Dream Paris (24 page)

“I’ll wait for you here,” said Kaolin.

“Thank you,” I said, climbing out of the car on shaky legs.

“This looks familiar,” said Francis

He was right. Not the Public Records Office as such, not the overly ornate stone building, the rounded corners of its green copper roof, not the elaborately decorated portholes or the pale green louvres around the windows. Nor the glare of sunlight on the white flagstones of the paved island in which the building sat, nor the perimeter of thick lampposts topped with overlarge lanterns.

No, it was the people who swarmed around the building.

“Like ants around a heap,” said Francis. The citizens who bustled in and out of the Public Records Office were dressed, men and women alike, in dark suits and white shirts, their hair greased down on their heads and parted down the centre.

We hurried through the glaring heat to the building.

“Do you get the impression Kaolin isn’t welcome in the official parts of this city?” said Francis. “That’s twice she’s waited outside.”

I followed him into the blessed coolness of the building, pausing as a woman pushed in between the two of us. She caught herself on the wire trailing from Francis’s backpack, muttered something under her breath, pushed the wire up over head and continued on her way.

“And yet the cars drive through it unhindered,” I said.

“I don’t understand it either,” said Francis.

M
UCH TO MY
surprise, the Public Records Office was an efficient operation. A few simple enquiries in broken French were enough to get us to the
Département des Étrangers (Britanniques)
.

A tall man waited behind a counter, oiled hair, toothbrush moustache.

“
Oui
?” he said, in a not entirely unhelpful manner.

“Do you speak English?”

“A little.”

“I’d like…”

“
Nom(11)
? Name?”

“Er… Anna Margaret Louise Sinfield.”

“And you,
monsieur(11)
?”

“Francis Christopher Cuppello.”

The man nodded and turned to the wooden card index that filled the wall behind him, pulled open a drawer and ran a finger down the cards and selected one.

“
Bonjour, Monsieur Cuppello(11). Et maintenant, mademoiselle l’Espion(11)
…”

“I’m not a spy!”

He smiled. It wasn’t an entirely unkind smile.

“
Mademoiselle Sinfield
, you are a foreigner, here to seek out information about a citizen of the republic! You are a spy!”

“I’m trying to find my mother!”

“Have you considered that perhaps she does not want to be found? Many former citizens of Dream London are quite happy to live here in Dream Paris.”

“Then what’s the problem with her having a conversation with her daughter?”

“None whatsoever!”

He turned back to the card index and searched through once more.

“You have the right to examine the cards of every citizen,” he said. “This is a principle of the Republic. We all watch each other.
Ah
!
D’accord
!”

He pulled some cards from the index. “We have three women with that name,” he said, sliding them across the counter.

I looked at the cards. The first read
Marguerrite Sinfield
. Aged 72, born in the Manufactory District, second-generation collateral on a loan taken out by her parents to buy enough food to get through the winter. I glanced at the wooden drawers before me, briefly wondering what other stories they held.

I turned to the second card and felt my heart judder. Margaret Sinfield had died three months ago of food poisoning brought on by eating an untreated mouse pie.

“What’s the matter?” asked Francis.

“It’s okay!” I said, relaxing. This wasn’t my mother. This Margaret Sinfield was too young, she came from Winchester, not London. She had been marched into the city just before the end of Dream London and indentured to an eel re-boner.

I turned to the third card.

“It’s her, isn’t it?” said Francis, hearing my gasp.

I held the card tightly, beaming as I read it.

Margaret Lauren Sinfield (née Wallace), formerly of the Poison Yews, Egg Market.

“Where is she?”

I read the card. The current address was blank.

“
Er… Excusez-moi, monsieur
,” I began.

“
(11)Monsieur
!” he corrected.

“I’m sorry. It’s this card. There’s no current address.”

The man looked at the card and turned faintly pink.

“I’m must apologise,
mademoiselle(11)
! This has never happened before. I can assure you, the Public Records Office never makes mistakes.”

“Never?”

“Never!”

“There’s something written on the back,” said Francis.

I turned the card over. I recognised my mother’s handwriting.

Anna. If you’re reading this card it means that you’ve ignored my advice and come to Dream Paris anyway. As it will now be too late for you to escape, the only advice I can give is this: use your common sense! Regards, Mother.

W
E WALKED FROM
the cool efficiency of the Public Records Office, back into the glaring heat and noise of the
Place de l’Étoile
.

“‘
Use your common sense,’
” said Francis. “What does she mean?”

“Just that,” I snapped. It wasn’t fair to be angry at Francis, I know, but I felt stupid and rejected. I was lashing out. “She was always saying things like that. ‘Use your common sense. Don’t be so hysterical.’ She’s telling me that I’ve been silly coming here.”

“I don’t think so,” said Francis, slowly.

“What? You knew my mother, did you?”

“No, but I know you. You
always
use your common sense. You’re Little Miss Sensible. Why would your mother need point that out to you?”

“Weren’t you listening? That’s what she always did to me. State the obvious.”

“If you say so.”

We saw Kaolin waiting for us in the little traffic bay. Our transport had changed again. Now it was a sleek silver roadster.

“Did you find your mother?” asked Kaolin.

“No.” I folded my arms, defensively.

“You found something, though.”

“What I don’t understand,” said Francis, “is why you brought us here. I can’t believe that the
Banca di Primavera
hadn’t checked out Margaret Sinfield’s record already. It’s available to everyone. That’s what the man said.”

I’d been so wrapped up in finding my mother, I was so disappointed at being told I wasn’t wanted once more that I hadn’t been thinking straight. Francis was right. He was also sharper than I’d given him credit for.

And Kaolin had given him credit for. You couldn’t read a porcelain face, but Kaolin didn’t seem quite so impassive as usual. There was a certain hesitation to her answer.

“It would be impolite to read another’s record,” she said.

“Why?” asked Francis. “They certainly didn’t seem to think so in there. They almost regarded it as a citizen’s duty to keep tabs on other citizens.”

“What are you implying, Francis?” Kaolin’s tone was as dry as crumbling clay. Francis turned to me.

“Anna, listen to me, I’m not happy with any of this. Why would the
Banca di Primavera
want to help us? When did you ever hear of a bank helping someone for no reason? And think of all those china dolls we saw on the way here…”

That was the wrong thing to say.

“What china dolls?” asked Kaolin.

Francis looked at me for support. Kaolin’s hand snapped around Francis’s throat, so swiftly I didn’t see it move.

“Answer me,” she said, in that same emotionless voice. “Describe the china dolls you saw on the way here.”

“Let go of him!” Francis’s face was turning red, he was gasping for breath. “I said let go of him! How can he speak when you’re holding him like that?”

“You can speak for him,” said Kaolin. “What china dolls? I thought you only saw Pierrots!” Her tone lowered, became drier. “Or were they like me?”

“I don’t know!” I said. “They didn’t move like you do. They were frozen in place. One of them was in my bedroom when I woke up in Dream Calais!”

“What did it look like?”

Francis’s face was an unnatural shade of purple.

“Let go of him! You’re killing him.”

“What did it look like?”

“Like a china doll! I don’t know!”

“What colour was its hair?”

“I can’t remember. Blonde?”

Kaolin let go of him and became perfectly composed again. A pretty china doll, with blue eyes and painted smile. Cold, beautiful. Composed.

“Thank you, pretty Anna. And now I must now report back to the
Banca
.”

She climbed into the little silver car.

“I will return to pick you up. In the meantime, do not mention anything we have discussed. Do you understand this?”

“Why not?” I said.

“Do not attempt to leave the island. This is for your own safety, you won’t make it through the traffic. Pretty Anna, do you understand this?”

“No, I don’t. Why should I remain here? You’re not in charge of me.”

On the ground, Francis was rubbing his throat, gasping for air.

“You will wait here, pretty Anna. Do you understand?”

The air of menace in her voice was unmistakable.

“I understand,” I said. I didn’t say I was going to follow her instructions…

“Good.”

She clashed the gears and the roadster darted into a gap in the traffic, leaving us both marooned.

I bent down to help Francis.

“What happened there?” he gasped.

THE ROUNDABOUT

T
HE MIDDAY SUN
beat down on the roundabout. The heat was almost unbearable.

“There’ll be a way off,” said Francis. “Someone will give us a lift.”

I was only half paying attention. I was thinking about my mother’s message, about Kaolin, about Jean-Michel Ponge…

“This place isn’t like Dream London,” I said. “In Dream London everything was shifting and growing. There, it was like the city was moulding people and places into what it wanted to be. Here, it’s like the people are stronger. They fought back against the changes, they moulded things to suit themselves.”

“You mean the Revolution won?”

“I don’t think so. The people at the restaurant last night certainly didn’t seem like revolutionaries. They were just playing a game. I think the Revolution is ongoing. Everyone speaks in its name, but they all have their own agenda. I can’t believe that the
Banca di Primavera
wants to give power to the people.”

“No.” Francis rubbed his throat. “Why do you suppose the
Banca di Primavera
is so interested in your mother?”

“Why is everyone so interested in her?”

We resumed pacing around the roundabout. There were other people doing the same; visitors to the Public Records Office, no doubt. Two children ran by holding
pains au chocolat
in both hands. They climbed onto a pair of benches with difficulty, and then sat eating, legs swinging.

“Why would the
Banca
be so interested in her?” wondered Francis. “What did your mother do?”

“In Dream London? She was a housewife. That’s all Dream London allowed her to be.”

“But before Dream London. What was she then?”

“A banker. A very successful one, too. Before Dream London, she was doing far better than my father. She earned far more than he did. She used to point that out to him all the time.”

“And now she is somewhere in Dream Paris, and the
Banca di Primavera
is looking for her. The
Banca
is looking for a banker…”

“And she doesn’t want to be found…”

“Now you’re using your common sense.”

The traffic noise seemed to be getting worse, the heat was almost unbearable. I was thirsty, I was uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be here. I looked at Francis’s backpack and the route back home.

“Have you noticed how insubstantial your backpack has become? No one even notices it anymore, and yet still the line trails out behind you…”

I gazed at Francis and something shifted inside me. Maybe it was the bright sunlight, but he looked different. More like the handsome, decent man I’d first seen. The man who had followed me, uncomplaining, all the way to Dream Paris. The man who was doing his best to help me. At that moment, I felt a little guilty at my treatment of him.

“How did you get chosen to accompany me?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They just told me.”

“You’ve got a partner and a child.”

“I know that. But I signed up to serve my country. I want to make them proud.”

“You want to serve your country?”

The words sounded odd, old-fashioned. It wasn’t the sort of thing that people said any more. It was the sort of thing that my father would have sneered at. And my mother. The woman Francis had come here to help save. What had my mother said about people like him, people serving their country?

They’re suckers, Anna. That’s the sort of thing you feed people to make them easier to manipulate. You don’t hear anyone in my bank talking about serving the country. We serve the shareholders, wherever they come from. We serve profit. At the end of the day, we serve ourselves. That’s all there is to it. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool.