by Jesse Ball
The omelet was quite good. He ate it with satisfaction. Peppery, he thought. And the toast had been buttered while still hot. Perfect.
On the grass, children were playing. Where could they have come from? thought James.
And then he realized that there were children everywhere. Children on the porch, children on the lawn, children behind him in the house. Never had he seen so many children in one place.
—Why so many children? James asked the man seated next to him.
As if out of a long sleep, the old man answered slowly:
—It is a field trip. Every year the children come. Oh, how we who live here long for and await this day. Can you see their little hats, their little shirts? Have you ever seen a shoe so small?
The old man snatched at one of the children running past, catching the back of the little fellow's overalls and dragging him to him.
—No! said a nurse, suddenly appearing out the doorway.
She slapped the old man's hand with a ruler. He let go of the child, who ran off happily to the lawn.
The nurse gave a long, considered look to the old man.
—Olsen, we don't want to put you back in, do we?He said nothing, but grumbled quietly and looked into his lap.
—I said, we don't want to put you back in, do we? Do we, Olsen?He said that he did not want to go back in. Not for any reason.
—Good, said the nurse. Good.
It was the afternoon, and James went down a long staircase. He found it at the back of a linen closet, with a sign posted:
WINE CELLAR
Certainly James wanted to see the wine cellar. For instance, what might be in the wine cellar? Hidden things, etc.
James proceeded down the staircase that was one long unbroken stair, perhaps two stories long, with very flat slanted steps. It was virtually a chute. At the bottom, a small room for coats and such. He was not wearing a coat. He proceeded past the coatroom.
The next room was a while in coming, for his eyes had to adjust to the low light. Small pulsing bulbs were set into the ground. The wine cellar was enormous and stretched away into the darkness.
—The best of what we have is near the back, said a voice.
James turned.
A man was standing there, handsome but severe. James recalled McHale's description.
—Hello, he said. I came down to—
—No, no, said the man. No need to explain anything to me. I'm not the one in charge of you.
—You say, said James, the good wines are at the back?
He looked away down the long aisles.
—Yes, said the man. By the way, I'm James, James Carlyle.
—Sim, said James Sim. James Sim. But I guess you—
—Know that, yes. We've been having our little chats about you. Yes, we have.
He gave James a certain knowing look. He was severe as McHale had described, severe in the way that one expects from someone who devotes himself to an unrewarded discipline, a discipline not unrewarding in itself, but unrewarded by the world in general. The strangeness of meeting the world's greatest botanist in the late twentieth century; the strangeness of a tailor who makes clothing only for puppets. These people are severe on themselves because no one else will be severe on them, and if they are not, then their art will no longer exist in its fullness.
Yes, thought James, I like his sort.
They walked together down the aisles, not speaking.
—I wonder, said Carlyle, what it would be like to be shut up in glass and tucked away in the ground like this. To have one's redness of blood sway slightly at the world's turn, at the pull of the moon, at the tremor of a near footstep. But to be passed again and again and never chosen. Do you think they want to be chosen, James?
—I couldn't say, said James. For myself, I would want to be broken against the side of a ship by a distinguished-looking older man in front of a cheering crowd prior to the sailing of said ship on its maiden voyage, which would also be its last, as the ship would sink when it reached deep water and no one would survive. Songs would be sung of the ship. In that way I would survive.
—Well, said Carlyle, I can see why Grieve likes you.
James turned his head sharply. Carlyle, surprisingly, seemed to blush slightly.
—We've been friends since childhood, he explained, and she confides in me.
Finally they reached the last row of bottles. There must be thousands of bottles down here, thought James. He had never seen so much wine in one place.
—I am told, said Carlyle, that this is one of the finest collections outside of France. Of course, it is not just wine. There are fine sherries, cognacs, whiskeys. Stark delights in waiting for the experts to declare that there are no more bottles of such and such left in the world. Then he produces one and sells it for a huge price, and then gives the money to charity. He is a great man.
—How did you meet him? asked James.
He turned down the last aisle and walked along, running his hand over the wine bottles. In the low light it was hard to tell, but they certainly looked old. He took one out. ST. GROUSARD, 1806,it said.
—That's certainly not drinkable, said Carlyle. Just for show, for pleasure. Did you know that when Napoleon lost and the vineyards of France were stripped bare, the wine cellars robbed of all their bottles, it turned out to be a sort of boon, because after the great mass of armies had receded to Germany, to Austria, to England, to Russia, to Poland, to Spain, after some years had passed, and France was rebuilding itself, orders began to pour into the same vineyards that had been robbed. The soldiers, the officers, they remembered the glorious wines they had found, and they wanted more.
James felt himself liking this odd young man. He repeated his question.
—How did you meet this Stark?
Carlyle twitched at the word Stark.
He must not have meant to reveal that, thought James. I've gained something.
—My parents died when I was quite young, said Carlyle. He took me in and raised me as his son. I always thought I would marry Grieve, but then, five years ago, I began to get horrible headaches. I changed. I became withdrawn, refused to speak to anyone. Stark had doctors come. They told him I had a tumor in my head the size of a fist, and that I would die within the month.
—But that was five years ago?
—I didn't die that month, said Carlyle.
A gentle smile touched his lips.
—Nor any of the months after that. But my ideas changed. I decided I would not betroth myself to anything, not to an idea, not to a person. That's when I began my studies in earnest.
He looked away into the dark and nodded to himself.
—I always thought, said James, that a sudden death would be best.
—They say mine will be preceded by days of intense headache culminating in a blinding pain that feels, as others have described it, like the light of the sun descended into one's eyes. I have read accounts of it, accounts of such deaths. I do not envy myself what's to come.
—But it's been five years, said James. The tumor must have shrunk.
—I have it looked at every now and then. On my birthday, actually. It's a sort of joke. It hasn't shrunk. Not a bit. But it hasn't grown.
James thought it over.
—So you and Grieve used to, you know . . .
—No, said Carlyle, laughing. We only thought we would be for each other, one day, long into the future.
James and he had begun the walk back to the stairs. He continued laughing.
—You are welcome to try keeping her happy. No one, of course, has ever succeeded in that.
Carlyle was gone. They had parted when they reached the hall. James felt uncertain. He seemed to be staring at a broad sheet of paper spread out upon the ground, and all the letters were wiggling and moving of their own accord whenever he looked closely.
He would go back up to his room and see what the day looked like through the windows of the room in which he had woken with Lily Violet.
In the Pillow
In the pillow no note from Grieve. No notes either upon the shelf.
An hour passed. He fell asleep and woke in the chair. Somehow the maid had been and gone, for in the pillowcase was a note from Grieve.
It said:
* * *
No one spoke of you yet today or acknowledged your existence. I shouldn't wonder if they let you go soon.
* * *
This was disturbing to James, who, like anyone, did not like being so easily forgotten. After all, he thought, I spoke with the dying McHale. I know the whole plot. They can't forget me so easily. Besides, he thought, Carlyle said they'd been speaking of me. But he thought of McHale's brusqueness on the porch.
You know nothing, came the room's quiet reply. And it was true. What had he found out? If this decimal were to be placed like light in a tube then in what becoming would he have failed? He could name three: the first, his dying trust; the second, that owed those he loved (who did he love?); and the third, his own.
And so in the room James sat and thought how useless the pistol was to him, and how if only he could find his way through these habits and rules to the heart of the game being played . . .
He felt a horror at incidental things, at the dust in corners, the folding of cloth, the feel of paper.
James had seen two men die in the space of two days, and both of their dying was partly his fault. He had kept the thought far from him, but it was undeniable. In the brackets and boxes of his voluminous memory were all the impressions, labeled and fitted, of both deaths. There would be for him no easy forgetting.
A Lesson
When James had applied for the work, taken and passed the necessary examinations, been shown to the back room, fitted with a suit, fingerprinted, voice-tested, lie-detectored, he came before a powerful man, the owner of the firm.
—You are young, no? said the man. Younger than we like here. You know, we like a man to have a bit of experience before coming to us. We feel it puts him on better footing with those he will find it necessary to interact with as a professional.
James said then that he certainly had been around, had traveled extensively, and was well versed in the fields adjoining that of this profession.
—But that's the thing, don't you see, the man had said. There's no way to know what will be required. You have to make a study of everything. And, of course, he said, once you put something in, it never comes out. The training is quite effective that way.
He took James by the arm and led him to the window.
—How old are you? he asked.
—Twenty years to the day, said James.
—To the day, said the man quietly, as if musing. To the day. You have to know what you're getting into. It is a strange life, that of the mnemonist. It is most difficult to form relationships. Many of our best find their lives are lonely. Of course, the remuneration is great. You will find the work easy, though the travel is time-consuming. And truly, I mean it. You will hardly forget a thing once you have gone through the training. When are you scheduled?
James said that he was to begin the next week.
—So, you will be twenty-three when the training is done, said the man.
He pressed a buzzer on his desk. A man came to the door.
—Sir?
—This Sim. I would like his progress monitored. I would like to be personally apprised of it.
—That can be done. Certainly, sir.
—Very good.
The owner made an away-with-you gesture with his hand, and the man disappeared through the door.
I wonder, thought James to himself. Will I begin to remember older things more clearly, or just things from now on?
In his exploring, James had somehow managed to enter a locked room. Consternation then among the technicians.
—What are you doing here?
—I'm sorry, said James. I didn't realize.
—But this is the egg room! cried one of the attendants, a young man dressed head to toe in white.
—I can see that, said James. It looks like an egg room. I can't imagine what else it would be.
—You have to leave immediately, said one of the technicians.
The others all nodded their agreement.
—If you leave now, no one will say that you were here. We will all say that you have never been in the egg room.
—Okay, said James. I'm leaving.
And he left the egg room through the door by which he came. It locked after him with a definitive click.
Never again, thought James. Never again, the egg room.
RULE 143
When entering a room one must always wait until one is spoken to to speak if the room is occupied by 3, 5, or 7 people. If there are 2, 4, or 9 (or 8 on Thursdays), one has the right to speak first. Otherwise, 8 is the clouted numeral and one mustn't speak at all until one has slept and woken. This may of course be laid like a trap, like a setting at table, but such deeds will be recorded and rewarded as they are done, whether good or ill. If 1 is in the room, the bell applies. The library is exempt: a rule of silence save between those in love and alone. Never should there be a gathering of more than 9. That room cannot be entered. One would knock, and request, by dint of paper, the leaving of the room by an occupant. OF COURSE, if one enters in a pair, the rules are more complicated. The pair may speak first, save when three are within, but the pair must speak in turn, and each finish the other's sentences. A pair opening a door onto a room of three must bow their heads in shame and one must speak for the other for three days, during which they mayn't be parted. Groups of more than three traveling in tandem through the halls, entering rooms willy-nilly, should consult the appendix for further rules of behavior, as this ought not to be a matter of course and therefore will not be approved of by situational mention here.
Grieve found James where he sat reading a book in the library. He was on a sort of balcony that ran both lengths of the library, and connected across every now and then with a little bridge. She walked up behind him.
—Hello, said James.
She smiled.
James rolled over to look up at her, and put his arms behind his head.
—What have you been doing all day? he asked.
—I shouldn't say, said Grieve. You wouldn't like me anymore.
—No? asked James.
—No, said Grieve. I go on Thursdays to a hospital and sew people's arms and legs back on. I'm not a doctor or anything. I just discovered one day how good I was at sewing on arms and legs. I'd done it often enough with puppets and stuffed animals, and so, I thought, well, a person can't be much different. To be honest I tried it first with a dog, but the human arm was much too big and the dog just kind of dragged it around.
—What are you talking about? asked James.
—Nothing, said Grieve. I was just thinking out loud.
She was wearing a short pleated skirt with a cream-colored blouse. From where James was lying, he could see most of her legs.
He told her about this fact.
—Well, she said, what do you think about that?
and lay down beside him.
They looked up then at the ceiling. Words had been painted across the entire ceiling of the library.
—What does it say? asked James.
—It's in a cipher, said Grieve. My father painted it himself. It's an entire book, in a cipher, a book he wrote. No one has ever read it.
—Oh, said James.
He looked back and forth across the ceiling. Back and forth he looked. When he had looked back and forth five times he knew he had memorized this strange book. He would write it out, he thought, he would write it out and decipher the code at his leisure.
This looking and thinking, though sudden, had taken perhaps ten, perhaps fifteen minutes. Grieve had fallen asleep. Her head was on his shoulder. He shifted his arm beneath her neck. She moved in her sleep and put her arm on his chest. Her leg slid up and across him, and she settled comfortably. Her breathing b
ecame regular again.
James ran his hand lightly over her back and listened to her breathe.
What next? he asked himself.
James stood near the front door. Grieve had woken up and gone off. He had gone off too. When someone wakes up and goes off, it never feels right to stay in the place where you were with them. One should always go off and find something new if one is to keep oneself perennially young and happy.
What's next? he asked himself.
If, he thought to himself, the whole thing is a dream, then it would all work out properly. How could he know if it was a dream? He could ask someone, certainly.
He approached a woman who was folding towels on a long wooden table. Her hair smelled like trees in the out-of-doors.
—Is this a dream? he asked.
—Please don't talk to me, she said, and smiled in a really fabulous way.
He began to try all the ordinary ways of getting out of dreams, pinching, etc. These did not work.
There was a phone in the hall next to the long table.
I will call someone on the telephone, said James to himself, someone who knows me, and I will ask them whether or not I am asleep right now.
James went to the telephone. He called the house of his wife, and asked her if he was in bed at that moment asleep.
—I'll go and check, she said.
After a minute, she came back. Her voice sounded so warm and happy. He could tell that she was glad he had called.
—Yes, you're asleep. I wouldn't worry about it. The covers had come off your feet. I put them right, and laid an extra blanket across the bottom. I think you'll sleep really well now. And besides, I'll be coming to bed in a minute, and then I'll wake you anyway and I will not have any clothes on and neither will you. That will be nice.
—Yes, said James. That will be nice. I will look forward to that, then.
—Good-bye, said James's wife. I love you.