Irregular Verbs

by Irregular Verbs

  Cheered, Louverture headed off to the photostat room. Clouthier could hardly complain about this; just to be sure, he would take part in the stakeout himself—at the docks, he thought, where the breeze off the river would make the heat more tolerable. He would be sure to salute all the pedicab drivers dropping off their passengers.

  Early the next morning Louverture sat up suddenly in bed, seized by a sudden thought. Two pieces that had not fit: the thirteenth and just three letters to be delivered. If he was right, the two together made up a very important piece indeed, but he could not be sure without a great deal of work—and books that were in the office. He dressed quickly, went downstairs and mounted his velocipede, riding through the empty streets in the dark. Fortunately the rest of the city was still asleep; absorbed as he was by the new lines of thought opening up, he would not have noticed an omnibus bearing down on him. As it was he nearly startled the night guard to death, suddenly appearing in the pool of light cast by the sodium lamps in Descartes Square and skidding to a stop mere metres from the door of the Cabildo. He flashed his badge and rushed up to his office. Hours of reading and calculation later he picked up the speaking tube to call Commandant Trudeau.

  “Well, Louverture, here we are,” Clouthier said when the three of them assembled, some minutes later, in Trudeau’s office. “I take it you are going to tell us you’ve settled the case by doing figures all night?”

  “Not the whole case, no, but I think you’ll want to hear it. Tell me, Officier principal, do you know the old calendar at all?”

  “The royal calendar, you mean? No, I never studied history. Why?”

  “What day of the month is it by that reckoning, do you suppose?” Louverture asked.

  “What does it matter?”

  Trudeau was smiling, nodding to himself. “May I venture a guess, Officier Louverture?”

  Louverture nodded magnanimously.

  “Then if you are right, the timetable has been moved up—or rather, it was further along than we knew.”

  “What do you mean?” Clouthier said, frowning deeply; then, eyes widening, “Oh—so it is the thirteenth today, by that calendar? Of Thermidor, or of Fructidor?”

  “Augustus,” Trudeau said, with a glance at the bust on his desk. “Very good, Louverture, though I’m afraid this makes things a great deal more serious.”

  Clouthier ran his head over his shaved scalp. “But I don’t understand. Even the English gave up that calendar years ago. Who would still use such an irrational system?”

  “Irrationalists,” Louverture said with a faint smile. “And the day is no coincidence, either. Thirteen was a very powerful number to pre-rational minds, associated with disaster. Whatever they have in mind may be bigger than even murder.”

  “You think it is the vodoun again, then? Is this all part of some irrational magic ritual?” Trudeau asked.

  Louverture spread his hands. “I don’t know. The number thirteen, the royal calendar—yes, that is common to all of those that hew to the old religions. But the letters, no. The vodoun, the Catholics, the Jews, they all rely on secrecy to go undetected.”

  “Perhaps the letter-writer is not a threat, but a warning? Someone inside this group who wishes to prevent whatever they are planning to do?”

  “Then why not tell us more? And why the letters to the Minerve, and the cathedral?” Louverture chewed his lower lip. “If you’ll pardon me, that is, Commandant.”

  Trudeau waved his objection away. “Of course, Officier. Speak freely.”

  “Moreover, we still have the reports from Graphology and Lombrosology. These tell us the letter-writer is an educated, rational man.”

  “How can he be a rational irrationalist?” Clouthier put in.

  “How indeed?” Trudeau said. “It seems that we resolve one paradox only to create another.”

  “Commandant, I’m sure I can—”

  “I’m sorry, Louverture,” Trudeau said, putting up a hand. “Please do not take this as a lack of faith in you, but I am handing this matter over to Officier principal Clouthier. What you have discovered tells me that we must take immediate action.”

  “But we have no motive! No suspects!”

  “We know where our suspects are,” Clouthier said. “All the irrationalists—we know where they live, where they have their secret churches. We found your friend Lucien easily enough, didn’t we?”

  “But—”

  “Officier Louverture, I’m told you’ve been here since one seventy-five. You’ve rendered great service to the Corps today, and you deserve a rest.”

  Louverture clamped his mouth shut, nodded. “Thank you, Commandant,” he managed to say. With a nod to each of his superiors he rose and left the room.

  The sun was beating down outside, causing Louverture to realize he had forgotten his cap at home; as well, his abandoned velocipede was gone. Shading his eyes with his hands he quick-stepped across the square, then ducked into the Café to pick up a Minerve and found a shady spot to wait for the omnibus. The headline, predictably, read Elle meurt la treize; further down the page, another story trumpeted Une autre sabotage aux théatres: la Comedie Francaise ferme ses portes. He folded the paper under his arm, unable to cope with any more irrationality. To whose benefit would it be to sabotage all the theatres, without asking for protection money?

  “She’s not coming,” someone said. He turned to see an older black man in a white cotton shirt and pants, sweating profusely; he had obviously been walking a long way in the sun.

  “I’m sorry?” Louverture said.

  “The omnibus. She’s not coming; broke down at Champs Elysées.” The man shook his head. “Sorry, son,” he said, continued walking.

  Louverture mouthed a curse, scanned the empty street for pedicabs. He supposed that driver had been right in thinking he would be out of a job soon. It was almost like a sort of experiment to see how often buses could break down before people stopped taking them, the way people had stopped going to the theatres. . . .

  A terrible, inescapable thought hit him. Desperate to disprove it Louverture set out at a run. His face was red by the time he arrived at the theatre, a very hot half-kilometre away; he banged on the stage door with a closed fist, catching his breath.

  “We’re closed,” a voice came from inside.

  “Corps de commande,” Louverture said. He imagined he could hear the man inside sighing as he opened up.

  “What can I do for you?” the man said. He was tall, about a hundred eighty centimetres, with a long face and a deeply receding hairline, wearing black pants and turtleneck. He was quite incidentally blocking the doorway he had just opened.

  “May I come in?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed as he stepped aside. “You say you’re with the corps?”

  Louverture realized that he was wearing neither his cap nor his uniform, and that his hair was showing. He took out his badge, showed it to the man. “Officier de la paix Louverture. And you are?”

  “Gaetan. Gaetan Tremblay. I’m the stage manager. At least. . . .”

  Stepping inside, Louverture nodded, held up his copy of the Minerve. “What can you tell me about last night?”

  “The cyclorama dropped,” Tremblay said. “That’s the backdrop that—”

  “I know. Was anyone hurt?”

  “No—but with all that’s happened at the other theatres, people just panicked.”

  “May I see?”

  Tremblay led him down the black, carpeted hallway to the backstage entrance, lit the halogens that hung above. In the pool of light that appeared Louverture could see the fallen cloth, as wide as the stage, gathered around a thick metal pole that sat on the ground. A slackened rope still extended from the far end of the pole to the fly gallery above; the rope from the near end was severed, lying in a loose coil on the floor. “We lowered the intact side so it wouldn’t fall unexpectedly,” Tremblay said.

 
Louverture picked up the snapped rope, ran it through his fingers until the end reached him. The strands were all the same length, except for one, and only that one had stretched and frayed. “Has anyone examined this?”

  Tremblay shook his head. “I told them it was an accident, but you know how superstitious actors are.”

  “That will be all I need, then,” Louverture said, waited for Tremblay to lead him back out the maze of corridor.

  “Officier,” Tremblay said when they reached the door, “do you think if we close for a while—the people, will they—”

  “Forget?” Louverture pushed the door open, blinked at the light outside. “Of course. With enough time, people can forget anything.”

  His mind raced as he ran back to the Cabildo. A paradox was not a dead end, he had forgotten that: it was an intersection of two streets you hadn’t known existed. He smelled sulphur as he reached the square, saw smoke rising from near the courthouse. The gardien at the door levelled a pistol at him as he neared.

  “Keep back, please,” the gardien said.

  Louverture raised his hands. He could not recall if he had ever seen a gardien draw his gun before. “I’m Officier Louverture,” he said, slowly dropping his right hand. “I’m reaching for my badge.” He fished it out carefully, extended it at arm’s length.

  “Go in, then,” the gardien said, “and you might want to get a spare uniform if you’re staying.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “A bomb. In the courthouse.”

  “Sweet Reason. Was anyone killed?”

  The gardien shook his head. “It missed fire, or else it was just a smoke bomb—but they found two more just like it at the Cathedral and the Academie Scientifique.”

  “Excuse me,” Louverture said, waving his badge at the desk man as he went inside.

  “Louverture!” Commandant Trudeau said, looking up from the charts on his desk. “I told Clouthier you wouldn’t be able to stay away.” Clouthier, his back to Louverture, nodded absently. “Quite a mess, isn’t it?”

  “Commandant—Officier principal—I think I understand it now,” he said. “I think I know who is doing this.”

  “Which group of irrationalists?”

  “Not irrationalists; scientists. It’s an experiment.”

  Trudeau looked confused, the first time Louverture had seen it on his face. “Explain.”

  “A series of larger and larger experiments. The theatre accidents, the omnibus failures—they were done on purpose, to test how much it takes to change people’s behaviour. The notes, and the bomb probably too—they were to test us.”

  “Test us for what?”

  “To see how much it would take to make us react irrationally, see every accident as sabotage, every abandoned briefcase as a bomb. Perhaps we too are just a test for a larger experiment.”

  “But the notes,” Clouthier said, turning to face him. “Who were they threatening?”

  Louverture glanced out the window, at the statue in the middle of the square. “Reason,” he said. “She dies tonight.”

  “I’m sorry, Officier, but this makes no sense,” Trudeau said. “What would be the motive?”

  “I’m not sure. Jealousy, a wish to possess reason for themselves alone? Or perhaps the motive is reason itself. Perhaps they simply want to know.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Clouthier barked. “He wants us chasing phantoms. We know who the irrationalist leaders are; arrest them, and the others will follow soon enough.”

  “And how will people react when they see the Corps out in force, with pistols? Will they remain rational, do you think?”

  “I’ve ordered a couvre-feu for eight o’clock,” Clouthier said. “People will stay inside when they see the lights are out.”

  Louverture closed his eyes. “As you say.”

  “Will you join us, Louverture?” Trudeau said, his attention back on the maps on the desk. “We can use another man, especially tonight.”

  “Is that an order, Commandant?”

  There was a long pause; then Trudeau very carefully said, “No, Officier, it isn’t. Go home and get your rest—go quickly, and show your badge if anyone questions you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Louverture went down the stairs, pushed through the gardiens assembling in the lobby; noticed Pelletier, saluted him. Pelletier did not answer his salute; perhaps the boy did not recognize him without his cap and uniform, and at any rate he was talking to the gardiens stagières around him. Not wanting to interrupt, Louverture stepped outside.

  The sun was nearly down, but the air was still hot; Reason’s torch cast a weak shadow on the number eight. Heading for Danton Street, Louverture saw a man approaching across the square. He was wearing a dark wool suit, despite the weather; a top hat and smoke-tinted glasses.

  Louverture looked the man in the eyes as he neared, trying to read him; the man cocked his head curiously and gazed back at him. The two of them circled each other slowly, eyes locked. When they had exchanged positions the man doffed his hat to Louverture, his perfectly calm face creased with just a hint of a smile, and then turned and did the same to the statue of Reason. Louverture knew that look: it was the one Allard wore while measuring a skull. The man found an empty bench, sat down and waited, as though he expected a show to unfold in front of him at any moment.

  The bells in the Cathedral of Reason rang out at eight o’clock, and the sodium lamps in the square faded to darkness. The lights were going out all over town; Louverture did not suppose he would see them lit again.

  BEYOND THE FIELDS YOU KNOW

  The boy was called Calx. He did not remember his real name.

  He was not sure how long he had been at the House. He did not know how long it had been since he had seen his parents; their names, too, were long gone, scraped away by toil and hunger. But he remembered their faces, and his bedroom with the biplane wallpaper and the Elmo sheets—and he remembered the Gnome with the Silver Key.

  The little man had appeared at the boy’s window one night, when his parents thought he had gone to sleep. He had told the boy that there were people who needed his help, and he could have an adventure besides. All he had to do was take the silver key and open the door at the back of the linen closet.

  The boy had not known there was a door in the linen closet, but sure enough when he went to check it was there. He had stood for a long time in the hallway, staring into the dark interior just barely lit by the hall nightlight. The floor chilled him through the feet of his flannel pajamas and he thought about going to get dressed, but he did not know just what you should wear on an adventure. Would he need boots? Should he wear a jacket, a sweater? Surely they would be able to give him the right kind of clothes when he got there—and besides, he had a feeling that if he went to his room the door would be gone when he got back.

  The key, a funny long knobby thing that was not at all like his parents’ keys, fit snugly into the keyhole and turned smoothly. The boy pulled sheets and towels out of the closet, tossing them to the hallway floor to clear the way. There was no handle but the door opened anyway, a crack of light surrounding it and then brightening the whole closet. It was bright on the other side, too bright to see what was there with eyes that had been straining to see in the dark.

  Squinting, the boy climbed up into the closet and squeezed through the narrow doorway. He was so excited he did not even notice the door closing behind him.

  On this day Calx had been scouring shields. There was only one way to do it: first you had to pull off any stones that had been stuck to them, and the larger clumps of earth; then with a wire brush you took off the mud that was stuck right to the surface. Mrs. Marmalade would only give you one bucket of water for the whole job, no matter how many shields you had to clean or how much you pleaded, so you had to save it for the very end, parcelling it out in spit-drops. Then it was time to scour them, taking red rust off th
e iron shields and green rust off the bronze ones; for this there was coarse sand and again, finally, as little water as possible. It was hard work, because most of them had been in the ground a long time, but there were worse jobs. It kept you inside, and you were alone except for the strange reflections that sometimes danced in the torchlight on the polished bronze shields.

  He could see his own reflection, now, in the shield he had just finished cleaning. His wild hair he recognized—it had sometimes grown that way at the end of a summer, when it went months without being cut or even brushed—but the gaunt, jagged face was not the one he had known from school photos or seen in the mirror while brushing his teeth. He reached up to his cheek, felt the three scars that ran across it and remembered the day he had received them.

  The first things he had seen on coming through the door that night had been a great grey-white rabbit, twice as tall as he was and dressed in a checked waistcoat, and a hedgehog the size of a large dog who was wearing an apron and a ruffled cap.

  “Hello,” the rabbit said, in a voice like the people on the English TV shows the boy’s father liked to watch. “I’m Mr. Jacoby, and this is Mrs. Marmalade.”

  “Hello.” The boy pulled himself fully out of the small passage and straightened up. He looked around, saw a room with grey stone walls and a low ceiling. There was a stone hearth in the far wall, where a fire was burning low: the floor was cold, much colder than it had been at his house, and he was suddenly very conscious of being a small boy in his pajamas. “I came because—the Gnome with the Silver Key said—”

  “Mrs. Marmalade, take this boy to the dormitory please,” Mr. Jacoby said. Turning to the boy he said, “We’ll get you to work in the morning.”

  Mrs. Marmalade walked over to the boy, whuffling with each awkward step. She smelled of earth and rotting vegetables. He felt a sudden shock of fear as she looked up at him and he saw her face more clearly: it was not a human face at all, not a storybook face, but just a hedgehog’s face with beady eyes and sharp teeth. Lice were crawling on her hairy snout, and every now and then her long pink tongue darted out to draw one into her mouth.