The Memory of Babel

by Christelle Dabos

  Ophelia wondered what business it was of his, but she needed him too much to be disagreeable. “They were, unfortunately, mislaid. I am here for your help in procuring me a new pair. The Good Family will take care of all expenses.” And I’ll repay that debt in extra chores, she refrained from adding.

  Professor Wolf looked skeptically at Ophelia’s hands. His extreme stiffness was accentuated by a wooden brace enclosing his neck and, combined with his pointed chin, made his head look like a pickax. Was that due to the accident the landlady had mentioned?

  “Follow me,” he barked, begrudgingly.

  The professor led Ophelia from the hall to the living room, where the same twilight prevailed. The daylight glimmered weakly through the slits of the shutters. The air was unbreathable. The room’s fan dispersed neither the sweltering heat nor the musty smell. Behind the dusty windows of the stacked-up display cases, one could just make out bones and fossils, making her feel as if she had entered a particularly morbid cabinet of curiosities. She was disconcerted when the chairs, tables, and chests drew back as she passed, like timid animals; Professor Wolf must truly have a wary nature for his Animism to have permeated his furniture to this extent.

  Ophelia’s surprise increased when she discovered, among the finds from archeological digs, a very impressive collection of military weapons. “Your research is on the wars of the old world?” She realized too late that she had let slip the forbidden word. Professor Wolf, busy rummaging in a drawer, threw her a dark look.

  “And what’s next? You’re going to denounce me, perhaps? The law forbids the possession of weapons, not historic artifacts.” Exasperated by his neck brace, which prevented him from leaning with ease, the professor pulled the drawer out of its chest and emptied the contents onto a table. “War,” he continued, lowering his voice, “is generally associated with the notion of the border. The Rupture totally shattered the borders, but did wars cease for all that? For your information, little lady, peace is a purely theoretical concept. There are, and there always will be, conflicts, whatever semblance they take. You need only go out there, dressed in your provocative uniform, to see it for yourself.”

  Ophelia thought back to the powerless who had stared at her with a mix of disdain and envy.

  For the first time in a long while, she felt as if she had before her someone sensible to talk to. The disappointment she had felt on meeting him disappeared. “I agree with you.”

  As he extracted a measuring tape from the jumble on his table, Professor Wolf knitted his thick, black brows and produced the faintest of sardonic smiles. “Well I never. A distant member of my family, a reader what’s more, turns up at my place and shares my vision of the world. My lucky day, it would seem!”

  “You don’t believe me,” Ophelia responded. “Since I crossed your threshold, you haven’t believed me for a single moment. Why?”

  The professor unrolled the measuring tape with a sudden flourish, as if it were a whip. “I told you, little lady, it’s war out there. An Animist father, a powerless mother: I’ve never been accepted by any community. My entire existence is a web of conflict, so my principle is to consider every human being as a potential adversary. Your hand at my eye level,” he instructed, drily.

  Ophelia lifted her arm to allow him to take her measurements, but it wasn’t an easy process: the measuring tape, also contaminated by its owner’s wariness, was wriggling to avoid touching a perfect stranger.

  “So, the old world intrigues you?” Professor Wolf asked, without dropping his sarcastic tone. “Perhaps reading a few of my fossils would interest you?”

  Ophelia bit her tongue. The tape was gripping her hand so tight, it was bruising her skin. “Fossils can’t be read,” she replied, “any more than raw materials and living organisms can. I really am who I claim to be. If you really want to put me to the test, set me a less obvious trap.”

  The professor’s face creased into a mocking smile, and then he wrote out the measurements on telegram paper. The simple act of writing was an amazing feat, with his neck brace preventing him from tilting his head. Ophelia had the, perhaps misguided, feeling that she’d just scored a point.

  “I want to join Sir Henry’s reading groups at the Memorial. I was told that you yourself are doing research over there?”

  The professor’s pencil slipped on the paper. To Ophelia’s surprise, his hand had started to shake. “I was doing some,” he corrected, between his teeth.

  “Why did you stop?”

  “For a reason that concerns only me.”

  “You must still know the place well.”

  “Enough never to set foot in there ever again.”

  Professor Wolf scowled, as if he’d said too much. He rolled his telegram inside a cylinder, which he slid into the compartment of a tube, and pulled a lever; the telegram was instantly sucked into the pipe. “There. I’ve sent the order for your gloves to my personal supplier. He will get directly in touch with the Good Family to deliver them to you in a few days’ time. Satisfied?”

  Ophelia hesitated. There were questions she was dying to ask, on the Secretarium in particular, but persisting would just make this man even more suspicious than he already was. “Could you lend me an old pair you don’t use anymore? I’ve been reading everything I touch since this morning, I can’t last several days like this.”

  Professor Wolf pursed his lips, as if about to refuse point-blank, but then, with an exasperated sigh, changed his mind. “Give me a moment. Just don’t touch anything.”

  He went up some stairs that were as creaky as he was, leaving Ophelia alone in the middle of the collections. She walked along the military weapons, stopping before the warm breeze from the fan. She got a slight shock when she came across a dusty mirror fixed to the wall. She hadn’t looked at herself in a mirror since entering the conservatoire. It took her a few seconds to get used to this little woman in uniform, with cheeks like peaches and curls like question marks. Without her invasive long hair, prim dress, and old scarf—her heart sank, painfully, at that thought—she barely recognized herself. Showing herself openly to the world was her best disguise. A disguise even more effective than Mime’s livery, behind which she had long hidden in the Pole.

  As Ophelia went up to an old photograph of an archaeological site, she scared a wastepaper basket, which leapt aside to avoid her. It couldn’t have been emptied for a long time, as it was overflowing with balls of paper, some of which spilt onto the floor. Ophelia hastily picked them up, but one gave her such a shock, it took her breath away.

  Fear. Pure fear. Professor Wolf’s fear.

  Ophelia looked at the crumpled letter she’d dropped to the floor like a hot potato. If Professor Wolf had contaminated this paper with his fear, it meant he’d been wearing gloves when he’d touched it; no experienced reader would handle a letter with their bare hands, unless they wanted to assure themselves of the honesty of its sender.

  In other circumstances, she would never have permitted herself to go any further, but her curiosity this time was stronger than her conscience. Before realizing what she was doing, she smoothed out the paper in the weak light from the shutters.

  Dear colleague,

  I was sad to hear of your accident. That fall in the stairs could have broken your neck entirely! It’s fortunate, for you as for all of us, that you emerged unscathed. I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you soon at the Memorial at the academic meetings: your research may not meet with everyone’s approval, but it is no less of fundamental interest to our discipline.

  On that subject, I studied the sample you sent me. Its composition is fascinating! Dating it caused me problems, but my evaluation ended up reaching the same conclusion as yours. May I ask you from which document your sample was taken?

  Please accept, dear colleague, my sincere good wishes,

  Signed: your devoted friend and colleague

  Ophelia’s f
ingers were shaking with the terror Professor Wolf had felt on reading these lines. She didn’t understand the reason, and she didn’t get time to look deeper into it. The man’s steps could be heard on the stairs.

  She crumpled the paper and threw it into the basket, but her clumsiness made her miss her target completely.

  “Here,” said Professor Wolf, once downstairs, presenting her with some black gloves. “No point returning them to me, I won’t use them again.”

  Ophelia pulled them on, avoiding looking him in the eye. She felt so shaken by her reading, so guilty for having betrayed her professional code, that she couldn’t stop her voice from wobbling: “Th-thank you.”

  Professor Wolf jutted out his jaw, further elongating his chin, as his eyes, wary once again, darted around all four corners of the room. Ophelia had hoped that his neck brace would prevent him from seeing the ball of paper on the floor, but his eyes finally fell on it. His face instantly became a combination of astonishment, terror, and fury.

  “I’m sorry,” Ophelia said, impulsively. “The letter had fallen. I just meant to pick it up. I shouldn’t have . . . ” She didn’t get to the end of her sentence. Professor Wolf had grabbed her arm to fling her against the wall mirror, which shattered into a thousand pieces.

  “Filthy little spy!”

  “No!” she cried, painfully straightening up while almost seeing stars. “I’m not your enemy, I sincerely want to understand what happened to you.”

  Beside himself, the professor grabbed her by the frock-coat collar and hoisted her up off her feet. For someone who had a dislocated neck, he wasn’t lacking in strength.

  “All of humanity is my enemy,” he hissed between his teeth. “Go and join Sir Henry’s reading groups, little snooper. I hope you enjoy it. Get out of my home!” he ordered, suddenly letting go of her.

  Ophelia rushed into the hall. The door drew back its own bolts to let her through, and then slammed shut behind her, ejecting her from the place with the force of a catapult. Ophelia fell to her knees in the building’s courtyard, heart pounding against ribs. When she raised her glasses, still blue with fright, her eyes met those of the landlady, who was sweeping in the sun, her toucan on her shoulder.

  “I did tell you, mademoiselle. An awkward customer, that lodger.”

  THE UNLUCKY CHARM

  One by one, Ophelia pulled at the tips of Professor Wolf’s gloves, which were too long for her fingers. She had visited that man in search of answers, and left him with even more questions—along with a fine collection of scratches. What could have persuaded him not to pursue his research at the Memorial? What was that sample he had evaluated? Why had the response of his colleague terrified him to that extent? Did that fear have anything to do with the fear that had gripped Mademoiselle Silence as she met her death?

  A heavy downpour battered every window of the birdtrain. Ophelia closed her eyes, suppressing the emotion that was choking her. The image of the scarf, wandering the streets of Babel like an abandoned dog, obsessed her, day in, day out.

  No. Don’t dwell on it. Forge ahead.

  She reopened her eyes when she felt the birdtrain veering toward a belvedere. It was the fifth academy it served; soon it would be the conservatoire. Some students got off into the rain, pulling their hoods up; others got on, shaking their raincoats. As at every station, Ophelia checked there wasn’t a boy in a wheelchair among them. She was missing Ambrose. Missing his friendship, his kindness, his chattiness. She didn’t understand why he had suddenly become distant, barely replying to her telegrams, never visiting her, but it concerned her.

  No. Don’t dwell on that either.

  Through the sinuous trails of raindrops on the window, Ophelia looked at the Memorial tower in the distance. Somewhere between those walls there was the Secretarium. And within that Secretarium, a strongroom. And in that strongroom, the “ultimate truth.” What if it were that very truth to which Mademoiselle Silence and Professor Wolf had gotten too close? And what if Thorn had put himself in danger to uncover it? It was frustrating to know she’d have to get off at the next station, rather than continue the journey over there. Her three hours of leave were coming to an end. The gondolas’ slowness had made her lose precious time; indeed, she’d nearly missed her birdtrain. To be expelled from the Good Family over a missed connection, two days before the end of her probation period, would have been too ridiculous.

  Ophelia returned to pulling at the floppy fabric of the gloves at the tips of her fingers. A sigh rose up from deep inside her, but it was her neighbor on the banquette who let it out it in her stead. She gave him a questioning look. He, too, was contemplating the window splattered with rain, but with a guilty expression, as if personally responsible for the bad weather. His profile, with its shaggy pepper-and-salt hair and long, pointed nose, recalled the snout of a hedgehog. He looked familiar to Ophelia, and she understood why on seeing the “assistant” badge pinned to his uniform. “The man with the trolley,” she murmured.

  After a moment’s hesitation, the assistant tore his eyes from the window. “Pardon, mademoiselle? Are you speaking to me?”

  Ophelia gave him a polite smile. This hadn’t really worked with Professor Wolf, but surely this assistant wouldn’t throw her out of a birdtrain in full flight, would he? “We’ve already met, sir. In the Memorial’s youth department. I had knocked over the books on your trolley, and you . . . well, you received a reprimand because of me.”

  “Ah, those books!” stammered the assistant. “That seems so long ago to me.” With head sunk between shoulders, he showed a sudden, intense interest in his hands, clasped together on his knees, and said nothing more. He seemed desperately alone. As alone as Ambrose, surrounded by his father’s automatons. As alone as Professor Wolf, triple-locked into his apartment.

  As alone as me, Ophelia couldn’t help but think.

  “Eulalia,” she said, introducing herself.

  “Quoi?” the assistant asked with surprise. “Oh, um . . . me, I’m Blaise.” He rubbed his nape uneasily, like someone unaccustomed to civilities. “I . . . Your uniform . . . Apprentice virtuoso?”

  Ophelia felt a smile, a real one this time, come to her lips. It wasn’t every day she encountered someone even more awkward than her. “Forerunner.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  Blaise seemed sincere. His eyes, with their black, moist, hedgehog-like pupils, had widened, as if he’d just been told he was sitting beside a Lord of LUX.

  Outside, the rain doubled in intensity against the windows, propelled by a westerly wind. The lightning tore through the silence, throwing a bright light across the students’ faces, but not one lifted their nose out of their textbook. Babel’s public transport was always excessively quiet, and for good reason: the conductor imposed a fine at the slightest disturbance.

  Ophelia couldn’t help glancing anxiously up at the ceiling, with a thought for the chimeras towing the carriages through the thunderstorm.

  “On probation,” she felt obliged to specify. “I’d love to work at the Memorial, like you.”

  “Like me? I wouldn’t wish that on you,” Blaise said, pointing at his “assistant” badge. “For years now, I’ve been returning to shelves what I’m told to return; there’s nothing prestigious about it.”

  “The Memorial’s collections are really impressive. They must demand a formidable amount of work, no? Especially if one includes the Secretarium,” Ophelia added, as innocently as possible.

  “I’ve never set foot in there,” Blaise sighed, much to her disappointment. “It’s far too important and far too confidential a department for the likes of me.”

  “And you don’t take part in the reading groups, either?”

  Blaise let out an incredulous laugh, which he stifled with his palm as he caught the disdainful look of the conductor. “The automa . . . pardon, Sir Henry’s groups?” he asked, very quietly. “They’d hav
e to be mad to accept me.”

  Ophelia didn’t understand what lay behind this remark, but chose not to pursue it. She’d finally found a reasonable person to talk to; she must make the most of every minute of the journey. “I heard about Mademoiselle Silence,” she whispered, watching for Blaise’s reaction out of the corner of her eye. “It must have been a terrible shock.”

  At the precise moment she spoke that last word, she was suddenly shaken on her seat. A gust of wind, more violent than the others, had rocked the whole carriage, this time prompting cries of surprise across all the banquettes.

  “Keep calm, citizens!” shouted the conductor. “Just some light turbulence. Our Totemist has total control of his team.”

  Ophelia pushed up her glasses, thrown to the very tip of her nose by the jolt; she saw several students around her picking up the textbooks they had dropped. As for herself, she wasn’t at all reassured. She had instinctively clung to Blaise’s arm, and he was staring at her hand with a flabbergasted expression, as if it were the first time he was seeing one in such an improbable place. Finally, he tapped it, clumsily, with his fingertips, an apologetic smile at the corner of his mouth.

  “This sort of thing often happens with me. The gloves you’re wearing,” he hastily continued, before Ophelia could wonder what he’d meant, “they’re Wolf’s, aren’t they?”

  “How do you know they’re . . . You know Professor Wolf?” Ophelia stammered, increasingly surprised.

  Blaise rubbed his large, pointed nose with embarrassment. “I recognized his smell on you. I’m an Olfactory, you see? Wolf is a regular at the Memorial. Or rather, he was,” he added, with a lump in his throat. “Before his accident.”

  Ophelia noted that he called him just Wolf, without his title. They were certainly rather more than mere acquaintances. Just as she was thinking this, Blaise checked with a nervous glance that the conductor wasn’t paying them any attention.