Academic Exercises

by K. J. Parker

  “You just open a door. By imagining it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But you don’t want to go trying it. Come on, we’ve got dogs to molest.”

  We went back. I worked. She was quiet and I was busy. Up and down those bloody stairs, in and out of my study—it looked different, though I didn’t stop to look closely. But I got the impression that some of the books had been moved, and my father’s portrait was by the window instead of the door. The Fourth room. I really didn’t want to think about that. My fault, for letting her get over-confident.

  “Can I have a go?” she said, at some point. “On my own?”

  Sure, I thought, why not? “Later,” I said. “Let’s just get through the rush, and then we’ll see.”

  There are people—loads of them—who really like dogs. I don’t object to them, most of the time. By mid afternoon, however, I’d had enough. The Razoan hunting dog isn’t, in any case, a thing of beauty. Its head is too big for its body, and all its ribs stick out, and it drools. It’s about the size of a large goat, and it only eats raw meat. The smell, accordingly, can be a bit intense.

  This one was nothing out of the ordinary; it was a silver-point roan (that means brown; they’re all brown) bitch with an underslung jaw—that’s a fault, apparently, means it’s worth less money, I have no idea why. Its owners were two sad old men in coats way too big for them, so that the sleeves came down to the quicks of their fingernails. I was beginning to ask myself, quite forcefully, why I was bothering. After all, nobody would know if I just sat there, rapt mystic expression on face, then nodded and said “Next.” Nobody would care. Nobody.

  I hadn’t let her have a go on her own yet. She hadn’t asked again. She looked bored.

  I opened a door. Second room, stairs, Third room. On my way through, I helped myself to a stiff drink from one of the crystal decanters. One of the great disappointments about rooms is that anything you drink there tastes of cold tea and doesn’t do anything. I checked the silver label on the decanter. Hundred-year-old brandy. Cold tea.

  I turned to the window. Everything normal, everything grey. Might as well not have bothered.

  Something moved in the room.

  You know how, in really good portraits, they play tricks on you. The eyes follow you around the room, or the feet are always pointed at you, no matter where you stand. I understand that artists train for years to learn how to do that. You can’t do it with a form, by the way. I’ve tried.

  If you were to ask me why I put a portrait of my father in my dream study, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t actually remember putting it there. It just turned up one day, and I accepted it. It’s a very overstuffed room. By the same token, I can’t remember calling into existence each of the thousand or so books on the shelves; but if you look closely, each one’s got a title, and if you pull one down at random and open it, there are words on the pages and everything. Most of them are books I’ve read at some time; others, I can only assume, are books I will read one day but haven’t read yet. None of them are any good. I’ve always believed that the room pulled them out of my mind, so to speak, to fill gaps on the shelves; the same, presumably, with the portrait.

  But it’s not a good portrait. In fact, it’s pretty ghastly. In that respect, I’d always given the room due credit. Catch me paying fancy money for a portrait of my father. It’s just a daub, makes him look like a lobster in a fake beard. And it shows him in profile, so the eyes most definitely don’t follow you around.

  He was looking at me.

  I did the only thing I could. I looked back.

  A necessary digression.

  Not all practitioners are as celibate as they ought to be. My father, for example. He entered the Academy at Oudeis Oudemia when he was five—child prodigy—and was formally inducted at thirteen. I imagine he was insufferable at that age. He went on to be senior lecturer at Oudeis for forty years, and ended his career as vice-chancellor of the Studium. No under-achiever. Not like his son.

  I still don’t know exactly how he came by me. He never said, I never asked. I take it that an opportunity arose, and he made full use of it. Rules were things he made; they didn’t apply to him. Anyway, I was one of the many rare and curious objects cluttering up his lodgings for fourteen years, and then I was packed off to the Studium. Other kids went home for the holidays. I took advantage of the empty library. Didn’t occur to me to find it strange.

  I saw him once, after I left home. That’s the memory of him that found its way into the portrait. I came back to my lodgings after my induction ceremony, and he was there waiting. He’d brought me a present, the only one he ever gave me: a copy of Sthenelaus’ Reflections and Maxims. I sold it two years ago, and was surprised at how much it was worth. He handed me the book, scowled at me down his ridiculously long nose (that and Sthenelaus are all I ever got from him) and said, “Don’t disappoint me.” Then he walked out.

  “But you have,” he said.

  I wasn’t having any of that. I looked him straight in his painted eye, and said: “You aren’t real. You’re a room artefact. Presumably you’re my inner guilt, reminding me I’m a failure. It’s just because I’m pissed off after two days with the dogs.”

  He looked at me. I felt the need to break the silence. I said; “Probably the mentoring’s got something to do with it. I’m upset that she’s done so well, it’s reminded me that I’ve got all this talent and I’m here mind-reading dogs, while she’s on the brink of a splendid career. Stop looking at me like that or I’ll turn you to the wall.”

  He didn’t blink. “You disappointed me,” he said.

  “So what?” I turned back to the window, and saw the inside of a closed shutter.

  “You’re a fool,” he said.

  He used to say that a lot: when I got a homework question wrong—he always went over my homework after I’d done it, made me do it again, then tore up what I’d written and dictated an answer. The teachers knew, but he was their boss. “Quite probably,” I said. “But this is my room. Get out.”

  He laughed; and he was standing in front of me, towering, much taller than he’d ever been (but he was that much taller than me when I was fourteen). “Work it out,” he said. “Do it again.”

  “That proves my point,” I answered, stepping back until my heel collided with the desk. “You’re just pulling phrases out of my memory. You aren’t real.”

  He pushed past me, went behind the desk and sat down, in my chair. I had no option. I sat down in the student’s chair. “You’re guilty of a false premise,” he said.

  I thought about it. “I don’t think so,” I replied. “This is my room. Therefore, if you’re in it, I must have created you.”

  “That’s the false premise,” he said.

  Oh, I thought.

  Do it again. How do things arrive in the Third room? They come in with you, or from outside. If he hadn’t—

  “Come in with you,” he said, “therefore I must have come in from outside. What’s outside?”

  I nodded, couldn’t help it. “The dog’s mind,” I said.

  “Correct.” He tapped the desktop with his fingertip, his way of awarding me a single, begrudged mark.

  “So what are you?” I said. “Are you a—?”

  “Demon.” He shook his head. “An unquiet inhabitant of a far, dark room, determined to creep through into the light. Is that what you believe?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “In which case,” he went on, “you must believe that I have infiltrated your memory and pulled out the most intimidating identity I found there, with the aim of dominating you and taking possession of your physical body.” He scowled. “Is that really how you think of me? Your worst nightmare?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re guilty of limited thinking,” he said. “Do it again.”

  I took my time. One thing I’ll say for him, he was always patient with me, in a brutal sort of a way. I said, “The rooms are where we come from, and where we go to. Even the
untalenteds have access to two of them.”

  He nodded. “Birth and death.”

  “The Third room—”

  “You’re forgetting,” he said. “How did I come in here?”

  I frowned. “In the dog’s head,” I said.

  “False premise.”

  I could feel my hands clenching into fists. “All right,” I said. “I admit it, I’m too stupid to figure it out for myself. So just tell me, all right?”

  He shook his head sadly. I’d disappointed him again. “Very well.”

  “What are you?”

  “I am what I look like,” he said.

  I thought about that. “You died nine years ago,” I said.

  “I went into another room,” he replied. “But I confess I didn’t find it much to my taste. That disappointed me. I’d always hoped that the far room would be beguiling, fascinating, a place of answers, a room I’d never been able to reach. Instead—” He shrugged his broad, thin shoulders. “The windows all face the courtyard and all the books are ones I’d read before. The rules say I have to stay there. But the rules—”

  I think it was that that clinched it for me. It was him all right. “What do you want?” I asked.

  “To come back, of course,” he replied. “I find the far room intolerable. Recently I have once again become aware of the passage of time. They assure me that that is not possible, that there is no time in the far room. I fear that that is yet another rule that doesn’t apply to me.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then went on; “There are days in my death: hours, minutes. They pass very slowly. My mind is every bit as active as it ever was. I need to come back. There is so much I want to do. I can discover new things. I can be useful. You, on the other hand—”

  He didn’t need to be explicit. Fair point, after all. I’m a chronic under-achiever, and who would miss me? “Is that possible?” I said.

  “It can be done,” he replied. Then he leaned forward, unusually animated. I’d only ever seen him this passionate once or twice before. “Be logical,” he said. “There are two of us, and only one body. Which of us should have it? Which of us will make the better use of it? It’s an old ethical question, you could never get it right: where there are needs and resources, who has the better right to them? I say there can only be one correct answer. Look at yourself. What have you ever done to justify your existence?”

  The Third room can be full of mirrors sometimes. This was one of those times.

  We looked in the mirror together. I saw my entire life. I had to admit, he had a point.

  “I asked you,” he said, “not to disappoint me. I knew that one day I must pass into the far room. I had high hopes of it, but I was deceived. I trusted you to fulfill those promises I had made but would not live to keep: research, discovery, the amazing things I could have done had I lived. I gave you intelligence, a prodigious talent. You failed me. Accordingly, I have the right.”

  I thought about it. “You can’t come back,” I said.

  “The rules don’t apply to me.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But this is my room. Get out.”

  He stood up, looming over me. He reached out, and his hands closed around my throat. “You will go into the far room,” he said. “It resembles the life you’ve made for yourself so closely that I dare say you won’t notice the difference. I, on the other hand, am simply taking back what’s mine.”

  I could feel his fingers tightening. I put my hand on the desk and fumbled for something to use as a weapon. I found a knife. I stuck it in him.

  He looked at me. His face was so close to mine that I could feel his breath. A demon, of course, wouldn’t breathe.

  “Go back,” I said.

  His eyes were fading. “Please,” he said. I didn’t reply. I wasn’t there when he died, the first time. I made up for that.

  He faded, bit by bit. When he was completely gone, I looked for his portrait on the wall. Not there any more.

  Then I looked at the knife.

  I went back and did the rest of the dogs. Nothing; everything was grey, like it’s supposed to be. I looked for the portrait, but I couldn’t find it. Ever since then, I have difficulty remembering what he looked like. Ah well, no great loss.

  When the last dog had been led away, I said; “Let’s go and have a drink. I need one.”

  We sat on opposite sides of a wobbly table. I swilled down a jug of the local poison before she said anything.

  “You didn’t let me have a go on my own,” she said.

  “No.” I drained the last drop into my cup and swallowed it. No effect, like the booze in the Third room. I wondered if my punishment was a life of unbreakable sobriety. “Just as well I didn’t, really. Don’t you think?”

  She looked at me. “You know,” she said.

  I nodded wearily. “Yes,” I said. “Took me long enough to figure it out, but I did, eventually. Had to be told,” I added. “Couldn’t see it for myself.”

  She didn’t say anything. Apparently, it was up to me.

  “Things can only get into the Third room,” I said, “if someone brings them there. Earlier today, I found a knife, just when I needed one. I didn’t bring it there. You did.”

  She just looked at me.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You’re welcome,” she replied.

  “But that’s not all you left there,” I went on. “Was it?”

  She shrugged. “What’s a girl to do?” she said.

  I almost felt sorry for her. But it hadn’t been her hands on my throat. I could have forgiven that. It was his.

  “You don’t belong here,” I said. “And you didn’t come here in the head of some dog.”

  “I just want to go home,” she said. “What’s so terrible about that?”

  “But you can’t,” I replied. “It’s against the rules.”

  “Some rules don’t apply to some people.”

  I laughed. “How much time did you spend with him?” I asked.

  “Longer than you did.” She smiled bleakly. “Actually, it really was all his fault. He conjured me, from the room where I lived. I didn’t want to go, but he was very strong. I was his familiar for fifty years.”

  I nodded. “And when he died—”

  “I was stuck here. I didn’t even have a body, not for a long time, not till he died and I was able to wriggle free. This was the only body I could get.” She grinned. “Not what I’d have chosen.”

  “Because the talent is so rare among women.” I nodded. “And the late onset, too.”

  “Nine years,” she said. “When he died. It fitted rather nicely. Don’t blame yourself for not suspecting.”

  “I should have,” I replied. “You got out of breath on the stairs, which should’ve told me you were at home there, not an intruder. You saw the stairs as the staircase up to the appointments office, when I got this job; you took that from my mind. You couldn’t do rooms; then, as soon as I teach you, you’re a natural at them. You played on my vanity. I hadn’t realised I still had one.”

  She laughed at that. “Of course you do,” she said. “You think you’re amazingly brilliant, but your life’s been ruined by your father. Which is largely true,” she added. “That’s something we have in common.”

  “You took him in there,” I said, “when we went there together. You left him there to wait for me. I should’ve known when you said you’re colour-blind.”

  “Silly of me,” she said. “Maybe I wanted you to guess, so I gave you a great big hint.”

  I looked in my cup but it was still empty. “Was that the deal?” I said. “You’d take him back, and in return he’d let you through? After he’d murdered me?”

  She looked down at her hands. “If that was the deal,” she said, “why did I leave you the knife?”

  I took a deep breath. “I think that question is the reason we’re having this conversation,” I said. “Otherwise I’d have blown you away with philon hetor the moment I got back.”

  She lo
oked at me, again. “I must have changed my mind,” she said.

  “I suppose you must,” I said. “How did you find me?”

  “Wasn’t easy,” she said. “You disappeared into obscurity, it took me most of the nine years just to track you down. I wanted to use someone else, but he insisted. He said he didn’t have a right to take anybody else’s life. Just yours.”

  “He always was a very ethical man,” I said. “And a great one for rules.”

  “Well?” she said. “Will you? You owe me, for the knife.”

  I thought about it. “I’m not sure I know how.”

  “He did. He told me. I can tell you.” She grinned. “It’s not too difficult, actually. Even you should be able to manage it.”

  I thought: about him, my life, under-achievement generally. I thought: I am my father’s son, and he left unfinished business. And the rules: the rules don’t apply to me.

  The door wasn’t locked. He was in his office.

  “Had a good time in the sticks?” he said, not looking up from his paperwork.

  “A bit boring,” I replied. “But thanks anyway.”

  He looked up. “You’re welcome,” he said. “How were the dogs?”

  “Very much as you’d expect,” I said. “I think I might get myself one, for the company.”

  He nodded slowly. “And the mentoring,” he said. “How did that work out?”

  I shrugged. “She wasn’t suited,” I said. “She’s given up. Gone home.”

  “Ah well.” He shook his head. “Probably just as well. There isn’t really a place for women in the profession.” He uncorked the bottle on his desk, poured himself one, offered me one. I refused. “Really,” he said, “there ought to be a rule about it.”

  “Quite,” I said. “Well, thanks again. Please bear me in mind when something else turns up.”

  I left, down the stairs, out into the street. My two weeks’ work had earned me forty shillings. I spent one of them on a bottle of hundred-and-fifty proof. Sadly, like the rules, I found it didn’t apply to me.

  Cutting Edge Technology

  War is a great generator of ironies. My all-time favourites are the patent infringement lawsuits brought against the US government after World War I by the German arms industry. The US, desperate to upgrade its antiquated rifles and ammo when it entered the war, had copied the Mauser bolt action and the German-designed spitzer bullet to create the Springfield rifle. The German patent holders won the suit, and the US had to pay royalties on every rifle issued to and every bullet fired by their armed forces during the war. I’d put that in a book, but nobody would believe it.