What Lot's Wife Saw

by Ioanna Bourazopoulou

  “Bianca’s life is precious to the Consortium. She constitutes the proof that our investment has the capability of fruitfulness and reproduction, to give birth to its own citizens and to repopulate without relying on transfusions of questionable quality, like yourselves. Bianca embodies our vision, she’s the only true citizen of the Colony and we’re responsible for her wellbeing. I don’t wish to have to remind you again, Mrs Regina.”

  The widow motioned her acceptance. The Governor ordered her to turn over her room to her former maid and to give her some of her clothes to wear. If Regina wanted to stay an extra two weeks in the Colony, she’d have to make herself useful by undertaking all the upkeep of the Palace. She’d sleep in one of the servant’s rooms and she’d be held responsible for making sure there was always enough food, wine, fish oil and ink. For the next fifteen days no one would be allowed to enter the building, and that included the servants. The special circumstances demanded secrecy and everyone had to make sure it was maintained. The Governor’s tone of voice made it quite clear that the death of her husband had rendered her both unemployable and undesirable.

  She begged not to be sent back to England and burst into tears. She described her squalid youth in Liverpool with its horrifying culmination of being wanted for murder and her subsequent furtive existence as a fugitive from justice in Plymouth. She’d passed many a night in its cabarets suffering the attentions of drunken clients until the enigmatic Bera appeared one daybreak out of nowhere and had come upon her lying bloody and battered by her lovers. He’d dragged her to her feet by her hair and had informed her, heaven knows why, that she was to be his wife. He’d baptised her “Lady”, bought her some silk stockings and taught her to fear no man but himself. No, she could never return, she’d die first, rather than set foot on England’s shores again. She wiped her tears away and promised to perform all the duties required of her for the upkeep of the Palace. Before anything else, however, she’d write out the lists to facilitate the orderly handing over of all the contents of the Palace to her successor, the New Governor’s wife, if and when she’d make her appearance.

  She made me inwardly smile. Even under these circumstances her female instinct had remained alert and seductive. She stressed that she “was preparing the lists for your wife”, fishing for information on the marital status and availability of the young Governor, to try to gauge her chances of sharing the occupancy of his bed. The youth however blocked the indirect question.

  “I don’t need you to waste time with lists, madam. I’m fully acquainted with the furnishings and fittings of this mansion down to the last detail. I’ve already made note of all the damaged items and their value will be withheld from the wages due to you. I fear that after the deductions there’ll be nothing left, apart from the pair of silk stockings and the linen suit that you were wearing when you arrived. Make sure that they still fit you, as you’ll be taking nothing else with you. Siccouane, go to the port to notify Captain Cortez to come to collect the Green Box. On your way, make a stop at Judge Bateau’s villa and wake him up since he’s probably in a drunken stupor by now and is certain to have forgotten that his presence is required for the procession.”

  He then turned his back to us and his perfect shoulders, which rose so magnificently over the back of the chair that had previously hosted Bera’s asymmetrical frame, caused one to think that the mansion was far too pedestrian and small to house such stunning beauty. We left on tiptoes and silently shut the door. I pulled my torn redingote and my holed hat on (Montenegro had personally torn the band off “looking for the lost key”) and scurried towards the exit to avoid meeting her eyes. God knows how often I had dreamt of seeing her humiliated, evicted from the Palace, banished from the Colony, but now I felt desperately sorry for her, even sorrier than I felt for myself.

  That man’s presence had exposed the six of us. We’d voluntarily discarded our false identities, the ones the Consortium had so generously allowed us to create and use on its soil – too generously perhaps, since its silence had to be repaid with our devotion. We revealed who we were, and worse, who we’d been before the Overflow. He hadn’t forced this on us, quite the opposite, it had been on our initiative, and the revelation, instead of stigmatising us, had provided a purification. We confessed that we were hypocrites, but by doing so we proved we had at least some remnants of morality and so deserved his leniency. We seemed to have put on a show of honesty and self-pity, vying with each other to gain the sympathy and mercy of the Governor to mitigate our circumstances. Only Regina had abstained from our confessing, and so when it had poured forth, she’d seemed shocked by her revelations as if, for all these years, she’d been hiding them from herself rather than from us. When I reached the front door, I sneaked a look behind me and I saw her curled into a pathetic heap at the bottom of the stairs, hands on her thighs, wracked by silent sobs that welled up from a source of unbearable pain deep within her. I wondered if there was any sincerity in her breakdown, or was she just acting out a role far more cleverly than the rest of us?

  As I left the building I saw that the weather had cleared. You couldn’t see the sky of course, that was rare indeed, but the cloud had lifted several metres above the ground and you could see the street ahead. I got my bearings by the feeble light of the fish-oil lamps, and headed towards Bateau’s villa.

  A tousled and bleary Eliza opened the door, stinking of liquorice and wine – like master like maid – and rudely demanded why I’d woken her.

  “I’m looking for the Judge.”

  “The Judge does not want to be disturbed, Secretary.”

  “Then he’s forgotten that he has a duty to attend to.”

  I pushed past her and she started to squeal. I wondered whether she’d been dreaming when she shouted, “Uncle Monty,” as opposed to “Uncle Bernard,” but she was proved correct when the bedroom door opened and Priest Montenegro appeared above. Eliza grabbed my hat and, guffawing, showed it to the Priest while sticking her fingers through the holes. I quickly climbed up the stairs with Eliza’s laughter echoing in my ears. I didn’t possess enough dignity to be offended, the ingredients that used to make up Siccouane were pouring out of me at an alarming rate through holes much like those in my attire. So who was this Siccouane who was climbing up the stairs like a tramp in rags to meet with the two greatest scoundrels of the Colony, and why shouldn’t he deserve the ridicule of chambermaids?

  The Judge’s room reeked of vomit, soured brandy and sweat but that seemed to suit Bateau and Montenegro just fine. They’d been passing their time lounging on the bed with the bedclothes rumpled at their feet and between them was the dirty Bible, its pages furiously scribbled on. They were estimating the odds that the young Governor wasn’t who he claimed to be and the possible repercussions of any action they might take. I glanced at their notes, but all I saw was a labyrinth of arrows and asterisks. They were in exactly the same shape they’d been in when I’d last seen them, dressed in rags, rent gown and torn cassock – not that I was any better. I opened the closet and tossed the Judge a pair of trousers and a shirt to wear, and also took a decent jacket for myself as I wouldn’t have time to go by my house. I informed them that the Governor had been working to get the Green Box ready on time and had ordered us to transport it to the docks as usual, before midnight.

  “Well, I say that he is a fraud,” Bateau announced.

  I smacked my fist against the wall in despair. The youth knew where everything was in the Palace, he knew where I kept each document, what matters were under consideration and the contents of each file before I opened it. He’d signed a whole mountain of documents with Bera’s signature, his exact selfsame signature – and believe me, in my previous life I was a forger and can vouch that it was impeccable. The whorls of the “B”, the slant of the “r” and the swoop that connects the “a” back to the beginning, creating a half moon to cradle the name, all looked authentic. The best graphologist would’ve gone cross-eyed but still failed to spot the minutest differen
ce. If he was a fake, then he was so capable, so well prepared and every bit as dangerous as the real Governor, that he was tantamount to the real thing. I would blindly serve him because if he wasn’t afraid of the Seventy-Five, if he could deceive and toy with them, then he was even more frightening than they were.

  Montenegro started to laugh wildly; he lifted his cassock and at the same time began to twirl like a dervish, babbling away to himself as if he was on something. He informed us that that’s how the Consortium trained them in Paris, in Governors’ School, where an endless string of “Beras” graduate like so many Russian Dolls. He ranted on that the new model was a hell of a lot more hair-raising than the obsolete one because with the lately-deceased you were frightened of the Seventy-Five, whereas with this one here, the greatest danger to you was yourself.

  I dragged the Judge off of his bed and forced him to get dressed. He whined that he had no intention of serving the clown that passed himself off as the Governor. I asked him not to forget to tell me as soon as he has a better idea. Until then it was better to be on our best behaviour because before rejecting this implant we, as mere organs, must decide whether we’re viable without it. Furthermore, he’d caught us in the act of dismembering and burning Bera and attempting to rifle the Green Box. He already had a sheaf of charge sheets groaning under the weight of our misdeeds, enough to condemn us all of first-degree murder, conspiracy and robbery and to consign us to life in the Guardhouse dungeons. I suggested that we should go along with him until we could tell what he was up to.

  Out of breath, Montenegro leant against the wall and begged us to take him with us. He couldn’t be left alone tonight because he’d go mad. I explained that he wouldn’t be allowed to follow the Green Box procession so he pleaded to be accompanied to Fabrizio’s house. He’d wake him up and they’d play a game of chess. Montenegro seeking Fabrizio’s company – wonders will never cease!

  On our way out of the villa the Priest asked in a quiet voice, “And Regina?”

  “She’s changed positions with her maid. Governor’s orders,” I said.

  Bateau overheard and his eyes lit up with his customary greed – its previous absence had been making it hard for me to recognise the Judge. He asked for details of the New Governor’s behaviour towards his daughter and looked triumphant when he heard that the youth had shown sympathy and kindness to the girl with the white eyes (those zombie-like eyes).

  Any lingering doubts about the youth’s identity had been swept out of the Judge’s mind by the sobering prospect of a future alliance. He smoothed down the few hairs that formed a bristly line around his naked skull and suggested that we should hurry to avoid the Governor’s annoyance. I was flooded by my familiar disgust for him, which my body welcomed as a sign that I was recovering my true self.

  We reached Fabrizio’s villa. Montenegro didn’t want us to leave him until Fabrizio had opened the door, for if he saw him alone, the Doctor would never open it. So, we waited until the face of his housekeeper appeared behind the half-open door. Markella became incensed on seeing the three of us, but especially the Priest, whom her master detested so much that he forbade her to attend services at the Metropolis. Still shaking, she asked us what we wanted.

  “Dr Fabrizio.”

  “The Doctor is looking after his dying caterpillars,” she explained. Fabrizio’s hobby was to order insects, although he knew they couldn’t survive the Colony’s atmosphere beyond the few hours which they would spend on his walls, but they gave him the illusion of a natural environment. He also ordered plants that arrived in special jars but withered within twenty-four hours, although he strove to keep them alive to create the impression that he was tending a garden. This was his way of protecting himself from the danger of madness or of suicide, which was an epidemic in the southern quarters.

  Montenegro politely asked her to announce that he’d come to see the Doctor, which put her in a dilemma since she knew that her master would flay her alive were she to allow the Priest to cross the threshold.

  Then the Doctor was heard from inside, speaking in a toneless voice. To his housekeeper’s utter amazement, Fabrizio, wearing a clean dinner jacket and with his hair washed and combed, appeared at the door and genially suggested to the Priest that they should go together to the Opera restaurant. Montenegro accepted, but only if the Doctor first took him to his villa to get some proper clothes. They walked off, arms linked; an unprecedented sight indeed. The lanky Montenegro, dressed in shredded rags beside the short, rotund but impeccably dressed Doctor, disappeared down the road like a bedraggled Don Quixote next to a resplendent Sancho Panza. Their long-standing and merciless feud over Regina’s bed, which had threatened to send the Doctor to his psychiatric ward and the Priest to jail, had entered a temporary truce in the face of the danger emanating from the dark Palace tonight.

  We all felt this pervading sense of danger, although we couldn’t adequately describe why, and it was magnified by our inability to trust each other. The opportunistic friendships that had developed in response to our shared situation would quickly be forgotten should the present balances be upset and one of our number favoured by fate or fortune. We were still on the alert and we analysed each other’s reactions and expressions since the possibility that at least one of us had had a hand in the latest developments could not yet be ruled out. I doffed my perforated hat to Markella and, taking the Judge by the arm, sauntered down to the port.

  On the way, I wondered what role Captain Cortez might have played in this extraordinary affair; after all, his ship had brought the New Governor to the Colony, if the ramblings of Lieutenant Richmond were true. I suggested to Bateau that we should bandy some explorative insinuations about to Captain Cortez regarding what had happened today at the Palace, in order to study any reactions or comments. Bateau, this new Bateau, forbade me to open my mouth. He threatened that if I disobeyed the Governor’s orders and revealed the minutest detail he would tell him everything. The new Bateau had no doubt that the pirate was faithfully following the directives of the Seventy-Five and he’d no intention of betraying his trust. The new Bateau was starting to get on my nerves.

  19

  Letter of Judith Swarnlake

  (page 31)

  LADY REGINA BERA

  … I saw my lover assuming the role of my husband. I saw the lover I’d always longed for, but never had, standing in for the husband I’d had until the day before, but never wanted. He’d taken his place, his job and his name. What metamorphosis did that transposition demand of me, who was I supposed to become? Wife of my erotic fantasy or widow of a husband that refused to die?

  My new role, complex and vague, definitely included manual labour, which at least would release my tensions. I swept the floors of the kitchens, mopped, put away the tools in the storeroom, arranged the kitchenware on the shelves. The stench of the dismembered Bera was suffocating as the slits of the shutters were insufficient for the recirculation of the air. I wasn’t allowed to open them, as my lover demanded that everything remained shut. Like a bandaged eye, the Palace faced the Colony sealed shut.

  I put oven gloves on and carefully opened the oven door to check the progress of the incineration. Melted flesh, protruding bones and the half-blackened face greeted me. It seemed impossible for the flame to reach the smile which had widened as the skin retracted, exposing the dentures which gruesomely replaced the lips in the smile. Bera had decided to be admitted into Hell, smiling. I shut the door firmly.

  I heard hesitant steps in the corridor and went to see Bianca coming down the stairs on tiptoes like a cat escaping from its basket. I immediately ordered her to go back to my room because my lover had told her to rest. I told her off for still wearing her maid’s outfit and said that she must put on one of my silk nightdresses and that on no account was I to see her down here again else we’d both get into trouble.

  Bianca started trembling, sniffling and moaning. I despaired that my lover would hear as he was working on the Green Box in the office, and
I implored her to keep quiet. Self-control, however, was beyond her and she fell to her knees, saying that she feared him more than death itself and begged me to allow her to escape. Failing that, she pleaded, could I help her to commit suicide and free herself from her eviscerating terror?

  I felt pity for the dumb, virginal crybaby, not for her predicament, but for her inexperience. Did she believe that with such shenanigans she’d succeed in resisting and avoid surrendering to his whims? No woman could resist the metallic caress of the Avenging Angel’s sword, no matter how clear a conscience she had, no matter how tightly she clenched her legs together. I took her hand and kissed her fingertips, exactly as my lover had done in the hall, since he might get angry if I touched any other part of her. I reassured her, saying that she’d nothing to fear, in fact she should be pleased that she was the Governor’s precious lotus blossom and, if she got really lucky, he would have her. Of course he appeared fearsome to her, as he was created from the abyss of darkness that I nurture within, and it was natural that the fantasies of unsatisfied, lustful women would frighten little girls. Now that he’d assumed flesh and blood, he dictated and we obeyed. She should go at once to my room and lie down. Bianca sniffed softly and asked if I’d at least allow her to go and get The Times from her old room. I couldn’t possibly allow her into the servants’ quarters so I promised to go and fetch the paper and bring it upstairs.