Empire of the Ants (2 page)

Jonathan smiled.

'There has been some progress, though. The average life expectancy has gone up, as well as the number of divorces, the level of air pollution and the length of queues in the underground.'

'So what? I thought we'd all have private planes and take off from our own balconies by now. You know, when I was young, people were afraid of atomic war. Terribly afraid. I thought I'd go up in a nuclear holocaust and die with the planet when I was a hundred. That would have been quite something. Instead of which, I'm going to die like a rotten old potato. And no-one will care.'

'Of course they'll care, Gran.' She wiped her forehead.

'It s getting hotter and hotter, too. In my day, it wasn't this hot. There were real winters and real summers. Now the heatwave starts in March.'

She went back into the kitchen and nimbly organized everything she needed to make a nice pot of herb tea. After she had struck a match and the sound of the gas blowing through the ancient pipes of her cooker could be heard, she came back looking much more relaxed.

'You must have had a special reason for coming, though. You young people don't visit us oldies without a particular reason these days.'

'Don't be so cynical, Gran.'

'I'm not being cynical, I'm just being realistic. Now, stop prevaricating and tell me what brings you here.'

'I'd like you to tell me about "him". He left me his flat and I didn't even know him.'

'Edmond? You mean you don't remember Edmond? He used to like playing aeroplanes with you when you were little. I remember one time. . .'

'Yes, I remember, too, but apart from that one story, I can't remember anything else.'

She settled herself in a big armchair, taking care not to crease the dust cover too badly.

'Edmond is, well was, quite a character. Even when he was very small, he used to give me plenty to worry about. It wasn't easy being his mother. He used to break all his toys systematically, you know. He liked to take them to pieces but didn't often put them back together again. And it wasn't just his toys. He used to take everything apart: the clock, the stereo, the electric toothbrush. Once he even took the refrigerator to pieces.'

As if to confirm what she was saying, the old clock in the living room started to chime lugubriously. It had been through the mill with little Edmond too.

'His other craze was building dens. He used to turn the house upside down to make hidey-holes. He built one out of blankets and umbrellas in the attic and another out of chairs and fur coats in his bedroom. He just liked to burrow inside them with all his treasures. Once when I looked in one, it was full of cushions and

bits and pieces of machinery. It actually looked quite cosy.' 'All children do that.'

'Maybe but it got really out of hand with him. He wouldn't sleep in his own bed any more, only in one of his little nests. He sometimes stayed in them for days at a time without moving. As if he were hibernating. Your mother said he must have been a squirrel in a previous life.'

Jonathan smiled to encourage her to go on.

'One day, he wanted to build a hut under the living-room table. That was the last straw as far as your grandfather was concerned. He was absolutely livid. He gave him a good hiding, got rid of all his nests and made him sleep in his bed.'

She gave a sigh.

'From that day on, we lost him. It was as if we'd cut his umbilical cord. We were no longer part of his world. I think it had to be done, though. He had to find out he couldn't get his own way all the time. It caused problems later on when he was growing up. He couldn't stand school. I know you're going to say, "Like all children," again but it went much deeper than that with him. Do you know many children who hang themselves with their belts in the toilets because their teacher has told them off? He hanged himself when he was seven. It was the cleaner who took him down.'

'Maybe he was too sensitive.'

'Sensitive? You must be joking. A year later, he tried to stab one of his teachers with a pair of scissors. He was aiming for the heart. It was lucky he only damaged his wallet.'

She raised her eyes to heaven. Scattered memories were
falling
on her thoughts like snowflakes.

'Things got a bit better later because some of the teachers managed to capture his interest. He got As in the subjects he liked and Es in all the others. It was always either A or E.'

'Mum said he was a genius.'

'Your mother was fascinated by him because he'd told her he was trying to attain "absolute knowledge". Your mother had believed in reincarnation since the age of ten and thought he must have been Einstein or Leonardo da Vinci in a previous life.'

'As well as a squirrel?'

'Why not? According to Buddha, it takes many lives to make a soul.'

'Did he take any IQ tests?'

'Yes. He did very badly in them. He scored eighty-five, which meant he was slightly retarded. The educational psychologist thought he was disturbed and should be sent to a special school. I knew he wasn't, though. He was just "elsewhere". I remember once, he can't have been more than eleven, he challenged me to try and make four equilateral triangles using only six matches. It isn't easy. Here, have a go and you'll see.'

She went into the kitchen, had a quick look at the kettle and came back with six matches. Jonathan hesitated for a moment. It seemed feasible. He tried arranging the six little sticks in various ways but was forced to give up after a few minutes.

'How do you do it?'

Grandmother Augusta concentrated.

'Well, I don't think he ever told me, actually. All I can remember is the clue he gave me: "You have to think about it differently. If you think about it in the usual way, you don't get anywhere." Can you imagine, a kid of eleven coming out with things like that? Ah, I think I can hear the kettle whistling.'

She came back carrying two steaming cups of herb tea.

'You know, I'm really pleased to see you taking an interest in your uncle. Nowadays, when someone dies, people forget they ever existed.'

Jonathan put the matches aside and took a few sips of herb tea. 'What happened after that?'

'I can't remember. Once he started studying science at university we didn't hear from him any more. I heard vaguely from your mother that he got a brilliant doctorate, worked for a food manufacturer, left to go to Africa, then came back and lived in the rue des Sybarites, where nothing more was heard of him until the day he died.'

'How did he die?'

'Oh, don't you know? It's quite incredible. It was in all the papers. He was killed by wasps, would you believe it!' 'Wasps? How did it happen?'

'He was walking by himself in the forest. He must have accidentally disturbed a nest. They all rushed to attack him. The pathologist claimed he'd never seen so many stings on one person. He had over 0.3g of poison per litre of blood when he died. It was unheard of.' 'Where's he buried?'

'He hasn't got a proper grave. He'd asked to be buried under a pine tree in the forest.'

'Have you got a photograph of him?'

'Yes, look, over there on the wall above the chest. Your mother, Suzy's, on the right (have you ever seen such a young-looking picture of her before?) and Edmonds on the left.'

He had a receding hairline, a small pointed moustache and lobeless ears that extended above his eyebrows. He was smiling mischievously and looked quite a devil.

Beside him, Suzy was resplendent in a white dress. She had married a few years later but had insisted on keeping her maiden name, Wells. As if she wanted her husband to leave no trace of his name on her offspring.

Moving closer, Jonathan saw that Edmond was holding two fingers up above his sister's head.

'He was always playing jokes on people, wasn't he?'

Augusta did not answer. Her eyes had misted over with sorrow as she looked at her daughter's radiant face. Suzy had died six years earlier. A fifteen-tonne lorry in the hands of a drunken driver had pushed her car into a ravine. She had taken two days to die. She had asked for Edmond but Edmond had not come. Yet again, he had been elsewhere.

'Do you know anyone else who could tell me about Edmond?'

'Mmm. He used to see a lot of one of his childhood friends. They went to university together. He was called Jason Bragel. I must still have his number.'

Augusta quickly consulted her computer and gave Jonathan his address. She looked at her grandson affectionately. He was the last survivor of the Wells family. A good boy.

'Drink up now or your tea
'll get cold. I've got some littl
e sponge cakes as well, if you like. I make them myself with quails' eggs.'

'No, thank you, I'll have to be going. Come and see us in our new flat one day. We've finished moving in.'

'All right. Wait a minute, though. Don't go without the letter.'

She delved frantically among tin boxes in the big cupboard and at last came up with a white envelope bearing the words 'For Jonathan Wells' written in a feverish hand. The flap of the envelope had been stuck down with several layers of sticky tape so that it could not be opened by mistake. He tore it open carefully. A crumpled page from an exercise book fell-out. He read the only sentence written on it:

^‘
ABOVE ALL, NEVER GO DOWN INTO THE CELLAR!'

The ant's antennae were trembling. She was like a car that had been left out in the snow too long and would not start. The male had several tries. He rubbed her and bathed her in warm saliva.

Life flowed back. At last the motor started again. A season had gone by. Everything was beginning anew as if it had never slept the deathlike sleep.

He rubbed her again to generate some calories. She was all right now. He carried on with his efforts and the blind worker pointed her antennae in his direction. She wanted to know who he was.

She touched the first segment of his head and read his age: a hundred and seventy-three days. On the second, she discovered his caste: a reproductive male. On the third, his species and city: a russet ant from the mother city of Bel-o-Kan. On the fourth, she discovered the clutch number by which he was known: the 327th male laid since the start of autumn.

She ceased her olfactory decoding at this point. The other segments were not emitters. The fifth acted as a receiver for trail molecules. The sixth was used for simple dialogues. The seventh made more complex sexual dialogues possible. The eighth was intended for dialogues with Mother. The last three, finally, could be used as small clubs.

There, she had examined the eleven segments of the second half of the antenna but it had nothing to tell her. She moved off and went in turn to warm herself on the roof of the city.

He did likewise. He had finished his task as thermal messenger and it was time to get down to repairs.

When he reached the top, the 327th male assessed the damage. The city had been built in the shape of a cone to offer less resistance to the elements but the winter had been destructive. The wind, snow and hail had torn away the first layer of twigs. Some of the entrances were blocked with bird droppings. He must start work at once. 327th bore down on a big yellow stain and attacked the hard foul matter with his mandibles. Through it he could see the outline of an insect digging towards him from the inside.

The spyhole had got darker. Someone was looking at him through the door. 'Who's there?'

'Mr Gougne. I've come about the binding.'

The door opened a crack and Gougne looked down on a fair-haired ten-year-old boy, then noticed even further down a tiny dog which poked its nose between the boy's legs and started to growl.

'Dad's out.'

'Are you sure? Professor Wells was supposed to come and see me and . . .'

'Professor Wells is my great-uncle. He's dead, though.'

Nicolas tried to shut the door but the man stuck his foot inside the door-frame and insisted.

'I'm very sorry to hear about the Professor's death but are you sure he didn't leave a big file full of papers? I'm a book-binder. He paid me in advance to bind his working notes in a leather cover. I think he was hoping to make them into an encyclopedia. He was supposed to call me but I haven't heard from him for a long time.'

'He's dead, I tell you.'

The man stuck his foot further into the flat, pressing his knee against the door as if he were going to push the little boy out of the way. The tiny dog started to yap furiously. He stood still.

'You must understand I'd be very unhappy not to stick to the deal, even posthumously. Please check. There really has to be a big red file somewhere.'

'Did you say it was an encyclopedia?'

'Yes, he used to call it the
Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge
when he was talking about it, but I'd be surprised if that's written on the cover.'

'We'd already have found it if he'd left it at our house.'

'I'm sorry to insist, but. . .'

The toy poodle began to bark again. The man started back just enough for the boy to slam the door in his face.