The Memory of Babel

by Christelle Dabos

  Sitting at her own machine, Ophelia couldn’t help but admire the dexterity with which Mediana’s fingers danced across the keys, without the slightest hesitation. As for her, she was still far from mastering the basis of the code invented by Elizabeth; with her clumsiness not helping, she was often obliged to start all over again due to hitting the wrong key.

  “There are few domains in which you don’t excel,” Ophelia acknowledged, reluctantly. “You’re already way ahead of all of us, so why alter our results?”

  Mediana smiled more sweetly as she slid another blank card into her punch. “Do you honestly think I would be where I am now thanks to my talent alone? My family power allows me to absorb not only the memories of those I touch, but also their knowledge. Do you know the reason why I managed to get into the Secretarium? Because Sir Henry and Lady Septima were in urgent need of a translator of ancient languages. And do you know why I suddenly became excellent at ancient languages? Because I laid my hands on many, many specialists. And allowed them, in return, to lay their hands on me.”

  Mediana had added that last sentence so airily, while tapping away on her keyboard so cheerily, that Ophelia wasn’t taken in for a second. What this pretty tomboy had sacrificed to satisfy her appetite for knowledge had cost her more than she wanted to let on.

  “And was it worth it?”

  “All secrets are worth it. If it were just up to me, I’d spend my life in the Secretarium’s galleries, extracting its every mystery. You’ve already heard talk of the ‘ultimate truth,’ haven’t you? I have the firm intention of discovering one day what it is. That having been said, your own secrets aren’t bad, either, signorina.” Mediana paused her punching and, this time, shot a deadly serious look at Ophelia. “I’m going to be frank; some of your memories are very hard to interpret. I couldn’t make any sense of that fellow who can switch heads. I know at least one thing: you have put Babel in a very tricky position, your husband and you. The city has signed commercial treaties with all the arks, Anima and the Pole included. It is no place of refuge for runaways and fugitives of your sort. If LUX discovers who you are and who you seek, the risk to you is great. And that’s nothing compared with what will happen to your husband once caught. Babel advocates nonviolence, but, believe me, you wouldn’t want to know what goes on in their correction centers.”

  Ophelia’s fingers slipped on her keyboard. She would have to throw away the card she was punching and replace it with a blank one. “So what next?” she said. “You’re going to denounce me?”

  “No, signorina, but I would like you to understand that you’re in no position to complain. My blackmailing displeases you? Put up with it.”

  “And what if I were to read your personal belongings without your permission? If I were to blackmail you over your own secrets?”

  “I defy you to find a single one that would be more awkward than yours,” Mediana said, her smile tinged with kindness. “Let’s be serious: to whom, you or me, would Lady Septima give more credit?”

  Ophelia stared at her crossed-out cards on the stand, breathing deeply, in and out, to disperse the grayness shrouding her glasses like smoke, to the point that she couldn’t see. She felt trapped. So, was she condemned, week after week, to punch incomplete cards? Should she give up looking for Thorn to protect him?

  Mediana returned to her card-punching with the grace of a concert pianist. “You hate me. You all hate me. And the saddest thing is that you don’t hate me because of what I discovered about you. You hate me because you sense, deep down, that I am the person who understands you the most in the whole world. I stuck to your recent memories, signorina, but if I had gone right back to your birth, I would know you better than you do yourself.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  Ophelia hadn’t managed to stop her voice, when saying these words, sounding like a warning. Mediana’s arrogance, her gall in taking control of her life, set her every nerve on edge.

  “Oh, but yes, I do know you,” Mediana gently insisted. “The absent one who haunts you, I know how afraid you are that you will never find him. And I know,” she added, after an eloquent silence, “how equally afraid you are of succeeding in doing so. You hate being treated like a child, but in front of a man, you remain an inexperienced bambina.”

  Ophelia’s fingers began to shake so hard, she had to wedge them between her knees. The fleeting image of Mediana punching holes into her own tongue crossed her mind. The rest of their encoding session went by without a single word, both of them concentrating on their keyboards.

  Mediana had soon finished her work, whereas Ophelia, totally preoccupied by what had just been said, continued to struggle with hers.

  “A present.”

  She contemplated, with incomprehension, the two cabaret tickets Mediana had just placed on her stand.

  “I’m not as cruel as you think I am. I was being sincere, you know, when I told you I’d like, one day, to have you as my assistant. It’s in my interest to take care of you, and you’re very edgy. Tomorrow, it’s Sunday. Take your leave, hit the town, and get yourself over there.”

  The thought of escaping Mediana’s clutches for a few hours was appealing, but Ophelia really didn’t like her obsession with controlling her schedule. “No thanks,” she declined, drily.

  “It wasn’t a suggestion. You have no idea how many people I had to blackmail to obtain that address. You’re going there, punto e basta.”

  “Why?”

  Mediana placed her punched cards in the hoist. Her expression, behind her illuminations, had become enigmatic. At this moment, more than ever, she seemed to be wearing a carnival mask. “Let’s say, to simplify, that it’s not a respectable place. Up until now, I haven’t put a foot wrong, you understand? I’m not too keen to flaunt myself over there, but they say certain things are going on in the place. Compromising things. Go there not in uniform, preferably accompanied, and you’ll attract less attention. Gather information for me, and I shan’t be ungrateful.”

  “You’ll release me?”

  “No, but we’ll proceed to an exchange of information.”

  “What information could you possibly have to offer me?” Ophelia stiffened when Mediana leaned slowly, sensually, over her, almost making her lose her balance on her stool.

  “That tall oddball who serves as your husband,” she whispered, right into her ear. “I’ve already come across him. Here, at the Memorial.”

  With a voluptuous flourish, she plucked the tickets from the stand and tapped Ophelia’s glasses with them; the glasses paled to transparency.

  “Go over there for me, signorina, and I’ll tell you more.”

  THE PROHIBITIONS

  The entrance to the great people’s bazaar looked like the pediment of a glass-and-steel temple. From the shadow of a statue of a sphinx, Ophelia watched the crowd, a colorful, shifting mosaic of men, animals, and automatons. The contrasting smells given off made the scorching air even more unbreathable.

  It was entirely futile, but she couldn’t help looking out for Thorn. For months now, she had endlessly constructed hypotheses, which she tempered with “if” and “perhaps.” And the thought that she was actually following in his footsteps, if Mediana hadn’t lied to her, made her chest pound. It was a chaotic heartbeat, exacerbated by hope and impatience, that caused her inner emptiness to echo.

  And yet, even though it was hard for her to admit it, Mediana was right: she was also afraid. Although she was forever thinking about her reunion with Thorn, she never imagined how it would turn out afterwards.

  Suddenly, she saw him. Not Thorn, of course, but the other man she was waiting for.

  Blaise was stumbling through the crowd, barely recognizable in his civvies. His large babouches, pantaloons, and flapping smock sleeves were so many excuses for getting into a tangle at every step. He had covered his face with his hand; as an Olfactory, his sense of smell dou
btless found the mingled odors of the bazaar highly offensive. He was squinting, blinded by the sun, but as soon as he moved into the shadow of the sphinx, he was relieved to find Ophelia there, as arranged.

  “Bademoiselle Eulalia!” he exclaimed, still holding his nose. “I bust adbit I didn’t believe it, even after receiving your bessage. This appointbent was so unexpected! I . . . en fait, I thought you were angry with be.”

  “Before you go any further, I must warn you,” Ophelia said, hastily. “I know you wanted to speak to me, but please, don’t tell me anything about your private life. My own no longer belongs to me and I can’t promise to protect yours. And I also want you to know this,” she added, showing him her cabaret tickets. “If you come with me, I’ll probably expose you to trouble.”

  Blaise was so taken aback by this declaration, he stopped holding his nose. He readjusted his turban, as if wrestling with himself, and then gave a faint, timid smile. “Eh bien, this makes a nice change for me. Usually, it’s rather me who exposes others to trouble. Where are we going?”

  Ophelia was so overcome with gratitude, she tried to find the words to convey it. She couldn’t find them. Whenever she was moved, they treacherously escaped her.

  “In fact, I was hoping you would be able to tell me that. I’ve asked several public signaling guides and not one knows the address of this cabaret. All I know is that it’s somewhere around this area.”

  Ophelia handed the tickets to Blaise, who almost instantly frowned. “Are you sure the address indicated isn’t a mistake?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s that of the ancient baths, and they’ve been closed for a millennium. The traders set up their stalls in the ruins. If . . . eh bien . . . if you’d care to follow me, I’d be delighted to show you.”

  Blaise’s skin had become even more florid than normal, but Ophelia was too preoccupied to notice it. What if these cabaret tickets were a mean prank?

  Entering the people’s bazaar was like walking into a firework display of textiles and spices. The central market was so cluttered, it was almost impassable. Blaise stammered apologies all around him every time a pot shattered, a stall collapsed, an automaton jammed, a bicycle skidded, or a zebu bolted, as if he really were responsible for every incident in the market.

  “What was it you wanted to tell me yesterday?” Ophelia asked him. “If it’s not too personal, I mean.”

  “Quoi? Oh, yes, it was about the death of Mademoiselle Silence,” Blaise whispered, leaning closer to her. “I followed your advice and did my own investigation. I wanted to verify whether . . . whether I was to blame, yes or no.”

  “You discovered something.”

  Blaise nodded his head nervously, knocking his turban off-balance once again. “According to the medical examiner, the fall from the ladder isn’t the cause of death. Mademoiselle Silence had apparently died before falling. Of . . . of a massive heart attack.”

  Ophelia felt her own heart hammering her ribs. She remembered Baron Melchior’s kiss on her hand, the treacherous illusion he had instilled into her body, the unbearable pain that had ripped through her chest.

  No. He was dead. What had killed the missing of Clairdelune and what had killed Mademoiselle Silence were two separate matters.

  “I cause many accidents,” Blaise continued, not noticing her distress, “but I’ve never made people ill. I . . . I’m starting to think that you were right, that perhaps I’m not to blame. All the more since I discovered something else.”

  He seemed torn between relief and anxiety, two conflicting emotions that distorted the already tormented features of his face.

  “Something else?” Ophelia asked, with surprise.

  “Mademoiselle Silence was senior censor,” Blaise reminded her. “Among all the works in the Memorial, a senior censor decides which conform to the city’s outlook, and which don’t. If one of them is questionable, he or she can decide to transfer it to the reserved section, or . . . eh bien . . . proceed with its destruction, pure and simple.”

  Ophelia thought, bitterly, of her museum, on Anima. “And what kind of senior censor was Mademoiselle Silence?”

  “The radical sort,” Blaise suddenly whispered, very quietly, as though the formidable ears of his superior could hear him from beyond the grave. “She hunted down, relentlessly, all the works she deemed harmful. At the first sign of any ambiguous words, the book went directement into the incinerator. We lost some unique editions due to this purge. The Lords of LUX issued several warnings to Mademoiselle Silence, as you can imagine: they subsidize the Memorial to develop its collections, not to throw them into the flames. It was no good, she always ended up resuming her excessive behavior. Until the revision of the catalogue, at least.”

  With a movement familiar to him, Blaise made Ophelia step to one side; they thus avoided a lantern that, incredibly, had unhooked itself from a store awning just as they were passing beneath it.

  “The introduction of Sir Henry’s reading groups changed everything,” he continued, as if nothing had happened. “Mademoiselle Silence was strictly prohibited from destroying any more works. This intensely annoyed her, and, believe me, I often had to pay for her foul moods.”

  “I do believe you. I met her only once, and the memory is still painful.”

  “It’s precisely that occasion that I wanted to get to,” whispered Blaise. “The day when I . . . when you . . . bon, the day when the book trolley tipped over.”

  “Yes?” Ophelia encouraged him.

  “Those . . . those books, Mademoiselle destroyed them. Despite the prohibition. Just prior to dying. When she gave me the order to remove them, I swear to you I had no idea the fate she had in store for them,” Blaise stammered, as if fearing censure. “I was just supposed to transport them to her department for her to examine them.”

  To Ophelia, it seemed as if the merry bustle of the bazaar, its exotic aromas, its eye-catching knickknacks, had suddenly become distant. She knew, with absolute certainty, that continuing this discussion would be to venture onto an isolated and dangerous path, a path that decent citizens didn’t take. “Go on,” she said, all the same. “Why did she destroy those books? What was so distinctive about them?”

  Blaise rubbed his large, pointed nose, bothered by the smoke from an incense stall they were just passing. “They were just tales for children! They were published after the Rupture, and described the beginnings of the new world. They were very fine editions, but, honnêtement, they were starting to gather dust. Our young readers never borrowed them.”

  “From what you’re saying, the tales weren’t particularly subversive.”

  “Oh, they made a few allusions to the ‘hm-hms’ of the old world,” Blaise said, coughing to avoid saying the word “wars,” “but with metaphoric and pacific intent. They were rather naive, even, from what little I recall. I have no idea what possessed Mademoiselle Silence to target them, despite orders.”

  “Because of their author, perhaps?” Ophelia suggested.

  “Long dead and long forgotten,” Blaise said, with a shrug. “A certain ‘E. G.’”

  “Erjay?”

  “‘E. G.,’” Blaise repeated, trying to modify his accent. “Just the initials. Might as well say anonymous. I did some research on him, but there’s no other known work by him, apart from these tales. Very few were printed, and we held perhaps the last remaining volumes at the Memorial. Such beautiful books!” he sighed. “Lost forever!”

  “So, the last thing Mademoiselle Silence did before her death was to burn the tales of an unknown writer,” Ophelia recapped. “It’s pretty strange.”

  “En fait, I’ve kept the strangest for last. The place where Mademoiselle Silence’s body was discovered . . . That library ladder she fell off. . .” Blaise suddenly put his hand to his nose, as if a smell from the past, stronger even than all those of the bazaar, had just turned his stomach.
“Oh, Mademoiselle Eulalia! If you had smelt it, that terrible stench . . . The reek of abject fear. Her corpse,” he said, after taking a deep breath, “was found exactly where the books by our mysterious E. G. were shelved. I mean, before they were removed. All that remained were empty shelves, but she still had to go and inspect them, in the middle of the night, without rhyme or reason!”

  “That determination speaks volumes,” Ophelia acknowledged. “But it doesn’t explain the terror that gripped her at the moment of dying. Do you think . . . Do you believe there could be some link there with the Secretarium?”

  “The Secretarium?” asked Blaise, surprised. “I can’t really see the connection. Mademoiselle Silence had no more access to it than I do. I know there are rumors circulating about that place, but they’re nothing more. Here are your ancient baths, Mademoiselle Eulalia!”

  He had just passed under an arch that led to a side street. The steel and glass of the market gave way to stone and water. The remains of columns formed a circular gallery, open to the sky, around a pool that didn’t look too clean. The fruit sellers who had set up shop there were forever chasing away wasps with mechanical rackets.

  Ophelia now better understood Blaise’s reaction on seeing her tickets. This place bore no resemblance whatsoever to a cabaret. The thought that Mediana had made a fool of her made her furious in a way she had rarely felt.

  And then, she spotted it. On the other side of the pool. A round sign, battered by the wind, was swinging above a rusty, old door. Ophelia had to bang into many stalls and skid on much rotten fruit to reach it.

  “You think this bight be it, bademoiselle?” asked a surprised Blaise, holding his nose again, unable to bear the smell any longer.

  She didn’t reply. She was observing. The sign had lost its paint, washed out by sun and rain, but its form was undoubtedly that of an orange. Of course, it could be a coincidence, but Ophelia’s instinct whispered to her that it wasn’t. She banged the door’s knocker, crushing her fingers in the process.