Aurorarama

by Jean-Christophe Valtat

  Gabriel nodded, though the reference eluded him. However, he would have plenty of time to look through his books while tidying up the mess.

  “Who sent you?” he asked again, his head whirling with fatigue.

  “You’ll know. Or you won’t. Da svidania.”

  Gabriel could sleep a little at last, and soon found himself in a strange dream. It was about a polar expedition that was abandoning ships (though the ships seemed to be inside a gigantic cavern or underground cave). The sailors and officers were filling up trunks and crates, not with food or any kind of gear, but with the icicles dangling from the masts and ropes, as if they thought these were precious diamonds and did not realize they would melt inside their crates.

  When he woke up, night had fallen again, and his oozing brain seemed stuck to the pillow. What had awakened him was not the dream but a pulsating void he could feel in himself and identified as the absence of Stella. It had been nagging him all day, and as soon as he had allowed himself to unwind, it had come back to the surface and it was now punching holes in his guts with its clenched little fists. His brain lit up like a Stellarama, repeating endlessly the same recorded loops of memories and fantasies. What he was doing here, away from her, he could no longer understand. The stars above his head were a cruel mockery compared to her celestial tattoo.

  He got up, and turning on the lights descended drowsily into the maelstrom of his scattered books. The apartment had been desecrated and seemed to have lost all its power to attract or retain him. He did not feel like sorting things out or cleaning up. It simply disgusted him, like finding a stranger’s hair in one’s ice cream. The only thing that did not revolt him was the idea of spooning naked against Stella and holding her in his arms, his face buried in whatever horoscope her back would trace for him.

  He returned upstairs to fill a Poirier packsack with clothes and toiletries, a bit haphazardly, and gathered all the money he could find. Just before leaving, in a last flash of lucidity, he realized that at this very moment Stella would still be at the Trilby Temple for tonight’s show with that magician of hers. While reflecting that he thus still had some time on his desperately empty hands before meeting her, he tripped on a book and recognized the Sommer edition of the Arthurian romances. Getting down on one knee, he turned over the book to look at it. It was about Lancelot. Le chevalier a la charrette who had preferred his love to his honour. Of course. Gabriel relished the coincidence but was not that surprised; more astonishing things had happened. Books knew more than you did, as a rule. But who had told him about Lancelot today? He remembered Brentford’s story. The dead woman in a coffin on a sled. Now that he was the Knight of the Cart for good, he might as well spend the remaining hours on that quest. With a little luck it would distract his mind and belly from Stella, while he waited to see her again.

  He left the flat, and in New Boree Street jumped into the first eastward jitney taxsleigh that happened to cross his path, not knowing when he would come back, wondering if he ever would.

  CHAPTER XV

  The Blazing Building

  “You are in a spot,” said a friend, who chanced to be near at hand, “which occupies, in the world of fancy, the same position which the Bourse, the Rialto, and the Exchange, do in the commercial world.”

  Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Hall of Fantasy, 1843

  The Blazing Building, home to the Council of Seven, was located at the end of the Cavendish Canal. Its golden dome, which always seemed freshly polished, had a peculiarly blinding, almost white sheen that seemed to radiate from itself rather than from the reflected daylight. It was especially spectacular when it contrasted—as was now the case—with a dark cloudy backdrop of afternoon skies that looked like an emanation from the black airship above.

  “Snow clouds,” thought Brentford, as his gondola, crunching pancakes of thin ice, approached the mooring post. He was paying no small amount of attention to meteorology these days, as if some part of his mind were always computing, in a more or less idle way, the chances of his making it to the pole by way of ice yacht. It also diverted his thoughts, doubtlessly, from the gnawing concerns of city poletics. But as he jumped onto the embankment and headed toward the colonnade that marked the entrance, he readied himself to face them again.

  Though it was not his first visit to the Blazing Building, such occasions were sufficiently rare to keep him in awe, even if he did not like to admit it. Behind the rather sober, classically designed exterior, which paled a little in comparison with, for instance, the Arctic Administration Building, the place displayed a grandeur and a certain craziness that was as pure an expression of New Venetian spirit as one could hope to meet.

  The entrance archway opened onto the vast rotunda of Hyperboree Hall. Its floor was a circular map of the polar regions, where the Arctic seas were made of white marble and the islands were cut-out slabs of polished granite decorated with little figures in minute mosaics, drawn, if Brentford remembered correctly, from the Olaus Magnus and Nicolo Zeno depictions of the North. It mixed almost accurate cartography with phantom islands, mythological monsters, and imaginary people, among whom New Venetians were prone and proud to count themselves.

  In the very center of the Hall, the North Pole was represented by a fountain rising from a basin of snowflake obsidian; its dangling stalactites, kept constantly frozen, were sculpted in the shapes of Northern divinities from different traditions. Through the stained-glass openings in the base of the lofty dome overhead, various shades of light fell on the translucent fountain to simulate, even by day, the colours of the Northern Lights.

  The dome itself, supported by white pillars, was of jet-black jasper encrusted with diamond stars and silver filigree work that drew a map of the night skies centred on Polaris and the Great Bear. A motto ran around its rim in both Greek and English versions: OVER THE WHOLE SEA TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH AND TO THE SOURCES OF NIGHT AND TO THE UNFOLDINGS OF HEAVEN AND TO THE ANCIENT GARDEN OF PHOEBUS.

  Between the pillars, toward the rear, stood twelve tall marble statues of polar explorers, their eyes fixed firmly on the fountain, their stone fingers pointing toward it. Their pedestals were ornate with episodes that somewhat belied the noble demeanour of the heroes: Barents agonizing, surrounded by his men; the abandoned Henry Hudson adrift in his small craft; the discovery by Rae of the infamous Franklin’s expedition lifeboat; Hall half rising from his bed in the throes of poisoning; the starving Greely sentencing the thief Charles Buck Henry to death; Melville finding in the snow the protruding arm of De Long; Andrée frozen within the folds of his useless balloon; Dr. Svensen putting a rifle to his own head while Sverdrup ran to stop him in vain; Dr. Dedrick amputating Peary’s toes; Ross Marvin shot in the back by his Eskimo guide; Fitzhugh Green shooting his Eskimo guide in the back—these were among the many incidents recalling the sacrifices and villainies that had always accompanied the conquest as faithfully as a shadow, and all were depicted in a ghastly realism that did not exactly encourage Brentford to go to Helen’s rendezvous.

  Behind those statues were mirrored doors that led to the various parts of the building. The Council Cabinet’s was opposite the entrance archway, and this was where Brentford was introduced by one of the gigantic Varangian guards of the Council of Seven’s Security Company, who wore the usual uniform of figure-eight ruff, black doublet and black and white striped pluderhosen and held a halberd in his enormous hand.

  A flight of stairs led to a corridor down which an icy draught, strong as an upwind gale, was blowing, probably, thought Brentford, as a reminder of the hardships of going there. And yet, cold as he suddenly felt, he nonetheless did not hate the idea. He was, after all, as much a New Venetian as the Councillors were, and could relate rather easily to some of their notions and actions—as long, at least, as they concerned interior decoration.

  As he hurried, head to wind, through the corridor, he could perceive rooms whose open doors revealed the strangest scenes, all intended to evoke memories of past events and important symbols
in the dreamlike manner of a Memory palace. To the untrained eye, these scenes appeared more like a jumble of absurd props and kitschy figures. On his right, for instance, a huge stuffed seal with wings was leaving the imprint of his greasy muzzle against a snow-white sheet held by a scantily clad marble woman (oh yes, Brentford thought, this must be the Seal of the City), while on his left an automated gentleman in medieval garb repeatedly plunged a pointed flag into the heart of a supine Viking (this one left Brentford totally clueless).

  The corridor ended at a huge black double door, which an usher pushed open, with an effort that was painful to behold, just enough to let Brentford wriggle himself in. This was the waiting room, if one was to judge by the mosaic clock that decorated the floor, with its black stone hands pointed toward a perpetual midnight.

  Mason was already there, sitting on a sofa, impatiently tapping his fingers on a satchel. Brentford came up to him, offering a hand whose fingers the captain-general observed suspiciously. He finally got up and accepted the offer.

  “I have to congratulate you,” said Brentford, whose first impulse with Mason was always to tease him mildly, as if that were the only way he could express a sympathy he did not quite want to surrender to, while, nevertheless, he tried to create some complicity between them.

  “What for?” asked Mason, warily.

  “You may not know it, but the Navy Cadets have proved as chivalrous this morning as one could expect them to be.”

  “I’d say more than some could expect them to be,” said Mason with a frown. “I just got the news myself. I’m surprised you’re in the know.”

  “I was there. Some mysterious Gentlemen were brutalizing a girl.”

  “I doubt a Gentleman would do such a thing.”

  “Some Gentlemen have a dark, if not nocturnal, side, obviously. Your men performed honourably.”

  “I will be asked to punish them, though,” Mason said, indicating the Council’s Cabinet door.

  “They did not cause the trouble. They didn’t start it, at least.”

  “I heard there was a riot.”

  “There was a demonstration, which I think is different. It was peaceful until it was interrupted.”

  Mason seemed to be thinking hard about it.

  “What sort of demonstration?”

  “Hmm … A new kind. It looked poetical at first but then became rather poletical.”

  “And my men defended it?”

  “I have been a cadet myself. Unless things have changed considerably, I think defending the fair sex was their only concern.”

  Mason stared at Brentford, hesitating to speak, but finally let go.

  “Would you say so in front of the Council?”

  “I have no reason to lie to them.”

  “And of course, I could take a more moderate view on that hunting matter.”

  Brentford raised his hand.

  “I have no doubt about your honesty.”

  Mason nodded, which Brentford interpreted as a reluctant “Thank you.”

  The Council of Seven could certainly be criticized, or so thought Brentford, on many levels. But they understood that governing was not so much about words, nor even about actions, as about images, and that made them powerful.

  The Meeting Room was well designed to put those called before them in awe. The room was as beautiful as could be, with its black marble floor, mother-of-pearl ceiling, and ancient geographical and astronomical maps circling the walls. It was at the long table around which discussion took place that the nightmare began.

  At their end of the table, the members of the Council sat alternately with the wax figures of the Seven Sleepers who had founded the city. This was meant first as a way to mark their allegiance to the founders, but also as a sign of their own uncontested legitimacy, as if they were finishing the sentences or completing the moves started by the frozen effigies, who all directed their fixed, transfixing looks toward the guests.

  The seven members of the Council were almost as motionless, croaking among themselves like a murder of crows and letting their spokesman pronounce the conclusions they reached. From where he sat, Brentford could barely distinguish these black-clad, balding men from one another, all the less so since he had seldom seen them together: ritual required that they take turns when it came to public appearances, each one always on the day of the week for which he had been nicknamed.

  Bailiff-Baron Brainveil was the one Brentford had seen the most often, the longest-standing member and already an unpleasant old man when Brentford was a youngster. The tall one, on his left, must be the severe Bornhagen. Froideville was next, a thin moustachioed scientist Brentford’s father was always complaining about. Then came the eggheaded De Witt, who was also the head of the Gentlemen of the Night, followed by the bearded Imruzudov, who was all the more dreaded because nobody knew what his business was. The remaining two, then, must be Houndsfield, the stout so-called economist, and the wiry Auchincloss, who was in charge of military affairs. The Spokesman for the Seven was Philip Surville, who had married—and recently divorced—Seraphine Le Serf, Brentford’s adolescent sweetheart.

  Sitting alongside Brentford and Mason at their uncomfortable end of the table was another man who was already in discussion with the council when they arrived. He turned out to be Peterswarden, the anthropologist and director of the Northwestern Administration for Native Affairs, and the man behind the Inuit People’s Ice Palace, a lanky, knotty, white-haired man whose love of the Inuit was so strong it apparently entailed leaving them to their own devices, as if they would rather die than be corrupted by the white men. Peterswarden was, for instance, adamant that they should not be granted citizenship.

  “We will not, unfortunately, have the pleasure of hearing the Eskimo delegation from Flagler Fjord,” announced Surville, with a certain streak of satisfaction that irked Brentford immediately—though whatever Surville might say was likely to irk Brentford.

  “Mr. Peterswarden has informed us,” he continued, “that they were caught red-handed stealing some precious objects at the Inuit People’s Ice Palace and are presently being detained by the authorities.”

  Brainveil whispered something in Surville’s ear.

  “Needless to say,” added Surville, fixing his gaze on Brentford, “this does not incline the Council to consider their request about the hunting quotas with all the equanimity it was previously very willing to show.”

  Brentford and Mason exchanged glances, while Peterswarden raised his hand to speak.

  “It has certainly caused turmoil,” said Peterswarden after Surville, with a mechanical nod, had granted him permission to speak. “Not so much because of the act itself, which is likely to happen with people as curious and spontaneous as our Inuit friends are, but because our aboriginal employees have naturally but thoughtlessly taken sides with their own kind, and this a few days away from the opening, at a time when we need them to fully participate in presenting their own rich and fascinating culture to the public.”

  It was Imruzudov, this time, who spoke through Surville.

  “The Council suggests that, in the first place, these persons should not have been allowed on the premises. It is your duty, not to mention very much in your interest, to make sure that the dissenting employees will no longer cause delay in the realization of a project which is, as you know, dear to the Council.”

  “I understand,” said Peterswarden, in a voice that trembled slightly, “and I thank the Council for its concern.”

  “You are still invited to repeat to Mr. Brentford Orsini and Captain-General Frank Mason what you have just told us about the hunting quotas,” said Surville, on his own initiative this time.

  “Oh …” said Peterswarden, with visible relief, as if he were, now, treading on thicker ice. Brentford could guess that whatever he said, or recited, given the present circumstances, would be a good indication of where the Council stood on that matter.

  “I was humbly advising the Council to stick to the current policy. The w
ilderness Inughuit should be as separated from us as possible, in order to ensure their autonomy, especially as to what regards their subsistence. They have different needs and different ways of satisfying them. Thanks to their abilities, they can hunt in the remotest areas where we are not fit to thrive, if you will allow me to say so. Getting them to hunt for us, even for a payment in kind, will make them our servants instead of the free people they are and deserve to be. I also wish to recall to the Council that they receive, thanks to its own wisdom, a limited number of munitions sufficient for their own survival and that, in their own interest, it was deemed unsound to give them more. This way, we hope to save these peace-loving people from the misuse of firearms so often demonstrated, I regret to say, in our so-called advanced culture.”

  The Council nodded their heads in unison like a bunch of string puppets held by a single fist. Given the recent photographs of mysterious Inuit carrying rifles, it was an argument that could not but go straight to their old dried hearts.

  “Mr. Orsini?” said Surville.

  Brentford chose his words carefully, in order not to sound like an excerpt from A Blast on the Barren Land.

  “I can only agree with Mr. Peterswarden’s solicitude toward the Eskimos. I am not an expert on the question, as he is, but I think that if we regard our island as the Subtle Army’s hunting grounds, our use of rifles will deplete the game beyond our actual needs and force the Eskimos to go hunting farther away and for a longer time, which will in part render meaningless the Council’s own efforts to sedentarize them. I also thought that they could benefit from the Greenhouse products in return for their hunt, which also would improve their diet.”

  “They have always had a diet adequate to their existence. They are hunters, not farmers!” protested Peterswarden, without asking permission to speak. This rebuttal ulcerated Brentford all the more in that he had on occasion said the very same things himself. It is strange how one’s ideas can sometimes sound loathsome in someone else’s mouth.