by Jesse Ball
—Don't worry, she said. I forgave you while you were saying it.
James climbed underneath the root of the tree. It soon became dark. He pushed between other roots with his little arms and found his way into a sort of DEN. There was a little firepit with coals and a Dutch oven. The smell of fresh-baked bread rose in the thick dimness. But the light was kind and steady from the coals, and his eyes grew steadily clear and accustomed. He soon made out seven tiny shapes, animals seated and washing their paws in flat, high-rimmed water bowls.
—Come sit with us, they said.
And James did.
They took off his dandy little coat and gave him too a bowl of water.
—Wash, wash, said one.
—Wash, wash, said all.
James washed his hands.
Grieve said something quietly. James did not hear what she said. He asked her to repeat it.
—I'm horrified, she said, a little louder, by this drawing. It really looks like you.
James looked at the sheet in her hand. The elephants again.
—It does, he said. I want to bury it with the mask. You know, I hate that mask. You should never, if you're ever trying to catch a guy's eye, give him a convincingly made rubber mask of his own face. It's really not the right thing to do.
Grieve laughed, still sobbing a little.
—I know, she said, but I couldn't help it.
—And why, he asked, the threatening note that came with it?
She slid down and curled her head and shoulders in his lap.
—Because, she said, I was trying to be a part of what the others were doing. I knew they had sent someone else to do the job and talk to you and fetch you back, but I wanted to do it, so I went ahead anyway. That note was a bit silly, though. After all, we didn't want to scare you away; we wanted to bring you here!
James ran his hands through her hair.
—Your sister is a bit crazy, he said.
—Yes, said Grieve. Do you know how you can always tell which one is me?
—How? asked James.
—Because of this, she said.
She lifted her left ear.
—Look here.
He looked behind her left ear. There was a little tattoo there, a flower. But it was an odd-looking flower.
—I drew a lily and on top of it a violet, and blended the two, and then had it tattooed here. That's how you'll know it's me.
—I think, said James, she moves a little differently from you also. She moves like a weasel.
—Yes, said Grieve. Lara is a weasel. I've always hated her. The only happy week I had as a child was when she fell from the roof and went into a coma. She came out of it, though. Everyone was so happy.
—Is that true? asked James.
—No, said Grieve. But they would have been happy. Everyone thinks she's so clever. And I would be happy if she went away and never came back.
Another hour had passed. James was sitting in his room, holding the pistol in his hand. It was loaded still. A note had been wrapped around it, presumably by Graham or McHale. When the note had been put there, he could not say, as he hadn't looked at the gun in days.
The note said:
* * *
Better to dispose of this. It will look bad if you're caught with it.
* * *
James threw the note in a basket on the ground. The door opened suddenly, and Grieve came in. She was still wearing her maid's uniform.
—I'm a bit early, she said. What's urgent?
—This, said James.
He handed her an envelope.
—I want you to take this to the police.
He had come up with a plan and he intended to stick to it. Using the gun, he would escape with Grieve from the house and grounds. He was sure she would go with him. Her father and these others were so demented. She couldn't possibly stay. In the meantime, he would have sent the maid Grieve with a letter to the police, explaining everything. The police would come to the house, apprehend Stark and the others, and take them away. If Stark was out in the open and could not reach his shelter, he would act to stop the disaster, as he would certainly not want himself to be caught in it. Of course, he might have underestimated Stark's dedication, in which case, he and Grieve would be out in the world on the seventh day.
The maid took the envelope out of his hand.
—You want me to go right now? she asked.
—Right now, he said. It's important. And when you do, don't come back here. I don't know exactly how much you know about what's going on, but it's very bad. Things are going to get bad around here. You're better off gone.
Grieve looked at the pistol.
—Are you going to use that? she asked.
Her voice sounded concerned.
—Only if I have to, he said. They killed McHale, I think. They wouldn't flinch from killing me.
Grieve went to the door and paused, looking back at him.
—Then it's good-bye.
There was a tear in her eye.
—Good-bye, he said, but did not get up.
She came back across the room.
—I'm sorry, she said. I'm sorry, but . . .
She leaned down over the chair where he sat and, before he knew what was happening, had kissed him on the lips.
—Grieve! he said.
—I'm sorry, she said. Good-bye.
Her face was bright as she stepped out the door.
Now, thought James, Lily Violet will come back here to meet me and the two of us will bust out. He looked the gun carefully over and wished he could test it to make sure it worked. He clicked the safety off. He clicked the safety back on.
He waited ten minutes. He waited twenty minutes. And still she did not come.
There was a knock on the door. He slipped the gun into his waistband and went over.
They can't have seen me through the observation post, he thought. I've blocked that. But maybe there are other windows, other false doors. There was a mirror on the wall. He went over and took it down. But there was nothing behind it, no camera, no window from another room.
He went back to the door and slid it open a crack. No one was in the hall. He took the note from off the shelf.
* * *
We caught Grieve trying to leave the house.
You shouldn't have done it.
* * *
A panic ran through him. He pulled his coat on, hiding the gun, and went out the door. If he had to, he could force them to let her go.
He got onto the stairs. He could hear a conversation at the foot; it sounded like McHale and Carlyle talking, but when he reached the bottom, they were gone. He heard the sound of a girl's crying in the front room by the entrance, the room in which he had first met the second McHale.
As he reached the door, the crying intensified. He went through and saw Torquin standing over Grieve, not James's Grieve, but Grieve the maid, who was lying on the ground, sobbing.
—Torquin, he said. What's the idea?
Torquin turned to look at him.
—No, James, Grieve cried. Get away!
Her face was bruised all over, black and blue and yellow. Her dress had been ripped nearly in half.
The door slammed shut. Another man had been hidden behind it, one of Torquin's accomplices from the first day. Torquin came towards him.
—Don't try to get smart, he said.
James pulled out the pistol and leveled it at Torquin. He unlevered the safety.
—Don't, he said.
Torquin kept coming.
James gulped. The room drew in on him. Torquin swung a fist. James ducked. He stuck the gun in Torquin's face and pulled the trigger.
The gun did not go off.
Torquin was on top of him.
Furious, James tried to throw him off. They'd fixed the pistol. Of course, they'd fixed the pistol. He was such a fool.
He fell over with Torquin on top of him, but his elbow caught the bigger man in the face. Torquin rolled away, clutching his
nose. James jumped up and ran for the door. The other man stood in front of it. Wielding the pistol like a tomahawk, James swung at the man's head. The man threw up his hand, but was too slow. The heavy pistol butt caught him above the eye, and he dropped to the ground like a sack of flour. James turned. Torquin was rising.
James opened the door and ran out. There was nothing to do now but find Grieve and escape.
It was a long, far distance down the well, a long distance down the slope beside it. Who would build a well at the top of a steep and narrow hill? thought James. He seated himself with his small back square against the well's wall, took out a small wooden figure, and began to carve. And off before him the whole of that country.
Yes, once I touched her face, my Cecily's. We had gone into a sett, for we had observed the badger on his way elsewhere, wherever badgers go in early hours. Down into the sett on hand and knee, along a warm tunnel, and then in the dim fastness she was beside me, and we lay close together, still, our faces touching. We lay so long I do not think the rest has any bearing, all this life since. I mean to say, I am still lying there, and feel about me as much the brown-kept walls of the sett as I do this light of afternoon.
Down one hall, then another. Grieve had told him where her room was, on the landing below her father's suite. He took the stairs two at a time. He reached her door, no. 3. It was unlocked. He went in,
and instantly was struck by how much it reminded him of her. Some people have rooms that are consumed by utility, others by elegance or decoration. Hers reflected clearly some essential part of her character. It was a fine room, thought James, looking at the bed, which was built into the wall like children's beds in old Scandinavian drawings. Scenes of animals, trees and plants, flowers and stars, had been carved by hand into the walls, and stood there in relief.
On racks her clothes hung. And on the table, a rovnin set.
Then he remembered why he had come.
He looked around the room for signs that she had been there recently. The basin before the mirror bore traces of water. And in the basket by the door there was a note.
* * *
Come in fifteen minutes. The nasturtium room. I have something to say to everyone.
* * *
Damn it, thought James. The nasturtium room? He went out the door warily. But no one was outside. Plainly, he had lost Torquin in the halls.
A nurse was coming up the stairs. James pulled the bell out of his pocket and rang it. She froze. They counted slowly to fifteen.
—Where is the nasturtium room? asked James.
—Second staircase, third landing, fifth room from the end.
James thanked her.
When as a boy, he went often to the trees
where he could not be found
he thought of his owl, who had one day ceased to join him, ceased to go about on his shoulder. This is the trouble, he had realized, the trouble with an invisible owl. When he does not care to come, he cannot be found. So then there were two of them that could not be found, he and the owl, and though they were not beside each other in truth, they were beside each other in this.
The saddest thing, of course, and he cut it with a knife into the bough of the tree in which he sat:
Ansilon was pledged to be his only friend. Now he might never have another, and he had lost the first.
And he thought too that Ansilon most probably had not gone away on purpose, but had become lost in a storm or a fire. He pictured the little owl's tiny form on the forest floor. Would it have, he wondered, become visible at last in death?
He went through the house, looking around each corner before attempting passage. Soon he was up the stairs and before the door of the nasturtium room. His hands were trembling. He listened at the door, and this is what he heard.
—. . . and so there's nothing else to be done?
—Nothing except to wait and go into the bunker. We have all been waiting some time, I know. But we must only wait one more day.
The first voice had sounded like Carlyle's. The second was Stark's.
Stark spoke again.
—You all must remember that what we do is a gift. It is a difficult gift, but a necessary one. Henceforth such gifts must be occasionally be made, or history will not flow as it should. No longer do we allow rivers to go where they like. We dam them, we lay them into canals, we run them through pipes, and take of them in our living rooms. Why then should history, should the course of events be left loose like an untended line?
There was quiet in the room. A long pause. Stark began to speak again, but his voice had changed slightly, as voices do when reading from a book.
—All our learned teachers and educators are agreed that children do not know why they want what they want; but no one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod. And yet it seems palpably clear to me.
Another pause then.
—Men govern each other not through regimes, not through dynasties. These are the housekeepers of history. They tidy up eras, and maintain ideas that have been made for them by other, better men. Who are those who truly govern history? The makers of the great religions, the greatest of the scientists, the greatest of the theorists. It is by thought alone that history is altered. By thought, and by its commensurate physical example.
James tried to understand what it was Stark meant. He seemed to want what he was saying to be understood by his children. It mattered to him that the world continue. Whatever he does, thought James, is at least done with good intention.
At that moment, James was struck from behind with a blackjack. He dropped useless to the ground. As his vision swam, he saw two figures standing over him: Torquin and the maid, Grieve. She was holding the blackjack and her face was clear and pale, not bruised at all.
James came to in Stark's chamber. He recognized first the painted glass above. Then he smelled a smell he knew: Grieve's skin. She was beside him. She smiled down, and as he looked up at her, she touched her ear with her hand and winked. He nodded.
—Has he woken? asked a voice.
It sounded very far away.
He could hear Grieve reply. She sounded far away, too, but he could feel her hand on his arm.
—Yes, I think so.
The voices came closer together, in a pair, winding and intertwining. He thought of colors in a string, and how light wasn't really what they said, wasn't really a ray, but more a substance, like water, that could be gathered and kept.
—James, James.
Grieve was shaking him.
He opened his eyes again.
—Hello, he said.
—I'm sorry, said a woman's voice. I hit him a bit harder than I should have.
—Next time, said a man, you leave that to me.
—Yes, said Stark. Leave all knocking down of people to Torquin. He is our expert.
—Some expert, said the woman, who he realized was Grieve.
They had really tricked him, he thought, making her up like she'd been knocked around.
—Hey, you, hey.
It was his Grieve now.
—Wake up.
He could feel her lift him up. He drew a breath and opened his eyes again. He looked across the room. Stark was there, and Grieve, the maid, and Torquin.
She mustn't have been a maid at all.
But why would they send me the note about Estrainger? That didn't make any sense. And then he remembered: that note had not been in the pillowcase like the others. It had been under the door. Someone else must have given it to him. Then he remembered the servant who had told him not to trust Grieve. Oh, he should have listened to him. What had he said? Something mean. All along he'd conducted himself in the worst possible way, never thinking about the consequences of things, or who was behind what.
He
leaned back against Grieve. Stark had come over and stood now in front of him. He was a large man, especially in that overcoat.
—Why are you going to do it? he asked Stark.
It was a useless question. He knew the answer.
—Come now, said Stark. You've read that book, the one you took down from the ceiling. There's no need for further speech.
He was right. James nodded.
—We've been holding back on you. It hasn't been fair, but we were testing you in some ways, and passing the time in others. You must wonder, why have you been brought here? Why didn't we just dispose of you? If I could order my own son killed, then why would I hesitate with you? It's an interesting question, and one that you must have considered.
Stark picked up a cane that was leaning against a table. He twirled it in his hand. With his long black coat and high collar he looked vaguely like a priest.
—The truth is, there is one major reason you are here, and it is not, as you may have suspected, because my daughter is in love with you, although plainly she is. That was not part of the plan. In fact, she was not to have anything to do with you. Yet Grieve does as she likes. History will observe that my greatest failing was in my tolerance of my own children.
Grieve laughed. He could feel her laughter all through her body, as he leaned against her.
—The reason you were brought here, and entertained, kept here so long, is simple: we were on the brink of making history, and I wanted this period in the life of our house to be recorded. But how to record all the moments of this life, all this time, how to record it in a manner that lends it easily to retrieval? You might say put it down in writing, or film it, photograph it, put it on a disk from a computer. But after that which we intend, it is not clear that any of these methods will be easily brought out of this country into the one to which we go. Any such account could easily be found out. No, no, I decided, having thought long on the matter, that a mnemonist would be the perfect device. You were watched; you were observed. We knew you went on Sundays for your walks to the park. Your seizure had been intended, so that you might accompany us in our last week. Then when Tommy escaped, and Torquin caught him right in that neighborhood, when Tommy became violent in escaping again, and his unfortunate death occurred, the masterstroke occurred to me. We would place you in the midst of it immediately, by dropping Tommy's body close by you in the park.
