The Fallen (The Sublime Electricity Book #3)

by Pavel Kornev

  I looked at the portrait and clicked my tongue in approval. The sparing lines were sharp and formal, but came together into an easily-recognizable image. There were no unnecessary details, like one normally sees with police sketches based on eyewitness accounts. Just one look at this, and any person could tell my runaway from any other Indian man. That's what I call a real talent!

  What was more, in the lower left corner, Charles had drawn an open eye – the famed logo of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Below that, in a confident hand, he’d written their slogan: "We never sleep." I was quite surprised – although the symbol drew the eye, it didn't distract at all from the face of the runaway.

  "Take my cap," the old man advised," it'll make you look like a spook."

  "My thanks!" I said, not refusing the gift. I rolled up the drawing and stuck it in my pocket. "I owe you one."

  "Scram!" Charles laughed. "You're scaring away paying customers."

  "We'll see each other again."

  "Less talk, more walk."

  "Stay happy!" I bid the man farewell and ducked into the restaurant.

  I asked the maître'd about Mademoiselle Montague, and he told a waiter to take me to the second floor. There weren't many people in the restaurant. The public tended to gather in this hallowed establishment nearer evening. There were lots of palm trees, ficuses and antique statues in the wall niches.

  Liliana had reserved a table for two near an open window on the terrace. A cool wind was making the light opaque curtains rustle.

  "Leo!" my new friend lit up and set her glass of white wine with ice on the table. "I was already starting to worry you wouldn't show up!"

  "How could you think such a thing?" I smiled confidently, although just one hour ago, I had no idea if I'd accept her invitation or not.

  A good turn in a bad game – that's what you call that.

  "What can I get for you?" the waiter asked, walking up to us with a set of leather-bound menus.

  I accepted a weighty tome from him and admitted without a shade of embarrassment:

  "My dear Liliana..."

  "Just Lily."

  "Lily, I only have enough money in my wallet for maybe a pair of honey cookies. Would you like a cookie?"

  "Leo, it's my treat! Have your forgotten?" Liliana reminded me. "Although your aid to me cannot be materially valued, I want this symbolic gesture to allow us to start over with a clean slate."

  "Great!" I smiled and ordered steak with fried vegetables, which cost around twenty-five francs. If I'm gonna go out, I might as well go all out!

  "And to drink?"

  "Black tea. South African, if you have it."

  "Unfortunately, we only have Indian," the waiter said, pouring wine into Lily's glass.

  "Then Indian it will be. And a pitcher of lemonade, please. Bring the lemonade right away."

  The girl's eyes went wide.

  "So, you weren't joking about the lemonade? It really is your favorite drink?"

  "I rarely joke," I smiled. "And you aren't ordering any food?"

  "I already ordered," Lily waved it off and asked: "What did you get up to today?"

  I shrugged my shoulders indeterminately.

  "Oh you know, nothing special. I sent a couple telegrams, figured out the train schedule."

  "You're leaving?" she asked, shooting me a quick glance over the top of her wine glass.

  "Tomorrow on the five-o'clock."

  "Have you already bought a ticket?"

  "I'm going after this."

  "Great!" Lily smiled. "I'll go with you! I adore watching the trains. I’ve always loved traveling. You don't object, do you? I'm quite low maintenance..."

  "I don't object," I answered simply and filled the high glass with lemonade. I liked having Liliana around. She could even charm a stone statue.

  "Perhaps we should go to the cinema after?"

  "I don't like the cinema," I admitted. "It's cramped, dark and always full of smoke."

  "Then what?"

  I took a gulp of lemonade and told her:

  "There's a lecture in the city park today about the habitability of other worlds."

  Liliana looked at me with unhidden surprise, but after brief consideration, she agreed.

  "Marvelous!" she saluted me with the wine glass. "And after the lecture, we can stay for dancing!"

  "I don't particularly like dancing either, but..."

  "We're staying!" Lily cut me off. "I can't even remember the last time I went dancing!"

  "Friday?" I reminded her immediately.

  She winced in pain and asked me:

  "Let's not talk about that, alright?"

  "If you say so," I promised and threw myself back into the chair, trying to come to grips with the feelings I was experiencing for this woman.

  In the end, I didn't come to any particular conclusion. I liked Liliana, sure. She was easy to be with. That was on the one hand. On the other, she danced half nude in a cabaret with a constrictor on her shoulders. And who could vouch that we met by coincidence? I didn't know and couldn't know what to expect.

  I just hoped for the best.

  And why not? I wasn't so easy to kill. And scaring me was also difficult. I was quite the rousting success in both of those regards. So naturally, a kind of certainty in the future had begun to take root.

  And – devil take me! – I really did like spending time with Liliana! With her, reality seemed clearer, richer and brighter. Even the lemonade was tastier than normal.

  Love? No. I knew for sure that it wasn't that.

  Just... it was just that we had a little thread running between us.

  And it was even a bit frightening. I wasn't used to giving in to my own fears.

  First, they brought salads and light appetizers, then it came time for the main course. Without particular hurry, we finished our lunch and moved to the open terrace. Now that the sun had passed over the building, it would be shady.

  A cool wind was blowing in from the lake. We were sitting in wicker armchairs and drinking; tea for me, and white wine for Lily. What we gabbed about, I won't even say, but it was a pleasant and unlabored talk.

  I was actually surprised; I don't usually get on so easily with people.

  "You're an impressive person, Leo!" Liliana suddenly declared, thoughtfully glancing at the way the light played on the glass. "I just don't know what to expect from you!"

  It was as if she was repeating my thoughts. It caused a slight fright.

  "Why is that?" I asked after a long pause, placing the porcelain teapot on the saucer and repeating the question: "Pray tell, why?"

  "Like you don't know! With the tattoos and all that... you look like a miscreant, but by some miracle you were clever enough to make a very positive impression on daddy! He’s never mistaken about people! And you invited me to a lecture! Not to the cinema, not to a dance, but to a lecture, Leo!"

  "Maybe I just suffer from excessive shyness?"

  "You?" Lily broke down laughing. Her eyes started softly glowing from the inside, as if reflecting the light of the sun. "Well, why not? It just didn’t occur to me. Forgive me. You look so decisive..."

  "Looks can be deceiving."

  "But we will stay for the dances, I hope?"

  "Do I have a choice?"

  Lily thought for a second and shook her head.

  "No. Otherwise, I'll ride home to slake my sorrow with wine. And you'll be ashamed."

  "Shame is my Achilles' heel," I smiled and got on guard, having heard a strange noise from the square.

  I turned and snorted in surprise when seeing a self-propelled carriage driving up to the monument. It looked extremely unusual. It was as massive as a police armored vehicle, but had a much quieter engine.

  "A Ford Model-T!" The steam-driven self-propelled carriage was produced in the New World, so only a few specimens could be found on this side of the Atlantic. It was all the more surprising to see one in a vacation town.

  After the Ford, three open horse-drawn carri
ages drove up to Maxwell Square, and the constables set about politely but firmly asking the students occupying the square to disperse. The police only allowed the veteran artists to stay.

  A young man with black hair got out from behind the wheel of the self-propelled carriage, set up a three-legged film camera on the paving stones and began recording. His assistant, wearing an inappropriately short skirt and short-sleeved blouse, snapped a clap board before the lens and hurriedly stepped aside. The important gentlemen got out of their buggies near the monument and started discussing something gravely.

  "Well, blow me down!" I whistled. "Is a normal photo-postcard not enough anymore?"

  Liliana got up from the table and gracefully leaned her elbows on the terrace railing. Ogling her from top to bottom wouldn't have been too appropriate, so I got up and stood next to her.

  "I know them," she suddenly said. "The tall fat one with the top-hat and cigar is Joseph Malone. Daddy invited him to dinner not too long ago. He even brought his cameraman along when he visited our manor, can you imagine?"

  "Malone? The millionaire and philanthropist?" I guessed. "The same one who financed the restoration of the amphitheater? And the others?"

  "Nearer to the monument," Lily said, looking into the distance. "That’s the director. I'm drawing a blank. What's his name? He's also from the New World. He works on Broadway. He's going to put on a theater performance in the amphitheater and direct the opening of the concert-gala. And the husband and wife are Adriano and Belinda Tacini."

  Something shook loose in my memory; I shuddered and remembered:

  "The architect?"

  "Very famous. He led the restoration works," Liliana confirmed. "He and his wife had us over in Calcutta. They're a beautiful couple. But they’ve also suffered great misfortune."

  "And why is that?"

  "Adriano loves his wife madly, but they are unable to conceive children."

  I was tongue tied.

  "I'm not sure I had to know that."

  "Everybody knows," Lily answered calmly, adjusting her black curls, messed up by the wind. "When the best doctors were powerless, Adriano tried to find help from folk healers, can you imagine? He's very driven."

  "Folk healers?" I frowned, not hiding my disapproval. "Charlatans or malefics?"

  "Leo, what are you talking about? Malefics can only kill!" Lily objected. "No, they were interested in creative forces. Siberian shamans and New World medicine men, Persian dervishes, Mandarin wise-men from the Celestial Kingdom, Indian yogis."

  "So, charlatans it is."

  "Why so much skepticism?"

  "Well, none of it worked, did it?"

  "No, it didn't. In Calcutta, Adriano was intending to beg for help from the priests of Kali, but father talked him out of it." Liliana calmly bore my surprised gaze. "Yes, I was listening in on their conversation. Completely normal behavior for a young girl, don't you think?"

  "I have no idea how young girls are supposed to behave," I admitted, glancing at my timepiece. "I suppose it's time to go, if we want to make it from the train station to the lecture."

  "Are you serious?" Lily moaned out sorrowfully. "Life on Mars or Venus? Please, Leo, tell me you're not serious!"

  "And why not?" I shrugged my shoulders, lending a hand to my companion.

  We went down to the first floor, said farewell to the maître'd and went outside. Almost immediately, our carriage drove up; I helped Lily get inside, sat down next to her and couldn't help a snide remark:

  "The architect must have totally lost his mind, if he'd decided to ask the goddess of death for help."

  Liliana glanced at me like a stupid baby.

  "Kali has two domains," she said, turning away and going silent.

  I've never understood women. Like now. Had I said something wrong?

  Fortunately, my companion's bad mood didn't last long, and the majority of the ride we passed conversing sweetly, purposely talking around the uncomfortable topic. It didn't take long for us to reach the train station. Unlike New Babylon and the other megalopolises I'd had the chance to visit in the last year, on the clean streets of Montecalida, there was almost no traffic, so our carriage rolled down the road in stately solitude.

  It stopped only one time. At the intersection with the electric streetcar line, we had to let through a streetcar, thrumming down the rail joints. The sparks flying off the wires overhead spooked the horses. They whinnied and started backing up, but the coachman held them in place with the composure of an old dog of war.

  The train station itself made no impression on me. The building extended along the track, wasn't too long and had ticket offices on the first floor with a waiting hall on the second. It was built right up to the train platform. The first platform was hidden from the rain and scorching rays of the sun under a canopy. The others were under the open sky.

  On the small square before the train station, there was a fountain weakly trickling out a stream that filled a horse-watering basin. We couldn't fit with the carriage. It was too crowded with cabbies already. Based on the schedule printed in the paper, they were awaiting the arrival of the fast train from New Babylon to Capet. Although there was an overhang for an electric streetcar stop at the far end of the square, very few of the baggage-laden vacationers found such an impersonal mode of transportation suitable. All the people who came to the hot spring were well-to-do and accustomed to comfort.

  Hand in hand, we walked into the train station building, and I looked from side to side with interest. The hall at the central entrance was two-stories high and, above it, there was a balustrade encircling the second floor. Under its high ceiling, there was an electric chandelier, which was turned off. The mosaic on the floor depicted a fountain. Through the glassed-in back doors, you could see the platform. There were crowds of baggage handlers there with carts. Sitting up above on wooden benches were the passengers waiting to leave town.

  "Sorry, Leo," said Liliana walking away from me, "I need to go powder my nose. See you on the second floor, alright?"

  "Agreed."

  Lily went up to the woman's bathroom, while I crammed my head into the cap I'd taken from the artist and hurried to the cashiers. I glanced at my reflection and decided that, looking like this, I really did look like an undercover constable. In any case, the cashier, reeling after a long shift, decided not to make a scene or demand explanations. He just looked at the portrait of the Indian man and shook his head:

  "No, I haven't seen him."

  In the second window, the situation was repeated, and only in the third did fortune smile on me. On seeing the symbol of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the young man even whistled in admiration.

  "Yeah, I remember that guy!" he started to whisper, pressing himself to the window. "He ran in this morning. Got a third-class ticket to New Babylon."

  "When, not long before boarding?"

  "No," the cashier shook his head. "The train was at eleven but, he got here before nine."

  Everything was pointing to the Indian man having arrived at the train station directly from home, then heading off somewhere else and, for some reason, never returning, even for his bags. So, had he gone to pay a visit to the late photographer? It looked very much to be the case.

  "Which platform did the train leave from?"

  "Platform one."

  "Thank you," I smiled, but that wasn't enough for the boy.

  "So, what did the Indian do?" he asked, trying to pry for details. "He wasn't a thugee, was he?"

  I told him in an official tone that it was an investigative secret and asked him to write me out a second-class ticket to New Babylon on the five-AM tomorrow. I didn't have the money for a more expensive ticket, but an extended third-class train ride was akin to sophisticated torture.

  "That'll be twenty-five francs."

  I paid up and walked away from the cash register to the unhappy grumbling of the line behind the window. I stashed the carefully folded ticket in the inner pocket of my jacket and headed off to the f
irst platform. There the dispatcher, intoxicated with his own authority, wouldn't even listen to me.

  "Can you imagine how many people walk by here every day?" the bulbous old schlub objected, wearing a uniform with copper buttons polished to a mirror shine. "I don't check tickets! Sorry!"

  I had to bow out, but for a long time after, he kept repeating under his breath:

  "Now I'm supposed to have been looking out for Indians! As if I didn't have enough to do! It's like all hell's broken loose..."

  Not having found out anything useful from him in conversation, I removed my cap, returned to the train station and went up to the second floor. Liliana was standing at the panorama windows and looking at the train cars on the reserve tracks. I walked up and, looking at my own reflection in the glass, started fixing my hairdo.

  "I want to just get into a train and ride off wherever it takes me. Just ride, ride and ride..." Liliana suddenly declared.

  "The blues got you down?" I guessed.

  "I've always loved traveling," Lily admitted.

  "So then, lectures about traveling to other planets should be interesting to you," I said, making it all a joke.

  "The lecture isn't about that!" my companion giggled, hitting me in the side. "Leo, you're laughing at me!"

  "Sorry, you seemed too serious. Let's go!"

  "Wait!" Lily held back and pointed at the window. "We ended up at the cinema after all. Look! Just like the Lumière Brothers’ The Arrival of a Train!"

  Down the first track, the powerful steam engine dragged the passenger section behind it. Smoke billowed from its smokestack. The wheels were enshrouded in wisps of steam.

  "Now Lily, I never thought you had such an imagination!"

  "My imagination is just fine. But my fantasy..."

  A piercing whistle rang out, which made the glass shudder. After that, the train stopped. The compartment doors flew open and passengers spilled out onto the platform.

  "Wait, Leo! I don't see any reason to move," Liliana stopped me again. "After everyone leaves, it will be much easier for us."

  "If you say so," I agreed accommodatingly. There weren't many arrivals, and the haulers quickly unloaded the baggage carts onto the forecourt. We went down the marble stairs to the first floor and, there, a wave of inexplicable alarm swept over me. I even crouched slightly in expectation of an attack, but my fears were misplaced.