The Mule

by David Quantick

  This brief flight of fantasy reminded me that I had in fact a serious task in front of me. I was clearly starting to lose it as far as focus went, looking up people’s first names in filing cabinets and imagining myself as a one-man Mary Celeste (I know that was a ship, and not a person, but you get the idea). I had work to do. I picked up the phone and dialled the number I had copied into the notebook the day before.

  A familiar voice answered.

  ‘Hello, Mr Frant,’ I said reluctantly.

  ‘Who is this?’ said Frant. ‘I’m very busy.’

  I doubted this was true. ‘It’s Jacky,’ I said, ‘from Walker-Hebborn Publishing.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘the translator.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said, ignoring the way he’d said ‘translator’. ‘I’m glad you remember me, Mr Frant.’

  ‘How could I forget?’ he said. ‘That entire episode was one of the most humiliating in my entire life. Since then I have been entirely unable to write.’

  At least something good came out of it then, I thought. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ I said. ‘Since we last met, I’ve strongly come to see just how good the Chronac is.’

  ‘Really?’ said Frant. ‘That’s surprising. At the time I seem to recall you had some difficulty with the Chronac.’

  ‘I think,’ I said, swallowing all my pride at once, ‘I think that a work of the magnitude of the Chronac can only be appreciated by a select few, and even then not immediately.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Frant. ‘I’m glad you finally noticed. Now, unless you’ve been asked by that moron Walker-Hebborn to tell me that his tinpot company is going to republish my book and promote it properly, I really must get on with my day.’

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your schedule,’ I said, picturing Frant five minutes ago staring at his telephone in disbelief as it made an unfamiliar ringing noise, ‘but I’d very much like to meet up with you.’

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’ said Frant, and I thought I could detect genuine surprise in his voice.

  ‘I have a problem,’ I said, ‘a linguistic problem, and I think – no, I know – that you are the only person who can solve it.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Your alleged skills as a translator have deserted you, then.’

  I wished for a second that I could reach my arm down the telephone wire and punch him in the face.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, clenching my fist around the receiver, ‘this is a task for a genuine expert. Also the text appears to be written in a tongue I am not familiar with at all.’

  ‘The text? You intrigue me,’ Frant said. ‘Very well, I am prepared to forgive you for what’s done and buried. I will assist you for a fee.’

  ‘A fee?’ I said. ‘I’m afraid I’m not—’

  ‘You might have untapped reserves of wealth,’ said Frant, ‘but I do not. I am an impoverished scholar, and I do not farm out my talents for no recompense.’

  ‘All right then,’ I said. ‘We can discuss terms when we meet.’

  ‘Now is fine,’ said Frant and put the phone down.

  * * *

  I had to go and make myself a very strong cup of coffee after my conversation with Frant. The man rubbed me up the wrong way in a manner that made Madame Ferber seem like charm itself. In fact, after a chat with Frant, I began to appreciate just how jolly Madame Ferber could seem. Her minor rudenesses and idiosyncrasies were at least based in a genuinely artistic temperament, whereas Frant was almost completely talentless. A.J.L. Ferber was an internationally successful writer subject to the pressures of fame, but Euros Frant was a dolt who nobody liked.

  And in a short moment I would be spending time with the dolt. I almost considered adding a shot of whisky to my coffee, but decided against it. It might be more tolerable to be in Frant’s presence completely hammered on booze, but I had a serious task to perform. I finished my coffee, got up and found the pages from the translated Alice that I would take round to Frant’s. Just as I was looking up Frant’s address in my Streetfinder – I know people like to print maps off the internet nowadays but it seems silly when you can just buy a pocket atlas and carry that around – there was a barrage of knocking on my front door.

  I wasn’t expecting anyone, so I slowly raised the sash window and looked outside to see who it was. Downstairs were Quigley and Chick, the two cops I’d met yesterday. Obviously they didn’t trust me to bring in the notebook, and frankly I didn’t blame them. I had no intention of handing over a direct link to the girl who might be called Carrie. But I had no idea how I was going to avoid giving them the notebook. I was clearly not cut out to be a master

  criminal.

  Quigley and Chick hung around for a minute or two, pressing some bells and smoking cigarettes. Finally they ground out their stubs on the doorstep and left. I waited a few minutes to make sure that they had actually gone, and weren’t lurking around the corner smoking even more cigarettes, put the notebook in a shoulder bag with the pages of Alice, and went downstairs quietly. Once in the street, I consulted my Streetfinder and headed off for Frant’s apartment, which luckily was in the opposite direction from the way the police had gone.

  I was a few hundred metres away from Frant’s front door when my mobile phone began to ring. The caller’s number was unfamiliar to me but I had a pretty good idea who it was, so waited until it had gone to voicemail and then played back the message. It was Quigley.

  ‘Hello,’ said his voice, ‘we met yesterday at the police station. You have something that we’d like, a notebook. You told us you were going to bring it in today and yet here we are, it’s today, and we haven’t seen you. This is just a reminder to say that you’ve got twenty-four hours until we come back with a warrant. In other words, bring in our evidence or you will be a suspect in a murder investigation.’

  The message ended and I deleted it. I didn’t like this at all. It’s one thing to avoid helping some police officers who you think aren’t up to the job, but it’s another to be accused of a crime you didn’t commit. I made a mental note to visit the police station after I’d seen Frant – assuming I still possessed the will to live – and continued down the road.

  * * *

  I know it’s an absurd thing to say, but the moment I saw the apartment block where Euros Frant lived, I disliked it. It was a turn-of-the-last-century building with art nouveau touches, all curlicues and curved arches. Normally I might have admired its design but on this occasion all I could think as I stood there looking at the front door was how typical of a man like Frant to live somewhere as fussy and overblown as this. I half expected to see a penny-farthing leaning on the railings, and when I rang his doorbell I was surprised to hear it buzz rather than chime.

  Frant’s voice came from a tiny speaker on the doorframe. ‘Yes?’ he said, as though he were constantly being bothered by people beating a path to his door.

  ‘It’s me,’ I said, ‘the translator.’

  After slightly too long, he buzzed me in. I climbed the stairs, which smelled, to Frant’s flat, passing several doors in a variety of conditions, from freshly painted to thoroughly kicked. Frant’s door was covered in white wrought-iron work, like a trellis, and there was a fake Victorian coach lamp to one side, which had clearly been put there by someone who loathed continuity. I waited a few seconds for Frant to open the door, reasoning that as he had spoken to me and buzzed me in, he would be expecting me. When the door didn’t open, I began to thump it softly.

  After a while’s thumping, Euros Frant opened the door. ‘Don’t bang my door,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten me,’ I said.

  ‘How could I forget you?’ he said. ‘We had a conversation only a few seconds ago. Come in.’

  He opened the door just wide enough to admit a broomstick and I sidled into his apartment. Once again, Frant did not fail to annoy me. The apartment was decorated with what Frant would probably have called bric-a-brac (or, more likely, bruc-o-brec) but what you and I would identify as
junk. There were reproductions of engravings of fishing-boats and vintage motorcars. There were paintings of vases and earls and spaniels. There were miniature soldiers and miniature cats. And over everything was the depressing must of charity shops. In fact, the place so much resembled a charity shop that I found myself picking up a particularly unpleasant porcelain cow and looking to see how much it was. All Frant’s apartment lacked was a box of stained easy listening LPs. Perhaps he kept those in his bedroom.

  Frant ushered me into a small back room which I assumed was his study, as it contained a chair and a desk with an old computer on it and a blotter covered in ink stains and the impressions of signatures. There were no fountain pens or quills in the room so he had clearly bought the blotter from – where else? – a junk shop, purely for the visual effect. Under the desk were several boxes, each containing, I could see, copies of the Chronac.

  Frant saw me looking. ‘When that thief Walker-Hebborn turned me down,’ he said, ‘I was forced to buy back the overstocks so I could sell them myself.’

  ‘I thought they went for landfill,’ I said.

  Frant just stared at me.

  ‘So, how is it going?’ I said, sounding quite interested in the circumstances.

  Frant cast a glance down at the boxes. ‘There are issues with distribution,’ he said.

  I bet there are, I thought. I looked at an ormolu clock on top of a dresser. Unless it was wrong, I had only been here for two minutes. I decided to move things on.

  ‘I’ve brought you something,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, the mystery text,’ said Frant. Then he stopped. ‘I’ve forgotten to offer you a hot drink,’ he said, and looked concerned. ‘Never mind,’ he continued. ‘Have you brought the item?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and took it out of the bag.

  Frant removed it cautiously from the brown paper bag I’d brought it in and sat down at his desk. ‘This is very unusual,’ he said and took out a magnifying glass. I realised that instead of getting to the point, Frant had decided to play the part of a television antiques expert and was going to milk his moment in the imaginary spotlight. I supposed I should be grateful he hadn’t screwed a jeweller’s eyepiece into his eye. But I had no choice but to let the awful fraud get on with it.

  ‘Why, it’s Alice!’ said Frant, as if greeting an old friend. ‘The second Alice, unless I’m much mistaken.’

  Oh well done, I thought, you’ve identified one of the most famous books in the world. I’m glad I came.

  ‘Alice Through the Looking-Glass, isn’t it?’ I said, trying not to sound completely ignorant. Clearly I had failed, as Frant immediately corrected me.

  ‘Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There,’ he said. ‘To give it its proper title.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I got as far as identifying the book, but beyond that … well, I decided to contact you because you’re the only person I know who is—’

  ‘Who is expert in las linguas fantasticas, as Jorge Luis would have put it,’ said Frant. ‘Who is not only cognisant of imaginary tongues, but is a master composer in them. You came to me, quite rightly, because I am the sensei.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said again. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You did right,’ Frant said. ‘Although this is a fairly drab find.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘in what way?’

  ‘Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There is probably one of the most translated books in the world, as you may know,’ said Frant. ‘Along with its precursor – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – it has been rendered into most languages, including Latin, in which it is called Aliciae Per Speculum Transitus.’

  This still seemed ridiculous to me. Translating a book into a language that nobody spoke was an extraordinary waste of time. But then I was in the presence of a man who had devoted his life to discovering new and more excruciating ways of wasting time. I stood there, waiting for Frant to tell me something I didn’t know.

  ‘More excitingly, there are also translations of Alice into languages outside the normal frame of reality,’ said Frant. ‘I myself attempted a rendition of “Jabberwocky” into Elvish when I was fourteen.’

  He paused, and I realised I was supposed to say something.

  ‘That’s remarkable,’ I said. ‘You must have been incredibly – precocious.’

  ‘I was,’ said Frant, ‘I was.’

  ‘And is that what this is?’ I said. ‘Is this Alice in an imaginary language?’

  Frant looked peeved. ‘I was getting to that,’ he said. ‘But yes, this is Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There in what you call an imaginary language.’ He stared at me. ‘Have you brought the money?’

  ‘The money?’ I said.

  ‘From here on in, you will be paying for my time,’ Frant said. ‘I charge a hundred an hour.’

  I tried not to look shocked, or pull Frant to his feet and knock his teeth out. Instead, I took the money from my wallet. Frant counted it, carefully licking his finger between each note, and then put it into his pocket without a word of thanks. Then he picked up the scanned pages again and studied them closely. He looked at the text, then the illustrations. Then he read a few lines under his breath.

  ‘My God,’ he said. ‘Do you realise what this is?’

  For the first time since I’d met him, Frant seemed genuinely shaken up.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s a translation of Through the Looking-Glass in an imaginary language. I know that much.’

  ‘Yes, but what language, man?’ said Frant, still looking agitated.

  ‘I’d say a mixture of Romance languages,’ I said, ‘with some suffixes and verb endings mixed in from Nordic tongues. It shouldn’t be too hard to work out with an original Alice as a gloss.’

  ‘You don’t understand, do you?’ Frant said. ‘This is more than a silly children’s book made into a puzzle for scholars.’

  ‘Scholars’ was pushing it. A bright teenager could have worked it out given a day or two. ‘Then what is it?’ I said, finding new reserves of patience to run out of.

  ‘This is the key,’ said Frant.

  ‘The key to what?’ I said.

  ‘The key,’ said Frant, ‘to the Von Fremdenplatz documents.’

  Frant paused for dramatic effect. Unfortunately I still had no idea what he was talking about. The Von what? The man was an idiot wrapped in a moron and I was beginning to regret bringing him my best clue. But I had come this far and I had paid him money for his non-existent services so I humoured him some more.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve never heard of the Von Fremdenplatz documents,’ I said.

  ‘No, no, I suppose you wouldn’t have. They are hardly in your dull remit,’ said Frant.

  There was another pause.

  ‘What are they?’ I said.

  Without speaking, which was something at least, Frant got up and went over to a bookshelf. He pulled out a big thick book. Instantly I knew I was going to hate this book. It was covered in gold filigree writing with big purple flowers etched into it, like a mishmash of a medieval manuscript and an Edwardian book about fairies. Frant handed it to me

  carefully.

  ‘I shall let you have the joy of discovering the Von Fremdenplatz documents yourself,’ he said.

  I looked at the book. It was large enough, and a fairly recent printing, by a reasonably reputable publisher. On the cover were the words ‘A VON FREMDENPLATZ CATALOGUE: KNOWN PAGES OF THE MYSTERY 194?–1989’. I skipped the introduction, which looked to be very much School of Frant and discovered that I was looking at lavishly copied plates from an admittedly gorgeous book. The plates were extremely odd. There were medical and botanical diagrams of an old-fashioned nature next to paintings of unnamed twentieth-century cities. There were photographs of fairly modern-looking men and women next to engravings of clearly mythical beasts. Medieval banners and ancient flags sat next to black and white photographs of board meetings from the 1940s. Tanks and biplanes jostled for space with crumhorns
and astrolabes. The whole thing was clearly the random fantasy of a maniac, but it was curiously compelling.

  To my surprise I found myself saying, ‘This is beautiful.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ said Frant. ‘And this is just a tiny hint of the wonders of the Von Fremdenplatz documents. Only the first volume has ever been displayed, and that only by special appointment. The book in its entirety – all six volumes – has never been revealed to anyone.’

  ‘How come I’ve never heard of it?’ I said. ‘You’d think nowadays with all these silly books about secret codes and mysteries this would be top of the bestseller lists.’

  ‘Not everyone is as mercenary as you are,’ said Frant, who had just demanded money to take a book down off a shelf. ‘The guardians of the Von Fremdenplatz are concerned with higher things than profit.’

  ‘But still you’d think it would be better known.’

  ‘Really?’ said Frant. ‘Just as the Voynich Manuscript should be better known, I suppose. Or the Rohonc Codex. Or the Emerald Tablet of Hermes.’

  ‘The Emerald Tablet of Hermes?’ I said. ‘You’re pulling my leg.’

  ‘I never pull people’s legs,’ Frant said. ‘I find practical jokes distasteful.’

  An image of Frant putting a bucket of water on top of a door and giggling came to mind. I dismissed it, and said, ‘These things you mentioned – the Emerald Tablet and the Rohonc and the other thing. They’re real?’