Aurorarama (19 page)

The corridor ended at a huge black double door, which an usher pushed open, with an effort that was painful to behold, just enough to let Brentford wriggle himself in. This was the waiting room, if one was to judge by the mosaic clock that decorated the floor, with its black stone hands pointed toward a perpetual midnight.

Mason was already there, sitting on a sofa, impatiently tapping his fingers on a satchel. Brentford came up to him, offering a hand whose fingers the captain-general observed suspiciously. He finally got up and accepted the offer.

“I have to congratulate you,” said Brentford, whose first impulse with Mason was always to tease him mildly, as if that were the only way he could express a sympathy he did not quite want to surrender to, while, nevertheless, he tried to create some complicity between them.

“What for?” asked Mason, warily.

“You may not know it, but the Navy Cadets have proved as chivalrous this morning as one could expect them to be.”

“I’d say
more
than
some
could expect them to be,” said Mason with a frown. “I just got the news myself. I’m surprised you’re in the know.”

“I was there. Some mysterious Gentlemen were brutalizing a girl.”

“I doubt a Gentleman would do such a thing.”

“Some Gentlemen have a dark, if not nocturnal, side, obviously. Your men performed honourably.”

“I will be asked to punish them, though,” Mason said, indicating the Council’s Cabinet door.

“They did not cause the trouble. They didn’t start it, at least.”

“I heard there was a riot.”

“There was a demonstration, which I think is different. It was peaceful until it was interrupted.”

Mason seemed to be thinking hard about it.

“What sort of demonstration?”

“Hmm … A new kind. It looked poetical at first but then became rather poletical.”

“And my men defended it?”

“I have been a cadet myself. Unless things have changed considerably, I think defending the fair sex was their only concern.”

Mason stared at Brentford, hesitating to speak, but finally let go.

“Would you say so in front of the Council?”

“I have no reason to lie to them.”

“And of course, I could take a more moderate view on that hunting matter.”

Brentford raised his hand.

“I have no doubt about your honesty.”

Mason nodded, which Brentford interpreted as a reluctant “Thank you.”

The Council of Seven could certainly be criticized, or so thought Brentford, on many levels. But they understood that governing was not so much about words, nor even about actions, as about images, and that made them powerful.

The Meeting Room was well designed to put those called before them in awe. The room was as beautiful as could be, with its black marble floor, mother-of-pearl ceiling, and ancient geographical and astronomical maps circling the walls. It was at the long table around which discussion took place that the nightmare began.

At their end of the table, the members of the Council sat alternately with the wax figures of the Seven Sleepers who had founded the city. This was meant first as a way to mark their allegiance to the founders, but also as a sign of their own uncontested legitimacy, as if they were finishing the sentences or completing the moves started by the frozen effigies, who all directed their fixed, transfixing looks toward the guests.

The seven members of the Council were almost as motionless, croaking among themselves like a murder of crows and letting their spokesman pronounce the conclusions they reached. From where he sat, Brentford could barely distinguish these black-clad, balding men from one another, all the less so since he had seldom seen them together: ritual required that they take turns when it came to public appearances, each one always on the day of the week for which he had been nicknamed.

Bailiff-Baron Brainveil was the one Brentford had seen the most often, the longest-standing member and already an unpleasant
old man when Brentford was a youngster. The tall one, on his left, must be the severe Bornhagen. Froideville was next, a thin moustachioed scientist Brentford’s father was always complaining about. Then came the eggheaded De Witt, who was also the head of the Gentlemen of the Night, followed by the bearded Imruzudov, who was all the more dreaded because nobody knew what his business was. The remaining two, then, must be Houndsfield, the stout so-called economist, and the wiry Auchincloss, who was in charge of military affairs. The Spokesman for the Seven was Philip Surville, who had married—and recently divorced—Seraphine Le Serf, Brentford’s adolescent sweetheart.

Sitting alongside Brentford and Mason at their uncomfortable end of the table was another man who was already in discussion with the council when they arrived. He turned out to be Peterswarden, the anthropologist and director of the Northwestern Administration for Native Affairs, and the man behind the Inuit People’s Ice Palace, a lanky, knotty, white-haired man whose love of the Inuit was so strong it apparently entailed leaving them to their own devices, as if they would rather die than be corrupted by the white men. Peterswarden was, for instance, adamant that they should not be granted citizenship.

“We will not, unfortunately, have the pleasure of hearing the Eskimo delegation from Flagler Fjord,” announced Surville, with a certain streak of satisfaction that irked Brentford immediately—though whatever Surville might say was likely to irk Brentford.

“Mr. Peterswarden has informed us,” he continued, “that they were caught red-handed stealing some precious objects at the Inuit People’s Ice Palace and are presently being detained by the authorities.”

Brainveil whispered something in Surville’s ear.

“Needless to say,” added Surville, fixing his gaze on Brentford, “this does not incline the Council to consider their request
about the hunting quotas with all the equanimity it was previously very willing to show.”

Brentford and Mason exchanged glances, while Peterswarden raised his hand to speak.

“It has certainly caused turmoil,” said Peterswarden after Surville, with a mechanical nod, had granted him permission to speak. “Not so much because of the act itself, which is likely to happen with people as curious and spontaneous as our Inuit friends are, but because our aboriginal employees have naturally but thoughtlessly taken sides with their own kind, and this a few days away from the opening, at a time when we need them to fully participate in presenting their own rich and fascinating culture to the public.”

It was Imruzudov, this time, who spoke through Surville.

“The Council suggests that, in the first place, these persons should not have been allowed on the premises. It is your duty, not to mention very much in your interest, to make sure that the dissenting employees will no longer cause delay in the realization of a project which is, as you know, dear to the Council.”

“I understand,” said Peterswarden, in a voice that trembled slightly, “and I thank the Council for its concern.”

“You are still invited to repeat to Mr. Brentford Orsini and Captain-General Frank Mason what you have just told us about the hunting quotas,” said Surville, on his own initiative this time.

“Oh …” said Peterswarden, with visible relief, as if he were, now, treading on thicker ice. Brentford could guess that whatever he said, or recited, given the present circumstances, would be a good indication of where the Council stood on that matter.

“I was humbly advising the Council to stick to the current policy. The wilderness Inughuit should be as separated from us as possible, in order to ensure their autonomy, especially as to what regards their subsistence. They have different needs and different ways of satisfying them. Thanks to their abilities, they
can hunt in the remotest areas where we are not fit to thrive, if you will allow me to say so. Getting them to hunt for us, even for a payment in kind, will make them our servants instead of the free people they are and deserve to be. I also wish to recall to the Council that they receive, thanks to its own wisdom, a limited number of munitions sufficient for their own survival and that, in their own interest, it was deemed unsound to give them more. This way, we hope to save these peace-loving people from the misuse of firearms so often demonstrated, I regret to say, in our so-called advanced culture.”

The Council nodded their heads in unison like a bunch of string puppets held by a single fist. Given the recent photographs of mysterious Inuit carrying rifles, it was an argument that could not but go straight to their old dried hearts.

“Mr. Orsini?” said Surville.

Brentford chose his words carefully, in order not to sound like an excerpt from
A Blast on the Barren Land
.

“I can only agree with Mr. Peterswarden’s solicitude toward the Eskimos. I am not an expert on the question, as he is, but I think that if we regard our island as the Subtle Army’s hunting grounds, our use of rifles will deplete the game beyond our actual needs and force the Eskimos to go hunting farther away and for a longer time, which will in part render meaningless the Council’s own efforts to sedentarize them. I also thought that they could benefit from the Greenhouse products in return for their hunt, which also would improve their diet.”

“They have always had a diet adequate to their existence. They are hunters, not farmers!” protested Peterswarden, without asking permission to speak. This rebuttal ulcerated Brentford all the more in that he had on occasion said the very same things himself. It is strange how one’s ideas can sometimes sound loathsome in someone else’s mouth.

“Captain-General?” said Surville, dismissing Peterswarden’s remark with a little gesture of the hand.

Mason seemed embarrassed in a way that Brentford had never seen before. The Lenton “riot” was no doubt on his mind and he was probably looking for a way to ingratiate his men with the Council without opposing Brentford, whose help he thought he needed right now.

“Hunting has always been part and parcel of military activities in the Arctic regions, though often, to be honest, it has been done in cooperation with the Eskimos. I consider that beyond the question of food supply in time of peace, my men should be prepared and trained to live off the land when they are in operation, which could be well the case sooner or later, given the present circumstances. I nevertheless understand that it should be limited so as not to endanger the Native way of life.”

De Witt poured some words into Surville’s ears, which were not long in coming forth from the spokesperson’s mouth.

“The Council suggests that your men, beyond all technical considerations, should indeed get more exercise. They have been found to be rather idle and nervous lately. Maybe the city air does not suit them. The Navy Cadets especially
should
hunt other game than peaceful citizens.”

Mason cleared his throat.

“I present all due apologies to the Council. There has been a misunderstanding. From my information, my men were only trying to defend a lady who had by accident fallen on the ground.”

Once more De Witt ventriloquized his dummy.

“The Council reminds you that its own collaborators are perfectly entitled and able to help citizens when they are estimated to be in danger. It is the local rule that the military should not in any case intervene in civic affairs. The Council would hate to have to take the occasion of a public trial to remind the military authority of this.”

Mason’s face had become perfectly inscrutable. Brentford knew enough about soldiers to be sure that it was a mistake to
humble one in front of civilians. They might force Mason into some sort of submission, but they would lose his respect for good. Brentford cued in, hoping his intervention would throw the Council a bit off balance and bring Mason a little further onto his side. He raised his hand, and Surville, although frowning, nodded his approbation.

“According to firsthand accounts I happened to hear,” said Brentford, “it was very much a mistake, indeed. The Cadets actually did not recognize persons they thought were aggressors as defenders of the law.”

Brainveil leaned toward his human microphone.

“Mistakes and accidents can happen. But these tend to have a pattern or a common origin that the Council, in spite of its leniency, can no longer ignore. Certain ideas are currently being circulated through the city, criticizing the current state of affairs and advocating a community with the Natives, in a way that is most contemptuous of their differences from us, as Mr. Peterswarden would be glad to confirm for you. A certain book, in particular, is said to exert a bad influence over the weakest minds, such as that of Ms. Lenton, as she now calls herself, and her gang of suffragettes.”

It was now Brentford who sat unmoving on his chair, under Mason’s scrutiny.

Surville kept on, while his eyes, the Councillors’, and the wax Sleepers’ all fixed themselves on Brentford, “The Council would like very much to exonerate the Subtle Army, as well as, it may add, the Administration, of any suspected support for the said theories. The Council would therefore appreciate total and open collaboration from all parties. Regarding the hunting quotas, it is, alas, not possible, in the current situation, to give satisfaction to the Flagler Fjord Eskimos. Since you care so much, and rightly so, for our food autonomy, Mr. Orsini, you will find it agreeable that the Subtle Army contributes to it in
the form of a planned, reasonable hunting campaign. And you will find it convenient, Captain-General, that the hunting be trusted to the Navy Cadets as a permanent mission, so that they can show their utility and dedication to the City. The Council has spoken.”