Samedi the Deafness

day the fourth

James went to the window. He could see that two police cars had made their way up the main drive. They parked blocking the driveway; policemen got out.

From out of the house came two men, Graham and one other. Who was it? He looked like a doctor. Probably Sermon.

Graham and Sermon spoke with the policemen for some time. They made gestures with their hands. To these the policemen responded with nods. These nods were in turn responded to with nods and further gestures.

After a little while, the policemen got back into their cars.

— What's going on? called Grieve from the bed.

— Nothing, said James. Some police came.

She stood up and hopped over. She had sewn herself into a bag the night before. She said she and James didn't know each other well enough to sleep in the same bed otherwise, but that certainly there was no other bed that she intended to sleep in that night but his, and he had better get used to it. He had said nothing but had watched with a great deal of astonishment as she had honestly and truly sewn herself inside a bag.

Now she was standing next to him.

— Sweetheart, she said. Hold me up, will you?

She leaned against him, and he put his arms around her. He could feel the warmness of her skin through the thin layer of cotton.

He thought then of how he had seen her in the diner and had immediately liked her. He'd liked her so much that he'd decided against her for his own good.

— You know, she said. They came for you.

— What? asked James.

— It's not the first time, she said. They came yesterday too. Of course, they know that you killed Mayne. They think it was for the drugs. Apparently there wasn't much money in the house. Anyway, his wife and kid have testified that you threw him out the window. So. .

She paused, slid around in his arms and kissed him hard on the mouth.

— Father sent the police away when they came here looking for you. I guess you left the mask at the house with the package I sent it in, and they traced that here. So, they thought maybe you came here.

She turned back to the window. The police cars were now making their way along the road in the distance.

— Don't worry, she said. They'll never come to get you here. Father will see to it. And if we want to go someplace else, like Provence, or Andalusia, well, he'll see to that, too. Don't you like having me around? she asked.

James said that he had not killed Mayne, not at all. Mayne had jumped, he maintained. There was no reason for him to kill Mayne. It made no sense at all.

— But why were you in the apartment in the first place? she asked. That's what no one understands. Not that we need to. No one would ever ask you about it. It's your business, of course.

In fact, don't answer. Don't feel that you need to. Anyway, come back to bed. It's cold here by the window.

She hopped back over to the bed, flopped onto it, and crawled under the covers.

James continued looking out the window. It was Wednesday, he thought. Wednesday. Three days till Saturday. He wished he could speak to McHale again, and judge if the man was mad or not.

He turned. Grieve was up on one elbow, looking at him. Her bare shoulder and arm were out of the sewn bag. What fine skin.

Grieve cocked her head, and made a noise like a crow.

— That's the noise, she said, that crows make to warn the other crows when something that isn't a crow is coming through the woods.

The Garden

In the center of the house there was a garden. James stood by it and watched a man with scissors. First the scissors were sharpened for a very long time. The noise was somehow cruel.

Never, thought James, would I want to hear such noise through a window, to hear such a noise and not know why it had come.

The shears trimmed the plants held by the man. So sharp were they that they did not seem to touch that which they cut. The man did not look at James. All his great attention was spread throughout the garden. He was broad of face and feature, broad of limb and leg. He moved with a slow precision. Nothing seemed to escape him. His effect on the garden was noticeable. As he moved it seemed to order itself around him.

James was sure that it was Samedi. Never had he felt so lessened by the presence of another. Like a child, James turned in his own hand. Like a window he shut.

He stepped back, stepped back again, and found himself at the door. He stepped back through it, shut it, and leaned against the other side.

— What do I know? asked James. What do I give myself to know?

And he knew then that the task before him was too large, that a man like Samedi could entertain him like a passing notion, but would never be persuaded by his speech or swayed by his actions.

A gravity then, as of a sickroom bound to the passing of its few.

James went along the hallways, went upon the stairs. What he would do he did not know, but at times he heard the ringing of bells; at times he froze. Yet none came to him, and there were no words in his head but those he himself spoke in indecision.

Today he said, I will explore the house. I will learn what I can, and then make my escape.

Upon the porch he passed McHale, dressed as though returning from town. James made as if to speak, but McHale scowled and passed, shaking his head.

Good lord, thought James. I forgot the rule. He looked at the bell in his hand.

James had breakfast on the porch. It was brought to him by the maid, Grieve, but he pretended that he did not know her. He supposed she would have been fired if it was found out that she was helping him. So, he gave her the cold shoulder. This seemed correct; she did the same to him.

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 became 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.

— Good-bye, said James.

He hung up the phone. The girl who was folding towels had stopped. She was looking at him curiously.

— Who were you talking to? she asked.

— I wasn't really talking to anyone, he said. The phone doesn't work. It's just a toy phone, made out of wood.

And it was true. The phone was made entirely out of wood.

James lifted it off the wall hook and set it on the table. The girl and he looked together then at the wooden phone.

— I wonder who made it, she said.

— And why, said James.

— It must have been a very long time ago, said the girl, before there were ever phones. This probably only resembles a phone by chance, and in fact, in tribal culture had an entirely different significance. Perhaps it was used to feather arrows or bring to term unwilling births.

— I should think so, said James.

Suddenly the ringing of a bell. The two froze where they stood.

David Graham came into the hall. He rang the bell again. Everyone stood quietly as they counted together to fifteen. Then Graham came up to James. He was smiling and his pants were soaking wet.

A Visit from Sermon

— We've been looking all over for you, James, he said. Sermon's coming. He'd like a word with you.

— Certainly, said James. When?

— It's unclear right now, said Graham. But be ready. Also, don't worry — you can tell him anything. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that. He won't have to testify.

— I was going to ask you, said James. The police. .

— Yes, said Graham. It's a bad business. A bad business. They keep coming around. I know it must worry you, but it really shouldn't. After all, he was just some drug dealer. Estrainger knew him, hated him. The whole building knew he was beating his wife. No one's sorry he's dead. But the police have to do their job, I suppose. Yes, it's good you're here. They won't find you here, you know. We'll keep them away.

He patted James on the shoulder.

— It's best today, I think, said Graham, that you zip around and explore the place. See what you can see. Get comfortable. Navigating can be a bit of a problem. You see, the hospital wing has some mechanized hallways that switch occasionally. But there's an hour-schedule for it all in the book. Have you read the book?

James confessed that he had not yet read the whole book.

— Well, do that as soon as you can. It'll really be worthwhile. And, of course, there are some people around here it wouldn't do to offend. No, not at all. Very sensitive. Yes, read up. Read up.

He walked away.

An Hour Passed

and James sat in an interior room with the shades drawn. An older man, apparently a permanent resident, was seated and playing rovnin.

Rovnin! It was so rare to find anyone who even knew the game, though of course in the sixteenth, the seventeenth, the eighteenth centuries, Swedes and Danes and Russians lived and died in its mad dictates.

FIRST:

a sort of stringed set of sticks with markers

a calling out of numbers

a switching between systems: base ten, base nine, base seven

the creation of “proxies,” fictional players who aid, abet, or at times foil one's own newmade schemes

There were books in James's childhood home on rovnin. His father had loved the game. James remembered the days they would spend in the cottage, playing at rovnin in the long hours, and roaming the fields and wood. He cleaned himself, preened himself in this memory as a bird might in a puddle. And as a bird, he had no notion of the true size of the world, or of its careening path through the larger sky beyond the sky.

It was then he remembered Cecily

The girl Cecily. Her hair brushed back, wet from a swim. The dress over her arm as she stands naked on a past day as though crossing a stream. Take off your dress, Cecily, it is too fine and the stream will ruin it. Take it off and cross the stream. In the dimness of it he saw how lovely she had been, how young. He had held up the stem of some flower and she had followed him, saying nothing. Her voice now was lost to him. So many other voices he could conjure, even speak with. But Cecily's was lost there in the dimness of the water. Her body and the light gone trailing after.

Years of this, years of remembering Cecily. James had read somewhere that the truly fine and beautiful always die as children. They can't grow up. Something won't allow them.

About Rovnin

The man beat him the first time, easily, and laughed.

— Not very good, are you? he said.

— I don't get much chance to play, said James evenly.

— So that's your excuse, said the man, and laid the strings and rods back into their initial positions.

He leaned back in his chair and looked James up and down.

— It's not an easy game, he said finally. No one knows how to play it, anyway.

— I have some books, said James. I like to play through the old games.

— Old games are useless, said the man.

He spit into his hand and rubbed the top of his head.

— If you want, I can teach you to play well. It will take me one day. But it will cost you some money. James looked at the man warily.

— Do you think I'm some kind of fool? he asked. You're not that much better than me.

The man only laughed. Looking past James he called out,

— Next!

James turned to see who was there.

Obviously, no one was.

The man laughed again.

— Come back if you want, said the man. We'll play. But don't let the others see that you're so miserable at it. Though I don't, of course, not me, no, the others might think less of you.

I love, said James to himself, this idea of the doctor being pitted against death in a game of chess. The patient is between them, the night is long. Some village girl is standing near. She is concerned but cannot speak. Perhaps she cannot see death where he crouches beside the bed. But they are old enemies, death and the village doctor, met a thousand times. In the doctor's eye are the memories of the encounters he has won, and beside them, the encounters he has lost, larger in size, but unfocused. This is his strength, but also his weakness, for death is without memory, holding in a gray place the world's passing. It is a fallacy that death judges. He chooses, but does not judge. The doctor knows this. Delicately, he makes his move. The curtains blow in a sudden gust of wind. Death is gone from the room. The patient has been saved.

James went out to the porch. He sat down in a rocking chair. Out of the pocket of his suit, he took a small knife. He leaned down out of the rocking chair and cut a thin line in the wood of the porch all around his chair so that he was sitting then in a sort of circle, broken by the chinks between the planks. But serviceable still.

What do I know? asked James.

He had seen Samedi pruning the garden. As a mnemonist he had learned to trust his intuition. The gathering of facts created lattices of meaning that could not be known, but only trusted. He was sure of it. What was the disaster? Should James send an anonymous letter to the police, revealing his accusations? How could he even get off the grounds, though? Could he get off the grounds? Would they allow him? Perhaps he should test them on that point.

James stood up, brushed himself off, crossed the porch and proceeded down the driveway. As he went, he thought about something Grieve had mentioned that morning.

The Idea Was That

there were three types of people. The first were those who became immediately angry about what had just happened, and who then thereafter lessened in their anger. Any danger from such a person came in the moments after the first difficulty.

The second type seemed only slightly angry about what had happened. They might even say to you, Oh, don't worry about it. It's just fine. It's fine. But as time passes they become more and more angry. An hour after the incident, they are steaming. Two hours and they would murder you with their bare hands if they could. Their anger then enters into a long winter, hibernating, and when and if they can, they will do you unconscionable and incommensurate wrong.

The third type is not troubled much by what you did. Although it was in fact one of their favorite belongings, and although they realize precisely what it meant to them, precisely how sad it is that the object in question is gone, and also precisely how inconsiderate you must have been to have broken the thing in the first place, nonetheless they forgive you for it, and the matter is not spoken of again, save perhaps in soft and gentle jest.

At the foot of the driveway, a gate. The gate, locked. There was, however, an intercom.

James pressed the button.

— Hello, he said.

— This is the house, said a man's voice.

— I'd like the gate opened, said James. It's me, James Sim.

— Right, said the man. Hold on a moment.

A few seconds passed.

— Give me actually two minutes.

The line went dead.

James stood quietly between the lines of hedge. It was like a glass panel, like an inked negative, the day spread out in glorious colors of leaves and hours. He began to hum to himself.

BZZZZZ!

The gate began to swing open. James jumped back, for it was heading straight for him with its massive iron arms.

A car pulled through. When the driver saw James, he stopped. Torquin was driving. James flinched.

The back window of the car rolled down. A young doctor, dressed nattily, was seated in the back. Beside him, a very beautiful woman could be seen.

— Sim? he asked.

— Yes, said James.

This must be Sermon, he thought to himself.

— Have you come to speak with me? asked James.

— For that, and other reasons. Do you have a moment?

— Of course, said James.

— Get in, then, get in, said Sermon. On the other side.

James went around to the other side of the limousine. The door was unlocked. He opened it and got in.

The girl had slid into Sermon's lap to make room. The doctor looked at him inquisitively.

— So, out for a walk?

— Yes, said James.

Sermon ran his hand up and down the girl's leg.

— It's nice to go for a walk, he said.

— I like walks, too, said the girl. I'm Leonora, she said, Loft. Leonora Loft. We haven't been properly introduced.

— Of course, said Sermon, how cruel of me. Leonora, James, James, Leonora. Leonora, he said, is the authority on Prussia. Aren't you?

— An authority, said Leonora patiently. Frederick the Great. You know, he was good friends with Voltaire.

— I didn't know that, said James.

— Xavier, said Leonora, is a psychologist. Be careful what you tell him. He reads volumes in specks and specks in volumes.

— My life, said Sermon to no one in particular, is a battle against sarcasm. No one understands the dangers of irony. If only we could all be like the aborigines or the Hopi, living unfettered by other states than the immediate.

The car had stopped in front of the house.

— Shall we talk here? asked James. Or do you want to go inside?

— We shall talk, said Sermon, over a coffee, if you don't mind.

— Frederick the Great, said Leonora, drank enormous amounts of coffee. He hated sleeping, and tried to go for as long as possible drinking coffee and not sleeping. He was forced to stop, however, when he began to hallucinate.

Sermon's hand had crept up beneath her skirt.

— Have you no tact? she said. We just met this man.

— He might as well, said Sermon, know how things are around here.

She opened the door and slid out.

Sermon shook his head.

— It's a long life. People say that life is short, but I don't believe it. One day, one long day after another, and nothing to fill the days but complexities and cancers. Do you know, the word cancer was once used for any illness that could not be cured?

— I don't think that's true, said James.

— No, it's not, said Sermon. It's not true at all. The effect of untrue statements on casual conversation is one of my great loves, my great ongoing investigations. Shall we go inside?

As they approached the house, McHale came out the front door. He rang his bell. Everyone froze. Leonora seemed in particular to take a severe pleasure in freezing even her expression. She stared off in a dazed fashion towards the gardens.

After the count of fifteen, McHale approached Sermon.

— Stark wants to speak to you.

Sermon nodded.

To Sim he said:

— Later. I'll send a note.

He held his arm out. Leonora took it, and the two followed McHale back into the house. McHale had not looked at James Sim at all. He had acted, in fact, as though Sim and Leonora were not present. Perhaps that was the proper way to use the bell technique. James thought back to Graham's behavior earlier in the day. Had Graham ignored the maid who was folding towels? He had, certainly he had. But then, everyone ignored the servants, so that meant nothing.

He looked up at the exterior of the house. Many windows ran along it. Hmm, he thought, that's odd. There was a window on the outside of his room that was not on the inside. How could that be?

The Eavesdropping Booth

He went up to his room. Sure enough, there were only three windows. Yet from the outside there were four. And the fourth was plainly in the middle, as he could see his room through the other three, while the fourth was dark.

There was a section where the room sloped in, but it was only half the height, perhaps two-thirds the height of the ceiling, and on an angle. A statue had been placed there, a wooden gargoyle seeming to climb through a lattice of carved leaves. Curious, thought James. The window is behind there.

He went down one flight of stairs to the area beneath his room. There was a door, locked, where his door would have been. It was no. 53.

The noise of his trying the door handle had disturbed the occupant. The door opened. A sallow-faced man stood looking at him.

— Can't you read? he asked.

— Read what? asked James.

The man snorted. On the door James saw there was a drawing of an elephant being eaten by vultures. The elephant's eyes had that strange quality of some eighteenth-century portraits: they seemed to follow James from side to side.

— Isn't that clear enough for you? asked the man.

— I suppose, said James. I was wondering, is there a ladder in your room?

— Look for yourself, said the man.

He snorted again.

James started to go past him into the room, but stopped. There was no room. There were no windows at all. A wall crossed, cutting the room off after only a few feet. There was only space for a pallet and a pillow, a sheet. The walls were covered with more drawings of elephants being eaten by various things. Pigeons, men, women, dogs. All the eyes were the same. The ceiling of the room also was sloped and low.

— It's quite a small room, said James.

— It's all they'll give me, said the man. But I'd like to see them live in it. Shut the door? he asked.

— I'd rather not, said James.

He stepped back out into the hall.

— Suit yourself, said the man.

He went back inside and curled up in an odd way on the bed with his leg sticking up. He leered at James and scratched his oddly rounded belly.

James stared back.

The man sat up suddenly.

— Close the goddamned door, you little shit.

James shut the door.

Therefore, thought James, there must be another room beyond the first. But how to get to that room? Beside the door to the tiny room, there was another door. James knocked on it, three times, for a sudden visit.

The sound of voices, then footsteps. The door opened.

James looked in. There was a little table and a small window. Several chairs were pulled up around the table, and in the chairs were perhaps four or five of the maids he had seen around the house. Grieve was there too. He pretended not to notice her. For her part, she looked at him with surprise.

— I wonder, he said, if you could tell me. .

— You're not supposed to be here, said the maid who opened the door. Don't you know—

— how to get to the room behind that room, said James, pointing to his right.

The question put all the maids into a flurry.

— You have to leave right now, said one.

— Certainly, you must go.

— Don't stand around. What if you're seen?

The maids pushed him together softly out of the room and shut the door. He took from his pocket a glass tumbler and held it against the door, putting his ear to the glass. He could hear them talking.

— How does he know about that room? Who told him?

— Should we tell Mrs. Nagerdorn?

He heard Grieve's voice then.

— We should just forget it. Act like it never happened.

— Oh, you're just saying that, said another voice, because you like him, don't you, Grieve? You like him so much. You like him, you like him, you like him. I've seen you mooning after him.

— And I have too, said another. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if you think about him before you go to bed, if you know what I mean.

— That's nonsense, said Grieve. I don't know him at all, and I don't know what you mean. I just think we should forget it.

Then a voice came from behind James in the hall.

— Interesting business, isn't it, listening at doors? One can find out many things. Many helpful things. Of course, they usually lead to tragedy. Small tragedy, small, yes, but tragedy nonetheless. Household tragedies, you understand.

James spun around.

The man standing there was none other than Samedi, or perhaps-Samedi, Stark, Grieve's father. Beside him stood Sermon. Beside Sermon, Leonora and McHale.

— That's the maids' room, said McHale quietly.

The Best Hiding Place of All

The best hiding place of all, said James's friend Ansilon, from his perch atop James's shoulder, is inside something hollow when no one knows it's hollow.

Ansilon was James's one friend. He was an invisible owl who could tell the future and also speak English, although he preferred to speak in the owl language, which James understood perfectly.

— But if no one knows that it's hollow, said James, then how would I manage to know that it's hollow? Should I just go around with a little hammer, tapping things?

For that reason, said Ansilon, I have purchased for you with what little money I have this lovely little gold hammer. He brought out from a pocket somewhere in his feathers a tiny gold hammer, and handed it with his beak to James.

James took the hammer in his hand. It had a nice weight to it.

Tap everything, said Ansilon, with that hammer, and you'll soon find hollow places in which you can hide, or in which you can hide your precious belongings. But be sure no one else is around when you use the hammer, or you will be found out. It has, after all, he said, happened before that someone who didn't want to was found out, and it happens especially much to boys your age.

James hated it when Ansilon talked about how young he was. Ansilon was 306 years old and knew everything there was to know. But while he was very helpful he was also a bit arrogant, and presumed too much.

— I'm not that young, said James. I'll be seven in three days.

And that's why, said Ansilon, I've gotten you this hammer. Don't you like it?

— Very much, said James. You're my best friend.

It's good, said Ansilon, for a person to only ever have one friend in his life. It makes things simpler. Shall we be each other's one friend?

— Yes, said James. I will be your one friend, and you will be mine.

Ansilon moved about on James's shoulder in a happy way, and his eyes opened and closed.

We shall spend a great deal of time awake at night, then, said Ansilon, for that is my favorite time.

— I don't mind, said James. For we shall have such adventures!

Everyone was looking at him. They were waiting for him to speak. Their patience seemed inexhaustible.

Behind James then, the maids' door opened. The maid who had opened it saw the scene, squealed, and shut the door. Within the room then, more squeals, and the sound of feet.

— I was just, said James, looking for the fourth window in my room. It's strange, you know, to have a window go missing. I believe it can be reached by ladder, perhaps from the space behind. .

— Do you see what I mean? McHale said to Sermon.

— Precisely, said Sermon.

Leonora Loft shook her head.

— I think, said Sermon, we should have our little talk sooner rather than later, James. There's been a problem. The police have come again. They're outside.

— Outside? said James. But I didn't do anything. Why are they looking for me?

— Didn't do anything? said McHale. You told me yourself you pushed Mayne out the window.

— I never said that.

James looked helplessly back and forth. What was going on? Why were they all down here in the first place?

— Well, I suppose you didn't, but it was obvious. After all, why would you be in his room, in his home?

— We should go downstairs, said McHale. The police are waiting.

James looked from face to face. Leonora looked intrigued by the whole thing. McHale was impassive. Sermon was grave. And Grieve's father, a large man with a mole, whose presence seemed to fill the hallway, Grieve's father was smiling.

— I know you're the ones, said James. I know you killed McHale, and I know that you, he said, pointing his finger at Grieve's father. I know you're SAMEDI.

Grieve's father laughed.

— My daughter, he said, thinks very highly of you. I understand that you've been put into a series of trying positions, and that certainly in such positions no one would look their best. Nonetheless, I had hoped to see you do a bit better. Of course the police are not outside; of course we will not give you up to them. Have you not already been assured of that much? Here we find you listening at doors, and not even at the doors of influence and power, instead at such a trivial door as this? The speech of maids is like the speech of jaybirds, giving nothing, taking nothing away. A chattering, a noiseless, noiseful clatter. And you listen to it through a glass?

He sighed, and ran one of his hands across the other.

— We shall, of course, be speaking more before long. You understand very little of what goes on here, and your head is full of poor Tommy's foolish words. If only he had been kept here, that unfortunate accident would never have occurred.

The others all looked at one another in sadness.

— However, he continued, you are here, and here to stay, I assume. My daughter speaks of a trip abroad with you. Well, it can occur; I will not say it cannot occur. But as for your making yourself useful, your finding some useful employment, well, I should think a man like you would want to do that, would want to do more than simply hang around a place all day doing nothing, living off the work of others. You wouldn't want that, would you?

James admitted that he did not like to be a burden on others. In fact, he did not intend to be.

— Then I suggest you come and speak to me, tomorrow, about ten in the morning. The light in my rooms is quite fine then and encourages clear thinking and lucidity of action. We shall come up with something for you then. After all, you are quite talented, I hear. Is it true, as Grieve says, that you memorized my entire book?

There was a general gasping in the hall. McHale and Sermon looked at each other incredulously.

— It can't be, said Sermon.

— He is one of the best, said Grieve's father. We have his dossier from Beckman's.

Let them think that over, thought James proudly, very pleased with the looks on McHale's and Sermon's faces. He slipped the glass tumbler into his pocket.

— Yes, I have it, he said.

— Tomorrow, then.

The group moved off down the hall and was lost to sight. James heard a knocking.

— Are they gone?

A Gift

— Yes, said James. They're gone.

The door to no. 53 opened, and the sallow man came out again. James took a step back. The man did not smell very good.

He was holding a drawing in his hand.

— I did this for you, he said, just now.

James looked at the drawing.

There was an elephant, and its features vaguely resembled his own. The elephant was being eaten by many small furred devils, who also vaguely resembled him. They were led, however, by a man with a large baton. His face was entirely blank.

— Who is this supposed to be? asked James.

— Don't let them do that to you again, said the man. I couldn't bear it. I just couldn't.

He shut his door, leaving James with the gift of a drawing.

James went back over to the maids' door. He took out the glass, thought better of it, and simply placed his ear against the door.

— Grieve, said one voice. What happened out there, did you hear?

— No, Grieve, said another. I didn't hear a thing.

— But, Grieve, said still a third, I think it's all got to do with that James Sim.

Grieve's voice came then.

— I wish you wouldn't talk about him.

The others began to sing a sort of song they had made up to make fun of Grieve for liking James.

They are like children, thought James. He started back down the hall. There was another door on the other side of no. 53.

James approached it. The doorknob turned easily. Behind it was a small passage, and a mild light fell all along it. The passage was lined with small paintings, each no larger than a book, but well-done and obviously expensive and old. Many were landscapes, some impressionist, some more figurative. James looked at them. One he recognized as Cézanne. It must be an original, he thought.

The passage was only five feet wide. He continued on. At the end there was a turn. The passage continued back until the point where it would be immediately below James's room. There was indeed a ladder.

Up the ladder James went.

He emerged into a tiny room, a room even tinier than the previously tiny room that he had inhabited. The room was full of pillows, and the window to the outside was thrown open. On the walls were sort of old-fashioned devices for listening and seeing into the room beyond. Into his room!

But the most surprising thing was that he was not alone in the little room. There was someone in among the pillows.

— I knew you would find me here, she said. I longed for you to find me here, and I said to myself, if he is such a man as can find me here, then I will give myself to him. Not today, you understand, but one day, perhaps, provided that you continue to show yourself to such advantage.

It was, of course, Grieve, Lily Violet, Anastasia, among the pillows.

— I love you, she said. I find it splendid to have dropped you like a witful lobster into this boiling pot. But you are learning your way out. You are. Come here! she said.

James sat down in the pillows. She pulled him on top of her.

— Why is this room here? asked James.

— I should think, said Grieve, it would be obvious.

And she bit him very hard on the neck.

— If you like, we can take off our clothes, but we cannot sleep together, and if you do anything I don't like I will scream and someone will come immediately.

— I wouldn't want that to happen, said James, thinking of the scene in the hall.

— So be good, said Grieve, and began to unbutton his shirt.