by Tom Miller
“No,” I said. “Rescue and Evac.”
Ms. Addams set down her pen. “That’s so far past impossible that you’d need at least three separate miracles. You have family in the Corps? Someone pressuring you to go out for R&E?”
“I’ve always wanted to. Since I was a boy. I read Life and Death on San Juan Hill every night. And all the other books for kids that Lt. Col. Rodgers wrote.”
Addams looked at me with amusement. “Those books aren’t meant for children.”
As I mentally tallied up the number of deaths in the opening chapter, I realized she might be right.
“Everyone ought to have a dream, Mr. Weekes,” Addams said. “But the time comes when you have to put childish things away and face the world as it is.”
• • •
The world as it is.
No fewer than three women speculated as to which anatomical parts I might or might not have as Unger escorted me through the dining hall. I stacked my plate with a couple of ham sandwiches and macaroni salad, but he didn’t take a thing.
“Not hungry?” I asked him.
“From what I hear of the freshman social this evening, you don’t want to fill up now,” Unger replied. He went on to describe the lavish food and swank decor that made the welcome soiree one of the year’s premier events.
It all sounded nice, but I’d heard Willard Gunch describe the barn dance during my last year of high school in similarly glowing terms. The promised decorations, which were to have rivaled those in the Palace of Versailles, had ended up consisting of one roll of purple crepe paper streamers donated by Mr. Lupkin from the general store.
At seven in the evening, I threw on my new summer suit, the one that Billings’ finest clothier had promised would be the height of fashion anywhere on earth, what with its splendid taupe color and the hems that didn’t quite reach my ankles. Then I watched Unger dress, slowly and meticulously, in his sharply pressed cream-colored three-piece with matching cuff links and pocket watch. Unger was not particularly handsome—average height, chubby, matted black hair—and his family was of modest means. But he’d had the advantage of an excellent Boston tailor. By comparison, I looked perfectly country.
Unger picked through the wooden box holding his collection of 139 bow ties (he’d bought one just that afternoon, couldn’t resist) and decided on one striped in black and red, Radcliffe’s colors. “You’re sure I can’t interest you?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t want to confuse folks,” I said. “You having that introductory line that you like so well.”
We walked five minutes up Brattle Street to Radcliffe’s main campus. Moss Hall had been reserved for the social, as it had the only room large enough to comfortably accommodate the entire freshman class.
Like all of Radcliffe’s newest buildings, it was part of the college’s fortunate legacy of empirical philosophers. Bertha Moss, who’d discovered the koru sigil when her six-year-old daughter drew a design in the steam on the frosted glass screen of her bathtub and caused a nearby philodendron to grow to enormous size, had been in the college’s first graduating class. Barbara Polstonetto, the developer of glyphs for flat-bottomed transport fields, had earned her degree from Radcliffe a decade later. Both women had made millions off their discoveries and donated generously to the study of empirical philosophy at their alma mater. That meant the labs and lecture halls devoted to sigilry were plush and modern, while much of the rest of the school was crammed into a few older, ramshackle buildings. The lay students resented us for it.
A pair of burly men stood on either side of Moss Hall’s entrance. They wore vests emblazoned with the college’s crest and had the unmistakable look of well-seasoned men of action.
Three women reached the door ahead of us. Each flashed an invitation at the guards, who gave them a perfunctory look and waved the young ladies through with much laughter and a fatherly warning about not imbibing too much punch.
When Freddy and I approached, the men were still jovial but I could see the straightening in posture, the instant tension around the eyes, their right hands drifting toward the holsters on their hips.
“Good evening gentlemen,” one of them said. “How can we be of service?”
“Good evening,” I said.
I handed over my invitation and the guard checked my name against his list, then held the card up to a lantern, scrutinizing the watermark on the paper. He took a notebook from his pocket and flipped through it. On one page, a photograph of Freddy was pasted in. On the next was the picture of me that the Billings Gazette had run after I’d rescued Mother. The guard studied the picture and then me.
“Very good, Mr. Weekes,” the guard said. “You wouldn’t mind if I helped you straighten your jacket, would you?”
He patted me down—arms, back, chest—then legs and ankles, which neither of us could pretend was anything but him searching me for a weapon. The other guard was doing the same to Freddy.
“Expecting trouble?” I asked my guard quietly.
“Never trouble, young sir,” he said, his smile becoming colder, but more genuine. “Preparedness is the watchword here. You just keep hold of your invitation. In case we have to prepare anyone off the premises. Wouldn’t want you caught up in the confusion and prepared out by mistake.”
He put his stage grin back on for the group of girls closing in on the entrance.
“What helpful doormen!” Unger said to me in the foyer. “I didn’t even realize my pants cuffs were crooked.”
“Hmm,” I said. I straightened my tie and followed him inside.
From the moment I crossed the threshold, I realized that the freshman social more than deserved its reputation. The ballroom’s wood paneling glowed faintly in the gaslights, which were turned down low. Two rows of tables running the length of the room held thousands of tiny candles, each thinner than a strand of hair, all burning in different colors. I picked up one of the tapers and examined it. Not a candle at all, but a twist of solidified smoke treated with a pinch of luminescent powder on the tip. Smokecarver work, hastily done, but still impressive. It was the sort of detail that even folks who hadn’t a single kind word to say about sigilrists still wanted for their fancier parties.
A giant ice sculpture of the Radcliffe seal dominated the center table on one side of the room. On the opposite side, blushing orange in the candlelight, was an even larger ice sculpture of a winged woman wearing only a crown of leaves and a strip of cloth that hid one shoulder and her netherparts. An inscription on the base read VICTORY FOR THE CLASS OF ’21!
Unger plunged into the crowd, but I hung back, uncertain of what was expected of me. Should I introduce myself around, or did only a bumpkin approach a stranger? Was it improper to chat up a woman if she was alone? Could I simply graze my way through the platters of food scattered across the tables and sneak out the back?
After observing for a minute, I better understood the scene before me. The best-dressed girls, decked out in fine jewelry and ball gowns, tended toward the side of the room with the Radcliffe seal. I’d always thought women ought to look like my sisters—sturdy and intense, a bit exasperated, favoring gray in dress because it hid smoke marks and wool because they could brush the sand out of it. But these creatures were draped in silk, ankles and arms bare, their shoulders wrapped in scarves so light they might disintegrate if you stared too hard. They fluttered from one person to the next, never making more than a few steps of progress—I didn’t suppose their footwear permitted it. Those would be the rich, upper-crust Easterners, the ones Jake had warned didn’t appreciate common sigilrists invading their exclusive college.
On the opposite side of the hall, I spotted what had to be my fellow Contingency students. They’d retreated to the tables surrounding the statue of Winged Victory, eyes downcast, waiting for the ordeal to end. Here there were rough hands, faces with the odd scar or chipped tooth, skin toughened by the sun and wind. Their dresses would not have looked out of place at Sunday services in Butte or Bozeman. I s
uspected that out of all the women in the room, they would least appreciate my company. I would mean attention and most of them seemed to want to avoid that at any cost. Put in their year of study plus their service time then go back home.
But ultimately, I drifted toward the Contingencies and the massive ice sculpture. Who could have imagined such a curious thing as that block of ice in the shape of a nude? Captivating, really, as the droplets collected and ran down the long, curved flanks and jutting hips, scattering the smokecarved light when they fell.
“It’s dreadful, isn’t it?” said a young man who’d sidled up next to me. “Every year the Contingency Society donates something more outrageous and this has to be the absolute worst. The Fultons can give a million dollars, but it doesn’t buy good taste.” There was an appreciative titter from the cadre of fancy young women who’d followed him.
I realized that he must be Radcliffe’s third male philosopher. He was lithe and jaunty, his suit cut elegantly, blond hair oiled and combed into a flawless helmet atop his head.
“The proportions are ghastly,” he continued, appraising the sculpture. “She’s . . .” He took a moment to consider how to put it without upsetting his delicate female companions. “Top heavy.”
There was more appreciative laughter.
“She looks like Donna,” said the horse-faced girl standing next to him. “I bet she modeled for it.”
“Oh don’t,” said another of the young ladies. “Donna’s sweet.”
“Of course she is,” said the young man chivalrously. “But we should hear the opinion of this fine gentleman. Is our dame de glacé a deformed monstrosity or hidden beauty?”
I considered the ice statue and plucked at my chin. “I’d say she favors Hazel Louise.”
“Really?” he asked with interest. “I don’t think I’ve met her.”
“She’s the innkeeper in Billings,” I said. “Four dead husbands, ten kids, and the nastiest dog you ever saw. That cur will take your arm off as soon as look at you.”
That got a laugh from the flock of chirpy girls. The young man looked annoyed—upstaged by a country rube.
“I haven’t even introduced myself,” he said, extending his hand and smiling with sickly warmth. “Brian Fenwick Mayweather.” Intoned as if that should mean something.
“Pleasure to meetcha,” I said. “Robert Weekes.”
“Oh-ho!” said Mayweather. “The man from the Wild West! Robert is from Montana.”
“How lovely!” exclaimed the girl who’d come to Donna’s defense. “Do you ride?”
I nodded, since that question could only mean one thing to a flier. “I ride a Springfield harness with a one-and-three-quarters canvas double weave and a rib guard,” I said. “What do you ride?”
She looked at me, confused. “Well, Safie, mostly. She’s an Arabian.” Her lip quivered. Possibly she thought I was mocking her.
“Robert means that he hovers,” supplied Mayweather. “He’s the one who flew in from the transporter arena.”
“Very nearly,” I said.
“A real male sigilrist?” observed the first girl. “Every one of those I’ve ever met wanted to play dress-up in his mother’s skirts. Though a transvestite might be preferable to some of the atrocities on display tonight. Did you see that dark-skinned girl in the yellow gingham dress? It’s one thing for Radcliffe to take a few scholarship cases, but they find the most appallingly vulgar women. The blacker the better.”
She was so awful that I couldn’t find the words to reply.
“Collette is having second thoughts,” Mayweather cooed. “What was it you called Boston? ‘A squalid backwater?’ ”
“I called it a crude little town full of ignorant rabble,” she replied.
“Though I imagine the city must seem frightfully strange to poor Robert,” Mayweather said. “You’ll have to share with us your impressions of it.”
I had the overwhelming urge to get away from them. “I haven’t seen enough to decide,” I answered. “I’ll report back when I have a firmer opinion.”
I put my hand out, Mayweather shook it, and I all but ran for the opposite side of the hall. The man had to be the most colossally foppish ass in existence.
I wanted to snag one of the flutes of champagne that an army of waiters was carrying on silver platters, but they seemed to be forever orbiting away from me and toward the center of the room, as if pulled in by Mayweather’s gravity. Indeed, the room seemed to surge and ebb in waves around the man, the twinkling necklaces and bracelets and hair combs spiraling about him like the spray above a whirlpool.
The whole event stank of the worst sort of decadence. Half of Europe was starving, soldiers and corpswomen wading up to their necks in mud in the trenches, Mother probably fighting off assassins with her boot knife, and here I stood in the midst of the rankest superficial frippery.
I might have spent the rest of the evening in similar reverie, but young women kept pushing their way toward the table behind me. It held something remarkable: a smokecarved chocolate soufflé that really was lighter than air, contained in an upside-down cut glass bowl anchored to the table with wires. Serving it required two girls to work together; one to scoop the chocolate foam with a long-handled ladle, the other to hold an upside-down cup at the ready. Even the most adept young women lost a little soufflé over the edges of their cups and blobs of it drifted up to spatter against the ceiling. The girls who managed to get it from their cups into their mouths giggled as they ate; whatever gas was inside the dessert made them tipsy and caused their voices to squeak.
Contingency students and staid Radcliffe ladies who ordinarily never would have spoken to one another stood side by side, scooping soufflé and laughing.
“Try it!” a woman in a ball gown said, pressing a cup into my hands.
I managed to suck a mouthful out of the cup without spilling too much. It was rich and oily, as insubstantial as a soap bubble.
“Thank you!” I said to the young lady who’d given me the cup, my voice sounding like a drunken soprano duck.
Then I realized that all the tables surrounding the ice statue of Winged Victory contained similarly extraordinary smokecarver-prepared dishes. I sampled scoops of vanilla ice cream with an inner layer of insulated chocolate that protected a hot, molten caramel core. There was a ham smoked to taste like peaches accompanied by peaches smoked to taste like ham—more clever than delicious, but that didn’t prevent me from taking seconds. Corn kernels that popped when they touched your tongue, lemon bubbles that rolled across their dish in choreographed patterns, deadly hot jalapeño peppermints, fresh steamed Wail-a-Duke, and piles of coconut fizzysnaps.
Contingency students and unphilosophical Radcliffe ladies alike wandered among the delicacies, pointing out to one another this outstanding treat or explaining how you ate that one. Some of the iciness between the two groups began to thaw.
I located Unger, who’d paired off with an expensive-looking young woman with thick glasses and a brown velvet hair bow. They were carrying on an animated discussion about double mudge.
“I don’t see why you’d give up six percent on a pair to open with a jack,” the young woman said.
“It’s 5.7 percent,” said Unger. “And I’d only do it if I were certain my partner could jig it. I could do it with Robert here. I played with him last night—he’s the flattest partner I’ve ever had.”
“I’m what?” I asked.
“It’s a compliment,” said the girl. “Sort of. He means you’re literal when you play cards. You don’t go in for psychology.”
“I’m very tricky!” I objected.
Unger patted me on the back. “A few more weeks and we could hit the Beacon Hill Sunday game. We’d win seventy games out of a hundred.”
“You would not,” the girl said. “They’d throw you out after you won the first one. The regulars always come out ahead. What you need to do is . . . Oh! That one right there!” She pointed at a tiny fish tied to a cracker with a celery threa
d.
Before I could reach for one, I heard a crash outside the hall, followed by a series of dull thumps. At least I thought I heard, because no one else seemed to. Unger blathered on about cards, young ladies worked to corral the soufflé, the statue of Winged Victory glowed contentedly. But then I caught a glimpse of Mayweather. He, too, had noticed something amiss and was shooing his group of admirers away from the main entrance. I set down my plate and walked toward it.
A moment later the doors flung open and a man staggered in. His skin was painted with purple and yellow makeup to look like putrefied flesh. He had a wooden framework mounted on his shoulders, across which a large sheet of fabric had been stretched. THEY MURDER THE INNOCENT was written across it in dripping red paint, as if drawn with blood. He had more red paint in a bucket, which he splashed toward the Contingency students.
“Murder!” screamed the man. “Philosophers have driven the country to war. They kill babes still unborn. Their very touch is corruption!”
My classmates, many of them paint-spattered, shrieked and ran.
“Murder and ruination!” he shouted toward a group of wealthy girls. “Stay away from those harlot sigilrists. Remember the righteous cause!”
He threw the last of his paint and looked frantically about the room. His gaze fixed on Winged Victory, the smashing of which would have made the perfect finale to his performance. He made a run for it a moment too late.
One of the doormen, real blood streaming down his face from a cut on his cheek, barreled in. He was still smiling. He continued smiling as he hit the wet paint and skidded, recovering to launch himself with balletic grace at the interloper. He knocked the Trencher to the ground and there was a sharp snap as the wooden framework holding his sign broke.
Even pinned to the ground, the little man kept struggling. The guard twisted the man’s arm high into the air and drove his knee into the small of his back. The Trencher went limp. Another doorman pushed his way through the crowd, bringing a set of manacles. He was not as practiced in the art of smiling. The guards handcuffed the intruder and pulled him to his feet.