Journal From Ellipsia: A Novel (19 page)

I stretched a bit. I thought I guessed whom She was talking about.

“A jump ahead, mind you. And security, indeed. One can’t wait to get back There. You have no idea.”

“
Hélas,
that is all I do have. The idea.”

“My dear girl. Just a manner of speaking. And One does feel for you.” I had no trouble believing Marie spoke via some strings and a box. “That is, in so far as I can still feel.” Indeed, her voice had changed for the worse, I thought.

“Oui,
madame. But I think per’aps you mean to stay—‘as far as
One
can still feel.’”

That was a spark of my old lessons! But what was She after? What kind of lesson was this?

“Touchay,” said Marie. “As yew’d say. One can’t expect to be letter-perfect, so early on. But One was told Elsewhere that One was getting on swimmingly. When One was There.”

A silence issued. Then there came such a sigh as I had never heard from Her before. “Elsewhere.”

Her voice, no matter what it says, is still music.

“Dear me, my dear girl, dear me. You’re having no luck at all, then?”

I did not at all take to Marie’s use of this “dear.”

“Far as One can see, you haven’t changed a bit,” she went on. “Not that One could, you’ve got yourself so wrapped up. Of course, One doesn’t want to pry.”

“Nothing—major. Sometime, I imagine I ’ave a certain sensation—such a
delicatesse
as I ’ave not—but it is not after all too
different
from what can be experience,
de temps en temps,
on ’
ere.
”

“If you ask One, perhaps yew’ve had all too much of that sort of dellycatesse in your life. One wouldn’t be surprised if those of us who do best in the end are the kind who never had too much taste for that sort of thing. Like Oneself.”

There was a silence. Then my mentor spoke up in full voice, the richly round one. “So I ’ave ’eard.”

There was a silence again. But this time it seemed to belong to Marie.

After a while, she did speak. “And how is—Harry?”

“According to the rules, madame, I ’ave not communicate.” This came out so rapidly, it might have been in her other language.

“Sorry. One did have to ask. You must know Harry’s been trying to get in touch with you here.”

Again a pause. “I supposed—’e would try. But you and I are agree before ’and, no, that it cannot be ’elp if my disappearance from ’ere pattern itself on your. Or if ’e ’appen to ’ave two wives so advance? As the movement gain, it bound to ’appen,
de plus en plus
everywhere.”

I was listening so hard that it seemed almost as if I were there in the room with them, though obviously here, outside it. Was
this
front-and backness?

“Agreed. But who’d have dreamed you’d experience so much trouble that you’d have to turn back as you did, and hide here!”

“You ’ide ’ere for years, Marie. And I ’elp you.”

“For which One prayed for you daily. And remember, One was on One’s way up. One was an apprentice; indeed, it is alleged—the first. Those were the old days. And you are not an apprentice.”

If Marie was the kind who was a first, I was not sure I wanted to be.

“I was recruit before the war. At Göttingen. The day after the first ’Itler putsch, I was recruit.”

“Precisely. One of the longest in the business. Tops. Member of the very first group to make the decisions against—
them.
And afterwards, the pride of France. One gives you all your medals, dear girl. But then all the more, this—inconvenience. This strange delay. We never dreamed—”

“Nor I.”

She was still saying “I.” I liked that.

“Nor that Harry would be so—so persistent.”

“’E is ’ere? ’E is
’ere?
”

This was a cry. It went through me. I could have wished that it had at least gone all the way—but it lodged. And during the very long silence which now ensued, I felt as if I were leaning on the sharp point of it. This was what came of dropping One’s field. Then, as it ebbed—was
that …
pain?—I thought perhaps the two of them had gone. Why did I always—? Such things never mattered before.

But no. “Spare me,” said Marie. “
If
you please. That pronoun.”

“Merde.”
It was only a mutter.
“Quelle vraie salope.”

“
And
the French also. Now that One can compute it quite easily. In any case, the answer is no—not here. Gone up to London. To look for you, still after any trace of you. Then, we hope, to Harwell. One of our brightest recruits is working there. Just a beginning candidate. But she’ll have several tricky little theses to show him which should help delay him awhile. But after that, unless we can think of something in time—we’re for it. One good guess, and Harry could blow up the whole show. For, where do you suppose, my dear, that Harry plans going? A great tribute to you, of course. After that, Harry expects to chase across the water again—back to Hobbs.”

But that was where I’d been told I was going! And surely I wasn’t Harry. Or was I.

“’Arry won’t ’ave to guess,” said my mentor.

“You can’t mean—” Marie’s voice was all vibration. “You couldn’t have. Told him. Or is that why you’re having such—Aha. And all those widow’s veils of yours are just a—”

“You think I need to tell ’Arry? ’E guessed. An’ ’e never say a word. No matter ’ow long I work in the tower, evenings. No matter what changes ’e find now and then in the observatory. ’E never. Long, long ago, ’e guess.”

I began to suspect who—or what—Harry was. In general.

“But then it’s all up with us,” said Marie. “I knew we shouldn’t have used women of—your stamp.”

Mentor gave a little laugh. “
One
should never. But no, it’s not all up with us. ’Arry won’t speak.”

“With everything that’s at stake, Harry wouldn’t speak? You’ve lost your mind, poor sweetie. Any of them would speak up—they would have to. Just as in the same boat, so would any of us.”

“Not Harry.”

She even pronounced the “h” I used to twit her about—
her
difficulty.

“But that’s too extraordinary!” said Marie. “Or would be.”

“’E ’ad two wives very unusual,
Mm?
So why shouldn’t ’e be such a man?”

So I was right. One of the straight ones. A he. A—

“Language!”

When Marie’s voice went even higher, whose did it resemble?

“If you persist in breaking every safeguard,” she went on, “how can One believe anything you say? Or be surprised that One-ness is still beyond you. Even if what you say could possibly be true, then—then why should Harry keep on
looking
for you?”

Ah, I thought I knew the answer to that,
dear
Marie. I waited for my mentor to give it: “Because I am She.” As one so often does here, I had learned just a little more than they had taught me. But, however—and hence my tame Obedience to the next program, the dialogue to come—not quite enough. As so often before, I imagined her there, just through the wall, a being longitudinally oval like myself, and pinkish too, not all of the dinosaur size which I had hoped for the straight ones. More to my scale, and with a spot of difference, or, as things went here—two.

Then She gave a chuckle. First it was only a little purling from those strings of hers, the kind with which she had sometimes honored an error of mine. But then it was a ripple, and another ripple, and finally it buffeted the room—how did the wall withstand it? Answer: like many clever inanimates, it took the shock, but passed it on. To me, in this case.

“
Ohé, ohé. Mors. C’est ce que je—
So that’s it!
Eh bien, eh bien,
at least I still have what it take to laugh!” And She was off again.

“So One observes. Or could do, if you hadn’t got yourself up in—the way you have.”

“
Arabique.
A chador.
Très chic, non?
And a good way to hide.”

Another time, since hiding was of interest to me also, I should have pondered this further, but I was in the grip of more important questions. Questions here are terrible. No wonder we do not have them.

“Highly unnecessary, isn’t it? Since Harry is gone.” Marie’s voice was rather elegant, or at least, slender. Like whose?

“To return, you say.”

“Possibly. Meanwhile, what is it you find so funny?”

“A private joke, Marie.”

“Still back here in personality, are you. I insist.” Between a flute and a bumble. Very aristocratic, of course.

“I don’t like to ’urt your feeling.”

“One hasn’t them, dear. Not any more.”

“
Pardon.
Then you will not mind my asking … when
you
disappear, Marie—”

“Ye-es. One has forgotten all that now.”

“
Oui. Pardon.
Then you will not remember … that when ’Arry come back from Egypt—”

“All that has faded, my dear girl. As you will find, if you are lucky enough to—to Ovolve.”

Marie was putting on airs, as converts so often do.

“Ah,
oui.
But since I ’aven’t been so lucky—you forgive I amuse myself—that ’Arry did never take the trouble to go looking,
hein,
for
you.
”

And Mentor gave a final low laugh which did her no credit. Natter, natter, how silly-silly these two could be together! But I shouldn’t at all mind having a straight talk with this Harry. Who couldn’t be the one I was being sent to next, since the very pronoun was distasteful. Who must be one of the other kind. Who must be one of those whom the two inside called
them.
A “he” was a Harry. And it was jolly likely that, if it were left to those two, I’d never get to meet any. I saw the likelihood that very definite limits were indeed to be put on my education here. Good God. Was it possible that enmity between the genders here was such that the two never met at all?

A host of questions assailed me. I managed to put down all but a few, meanwhile rather nervously watching a squirrel who regarded me with his bright wink but came no nearer. I shifted a bit so he should not mistake me for a boulder, and listened again for sounds from within, but heard nothing but that silence which is always so equivocal here. At home there is always a supportive hum, not to the point of music but very filling nevertheless.

I preoccupied myself meanwhile by imagining a sort of being to whom one might pose all sorts of questions it would be a waste to put to that pair behind the wall. Serious questions, to be propounded in some solemn but comfortable environ from which the brightly-stupid, the silly-unsafe, would be barred. Nothing personal. Serious questions being of course those to which both sides already knew the answers.

At the moment, I bent to consider those more foolish ones in which vitality so often secretes itself here. Why was it Marie’s reedy voice annoyed me, for instance, with a resemblance I couldn’t or wouldn’t identify? And why it should so matter to me that, of the two in there, a One of Us and a one of You, and both my mentors, which …?

An appendage voice suddenly interrupted what were perhaps all our meditations.

“Security reports a One returned to station Bucks and safely landed.”

“There!” said my mentor’s voice. “I’d better go see.”

“Not until you’ve revealed just what’s behind those veils, mind. Do be … just a weeny look now …”

“Touch me at your peril, Marie!”

“Disgusting thought. We don’t, you know. But you’re the one who’s in danger. Psychologically. Taking the veil is just what they used to do in the old days. Women who’d led a full life.”

“All the better you don’t come any nearer.”

“Temper,
temper!
As for the rest of your ensemble—All those pockets. How do you ever expect to lose weightfulness?”

So they did have them.

“You’re not supposed to be eating, reading or yearning. You’re supposed to be in a quiet non-corner, talking hypotheses to your—” Here Marie gave a short cough.

“Nombril.”

I computed rapidly. Navel. Whatever that was.

“Yes, excuse One. You know our reticences. Well then. Whatever can you be keeping in those pockets?”

“Old enthusiasms.”

I thought as much.

“Ah! … Mind letting me … have just a weeny—”

“Loin d’icil Non!”

Another cough. “Just testing. Quite a good reaction, really. Touching departs first, one is told. But you still seem to be suffering from quite a lot of—poetry.”

“Pardon?”

“For persons, places, that sort of thing. Any sort of irregular—surface attachment.”

Converts. They never get things right.

“Ah,
oui.
Very—poetical. An’ I suppose, they ’ave no word for—”

“No, no, no. No! Whatever you may be thinking of—no.”

“Fi donc.”
But this was merely a mutter, followed by a pause.
“Alors,
tell us Marie … touch goes first, you say …
’Ow
does it go?”

“That’s a good sign. You said ‘tell
Us.
’”

“I mean the change. How does it start? The
change.”
Her voice was hoarse, but still hers.

“Why, amnesia takes over at once, of course. We wouldn’t dare remember. Once leave for good and all, Here will disappear altogether.”

For some, maybe.

“You never look-èd the
miroir?
During that time?”

“Doubt it. Never was one for mirrors, much.”

“Ah. All that time—what you think of? What you were—for?”

“Not
for,
” said Marie. “Wherever in the universe would that get you?
Against!
”

Sunday was Marie.

“Ah, I see,” said my mentor. “I even … remember. And I—I am still too much—So. So that’s it.”

I stirred uneasily. At home, where talk was for dilettantes, the perfectly ovoid exchange of serenities made for conversation, yard after yard of it, reverberating, profound. Here, where talk was a necessity, there were only these
papier-mâché
detonations.

“How you can see anything, with all those clothes on!” said Marie.

“There’s no doubt
you
look better,
chérie,
without the clothes you were in the ’abit of wearing. And now, if you excuse me—”

Cherie.
She had called Marie by my name. Language on here could be gall to the taste, gender a confusion of the mind. Take the whole of their reversible world here; let it burn in its own nasty green glare. This
was
an emotion. I was almost sure of it.