairs and a small table. The plush chaise longue under the room’s single window was covered in rolled-up manuscripts.

  “Please, have a seat,” Pinax said. “I’ll make us some tea.”

  Augusta sank down in a chair as Pinax left. She could hear them walk back down the hallway and then into another room, where they made tea-making noises: a whistling kettle, the pouring of hot water into a pot, cups and saucers bumping together. After not too long, they returned with a tray with a teapot and two cups, and a plate of plain bread and cheese. Augusta picked up a slice of bread and bit into it. It was bland and slid down her gullet only reluctantly. She dropped the rest on the floor.

  Pinax frowned. “That’s not acceptable in my house. Please don’t do that again.”

  “Bring me something else,” Augusta said.

  “I am not your servant,” Pinax said. “Please pick up the bread.”

  “You do it,” Augusta said.

  “You are a guest,” Pinax said. “You have stepped over my threshold and eaten my food. You’ll have to abide by my rules.”

  Augusta felt the blood drain from her face. She had eaten the bread without thinking.

  Pinax leaned back in their chair. “This is my domain.”

  Augusta found herself bending down and picking up the piece of bread. “Who are you?”

  Pinax gave her a level look. “Perhaps when I feel so inclined, I might tell you a story. For now, my patience has run out. You may leave.”

  Augusta got out of the chair. Pinax nodded at her. She left the house without daring to look back.

  9

  The sky clouded over until it lay over the plain like a flat lid. Thick yellow grass reached to Dora’s knees. The terrain wasn’t quite level anymore but had bumps and hollows in which water gathered.

  Thistle kneeled by the closest hollow and scooped some water into his cupped hands. Dora crouched down next to him. The water was tasteless and clear. It was as if someone had poured it there just now.

  Thistle washed his face, smoothed back his locks, and buttoned his coat with shivering hands. His makeup had smeared everywhere. He produced a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dipped it in the water, then rubbed it over Dora’s face.

  “You’ve got crumbs and sand all over.”

  Dora took the handkerchief from him. “You’ve got paint all over,” she said.

  She scrubbed his face until it was pink and raw but clean. He looked like a new person.

  “You have freckles,” Dora observed. “And stubble.”

  Thistle felt his jaw. “I do.”

  He caught her hand and held it against his face for a moment. His skin felt like rough velvet.

  Thistle sighed into her hand and turned his eyes to the plain. “How far do we have to walk?”

  “Straight ahead, like she said.”

  “But what if we get turned around? What then?”

  “We ask someone.”

  “How do we even know there are people out there we can ask, Dora?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But what if we…”

  “Stop.” Dora let her hand fall. “We don’t know. It’s all right.”

  “You don’t seem worried at all,” Thistle said.

  “I’m good at not knowing,” Dora replied.

  There was a line on the horizon. They walked toward it.

  * * *

  —

  Eventually, they came to a lake with a stone beach. It was so big that Dora couldn’t see the other side. In the distance on their left, a tower stuck out of the waterline. As they came closer, it became clear that it was a ruin, built out of something that looked like crumbly stone. There was a ground floor and a second floor, but the roof was gone. Rods stuck out of the top at crooked angles. A half-submerged opening faced the lake. Dora picked up her skirts and waded into the water. It was cool against her legs, the shingle under her feet smooth and slippery.

  “It’s too cold,” Thistle said from the waterline.

  Dora looked over her shoulder. “Not for me.”

  “Be careful!” he called after her.

  The room inside was empty. Snatches of pictures were stuck to the walls here and there: a sun, the profile of a woman cradling a child, a row of clenched fists. At the back of the room was a doorway, corked with debris from where the ceiling had collapsed. Next to it, a set of stairs led up.

  On the next floor, two corridor stumps stretched out like a V under the bare sky. The left one had fallen in on itself to cover the door below. Dora turned right. The floor ended after just a few steps. In the room below, heaps of debris stuck out of the clear water. There was no sign of life: no moss, no lichen, no fish swimming in the ruin. Dora picked up a lump of rock and dropped it into the water. It made a loud splash that echoed against the walls.

  “Anything?” Thistle called as she waded back outside.

  Dora shook her head and made her way back to the shore. Thistle knelt and wrung out her skirts. She had forgotten to hike them up on the way back.

  “I don’t understand how you’re not freezing.” He shook the water off his hands and stuck them in his armpits.

  “Are you cold?”

  Thistle nodded.

  Dora wiggled one of his hands free, then turned her back to him and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Come on,” she said, and squatted. “Get up.”

  “I’m not that little anymore.”

  “Get up,” Dora repeated.

  Thistle sighed and c
limbed onto her back. She hooked her arms under his knees and walked up into the grass, then set off along the shore, the lake on her right-hand side.

  In the distance, a black thread lay stretched across the plain. One end disappeared into the water, the other continued as far as Dora could see. When they came closer, it became clear that it was some sort of pipe, big enough that Dora could have crawled inside. Inland, on the horizon, stood what looked like domes lit from within. Thistle hopped down from Dora’s back and walked beside her toward the buildings.

  Closer up, the domes looked like puffy beetles; beyond them stood squat buildings with tiny windows. In the center rose a tall tower, like the one by the lake but bigger and whole. People moved between the structures. They were dressed for work, in flat earthy shades, walking with their faces turned downward. One of them glanced up as Dora and Thistle approached, and let out a thin scream. Others looked up, too, and stared at them with wide eyes. They all retreated.

  Thistle halted. “They don’t want us here,” he said.

  “Could this be the help Ghorbi talked about?” Dora took a few more steps.

  “I don’t know if…” Thistle said, and then grabbed Dora’s arm. “Look.”

  A small group came walking out between the domes: four men and women, armed with poles and shovels. They stopped a little distance away, close enough that Dora could see their angry faces.

  “Who are you?” a short woman shouted.

  “I’m Dora,” said Dora loudly.

  Thistle poked at her arm. “Dora, don’t.”

  One of the men leaned over and mumbled something in the short woman’s ear. She shook her head and stepped closer. Her face was furrowed; her eyes were sharp.

  “You don’t belong here,” she said, “do you.” Her accent was nasal and choppy.

  “We mean no harm,” Thistle said. “We’re just looking for someone.”

  The woman looked over her shoulder at the others, who shook their heads and made waving motions with their hands.

  “You won’t find anything here,” the woman said.

  “We’re looking for some people,” Dora said. “A theater troupe. They’re supposed to help us.”

  “No one here but us,” the woman replied. “You’re not here either. You don’t belong. You’re not real.”

  “Please,” Thistle said, and took a step toward the woman.

  The woman raised her pole as if to hit him. Dora stepped between them. She tore the pole from the woman’s hands and snapped it in two. The woman gasped and retreated.

  Dora looked down at her. “You won’t touch him.”

  The woman broke into a run. Dora and Thistle watched as the three others raced after her.

  “How did you do that?” Thistle asked. “You’re so strong.”

  “I am,” Dora agreed. “I couldn’t protect you properly against the lords and ladies. I will protect you here.”

  “We won’t find out if Augusta is there,” Thistle said.

  “They said she wasn’t.”

  “They could be lying.”

  The short woman was coming back. She had more people with her this time. Dora planted her feet on the ground, ready to defend herself and Thistle.

  “They’re too many,” Thistle said. “Let’s go.”

  The crowd didn’t follow. Dora and Thistle continued walking along the waterline until they reached a tongue of land. The stones were bigger there, and a pile of them formed a sort of wind shelter. Dora sat down to inspect her feet. They seemed all right, if a little sore. Thistle leaned back against the rock and hugged his knees. They sat in silence for a while, until the water changed.

  It happened in time with the approaching twilight. With a crackling noise, tendrils spread across the water like a web, until they became so many that they covered the surface completely. Then the surface suddenly cleared. In the ebbing light, it looked absolutely black.

  Dora tried the ice with her foot. It made a dull noise as she banged her heel against it. It was cold, but not terribly so. She thought she could see a shimmer in the distance. It looked almost like a string of starry sky.

  “We could walk on this,” Dora said.

  So they did.

  * * *

  —

  They came to the end of the cloud cover, and a sudden spray of stars glimmered in the heavens. A huge striped sphere hung up there, bigger than Dora’s fist.

  “I have a memory,” Thistle suddenly said. “It was cold, and I was on a frozen lake. There was a little round hole in the ice. I think we were fishing.”

  “Who are ‘we’?” Dora asked.

  “I don’t know,” Thistle replied. “My parents, maybe.”

  He sniffled abruptly. “I want to go home.”

  “That’s where we’re going,” Dora said. “We’ll get you home.”

  She took his hand. It was cold.

  “I’m going to pick you up again,” she said. “You’re freezing.”

  Thistle didn’t protest.

  As they walked across the ice, the sky changed color and a light rose up around the horizon, as if someone had lit an enormous lamp under the earth. Ahead of them lay a shore where the yellow grass grew all the way down to the water. As the light flowed into the sky and the striped giant faded to a shadow, thunder split the air. A long crack ran through the ice in front of them.

  “Put me down,” Thistle said, and struggled out of Dora’s grasp.

  As he landed, a network of cracks spread around his feet.

  “Oh no,” he said.

  The ice shivered, and Dora lost her balance. She landed on her back so hard that the air whooshed out of her lungs. Thistle yanked at her arm.

  “We have to go!” he shouted. “Now!”

  Dora fought for breath and managed to get up. Ahead of her, Thistle slid like a dancer across ice that cracked and groaned. She followed him at a slower pace; what had been rough and easy to walk on had now become wet and slick.

  They had made it almost all the way to dry land when Dora’s foot broke through. She slipped and fell forward, catching herself with her hands, but her legs slid down into the cold water until she was up to her chest. She could feel the stony bottom with her feet. Dora hammered on the ice in front of her, breaking it into pieces so she could wade forward. Thistle managed to skip across the last ice sheets and landed on the shore, where he collapsed. Dora hauled herself out of the water. Thistle touched her leg apologetically. Dora shrugged and blew at her palms. They sat on the grass, panting, watching the ice melt.

  Thistle stood up and peered out across the plain that stretched out ahead of them, then up at the sky.

  “Day and night,” he said. “I remember day and night from when I was little. There should be a sun. Or a moon. I don’t know what that is.” He pointed at the sphere that loomed above them.

  “I know,” Dora said. “When Ghorbi came to get me. It was morning, and we walked until night fell. I saw the sun and the moon.”

  “We need to move on,” Thistle said. “We need something to eat.”

  He was shivering.

  “You’re not all right,” Dora observed.

  Thistle let out a small laugh. “I’m really not,” he agreed. “I’m hungry and I think I’m freezing to death.”

  “But it’s warmer here,” Dora said.

  “Is it? I can’t tell.”

  Dora hauled him onto her back. “Up you come.”

  She felt the hunger, too, but it was just one of those physical things, like her cold feet and Thistle’s weight. She could keep going for a long time yet.

  10

  Elsa was asleep when Augusta came back. Augusta kicked her awake so she could have some tea. The girl was slow, too slow. Insolent. Augusta strangled her, just like she had her mother, and dragged her into the small chamber. She realize
d belatedly that finding another servant might be a trial. But her encounter with Pinax had left her in a foul temper.

  She slept for a while, tossing and turning in the daylight that filtered through the curtains. When night fell, she did not go outside. She sat by the window, watching the quiet street and toying with one of the porcelain dogs. Pinax knew things. And they spoke to her like an equal, which was eerie and infuriating but an interesting change. Perhaps she should go back and play by their rules and see where that took her. They might tell her where Phantasos had gone. And if she could find Phantasos, she might find a way home. But everything had a price. An exchange would have to be made. A gift might put Pinax in better spirits.

  When dawn broke, Augusta went to the bakery and ordered the shopgirl to fill a box with the cakes that had the most beautiful names. Then she found her way back to Pinax’s house. They opened the door after a long moment. They were dressed in a paisley dressing gown.

  “It’s very early,” they said.

  Augusta held the box out. “I brought you a gift.”

  Pinax tilted their head. “So you did.”

  “May I come in?”

  They looked Augusta up and down, then nodded. “You may.”

  Pinax showed her to the same room they had been in previously. “Wait here,” they said.

  Augusta walked along the bookshelves, peering at the volumes, while Pinax once again clinked porcelain in the distance. The books had titles that spoke of poetry, philosophy, and mythology. Some of them looked ancient, the leather covers cracked and the titles unreadable.

  “It is a nice gesture,” Pinax said behind her. “I take it manners do not come easily to you.”

  They stood behind her with a tray. They had dressed themself in the same suit as yesterday.

  “You like books,” Augusta said.

  Pinax smiled. “I am a librarian, after all.” They set the tray down on the table between the armchairs. “You wanted to know who I am. Since you came with a gift, I will tell you a story. Please sit.”

  * * *

  —

  Once upon a time there was a library. This wasn’t just any library, but the library of a capital, older than the current royal dynasty, older than memory. It was built out of burnt brick, ancient but unmarked by the passage of time. Inside was a warren of rooms full of bookcases and shelves stacked with clay tablets, scrolls, codices, planks of wood, sticks, pieces of bone, and turtle shell. There were wax rolls on which were recorded oral histories and chants that could not be written down, because the notes and overtones also affected the language and changed its meaning in a way that couldn’t be described in writing. There were librarians who served as living books, reciting stories that could be told only in gestures or dance. New material arrived with couriers each day. It was the greatest repository of literature in the known world.