Samedi the Deafness (12 page)

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.