Samedi the Deafness

by Jesse Ball

What good was the information?

  He walked to the door, opened it, shut it, walked back to the bed. The information was only useful to him if he could use it, and he realized how well they had trapped him. They knew that he would never go to the police now that he was implicated in Mayne's death.

  Then a thought occurred to him. Had Mayne been ordered by Samedi to suicide just as the others had been?

  But this thought passed quickly. It would have been just as easy for them to take him, James Sim, away, as to arrange the suicide of a random man. No, he had just happened to play into their hands. What a fool he'd been.

  Of course, he thought, even if I decide now to go to the police, they'll never let me leave the house. I'm sure of that.

  There was a knock at the door. James stepped towards it. But it was not followed by another. He reached the door, opened it. On the shelf was a note.

  * * *

  Supper, 9: rm. 73.

  * * *

  Now, thought James to himself, the only question is, who here knows what's going on, and who doesn't? Grieve seems to know. But does she know because they've told her, or because she's found out on her own? With Estrainger dead, the cat must be out of the bag for more people than just Sim. It must be obvious to everyone.

  And if they know Stark's handwriting, they'll have seen the facsimiles in the papers, with the posted notice: Have You Seen This Handwriting Before, and a number to call. They'd know it was him.

  Everyone, thought James. Everyone here must know that Stark is Samedi.

  What day is today? he thought to himself absently. Thursday. Then there're only two days left.

  I have to find out, he thought. Even if I can do nothing about it, I have to find out what's going to happen.

  He Opened the Window and Saw a Woman Below With Her Hat Just So

  and it reminded him irresistibly of a day in April when he had just left home. April all through the day, like a skein of cloth. Warmth upon the hands, the feet. The first day of spring is like the first principle. Life ought always to be like that. Perhaps it could be. He wondered if that was what life was like at all times for someone who'd been enlightened, a saint, someone with perfect equanimity. To be called out of yourself so entirely, it required the orchestration of every living thing. For half the world to have died in winter and be reborn at the saying of spring's name.

  Another knock brought James out of his reverie. It was followed by two, and then by two, and then by one.

  What does that mean? thought James. That's not on the chart.

  The door opened before he could say anything. Grieve came in, carrying a cat.

  —It's broken its leg, she said. We have to fix it.

  The cat looked perfectly fine.

  He said so.

  —No, no, she said. Something has to be done.

  She deposited the cat in his hands, kissed him on the cheek, took off her coat, and threw it on the bed.

  —Let's have a look, she said.

  James turned the cat onto its back and cradled it like a child. Three of its legs were fine, but the third did look a bit odd. The cat was quite friendly, and licked James's nose when it came in range. It was purring softly.

  Hmmm, he thought. Is this Cavendish, Xerxes, Mephisto, or Benvolio? Not Cavendish. Not Benvolio.

  He put the cat down on the floor. It trotted over to Grieve, and as it ran he could see that it did indeed drag the one leg.

  —Grieve, he said. Xerxes' leg has been like that a very long time.

  —I know that, she said. It's my cat. Of course I know that.

  He shook his head.

  —Then what do you mean, we have to operate? You don't make any sense.

  Grieve got up and came over. She was dressed in a light blue cotton slip that covered her down to her knees. A small black scarf was tied stylishly around her neck, and another around her wrist.

  —Sweetheart, she said. It was just something to say. You know how I like entrances.

  —I can't imagine for a moment, she said after a long silence, that it would be the same man. James was holding up the newspaper. There was a photograph of Estrainger. He looked precisely as McHale had described him, a small man.

  James said this to Grieve.

  —Everyone looks small in death, she said. Didn't you know that?

  The window was still open. Grieve went and leaned out it. She had not seen the paper. He had surprised her with the information.

  James came up behind her. He ran his hand along the line of her shoulders, and pulled at one of the straps aimlessly.

  —Grieve, he said. I don't understand. Why is your father doing this?

  She turned and looked up at him.

  —They don't want me to tell you anything. They won't tell me anything. But I know.

  He touched her face. She was crying.

  —Saturday is so soon, she said. And we've only just met.

  A Rule

  If somebody asks you for something, you have to give it to them.

  They get to keep it for as long as they like.

  However, if the person knows that they shouldn't have asked for it, then they will be punished. If you know someone shouldn't ask for something, however, that doesn't change the fact that you have to give them the thing in question.

  If a person has no idea about whether they should or should not have a thing, and the thing that they ask you for is a thing that they should not have, then you have to give it to them.

  The only case where you should not give to someone a thing that they ask for is if it is clear to you that they know they should not be asking for it, and that furthermore, the item is something that is a danger to them.

  Also, if you have money you are not to let it be visible within the hospital. You are not to give any to anyone. You are not to explain what it is if the person in question does not know.

  James was determined. He went out into the hall, leaving Grieve, crying, on the bed. He had to see Stark. He just had to.

  But he didn't know where Stark's rooms were. That should be easy enough, he thought. On the first floor he stopped a nurse, neglecting to use the bell.

  —Where is Stark's office? he asked.

  —Most out of the ordinary, said the woman.

  She started to walk away. He grabbed her arm.

  —Tell me, he said.

  —Up the fourth stairwell, she said, that way. There's nothing else at the top. The whole floor is his.

  She sniffed loudly and walked away.

  James continued. He felt out of breath suddenly and realized that he had hardly been breathing since he'd spoken to Grieve.

  She was convinced, he thought, that they were all going to die.

  He passed two staircases, then another. The house was enormous, he thought, and the arrangement of rooms made no sense. Modern hospitals were laid out for efficiency. Not so this place.

  Although he thought of the manual and remembered that there was a sort of efficiency to the place, a cloven, carefree efficiency.

  How much hope there has been in the past, all spent like forgotten currencies.

  The fourth stair, there it was. UP IT and UP IT. At the top there was a door. A man stood outside of it. He caught sight of the man's face as he rounded the stair. Torquin.

  God damn it, thought James. How can I get past him?

  As he came up to the door, Torquin was smiling.

  —You don't have an appointment, he said.

  —But I do, said James. It was made yesterday. Stark told me himself.

  —It was made yesterday, said Torquin, and it was canceled this morning. You can't go in. That's that. It's impossible. You'll have to come back tomorrow.

  —But tomorrow, said James, will be Friday. That's too late. I have to speak to him now.

  The door opened behind Torquin. McHale poked his head out.

  —What's all the noise? he asked.

  —Nothing, said Torquin. He's trying to push his way in.

  He pointed a t
hick hand at James.

  McHale looked at James.

  —Sorry, James, he said. Your appointment's been changed. Something came up. Maybe I can help you.

  He came out into the hall.

  —Let's go for a walk, he said. Some things are clearer when walking.

  He began down the stairs. James followed reluctantly. The man he wanted to talk to was Stark, not McHale. But from Torquin's expression he knew there was no chance of admittance.

  He followed after McHale.

  As He Reached the Stairs He Found in His Pocket

  a note. Grieve must have slipped it in at some point.

  * * *

  There's something you don't understand, and I can't explain it. It's a way of thinking. My father has a way of thinking, and it never compromises. His being right is the center of it, and he is right. I can't remember him ever being wrong. His life has been blessed with this rightness that all put together makes for something that can be hard to understand. I don't know. He arranges the lives around him, my life, the life of my family, the life of this place. There's something obscene in it. I wanted to tell you this just now, but I couldn't. I have trouble saying things out loud. Living here has made me want to live fictionally. That's why I am the way I am. My father knows that; he likes it. That's why he doesn't try to change me.

  Something else you don't understand is that what's happening, what's going to happen, doesn't have to happen to you. There's a kind of boat, I don't know. I mean, I don't know why you're here in the first place. My father brought you here. He must have a reason.

  * * *

  —Death came then about the houses, the streets, the cities, like a skirt of leaves that could not be cast off.

  McHale was talking.

  —What? asked James.

  —It's from a book, he said.

  He held up a thin volume.

  —They're poems. My brother wrote them.

  He stopped halfway between the first and second floors and looked at James.

  —Listen, he said. The pretense is over. You're here and you're not going to go to the police. That much is over for you. Estrainger's dying made things obvious. Now you think things are clear. But things aren't clear. You don't understand anything. Not why Stark is doing it, not how. You don't know anything.

  He took a deep breath.

  —The trouble is, Grieve's the trouble. She's where the problem with you came in. We had someone else watching you, ever since you found my brother in the park. Someone else was finding out your information. Our man was going to keep you tied up for a week in your house until it was too late and you could do us no harm. But Grieve was listening at the door; this house has too many doors. She got interested in you and went to take a look. She'd been depressed for months, had scarcely moved from her room. When Stark saw her take an interest in someone, he was frozen. I've never seen him not know what to do.

  McHale started again down the stairs.

  —We'll go outside, he said.

  James nodded but kept quiet. He wanted to hear everything.

  —And so, our man kept back and Grieve went and saw you in the diner; she went to your house; she sent you the mask. It was soon too much, especially after what happened at Estrainger's apartment. What did you think you were doing with Mayne? Did he get violent? Why did you throw him out the window?

  —For the last time, said James. I didn't do anything. He jumped. He thought I was a cop.

  —Anyway, said McHale, that brought on way too much heat. The police were looking into the affair. There was nothing to do but bring you here. Or kill you. It was a close bet. But Grieve seemed so changed. Her father made the decision: bring you here and keep you in the dark about everything as long as possible.

  They reached the door to a covered porch and went through. There were benches and deep hooded wicker seats for two or three. McHale sat in one of these. James sat beside him. Shadows and light ran along the porch in an odd pattern. James recognized it—it reminded him of

  —Rovnin, said McHale.

  A smile appeared and disappeared just as fast on his face.

  —The screen's woven to make shadows that look like a rovnin game. It's an old design. Stark's obsessed with rovnin. He's written monographs on its political applications.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  —The point is, it was Estrainger's turn. Once he died, we knew you would know the truth. At that point, a decision would be made about you.

  —And that's why Stark won't see me, said James. He's deciding whether or not you're going to let me live.

  There was an odd clarity to it all. James felt his shoulders tense. There was room to maneuver here. He had the gun upstairs, after all. If he just played it calm and acted unconcerned, he might have a chance to make it to the gun, and then try to get out, to get over the wall like the first McHale had.

  And then he remembered what had happened to the first McHale.

  —Stark won't see you, said McHale, not because he's deciding about you. You, my friend, are the furthest thing from his mind. He has more to think about than you. No, the decision about you will be made when he has a free moment. Probably after talking with Grieve.

  —How could you do it? James asked suddenly. How could you do that to your own brother?

  McHale was caught off guard by the question. His face tightened.

  —You don't understand anything yet, he said. Once you understand, you'll feel differently, I promise. You'll talk with Stark, and then you'll understand.

  They sat, staring out across the porch to the lawn and the grounds. Neither said anything for a long while. Finally McHale spoke. His voice was thick with emotion.

  —He was my brother, but he was Stark's son. He's Grieve's brother too. It wasn't easy for anyone; you have to know that. But he was going to leave. He was going to give us all up. No one could convince him not to. We tried. We tried for months.

  He stood up.

  —I have to go back. We've been talking too long anyway.

  James stood.

  —Where are you going back to?

  —Upstairs, said McHale. There's more to be done. I can't talk about it.

  He walked away.

  James sat again and looked at his hands. He took Grieve's note out of his pocket and read it through again.

  So, he thought. Grieve's the one who's been protecting me.

  He thought back in his head and went one by one through every memory he had of her, from the first in the diner, to the last in the room above.

  How strange, he thought, for her to fall in love with me at the drop of a hat, in an instant. The wrong instant for everyone else, but the right instant for me.

  He wondered too what it was that Stark planned. From the sound of it, it would be horrible indeed. Yet the hospital didn't seem a likely place for housing the mechanisms of some enormous disaster.

  I must have been right, thought James. Everything must have been put in place long ago. It must have all been hibernating.

  It wasn't so much that James cared what would happen to the people in general. Bad things were constantly happening to people. People were constantly doing bad things to one another. That would be nothing new. But he wanted to understand. He hated that everyone kept telling him that he didn't understand.

  He thought of the book that was inscribed on the library ceiling. Maybe that was a clue.

  If I could break the cipher . . . he thought. And he closed his eyes and thought very very hard.

  ANSILON

  arrived and removed his coat carefully in the leaden foyer.

  —The news? asked James, who stood with a tea service and a stick of wood for the fire.

  It was quite cold. Too cold for going out, save gravely.

  He hasn't got a chance, not a chance in hell, said Ansilon, who knew very well about chances in hell.

  All owls, he had once told James, end up in hell. There they sit in the branches of scalded trees and whisper their wisdom into the bligh
ted ears of vain scholars who are carved in the shapes of kites by smooth-skinned dusk children in trembling tunics of white.

  —I will not go there, James had said.

  See that you don't, said Ansilon. For I cannot help you then.

  Ansilon hung his coat on a hook and followed James into the house. A storm had appeared that afternoon, uncaused. For miles the ground was thick with snow. And was it not July?

  There were accidents on the road, said Ansilon.

  —Did you take the road? asked James.

  Only to see the accidents, said Ansilon. I smelled the disaster through the cold air and came to see. There was a couple trapped in a Studebaker beneath an overturned timber truck. They were speaking to each other very quietly, saying what they supposed were their last things.

  —Were they saved, then? asked James.

  No, said Ansilon, they were quite right, of course. She kept saying, My hands are bent and broken. How can I sew your clothing for tomorrow? To which the man replied, No tomorrow, no sewing, no clothes.

  —What a great fellow you are, said James. People can only talk like that in recounting. No one talks like that anymore.

  Once they did, said Ansilon. And not so long ago. If you want the truth, I gave him the figurine and he gave me this.

  Ansilon produced a wad of banknotes. James took them.

  —That'll do nicely, he said. When shall we leave?

  —So you understand, said Carlyle, the nineteenth century was overrun with liars. So many small corners of the world had been left unexplored that fact held no hegemony. Margret Selm, psychological theorist and unacknowledged artistic genius, came up with a strategy for rehabilitating chronic liars. It was based on her country-house experiments, where she would isolate problematic communities or ideas, and see what happened when they operated independent of the world itself.

  —How did she fund these experiments? asked James.