Despite the hubbub, Ophelia felt alone as never before. How would she get her scarf back? How would she reach Thorn? How could she have thought for one moment that she was ready to embark on such an expedition on her own? Aunt Rosaline, Archibald, Gail, and Fox had all recommended that she wait a little before rushing off, but she had heeded only her own impatience.
“Please,” she shouted toward a rickshaw. “I’m looking for the tram that comes from the market.” She had addressed the driver, but realized, when it lowered a faceless head in her direction, that it was a mannequin. Its passenger, dozing under the vehicle’s awning, replied, sleepily, instead: “You should ask your questions to a guide, young lady.”
“A guide?”
The passenger half-opened an eye, and his bulbous nose, in which a ring shone, suddenly inhaled, as though trying to sniff Ophelia from afar. “A public signaling guide. You’ll find one at every crossroads. And since you’re clearly not from around here, I’ll give you some advice: dress yourself appropriately.”
Ophelia watched the rickshaw move off. Her little gray dress wasn’t exactly spotless, granted, but she was hardly going around stark naked. In the middle of the crossroads, she noticed a large statue-automaton with its eight arms all pointing in different directions; that had to be a public signaling guide.
“Er . . . the tram depot?” Ophelia asked it. Getting no response, she noticed a winding key, like that of a music box, inserted in the statue’s pedestal. She freed the key from the encroaching foliage, and turned it several times.
“ASK ME A QUESTION,” instructed the statue.
“The terminus of the market tram?”
“FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD.”
“The lost-property office?”
“A GOOD DAY STARTS WITH A GOOD NIGHT.”
“The XXIInd Interfamilial Exhibition?”
“A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE BUSH.”
“Thanks anyhow.”
Disheartened, Ophelia leant against the pedestal of the statue. Her sole possessions were now Thorn’s watch and the old postcard. She no longer had either identity papers or a change of clothes, and her poor scarf was again on its lonesome in this unfathomable city.
And what if someone found the bag, Ophelia wondered, furiously rubbing her eyelids. And what if someone handed it in to Pollux’s family guard? And what if God learnt that an animated scarf had been found on Babel? She’d only just arrived, but Ophelia felt she’d already jeopardized all her chances.
“Judging by your reaction, the experience was pretty disappointing.”
She put her glasses back on, astonished to hear a human voice addressing her. An adolescent was seated right in front of her, arms resting on a chair of carved wood, in the shade of a large parasol. The dazzling white of his clothes brought out the bronze hue of his skin. There was something strange about him that Ophelia couldn’t quite define. In truth, he would have seemed more at home in a tearoom than in the middle of the public highway. He was observing Ophelia with such curiosity that he paid no attention to the torrent of townsfolk around him.
“The public signaling guide,” he finally explained, indicating the statue-automaton. “You have to give it the precise address of your destination, otherwise it won’t understand you. And without wishing to offend you, mademoiselle, I think your accent’s a bit too much for it.”
The adolescent spoke himself with the typical Babel accent, which was both mellifluous and refined. Everything about him was gentle: his antelope eyes, his long, silky black hair, the fine features of his face, even the satin of his clothes. Ophelia was probably older than him, but, right now, she felt like a child before him.
“I’ve lost my bag and my papers,” she said, in a croaky voice she wasn’t proud of. “I don’t know what to do. It’s my first time on Babel.”
The adolescent turned with difficulty in his chair, and Ophelia was struck again by the indefinable strangeness he emanated. “Take that avenue, go right to the end of it, and cross the bridge,” he said, pointing eastwards. “From there you’ll see a very large edifice looking like a lighthouse; once you’ve spotted it, you can’t get lost anymore.”
“And this edifice, what exactly is it?”
The adolescent smiled, faintly. “The Babel Memorial. It’s over there that the XXIInd Interfamilial Exhibition was held. That’s what you were asking the guide about, isn’t it? Pardonnez-moi, mademoiselle, I couldn’t stop myself from listening to you. My father says that curiosity is a ‘fine flaw,’ but I always tend to meddle in what’s none of my business. And to talk too much, also,” he admitted, apologetically, “but I get that from my father as well. On the subject of your bag, I’m sure you’ll find it again soon. Honesty is a civic duty on Babel.”
Ophelia was overcome with gratitude. This young man had restored all her courage. “Thank you, sir.”
“Ambrose. Without the ‘sir,’ mademoiselle.”
“O . . . Eulalia. Thank you, Ambrose.”
“Good luck, mademoiselle.”
He hesitated a moment, as if wanting to add something, then changed his mind. Ophelia crossed the junction against the traffic, to outraged cries from the cyclists and rickshaw drivers, but she couldn’t resist looking back. She felt as if she’d missed an important detail. She understood what it was as she saw Ambrose struggling to maneuver his chair.
It was a wheelchair. He’d got stuck between the cobbles.
Ophelia immediately turned back, prompting a fresh wave of disapproval, and leant with all her weight on the chair to release the wheel. Ambrose looked up at her in surprise, thinking she’d already be long gone.
“It’s ridiculous,” he said, with an embarrassed little laugh, “I get caught out every time. That’s why I’d never make a good whaxi.”
“A whaxi?”
“A whistle-for taxi, mademoiselle. Anything that can move and take a passenger. You don’t have them where you live?”
As Ophelia merely nodded evasively, Ambrose considered her with renewed curiosity. “I helped you. You helped me. We’re friends.”
This declaration was so spontaneous, Ophelia couldn’t help but shake the hand he held out to her. It was at that very moment that she knew why this adolescent seemed strange: he had a left arm where his right arm should have been, a right arm where his left arm should have been. And judging by the bizarre angle of his babouches, his legs were similarly reversed. It was the most unusual disability Ophelia had ever encountered in someone—as if Ambrose had also been the victim of a mirror accident.
“If you’re happy to have me as your driver, Mademoiselle Eulalia, jump on!” He turned a crank fitted to his chair, producing a prolonged clanking of gears. Ophelia perched awkwardly on the rear running board and almost fell as soon as Ambrose lowered the handbrake, propelling the chair forward. She felt the road’s every cobble unrolling beneath her. On several occasions, she had to step down and release the wheels from potholes, while Ambrose raised the springs of his chair by turning the crank. The large parasol, badly attached to the back of the seat, creaked noisily in the wind, drowning out Ambrose’s gentle voice as he chatted away. It was a pretty uncomfortable journey, but Ophelia stopped thinking about it the moment the chair launched onto a bridge between two arks, and Ambrose pointed into the distance with his inverted hand.
Between the infinity of the sky and the sea of clouds, a huge, spiraling tower, topped with a glass dome, stood on a floating island barely big enough to support it. An entire side of the building jutted out into the void, but so perfect was the architectural equilibrium, the whole edifice remained upright all the same.
“The Babel Memorial,” declared Ambrose. “It’s our oldest monument, half of it dating back to the old world. It’s said that all of humanity’s memory resides within it.”
“Humanity’s memory,” Ophelia repeated to her deepest self. At the thought that
Thorn might have made his way there, she felt a drumming in her chest. She leant over the seat to be heard by Ambrose, of whom she could only see waves of black hair. “Only half?”
“Part of the tower collapsed with the Rupture, but it was rebuilt by LUX centuries ago. I like going to the Memorial, there are thousands of books there! I adore books, don’t you? I could spend my days reading them, on whatever subject. I attempted to write one once, but I’m as hopeless an author as I am a whaxi driver; I always get sidetracked. Don’t go thinking the Memorial is some sort of old, dusty library, Mademoiselle Eulalia. It’s at the cutting edge of modernity, with familiotheques, transcendiuses, and phantograms! And all thanks to LUX.”
Ophelia hadn’t the slightest idea what familiotheques, transcendiuses, and phantograms were, but the word “LUX” rang a bell. She then recalled that it was printed on all the advertising posters on the tram.
“And a headless soldier?” she asked. “Is there one there?”
Ambrose lifted his lever abruptly, braking so suddenly that Ophelia banged her head on his. “You mustn’t use that word in public, mademoiselle,” he muttered, giving her a surprised glance over his shoulder. “I don’t know about where you’re from, but here we have an Index.”
“An Index?”
“The Index Vocabulum Prohibitorum. The list of all the words we’re forbidden to say out loud. All those that have to do with . . . you know.” Ambrose indicated to Ophelia to lean closer so he could whisper in her ear. “The war.”
Ophelia’s every muscle tensed. So, the taboos imposed by God also held sway on Babel.
“I daresay you meant the old statue, at the entrance to the Memorial,” Ambrose continued, his tone lighter, as he got his chair moving again. “It’s as ancient as the site.”
“And how does one get to it?”
“In a birdtrain, mademoiselle.” Before she could even ask what a birdtrain was, he went on: “But if you want to visit the Memorial or get your bag back, first you’ll have to get changed. You won’t be allowed entrance anywhere in that outfit.”
“I don’t understand,” Ophelia said, frowning. “In what way is my dress a problem?”
Ambrose burst out laughing. “I invite you to my place, mademoiselle! There are two or three things I must explain to you.”
Ambrose’s residence bore no resemblance to what Ophelia would have expected the home of a whaxi driver to be like. The wheelchair moved along a portico, between the columns of which shimmered pools of water lilies. The further into the residence they went, the more distant became the sounds and smells of the street. A squad of mannequins, in servant livery, approached and opened up the high doors of the property to them. The cool of the interior prompted a sigh of relief from Ophelia; the nape of her neck, uncovered by her new haircut, was burning hot.
She stepped down from the running board and looked, nonplussed, around the atrium. Statues and automatons, marble tables and telephonic equipment, climbing plants and electric lamps all rubbed shoulders in a singular marriage of antique refinement and modern technology. This place on its own epitomized the anachronistic character of the whole city.
“Is this where you live?”
“Me and my father. Mainly me, in fact. My father isn’t often at home.” As he said this he indicated a full-length portrait that had pride of place on the largest wall. It depicted a man with long white hair and small, rose-tinted spectacles, through which eyes full of mischief sparkled.
“That’s Lazarus, the famous ark-trotter,” exclaimed Ophelia. “That man is your father? I met him once.”
“I’m not surprised. Everyone knows my father and my father knows everyone.”
She noticed that there was more melancholy than pride in the smile Ambrose directed at the painting. It couldn’t be easy to find one’s place in a life as full as that father’s. “And you have no other relatives here?”
“Neither family nor friends. None that isn’t an automaton, at least.”
Ophelia observed the mechanical butlers, who were busy removing the parasol, rather ineptly, from the wheelchair. She tried to imagine herself growing up in the midst of these faceless bodies, whose stomachs occasionally let out a “CONSTANCY IS THE FOUNDATION OF VIRTUES,” or a “BREAD ALWAYS FALLS ON THE BUTTERED SIDE.”
“I told my father that the sayings weren’t that effective,” Ambrose sighed, “but he’s as stubborn as a dromedary.”
“He’s the inventor of the city’s automatons?” Ophelia asked, amazed. “I knew he marketed them, but I didn’t realize he’d created them.”
“He’s one of the powerless, but he’s no less of a genius. My father owes his status as a citizen solely to his own merit.”
“Your family must be very important.”
Ambrose frowned, as though struggling to understand Ophelia. “It’s my father who’s important, and even then, he’s far from being as important as the Lords of LUX. But why would I, myself, be? I haven’t succeeded in finding my usefulness to the city. I’m just a kept man.”
He had uttered the last two words with a shame that made it pretty clear how degrading it was. He sped off in his wheelchair, between the inner columns, and, with forced gusto, continued to speak without pausing for breath, as though hoping to fill the great empty spaces of his home with his voice:
“Before being a whaxi driver, I tried all kinds of little jobs, and each one ended in failure. I’m not a manual person, you see. Even using a typewriter seems awfully tricky to me. I often tell myself that, had I been a Son of Pollux, I would have at least had a heightened sense at my disposal. If, here and now, a good fairy asked me what I’d like to be, I’d reply without hesitation: a Visionary! It must be fascinating to see microbes with the naked eye, don’t you think? Or then an Acoustic. It’s extraordinary all that can be learnt about the world around us merely with ultrasound. Even being an Olfactory, a Tactile, or a Gustatory wouldn’t have displeased me, but no, I had to end up with my hands the wrong way round. My father is forever telling me that my mere existence makes me someone of great importance to the city. He’s certainly the only one to think so.”
As Ophelia followed Ambrose, somewhat dazed by his chattering, she found it increasingly hard to understand this society in which throwing a stranger off a tram was approved of, providing for the needs of one’s child wasn’t, and no one cared if a young lady went alone to the home of a young man. It seemed to her that neither the Pole nor Anima nor her guidebooks had really prepared her for Babel. This world followed rules that were totally different from those she knew.
This feeling changed to certainty when Ambrose led her into an elegant dressing room and opened the carved shutters of the closets, adapted to wheelchair height. All the clothes, neatly folded, were as white as those he was wearing.
“What you must understand, Mademoiselle Eulalia, is that here, people are exactly what they appear to be. Just as we have a civil code and a penal code, we have a very strict dress code. My father and I, for example, are legally obliged to wear white. It’s the non-color of those without powers. Are you one of them?”
“Er . . . I’m an Animist. Of the eighth degree,” added Ophelia, thinking of the false identity papers she’d lost.
“Of the eighth degree? With a family power that’s so diluted, you can wear white, too. You’re slight, but I’m not very big, either. My clothes will be almost your size.”
“Because it will be less shocking for me to wear men’s clothing?”
Ambrose, who was unfolding a long, white tunic, looked up at Ophelia, startled, before cracking a half-smile. “Forgive me, I’m not like my father, who knows the customs of the other arks. We don’t differentiate between the sexes here. I infer that, where you’re from, men don’t wear clothing like yours?”
Ophelia had to stop herself from imagining Thorn in a little gray dress. “No, indeed.”
“That’s interes
ting. However, Mademoiselle Eulalia, the main problem with your dress is that its style doesn’t feature in our dress code. Not respecting that code in public is seen as an act of provocation. Which is, of course, greatly disapproved of.”
Ophelia raised her eyebrows. She would never have imagined that this old thing, which buttoned her up from ankle to chin, would one day make her seem like a bad girl.
“The sartorial details vary depending on age, profession, and civil status,” Ambrose continued, while rummaging in his closets. “Citizens don’t wear the same colors as noncitizens, for example.”
“Noncitizens,” Ophelia repeated, recalling reading a passage about that in her geographical guide. “They’re the ones who live on Babel, but don’t descend from Pollux?”
“That’s not entirely accurate,” Ambrose said, smiling indulgently. “The Sons of Pollux are, indeed, automatically citizens. They can vote, elect, and be elected. But it’s also possible to become a citizen through merit, like my father. That’s been the case since Babel entered into commercial alliances with the other arks. You must have noticed in the street, there are plenty of different families living here: Florins, Totemists, Cyclopeans, Alchemists, Heliopolitans! And those without power,” he added, this time half-heartedly. “We are the ‘Godsons of Helen.’ Madame Helen, being unable to have descendants, became the official godmother of all those who aren’t Sons of Pollux. She will be yours, too, for as long as you remain on Babel.”
Ophelia really hoped not. The last time she’d been the ward of a family spirit, it had almost cost her her life.
“Returning to our clothes,” said Ambrose, diving back into his closet, “you have to understand that every adornment, every jewel, every accessory adds very specific layers of significance. It’s a language in its own right! If your stay on Babel must be extended, I advise you to get completely to grips with it in order to avoid misunderstandings. And beware, the dress police carry out regular checks.”
The Memory of Babel Page 5