Samedi the Deafness (23 page)

—James, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but . . .

At that moment, a maid poked her head through the open door.

—Sir, she said to Graham. There's a man at the door, says he's a detective.

—Oh, dear, said Graham. This again.

He got up and left without a word.

An Addition to the Record

They permit me, these wards of mine, to go out where I will. They do not require school of me. They give me things, a butcher knife, a javelin, the poems of Keats in leather miniature. I say these to myself, my feet in water off the old dock. Grandfather says it was once an ocean, that all the plains and this were once beneath water. I look upward then through the water to the sky beyond. The only safety, I suppose, is to build one's house upon a mountaintop.

Do people who live on mountaintops live forever? Or only nearly so?

James returned to his room. Grieve had gone. Some of her things were still there, however, a dress laid over the back of a chair, a handbag, a notebook.

He picked up the notebook and opened it.

It had just been begun the day before. There was only one entry.

I can't believe how wonderful he is. The others like him, and it seems even he and my father get along. I'm looking forward so much now to this life. I have so many things to tell him. He doesn't mind my odd habits, my lying. I knew when I saw him in the diner. I knew we would be right.

James put the notebook down. There was more, but he didn't read on. He felt awful. Could it have been true? Graham seemed like he had been about to tell James that Stark was lying to him. But then he had gone.

James saw that a note had been slipped underneath the door. He must have walked over it when he came in.

He went over and picked up the note.

Three days ago, Estrainger came to the house. I was told to go and tell Stark that he was here. I did. Then Stark gave me a note to bring to Estrainger. It was a strange note. I copied it down to show you. It said:

Overthrows that are necessary cannot occur easily; secret plots must unfold of themselves, unconscious, like the multitudinous fan of a peacock. And like the peacock, it is never certain of the toll its passing has taken in the world. We must all die unconscious of the good, the evil we have done. That's why there's only hope, hope beyond good and evil.

When I gave it to Estrainger, he went away. I thought nothing of it, and decided not to show you this. But then Estrainger killed himself. And now, Stark has tricked you again. You can't believe them. Do you know the story of the kingdom of foxes? A man goes to live in the kingdom of foxes and he survives only by believing that which is not told him.

Stark had been lying! The police were downstairs. James could go there now. He could alert them. Even if he were dragged away too, there would at least be a chance that the plot could be stopped.

He ran out of his room and down the stairs. As he drew closer to the front entrance, he could hear through the foyer door the sound of voices.

He peeked through.

Stark was standing talking to a man in a suit. There was a bulge under the man's left armpit—that must be the detective, thought James.

—Yes, Stark was saying, Estrainger
was
a patient here. But we released him due to an overwhelming belief in his capability to live an independent life. We have a very strict system here, a very strict system. He had to pass three different boards of evaluation before he was released. What happened since then, whom he met, et cetera, I can't say. But when he left here, he was perfectly sane.

The detective said something that James didn't hear.

James pressed back against the wall. The man was so close. All James had to do was jump out and speak. Then he thought of Grieve. If Stark had been lying about Estrainger, he must have been lying about Grieve and her sister. They were twins. Why would he lie about that?

James thought of Grieve's face, of how wronged she looked. At the time it had filled him with hate, but now he was overcome by remorse. He thought of her crying, of her standing outside the rovnin room, calling to him. And him with his back turned . . . It was more than bore thinking of.

He went back into the hall. He realized he could not give up Grieve's father, Grieve's family. By doing so, he would be betraying her. And he had hurt her so much already.

I have to find her and apologize, he thought.

An Item in the News

On the table in the hall, he saw the newspaper. He picked it up and glanced over the front page.

There had been another suicide. This time it had been a man dressed as a police officer, who had managed to penetrate the security surrounding the White House. The uniform had been traced to a District of Columbia station nearby, where it had been stolen from a storeroom.

Impersonating a police officer, the article noted, was a serious crime in its own right. This man, Spiers Jones, had been a prominent writer on civil liberties, as well as a noted lawyer in the Dallas area. His involvement in the conspiracy had sent waves through the liberal community.

The note he was bearing was the shortest yet. It was only one word long, and that word was
Samedi.

James shook his head. He loved Grieve; he knew now that he did. But she was only one woman. How many people would die if James did nothing?

He turned back down the hall, and as he did, Stark and Graham came back in. The sound of a car engine could be heard in the background, then the noise of tires on gravel. The detective was gone.

Stark and Graham walked past James as if he were not there.

—Hey, he said. Graham! Graham!

But Graham did not turn. They continued down the hall.

It's completely unfair, thought James. It was Stark's fault that he had been confused about Grieve and her sister.

There was only one thing to do. First he would find Grieve and apologize. Then he would send a letter. He would send the maid, Grieve, with a letter to the police, explaining everything. She was allowed to leave the house, to leave the grounds.

James paused in his search, midway along a hallway on the third floor. He had no idea where Grieve's room might be. He had asked the maids and servants he had come across, as well as a nurse and two orderlies, whether they had seen Grieve. None had.

He saw McHale at the far end of the hall, standing by a window, smoking a cigarette. He approached him.

—Thomas, he said. Do you know where Grieve is?

McHale turned to look at him. His face became scornful.

—We should never have helped you out in the first place.

—I just want to know where she is.

—She doesn't want to see you. Can't you understand that?

McHale threw his half-smoked cigarette out the open window and walked off.

James stood by the window, the smell of smoke still clinging to the air.

It came to him: she would be where she had first waited for him.

James paused in the hall. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, wrote on it:

Meet me in my room at 3. Urgent.

He folded the note and tucked it under the carpet at the entrance to the maids' room. Then he went back, past the door of the man who had drawn him the elephant, through the next door and into the thin corridor. I wonder, he thought, if that man ever found the drawing. I never went back for it.

He came to the end of the corridor, turned, and went to the ladder. He listened carefully, to see if he could hear any sound of breathing. He could not.

Up the ladder he went, slowly. He could feel the roundness of the rungs, the closeness of this odd room. Grieve must be here. She must be. If she is Grieve, then she is here.

At the top, there was only darkness. Someone had pulled a shade across the window. In the dark, he
could
hear someone breathing.

—Grieve? he said.

He crossed the tiny room slowly and pulled the shade. Light fell through and he could see Grieve looking at him, Grieve pressed against the wall.

—I'm sorry, he said.

Her eyes were red from crying.

He moved towards her. She sat up, and he put his arms around her. He could feel her shaking.

Then a voice came from the ladder's top.

—Lara, what are you doing? Lara, don't you dare!

James turned, still holding Grieve tight. At the ladder's top, he saw Grieve looking at him, Grieve wearing the dress she had worn the day before.

He let go of the Grieve who was in his arms.

—No, James, she shrieked. She's lying. She's lying.

She began to cry again.

He looked at the Grieve on the ladder, and then at the Grieve at his side. How could he know which was the right one?

—James, said the one on the ladder, I'm sorry about what happened before. I should have told you more; I should have explained everything.

James fought to think. How could he know? He addressed the Grieve on the ladder.

—At the diner, how many pieces did you cut your ham sandwich into?

That Grieve answered immediately: