The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth (Book of Dust, Volume 2) (57 page)

The officer had been speaking quietly to the sergeant. She heard him reply and then move away, and the officer came back into the compartment and slid the door shut.

“Are you in pain?” he said.

She opened her eyes. One of them seemed to prefer to stay closed. She touched the flesh around it with her right hand: it was already swollen.

She looked at the young man. It wasn’t really necessary to say anything. She held out her trembling hands to show him the damage.

“If you will permit me,” he said.

He sat down opposite and opened a little clothbound case. His hawk dæmon jumped down and looked as he moved the contents around: rolls of bandage, a little pot of salve, bottles of pills, small envelopes probably containing powders of one sort or another. He unfolded a clean cloth and uncapped a brown bottle to sprinkle some liquid on it.

“Rosewater,” he said.

He handed it to her and indicated that she might clean her face with it. It was marvelously cool and soothing, and she held it over her eyes until she felt able to look at him again. She lowered the cloth, and he sprinkled it with more rosewater.

“I thought rosewater was difficult to obtain,” she said.

“Not for officers.”

“I see. Well, thank you.”

There was a mirror over the seat opposite, and she stood up shakily and looked at herself, almost recoiling when she saw the mess of blood over her mouth and nose. Her right eye was nearly closed.

Invisible,
she thought bitterly, and set to work cleaning herself. More applications of rosewater helped, and so did the salve in the little pot, stinging at first and then diffusing a deep warmth, along with a strong herbal smell.

Finally she sat down and took a deep breath. It was her left hand, she thought, that hurt the most. She touched it tentatively again. The officer was watching.

“I may?” he said, and took the hand with great gentleness. His own hands were soft and silky. He moved it to and fro, just a little this way and that, but it hurt her too much to let him continue. “Possibly a broken bone,” he said. “Well, if you will ride on a train with soldiers, you must expect a little discomfort.”

“I have a ticket that permits me to ride on this train. It does not say that the journey includes assault and attempted rape. Do you
expect
your soldiers to behave like that?”

“No, and they will be punished. But, I repeat, it is not wise for a young woman to travel alone in the present circumstances. May I offer you a little eau de vie as a restorative?”

She nodded. The movement hurt her head. He poured the spirit into a little metal cup, and she sipped it carefully. It tasted like the best brantwijn.

“When does the train arrive in Seleukeia?” she said.

“In two hours.”

She closed her eyes. Hugging the rucksack close to her breast, she let herself sink into a doze.

Only a few seconds later, it seemed, the officer was squeezing her shoulder. Her heavy consciousness was reluctant to leave the slumber behind; she wanted to sleep for a month.

But outside the window she could see the lights of a city, and the train was slowing down. The officer was gathering his papers together, and then he looked up as the door slid open.

The sergeant said something, perhaps reporting that the men were ready to leave the train. He looked at Lyra as if assessing the damage. She looked down: time to be modest again, inconspicuous, dowdy. But inconspicuous, she thought, with a black eye and a broken hand and cuts and scratches all over? And no dæmon?

“Mademoiselle,” said the officer. She looked up and saw the sergeant was holding something out to her. It was her spectacles, with one lens broken and one arm missing. She took them without a word.

“Come with me,” said the officer, “and I shall help you leave the train first.”

She didn’t argue. She stood up, with some difficulty and pain, and he helped her lift the rucksack to her shoulders.

The sergeant stood aside to let them out of the compartment. All along the train, as far as she could tell, soldiers were gathering their weapons and possessions and shoving their way into the corridor, but the officer called out, and the nearest ones moved back out of the way as Lyra followed him towards the door.

“A little advice,” he said as he helped her stiffly down onto the platform.

“Well?”

“Wear a niqab,” he said. “It will help.”

“I see. Thank you. It would be better for everyone if you disciplined your soldiers.”

“You have done that yourself.”

“I should not have had to.”

“Nevertheless, you defended yourself. They will think twice before behaving badly again.”

“No, they won’t. You know that.”

“You are probably right. They are trash. Seleukeia is a difficult city. Do not stay here long. There will be more soldiers arriving by other trains. Better move on soon.”

Then he turned away and left her alone. His men watched her from the train windows as she limped along the platform towards the ticket hall. She had no idea what she could do next.

She walked away from the station and tried to look as if she had every right to be there and knew where she was going. Every part of her body hurt, every part felt tainted by the hands that had thrust their way to her flesh. Her rucksack was a hideous burden: how had it become so heavy? She longed for sleep.

It was the dead of night. The streets were empty of people, poorly lit, and hard. There were no trees, no bushes, no grass; no little parks or squares with a patch of greenery; nothing but hard pavements and stone-built warehouses, or banks, or office buildings; nowhere to lay her head. The place felt so quiet, she thought that there must be a curfew, and that if she were found wandering, she would be arrested. She almost longed for that: she could sleep in a cell. There was no sign of a hotel, not even a single café, nowhere that might be intended for the refreshment or repose of travelers. This place made an outcast of every visitor.

Only once did she hear any sign of life, and that was when, nearly crazed with exhaustion and at the limit of pain and unhappiness, she risked knocking at a door. Her intention was to throw herself on the mercy of whoever lived there, in the hope that their culture had a tradition of hospitality to strangers, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. Her timid knock, with bruised knuckles, awoke only a man, clearly a night watchman or security guard of some kind, on duty just inside. His dæmon woke him with a frenzy of howling, and he snarled a curse at whoever had dared to knock. His voice was full of hate and fear. Lyra hurried away. She could hear him cursing and shouting for a long time.

Finally she could go no further. She simply crumpled at a spot shaded from the glare of the nearest streetlight by the corner of a building, and curled up around the rucksack, and fell asleep. She was too hurt and tired even to sob; the tears flowed from her eyes with no impulsion; she felt them cold on her cheek, her eyelids, her temple, and did nothing to stanch them; and then she was asleep.

Someone was shaking her shoulder. A low voice was whispering anxious, urgent words that she couldn’t understand. Everything hurt.

It was still dark. When she opened her eyes, there was no light to dazzle her. The man leaning over her was dark too, a deeper darkness, and he stank terribly. There was another figure nearby; she could see his face, pale against the night, looking this way and that.

The first man stood back as she struggled to sit up on the cold stone and to loosen her limbs a little. It was so cold. They had a cart, and a long-handled shovel.

More words, in that urgent low voice. They were gesturing: get up, stand, get up. The stench was sickening. As she painfully moved her limbs and forced herself up, she understood: these were night-soil men, making their rounds, emptying the city’s latrines and cesspits: an occupation for the lowest and most despised class of people.

She tried French: “What do you want? I am lost. Where are we?”

But they could only speak their own language, which sounded neither Anatolian nor Arabic. At any rate, she couldn’t understand, except to see that they were anxious, and anxious for her.

But she was so cold, so full of pain. She tried to stop shivering. The first man said something else, which seemed to be: Follow, come with us.

Even burdened with their stinking cart, they moved faster than she could, and she caught some of their anxiety when they had to slow down for her. They kept looking all around. Finally they came to an alley between two imposing stone buildings, and turned into it.

There was just the very faintest hint in the sky that the night was going; nothing as much as light, just a slight dilution of the dark. She understood: they had to finish their rounds by daylight, and they wanted her out of sight before then.

The alley was very narrow, and the buildings crowded close above. She was getting used to the smell—no, she wasn’t; she never would; but it was no worse than it had been. One of the men lifted the latch on a low door and opened it quietly. Instantly a female voice inside, heavy with sleep but awake at once, uttered a short fear-filled question.

The man replied, equally briefly, and stood aside to indicate Lyra. A woman’s face emerged dimly from the gloom, strained, fearful, prematurely aged.

Lyra stepped forward so as to be more clearly visible. The woman scanned her for a moment and then reached out a hand to take hers. It was the broken hand, and Lyra couldn’t help a cry of pain. The woman shrank back into the darkness, and the man spoke urgently again.

“Sorry, sorry,” said Lyra quietly, though she felt like howling with agony. She could feel that the hand was swollen and hot.

The woman emerged a second time and beckoned, taking care not to touch. Lyra turned to express her thanks somehow, but the men were already hastening away with their stinking cart.

She stepped forward carefully, ducking under the low lintel. The woman shut the door, and total darkness enveloped them; but Lyra heard a rustling movement, and then the woman struck a match and lit the wick of a little oil lamp. The room smelled of nothing but sleep and cooked food. In the yellow glow Lyra could see that her hostess was very thin, and that she was younger than she’d seemed.

The woman indicated the bed, or rather a mattress heaped with various coverings: it was the only place to sit down apart from the floor. Lyra put her rucksack down and sat on the corner of the mattress, saying, “Thank you—it’s very kind—
merci, merci
—”

It was only then that she noticed that she hadn’t seen the woman’s dæmon. And with a little jolt she realized that the men had no dæmons either.

She said, “Dæmon?” and tried to indicate her own lack of one, but the woman clearly didn’t understand, and Lyra just shook her head. There was nothing else she could do. Perhaps these poor people had to do the job they did because, without having dæmons, they were less than human in the eyes of their society. They were the lowest caste there was. And she belonged with them.

The woman was watching her. Lyra pointed to her own breast and said, “Lyra.”

“Ah,” said the woman, and pointed to herself, saying, “Yozdah.”

“Yozdah,” repeated Lyra carefully.

The woman said, “Ly-ah.”

“Lyra.”

“Ly-ra.”

“That’s it.”

They both smiled. Yozdah indicated that Lyra could lie down, and Lyra did, and then she felt a heavy rug being pulled up over her, and at once she fell asleep, for the third time that night.

She woke up to the sound of low voices. Daylight was filtering in through a bead curtain across the doorway, but it was gray, with no direct sunshine in it. Lyra opened her eyes to see the woman Yozdah and a man, presumably one of the two who had brought her there, sitting on the floor and eating from a large bowl between them. She lay and watched them before moving; the man looked younger than the woman, and his clothes were shabby, but she couldn’t detect any of the stink from his profession.

She sat up carefully and found her left hand too painful even to open fully. The woman saw her move and said something to the man, who turned to look and then stood up.

Lyra urgently needed a privy, or something of the sort, and when she tried to convey this, the man looked away and the woman understood and led her outside through another door into a little yard. The latrine was in the far corner, and meticulously clean.

Yozdah was waiting in the doorway when she came out, holding a jar of water. She mimed holding out her hands, and Lyra did that, guarding her left from the shock of the cold water as best she could when Yozdah poured it over them. She offered Lyra a thin towel, and beckoned her inside.

The man was still standing, waiting for her to come back, and indicated that she should sit on the carpet with them and eat from the bowl of rice. She did so, using her right hand, as they did.

Yozdah said to the man, “Lyra,” and pointed to her.

“Ly-ra,” he said, and pointed to himself and said, “Chil-du.”

“Chil-du,” Lyra said.

The rice was sticky and almost flavorless but for a little salt. Still, it was all they had, and she tried to take as little as possible, since they hadn’t expected a guest. Chil-du and Yozdah spoke quietly to each other, and Lyra wondered what language they were speaking; it was like none that she’d heard before.

But she had to try to communicate with them. She spoke to them both, turning from one to the other and saying as clearly as she could, “I want to find the Blue Hotel. Have you heard of the Blue Hotel? Al-Khan al-Azraq?”

They both looked at her. He was politely mystified, and she was anxious.

“Or Madinat al-Qamar?”

They knew that. They drew back, they shook their heads, they put up their hands as if to ban any further mention of that name.

“English? Do you know anyone who speaks English?”

They didn’t understand.

“Français? Quelqu’un qui parle français?”

Same response. She smiled and shrugged and ate another morsel of rice.

Yozdah stood up and took a pan from the open fire and poured boiling water into two earthenware cups. Into each one she dropped a pinch of some dark, gritty-looking powder, and scooped a lump of what might have been butter or soft cheese in after it. Then she stirred each cup with a stiff brush, making both cups froth up, and gave one to Chil-du and the other to Lyra.

“Thank you,” Lyra said, “but…,” and pointed to the cup and then to Yozdah. That seemed to breach some point of etiquette, for Yozdah frowned and looked away, and Chil-du gently pushed Lyra’s hand away.

“Well,” said Lyra, “thank you. I expect you can use the cup when I’ve finished. It’s very generous of you.”

The drink was too hot to sip, but Chil-du was drinking it by sucking at the edge with a noisy splashing sound. Lyra did the same. It tasted both bitter and rancid, but inside it there was a taste not unlike tea. She found after several noisy slurpings that it was sharp and refreshing.

“It’s good,” she said. “Thank you. What is it called?”

She pointed to her cup and looked inquisitive.

“Choy,”
said Yozdah.

“Ah. It
is
tea, then.”

Chil-du spoke to his wife for about a minute, making suggestions, perhaps, or maybe giving instructions. She listened critically, making an interjection here, asking a question there, but finally saying something that was plainly in agreement. They both glanced at Lyra throughout. She watched, wary, listening for any words she might understand, trying to interpret their expressions.

When the conversation was over, Yozdah stood up and opened a wooden chest, which looked as if it was made of cedar, and was the only beautiful or costly-seeming object in the room. She took out a folded piece of cloth, black in color, and shook it out of its folds. It was surprisingly long.

Yozdah looked at her and beckoned, so Lyra got up. Yozdah was refolding the cloth a different way and indicating that Lyra should watch, so she did, trying to memorize the sequence of folds. Then Yozdah stepped behind her and began to fasten the cloth around her head, first putting one edge across the bridge of Lyra’s nose so that the cloth hung over the lower part of her face, and then winding the rest around her head to conceal every part of it except her eyes. She tucked the ends in on both sides.

Chil-du was watching. He gestured at his own head, and Yozdah understood and tucked away the last strand of Lyra’s hair.

He said something that clearly signified approval. Lyra said, “Thank you,” hearing her voice muffled.

She hated it, but she could see the sense. She was impatient to be on her way, as if she knew what her way was, or where; and there was nothing to keep her here, especially since they had no language in common.

So she put her palms together in what she hoped would be understood as a gesture of thanks and of farewell, and bowed her head, and picked up her rucksack and left. She bitterly regretted having nothing to give them but money, and thought briefly of offering them a couple of coins, but feared that they’d feel she was insulting their hospitality.

She made her way out of the little alley, where the night-soil cart stood at one side, looking as if it was ashamed of itself. It wasn’t locked to anything; who would want to steal such an object? The street outside was dazzling with brilliant sunshine, and Lyra soon began to feel hot under the abominably confining veil and headscarf.

However, no one looked at her. She had become what she’d been trying to become ever since the beginning of this journey: invisible. Combined with the dowdy-depressed way of moving recommended by Anita Schlesinger, the veil made her actively resistant to other people’s interest. Men in particular walked in front of her as if she had no more substance or importance than a shadow, barged ahead at street crossings, took no notice at all. And little by little she began to feel a kind of freedom in this state.

It was hot, though, and getting hotter as the sun rose higher. She made her way towards where she thought the center of the city must be, in the direction of more traffic, more noise, bigger shops, and more crowded streets. At some point, she thought, she might find someone who spoke English.