The Speculist

Chapter 41

Part IV

Chapter Forty-One

 

(Read earlier chapters.)

 

Reuben let go, and color came back to the world.

“That’s done it,” I said. “We have arrived.”

He sighed with relief. He was visibly winded and trembling just ever so slightly. A few stops earlier, his head was pounding so hard that it had become difficult for him to walk, even a few steps at a time. We had stopped and rested for a while. He also complained that he was feeling queasy, which I gathered had to do with his spending too much time in the ripple.

At this point in his training, Reuben wasn’t ready for such an elaborate excursion into the configuration space. But then, I don’t know of anyone who has ever been truly “ready” for the things we do in the Congrigatio in Ars Magica Minor. Even so, I had never before asked for so much from such an inexperienced pupil.

Mind you, I won’t accept full responsibility for that set of circumstances. Although I maintained my position of absolute and unassailable authority throughout Reuben’s training, there was something about the man’s eagerness — urgency, really — that was infectious. I, who had never been in a hurry to do anything in my life, found myself caught up in this headlong rush to advance to the next step, and then to the next. At first, when my protégé was interested solely in finding the means to cure his sickly mother figure and get back into the arms of his little Soviet trollop, he was more than pushy enough. But after we had a chat or two about the Guides and the Shedders — one of whom he had, in fact, encountered (against all probability) — not to mention the growing shadow on the configuration space and the coming dawn, the man became positively obsessed.

And, inasmuch as I knew that something needed to be done about these things, and did have a plan — or at least an intention, a very strong intention — to do something about all that eventually…well, I thought it prudent to let his ambition drive us on. He was an American after all.

That’s supposed to be what they’re best at.

Reuben looked out over the river. It was understandable that he would fix has gaze there. Muddy, brown, stagnant, and uninspiring as the Melaka river might be, it was the only element of the landscape that remained reasonably unchanged in all the permutations of the city through which we had passed. Over the past hour or two — it was hard even for me to be sure about time; poor Reuben would by then have been utterly disoriented — he had agitated the waveform dozens of times. Together, we had taken hundreds of steps through hundreds of variations on the city. Now we stood, at last, before Michel’s place, which fronted the river. For me, it was a comfortable and reassuring sight. For Reuben, it was no doubt just another architectural oddity: two stories high with a balcony at every window, each enclosed by a semicircular grille of lacey black ironwork. There was a patio on the roof, and another one on the ground floor facing the river.

I sighed with contentment. An evening at Michel’s would be just the thing. But I realized that my companion didn’t share my blissful state of mind

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

He looked thoughtful, as though this was a question that required careful analysis before answering.

“I could use a drink.”

Ah, that was the spirit. For a moment, my feelings for Mr. Stone bordered on something similar to sentiments heading in the general direction of a state of mind that was not altogether unlike pride.

But, as I said, only for a moment.

“I imagine you could. Well, we’ve come to the right place for it. Let’s go in.”

The restaurant was dark, and a bit cooler. A young Maitre d’ whom I did not recognize stood just inside, impeccably dressed in a black tuxedo. Perhaps we were there a bit early to catch Rodolfo, or perhaps the old gent had the night off. The young man looked up from his reservations as we approached.

“Bonsoir, Madame. Monsieur.”

“Bonsoir,” I responded.

The Maitre d’ poised his pen next to the reservation list.

“Les noms, s’il vous plait?”

Out of respect both for my traveling companion and the French language, I decided to proceed in English.

“Madame Wong and…associate. We don’t have a reservation, I’m afraid. But I am an old friend of Monsieur LeClaire. Would you please tell him that we’re here?”

The transition from French to English brought about a parallel shift in manners on the part of the Maitre d’. He moved swiftly and seamlessly from obsequious helpfulness to annoyed impatience. His eyes no longer met mine. And his speech took on a curtness that screamed “You’re wasting my time!” with every syllable.

“I am sorry, Madame, but Monsieur LeClaire is not here at the moment. We are not expecting him for another hour or so.”

I smiled ever so sweetly.

“He’ll want to know that I have arrived. Would you be so good as to call him and let him know?”

The young man nearly gasped at this suggestion. Call Monsieur? On ze…how do you say…téléfone? Quel idée! The very idea. It was an outrage.

Still, he managed to compose himself and frame a response.

“I am sorry, Madame, but that is out of the question. Monsieur has made it very clear that he is not to be disturbed while at home under any circumstances.”

“I see,” I said.

The game was rather tiresome, but it needed playing out.

“When you call him, you will want to mention that it is a matter of urgent business. Club business.”

The Maitre d’ nodded. His next response, while as resolute as those that had come before, lacked the sauce with which the previous two replies had been served. And I noticed that his eyes had found their way back to mine.

“I’m afraid that is impossible. Perhaps Madame and Monsieur would care to have a drink while they wait? Or take a stroll on the riverfront and come back at a later time?”

I sniffed loudly and stared at his bow tie for a few seconds.

“What is your name, please?”

“I am Renee.”

“Well allow me to explain a few things to you, Renee. We do not wish to take a stroll as we have just had one. A rather exhausting stroll, I might add. We would like very much to have a drink without any further delay. So would you be so kind as to seat us and to call Monsieur LeClaire and tell him that we are here. And when you call him, please tell him that les jeux ne sont pas faits.”

The young man nodded and made a note in his reservation book. He clapped his hands twice and a waitress appeared from the wings. She was a tall Chinese girl (or to be more accurate, a girl of little better than average height standing atop some excessively vertical heels.) She wore a dress not too unlike my own, although a bit more tart-ish. The slit on the side went practically up to her armpits.

But the effect was wasted. Poor Reuben was still so shaken from his travels that he couldn’t be bothered to drool.

“Vivian, this is Madame Wong,” said the Maitre d’. “She is a friend of Monsieur LeClaire. Please see that she and her friend are well taken care of.”

The waitress nodded.

The young man turned to face me. He was now a wide-eyed puppy-dog.

“Madame, I will be telephoning Monsieur with your message. I am certain that you will hear from him very soon.”

“Merci, Renee” I said demurely.

We were seated on the second floor, a table on a private balcony overlooking the river. Reuben surprised me by ordering chilled vodka. I would have taken him for a beer drinker or, at best, a connoisseur of bourbon. I  ordered a proper whisky and glasses of water for both of us.

“So what was that all about?” he asked as Vivian walked away.

“What do you mean?”

“Les jeux ne sont pas faits? Unless I’m mistaken, that means that the game is off. What game?

Once again, Reuben surprised me. On one level, I knew that there was nothing the least bit surprising about an educated man with a background in intelligence work who could speak a smattering of French. But I always found  myself expecting so little of Reuben, against all common sense.

It must have been his accent.

“It’s a password,” I explained. “Under normal circumstances, Michel can be accessed by close acquaintances by saying that they are here on ‘club business.’ But sometimes that isn’t enough. When he really doesn’t want to be bothered, he tells the staff not to contact him, not even on club business. Under those circumstances, there is yet another password for what you might think of as the inner circle. And that password is les jeux ne sont pas faits.”

“But why that phrase?”

“I don’t honestly know. I think it has something to do with a novel by Sartre. Or do they even have Sartre, here? Or it may be a phrase they use in casinos. But whatever it is, I’m sure it’s terribly witty in that smirking Gallic way.”

When the drinks arrived, Reuben reached for his liquor first. He tilted the glass towards me in a perfunctory toast and then drained it. Then he did the same with his water.

“Encore, Vivian,” he said. “S’il vous plait.”

The waitress, who was still standing there — she had hardly had the chance to go anywhere else — nodded, and turned to fetch another round. I lifted my glass and returned Reuben’s gesture.

“Cheers,” I said. “To a successful navigation.”

“I’ll drink to that…in just a minute.”

I took a civilized, though certainly not dainty, sip of the whisky.

“So, how are you feeling?” I asked.

“A lot better. I think I just needed a few minutes.”

“Did you find that it was getting easier or harder as the journey progressed?”

He thought about this.

“I guess that getting and keeping my grip became easier. I just got so tired. And my head was really bothering me.”

I took another sip.

“You’re the first person I’ve met whose gift derives from an injury. That could account for why it’s so much stronger than normal, and why it has so much attendant pain. That may prove always to be the case, I’m afraid.”

Reuben thought about this for a moment.

“Do you mean to say that it doesn’t usually hurt?”

Apparently it had never occurred to him that the experience was different for each individual. But then, why would it?

“No. Not physically. Some are made dizzy by it; a very few get seasick. For most, it is just a little unsettling. On the other hand, there are those who claim to derive considerable sensual pleasure from the experience.”

“No kidding?”

Just then, Vivian returned — remarkably quick, that girl — with more water and a small flask of chilled vodka.

Reuben clearly was feeling better. He now took full notice of our efficient table service staff member and her nicely fitting, if a bit too well ventilated, attire. To his credit, he wasn’t overly obvious with his admiration. He didn’t drool or even gawk. Perhaps his government training was of some use, after all.

He watched her as she poured him a second round. She glanced at my glass to be sure that I was still proceeding at a stately pace, then  slinked away into the darkness. His eyes followed her all the way.

“Quite an aficionado, aren’t you, Reuben?”

“You mean the vodka? To tell you the truth, I’m surprised I can drink the stuff at all. After Russia. But some things just kind of stick with you, I guess.”

He took a sip.

“I didn’t mean the vodka. I meant the cocktail waitress.”

Reuben looked surprised. He shook his head.

“No. It’s not like that. Or…well, maybe she reminds me of somebody.”

I should have known. Such a straight arrow — incapable even of enjoying a little eye candy on its own terms. It’s as I’ve always said: you can take the boy scout out of his limited view of the multiverse, but you can’t take the limited view of the multiverse out of the boy scout. I was not, at the time, prepared to consider the possibility that a certain depth of feeling might lie behind Reuben’s obsessive behavior. It was just so much easier  — not to mention more satisfying — to write him off as a twit.

A deft change of subject was in order. Reuben supplied it.

“So how do you know this Michel guy?”

“We’re colleagues. We hold the same position.”

“You mean — he’s also the head of the Society?”

I nodded.

Reuben took another drink. A troubling thought was dawning on him.

“So…how many…?”

He couldn’t quite formulate the question.

“How many?” I repeated. “You tell me.”

He sighed.

“A very large number. But not necessarily infinite.”

“That’s right.”

“But I thought you said that people…like us, people who do what we do…are rare.”

I took a longish sip from my whisky.

“We are. Compared to everybody else. But one idea that you need to get a handle on, Reuben, is that just because something is rare, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t trillions and trillions of them.”

“So you’ve been here a few times. I gather that it doesn’t work the other way? Michel doesn’t come to you?”

“That’s correct.”

“You…and others…come here. This is some kind of meeting place for practitioners of  Magic Minor.”

It was probably just the drink, but at moments like this I couldn’t help but feel a certain warmth towards Reuben. If one could say nothing else in his favor, it at least had to be conceded that he was a fast learner.

“But I wonder…” he continued. “The Society isn’t always headquartered in Malacca, is it?”

“Not always.”

“Let me see if I have the story straight. After Altheus died, the leadership of the Society moved around Europe for a couple hundred years. It ended up in the hands of this young Portuguese trader who was an officer on one of the early expeditions to Asia. He settled in Malacca, married a local, and the leadership stayed with him and his family until the Dutch moved in. Then it somehow got handed off to a Chinese family, where it remains to this day.”

“That’s more or less correct. Don Fernando’s heir decided to return to Portugal, and he was more cautious than his illustrious ancestor. He feared that a shipwreck might be the end of the Society of Magic Minor. So he turned everything over to a friend. A wealthy merchant.”

“Your great-great-grandfather?”

“No. The leadership has changed hands a few times since then. When there is no heir apparent, the leader finds an individual of suitable character to whom to pass the reins. That’s something I’ll probably have to do eventually.”

I regretted saying it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Damned whisky. I had broken my own rule about personal comments and opened myself wide for some loathsome, misguided curiosity or (worse yet) sympathy. There is much that I can endure in this life, up to and including my mother’s endless harangues about my unmarried state. But discussion of these matters with one Mr. Reuben Stone? It would be difficult to imagine a more vomit-inducing scenario.

Fortunately, whether he was taking the high road or he was simply too blur to pick up the thread of what I said, Reuben left that matter alone.

“But this Malacca has a different history. What’s with all the French-speaking?”

I was relieved.

I finished off the demon drink, resolving never to touch it again. Then I looked up. Where was that sluggard, Vivian? Precisely how long was one expected to wait for a refill in this place?

“In this context it was the French, not the Dutch, who supplanted the Portuguese. In Michel’s world, French Indo-China was — is, actually— a much bigger place than it was where I’m from. Or where you’re from. This is a very fortunate world, in some respects. Only one world war. And no Cold War.”

Reuben poured himself another vodka while demonstrating that he had a good ear for conditional praise:

“What’s the downside?”

“Well, here we are in the nineties and the French Colonials are still around. Be a pet, Reuben — when Michel arrives, don’t let on that I consider that to be a downside.”

He laughed.

“Your secret is safe with me, Miss Wong. Besides, if we had stopped off in one of those variations where Malacca is just another Malay town, I bet we would have met some folks who would be distressed to learn that there are so many versions of Malacca where the Chinese are still around.”

I nodded.

“Or around at all. In my context, and yours, and the one we are currently in, a 15^th century Emperor sent one of his own daughters to the Sultan of Melaka to be his bride. She was accompanied by 500 serving girls, who were the beginning of the Chinese population of the city. But in some contexts, it never happened.”

Just then the recalcitrant Vivian reappeared, with a flask similar to the one that she had left for Reuben. It was filled with a brownish liquid, some of which she poured into my glass. I was beginning to think better of the poor girl.

Doing her best, no doubt. I offered her a kindly smile as I raised my glass.

Plus, Reuben paid her no mind at all, this time. Not that his attention (or lack thereof) meant anything to me — it patently did not — but there is such a thing as good form, after all. He was too much enthralled with the romance of diverging histories.

“I’ll tell you what interested the me most,” he said. “we passed through several mostly Chinese and all-Chinese versions of the city on our way here, but one really stood out. Do you know the one I mean? It was kind of primitive. Very rough, in fact.”

“Yes, I know that one. I didn’t intend for us to stop there at all. It’s usually a step-through, but I was correcting for some of your inaccuracies.”

He let pass the critique of his form.

“I noticed you wasted no time in moving us on.”

“Yes. It would not do to hang around there too long.”

“Too bad. But I think I saw enough to form a theory.”

A theory? It was just too precious. I decided to forego the derisive laughter in favor of another tiny sip.

“What theory is that?”

“Well, based on just a quick glimpse of the townsfolk…and their buildings…and their clothes…I think they were Mongols.”

At that moment I experienced a very mild version of what the Americans, in their vulgarity, refer to as a “spit take.” Reuben had hit the nail on the head.

“Don’t laugh,” he said. “It’s just a theory. Histories diverge, right? What if the Khans hadn’t just sort of run out of gas. What if they had pushed on into western Europe and India…and even down here? And if they had hung on to their empire, not just let it sort of fade into the background of wherever they were?”

My choices were to confirm Reuben’s theory or lie and tell him he was wrong. I didn’t much care for either.

“Well, like I said,” he continued. “It’s just a theory. You know who I wish was here? Iskandar. He knows a lot about this kind of stuff.”

“He does, indeed, Reuben. But you have to remember that…Mr. Ahmad is not an initiate in our order. We can never discuss with him what we see in the configuration space.”

He looked surprised.

“Really?”

I shook my head solemnly.

“Absolutely not. Under no circumstances.”

Reuben took a sip from his glass, apparently distressed by what I had told him.

“So…I see,” he said after a while. “Then I guess that’s why you and he never got together?”

I shook my head again.

“No, no. Not because of that. It was ostensibly about religion. He worships Allah, where I bow down only before the altar of the almighty Daphne. But it was really about — ”

I finally stopped, but it was too late. Far too late.

He sat there, smiling. Nodding sympathetically.

It occurred to me at long last that I could continue to dislike Reuben as much as I wanted, but I was going to have to stop underestimating him.

I was just about to say something devastatingly sarcastic that would have set everything aright when, out of nowhere, Michel appeared.

“Mon Dieu, Daphne! I could not believe it was really you!”

I rose about half way from my chair  so he could give me a peck on each cheek. He then turned and looked at Reuben.

“But who is this?” he asked

That was going to take some explaining.

Posted by Phil at February 29, 2004 11:59 AM | TrackBack