Through it all, Ogier spoke as if he was reciting a well-rehearsed tale, as if Marya’s story had occupied his heart and mind for weeks.
And so it had been.
Marya had surprised Ogier with her interest in his work: how he mixed his paints and organized his palette, how he’d developed his novel, blobby style. She listened keenly to his explanations.
At the conclusion of their first session, Ogier counted out her payment while she dressed. A dazed expression softened her face. One of the many landscapes that leaned against the parapet caught her attention. She approached it and retreated from it as if trying to bring it into focus.
“It’s like the mottling of a bird, isn’t it?” she said. “It seems one hue from a distance, but up close, there are many colors.” Buttoning the cuffs of her yellowing blouse, she turned her attention to the canvas on Ogier’s easel. She recognized herself immediately: her reddish hair was, here and there, flecked with shades of green; her red lips were daubed with blue; and the skin of her bare stomach and breasts was a pastiche of pinks, browns and purples. She had never seen herself outside of a mirror, and she found this view quite different. “It’s not like seeing yourself in a glass at all. Is that what I look like?” she asked with more wonder than doubt.
“To my eye,” Ogier said. “Often the most difficult part of painting someone is convincing them that they look like their portrait.” It was an unusual conversation. Ogier didn’t usually burden his models with his philosophy. The young women who sat for him had neither the interest nor the capacity to make it worth his effort; they came to him for pocket money and nothing more. But this woman radiated an intelligence he rarely saw in the anesthetized crowds of the Baths, so he went on. “Flattery in portraiture guarantees a long but miserable career.”
Marya saw the logic in this and nodded as she buttoned the waist of her skirt. “But if you paint us as we wish to appear, we would be unrecognizable. What good is a portrait that doesn’t match the subject?”
“Exactly right,” Ogier said. “One has to tell lies that don’t hide the truth.”
By the time she left, Ogier was a little charmed by her curiosity and wit. Again, he found himself wondering why such a woman would spend an afternoon modeling to make a modest sum. He could only imagine that she was in some trouble.
He wondered if she even realized how much trouble she was in.
When she returned the next morning he wasn’t entirely surprised.
She was less sheepish in her offer to model for him, suggesting that she could be engaged for several days in a row, if he liked. For anyone else, Ogier would’ve demurred and felt insulted at the suggestion that his inspiration worked on a model’s schedule. But the prospect of a longer study, a more complete work, with this astute and exotic woman was enticing. So he agreed. He asked her to pose much as she had the day before, though he fussed more with getting the sheet to drape just so across the back of the chaise lounge. He wanted the work to be larger, to capture her entire figure, but he was hesitant to broach the subject of further disrobing.
A moment later, as if she had read his mind, she emerged from behind the curtain fully undressed, settling on the sofa with the natural grace of a falling leaf. His white and yellow orchids seemed to fan the air about her hair, shoulder and bosom. He was enthralled.
As he worked, they began a natural dialogue, not like the rapid lisping of gossips, or the conversational tug of war between young wits, but rather they talked like two old men playing draughts: with ponderous silences, unspoken consensus and shrugged replies.
Over the course of the session, Ogier listened as she slowly unspooled her history. He learned of her recent marriage and how her honeymoon had been quickly derailed. She described her first hours alone in the Market, the realization that she was without a ticket or a means of acquiring one, and her quick reasoning that she should ascend to the third level of the Tower, to the Baths, where, after all, she and her husband had planned to spend the majority of their days. She had passed through the beer-slushed streets and waterworks of the Basement. She scavenged a moth-eaten cloak from the gate of a rubbish wagon and wrapped herself in it. Her red sun helmet was entirely too conspicuous, so she kept it tucked under her arm. She spoke to no one in the Basement, and whenever she was approached, she would cough as violently as one dying of consumption. Even notorious looking men would squint at her and give her a wide berth.
Ogier found her resourcefulness quite entertaining.
She had passed through the Parlor’s quagmire in less than a day by affecting the most boring, charmless version of Ms. Mayfair she could muster. She pretended to fall asleep at the height of their stilted professions of love, and then snorted when she pretended to come awake. She laughed during their arguments and acted as if she had choked on a biscuit when Mr. Mayfair swore, for the second time, his undying love. Her performance was uniformly panned by the other players who, in exasperation, quit the play.
Two days after she’d lost her husband in the Market crowd, she entered the Baths, fearful that she had kept him waiting. (She had no way of knowing that at that moment Senlin was just entering the Basement, blundering through the crowds, his progress slowed first by denial, then by shock.) Very quickly it became apparent that finding her husband among the touring masses and the scores of hotels was a nearly impossible task.
Her initial inquiries were met with either derision or extortion. One hotel purveyor went so far as to propose a corporeal form of payment that Marya might offer in exchange for his assistance. Having spent many hours in pubs among men who’d drown their discretion, Marya knew exactly how to reply to such a proposal, and paid the man on both shins with one boot.
As the sun set on her first day in the Baths, realizing that she had to be frugal with the money she had left, Marya asked a young woman selling soaps where she lived. She was directed to a women’s boarding house that was run by a mouse-faced old woman named Ms. Curd. The crone’s eyes were dark and sharp as pencil lead. Marya installed herself in a closet of a room in the attic of Ms. Curd’s house, stowed her money under the mildewed mattress of her coffin-sized bed, and slept in her clothes, too exhausted to dream.
The next day, she took a little pocket money and her red pith helmet and went in search of some professional assistance. She was certain that there had to exist somewhere in the Baths an institution that helped the wayward and the lost. Ms. Curd informed her that there was nothing so organized as a mission, but she suggested that Marya might ask one Mr. Horace Fossor, a retired customs agent known for his social connections, for help. Ms. Curd offered to arrange a brunch meeting at the Crepe House. Marya thanked her profusely, and the beady-eyed woman responded with an arthritic curtsey.
Mr. Fossor, it turned out, was an exceedingly well-mannered man who was free of vice, except for snuff, which he took only with apologies, excusing himself after each inevitable sneeze. He had been handsome once, probably. He was still relatively thin, with the slicked, inky hair of a young man, but his heavy jowls and receded chin betrayed his age.
Marya was hesitant to confide in him, having learned caution from her previous encounters in the Baths, but Mr. Fossor had an uncanny ability of deducing from the vaguest of cues the exact nature of her troubles. It was as if her whole story was written out in her clothes, her subtle shifts, and the timbre of her voice. He guessed her history, and she only had to confirm his suppositions, which she did with some amazement.
Was it some sort of trick, she wanted to know, this ability to guess her history?
“No trick, my dear, just a special attunement,” Mr. Fossor said demurely.
He insisted that he be allowed to use his contacts to help locate her husband. He was willing to do this for the very modest retainer of a shekel a day, all of which he would return if he failed to produce her husband in a fortnight. Then he paid for their lunch and departed on his mission even before Marya was entirely committed to it.
But then, what else could she do but
accept?
She returned to Ms. Curd’s boarding house to budget her remaining funds with this new expense in mind only to find that her cache of money had vanished. She flipped her dank mattress three times before she could believe it. She had been robbed.
Confronting Ms. Curd proved fruitless. Curd proclaimed that all the girls in the house were the worst sort of immoral trollops: thievery was the least of their sordid habits! Curd assumed Marya would have had more sense than to leave her valuables in a room without locks. “I run a boarding house, not a bank, Missy,” she said. “Rent’s due in the morning.”
In a daze, Marya wandered out into the daily furor of the Baths and the mob of shoppers and peddlers that stood as thick as clover. Oh, what she would’ve given for a patch of grass or tree shade amid the infinitely circling sidewalk! She found a bench by the shore, posed herself politely, and then retreated into thoughts that seethed with self reproach. How could she have been so stupid? She had ascended the Tower with such clever nimbleness— and now everything turned on a single mistake.
Her only hope was to be quickly reunited with her husband, but the only way to do that was to pay Mr. Fossor his daily allowance to plumb his contacts.
It was at that moment that an artist with paint in his hair thanked her for being such a willing subject for his work. Which brought them, Marya concluded, to their present arrangement: she sat, and Ogier paid her just enough to keep Mr. Fossor on call and her head on a cot.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Mr. Fossor?” Marya asked. “Perhaps overheard his name at a party or a pub?”
Ogier seemed to draw back into his hump, a turtle shrinking into its shell. “Madam, I am persona non grata in the Baths. I hardly know anyone anymore.”
“Being unknown has its advantages.” Marya shrugged her shoulder an inch, which seemed an exaggerated gesture under the microscope of the painter’s eye.
“Never say that to a painter,” Ogier quipped.
At the end of their second session Marya announced that Mr. Fossor was arranging interviews for later that week.
Ogier was a little disturbed to find that Marya didn’t know who she was meeting. All she could tell him was what Mr. Fossor had told her: they were a secret society of altruists, as yet untainted by Babel’s immoral influence, who were willing to help the deserving. These were men of principle. They believed in two economies: one material and one eternal, whose currency was goodwill and self-sacrifice. They called themselves the Coterie of Talents, and they had, according to Mr. Fossor, “galleons of gold” at their disposal.
“I’ve been thrown a lifeline,” Marya said, and the relief she felt deepened the corners of her mouth into the dimples of a smile. “Do you know how I prepared for the possibility of our separation? I dyed my hat red! If I’m ever going to find Tom, I’m going to need help. I can’t just strut around the cafés, hoping to be spotted. I need help.”
Unwilling to cast a shadow on her optimism, Ogier smiled and kept his reservations to himself. For the first time in years, he wished he had a wider society of friends and resources.
The Coterie of Talents: he didn’t like the sound of that.
The next day, she arrived in a new dress: a pale blue strapless gown that flattered her figure and accentuated her slender neck. The dress was free of the usual foofaraw, the frosts of sequins and explosions of feathers that seemed popular of late. It was a classic and stately dress, free of any ornament except for the staging of her décolletage. It was a dangerous dress.
Trying his best to appear undisturbed by her transformation, Ogier asked how the search for her husband was progressing. Marya confided that Mr. Fossor’s methods were a little circuitous.
The previous evening, after their session, she’d again met Mr. Fossor at the Crepe House, and he had insisted that they postpone dinner until she’d had a chance to change into her proper evening attire.
“My dear, I have been busy sowing the seeds of your virtue with my friends.” Mr. Fossor said, taking a pinch of snuff and turning his head to delicately expel it on the sidewalk. He apologized, and then repeated the process twice more. When he finally regained himself, his eyes were red from sneezing. “I have written dozens of letters on your behest, and already there are some in the Coterie, I believe, who have developed an interest in you.” He leaned over their table, his jowls pinched in around his earnestly puckered mouth. “One or two of them may be prepared to throw all of their resources behind the search for your husband. Believe me, these are the most principled of men, but they are also practical. They won’t endorse someone who appears…” He glanced mournfully at her tattered blouse. “…destitute. They have learned that poverty naturally makes a person dishonest. So, they are suspicious. You must appear hopeless but not helpless, if that makes sense. In short, we must polish you.”
Marya confessed that all of her luggage had been stolen in the Market and that she was, at present, short on resources. Paying Ms. Curd for room and board and retaining Fossor’s services was the limit of her finances.
Fossor immediately, almost eagerly, proposed that he buy her a dress. “I’m sure that your husband will be able to compensate me for any out of pocket expenses, and I know a brilliant seamstress who owes me a favor.” When Marya argued that she would be uncomfortable being too greatly in his debt, he insisted. “Think of it this way: you must at least give me a chance to succeed. I have already invested so much in this effort. If I fail to find your husband, you may keep or return the dress, as you like.” He smiled, his jowls rising a little wolfishly.
Though unhappy with the arrangement, she could not argue with his logic. If she appeared as a pauper, she likely would be treated as one. So, she spent the remainder of the evening being fitted for a new dress, as directed by Fossor, at a rather posh boutique.
While he painted, Ogier listened to her account with increasing alarm. Though he couldn’t be sure what Fossor’s true motives were, he doubted very much the existence of a coterie of wealthy philanthropists. No matter how these nobles preferred to dress their charity or what currency they preferred to deal in, there was only one economy in the Tower, and it was not the eternal sort.
“Tonight, I am to be introduced to some of Mr. Fossor’s friends,” Marya said, redressing at the conclusion of the session. Ogier frowned as he squeezed the paint from his brushes and stirred them in baths of turpentine. His scowling made Marya worry that he was unhappy with the work or with her modeling.
Ogier reassured her. “No, it’s coming along fine,” he said, gesturing at the canvas and the emerging, almost spectral figure. He was pleased with the proportions and the tone of the work, though he was still dissatisfied with her expression, which seemed conflicted: her mouth smiled with a natural grace while her eyes appeared to glare intensely. “It will be a great work, I’m sure, I hope. No, I am worried about you. Are you sure this Mr. Fossor has your interests at heart?”
“Most likely he does not.” Marya admitted. “He seems greedy and vain and a little shallow-minded. I’m sure he’ll squeeze every last cent from Tom, but it is only money.”
“The rich say the same thing, but they never mean it,” Ogier said, and paid her for her day’s work.
Chapter Twelve
“One shouldn’t feel compelled to attend every ball, or accept every proposal, or finish every glass that is raised. The sun is sometimes brighter when watched from the shadows. Sometimes to enjoy a scene fully, we must first retreat a little way.”
- Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel, V.XIV
Senlin’s heart felt like the air bubble of a level: it slid up and down his throat, searching for a center that had apparently vanished.
It was Ogier’s description of the pastel blue of her dress that did it, that made him recall the queer, half-blacked out book he had saved from destruction weeks ago. The Wife-Monger’s Confession, or whatever it had been called, had recounted a theory of color that had, at the time, seemed impossibly esoteric. Now, he was not so sure
.
The marble faces of hotels seethed with the embers of afternoon light. Senlin clung to Ogier’s arm and they barreled on under the shadows of marquees of dance halls and dinner clubs, the shadows appearing moth-chewed under the mirror lamps turning above like disembodied eyes.
The next few days continued in much the same way. Marya arrived in the morning and departed mid-afternoon. During their occasional breaks, Ogier made tea and set out pastries that she would eat while he smoked cigarettes. They looked out from their rooftop fort, guarded by orchids, timeworn tapestries, and exquisite fumes, and felt serene.
Marya was a natural model: she was aware of her figure, but not enamored of it; she was at ease without being limp. And the resulting pose was more beautiful than anything the younger maids had ever achieved.
And always, while he sat mixing his paint and laboring over her obscure expression, dropping in and wiping off a dozen failed strokes, she regaled him with reports of her evenings.
Every evening she would accompany Mr. Fossor to a different private party. Fossor selected their ports of call and, when she inquired, refused to explain how he chose them. These soirees, as he called them, were mostly held in lavish rented drawing rooms and parlors, which were invariably wallpapered with silk and gold leaf or silver foil.
Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel Book 1) Page 21