Samedi the Deafness (26 page)

He was right. James nodded.

—We've been holding back on you. It hasn't been fair, but we were testing you in some ways, and passing the time in others. You must wonder, why have you been brought here? Why didn't we just dispose of you? If I could order my own son killed, then why would I hesitate with you? It's an interesting question, and one that you must have considered.

Stark picked up a cane that was leaning against a table. He twirled it in his hand. With his long black coat and high collar he looked vaguely like a priest.

—The truth is, there is one major reason you are here, and it is not, as you may have suspected, because my daughter is in love with you, although plainly she is. That was not part of the plan. In fact, she was not to have anything to do with you. Yet Grieve does as she likes. History will observe that my greatest failing was in my tolerance of my own children.

Grieve laughed. He could feel her laughter all through her body, as he leaned against her.

—The reason you were brought here, and entertained, kept here so long, is simple: we were on the brink of making history, and I wanted this period in the life of our house to be recorded. But how to record all the moments of this life, all this time, how to record it in a manner that lends it easily to retrieval? You might say put it down in writing, or film it, photograph it, put it on a disk from a computer. But after that which we intend, it is not clear that any of these methods will be easily brought out of this country into the one to which we go. Any such account could easily be found out. No, no, I decided, having thought long on the matter, that a mnemonist would be the perfect device. You were watched; you were observed. We knew you went on Sundays for your walks to the park. Your seizure had been intended, so that you might accompany us in our last week. Then when Tommy escaped, and Torquin caught him right in that neighborhood, when Tommy became violent in escaping again, and his unfortunate death occurred, the masterstroke occurred to me. We would place you in the midst of it immediately, by dropping Tommy's body close by you in the park.

James felt Grieve's hands, cold for once against his own. He had felt before in his work that others considered him a kind of machine. But events had moved so fast. He had never supposed that it was because of what he could do that they had brought him to Stark's house.

Stark had turned away and was leaning on his stick, thinking of his next words. He was obviously picking them carefully, imagining that James would remember them all.

Grieve whispered in James's ear:

—I love you.

—Don't lie, said James quietly.

Grieve pinched him.

—Does your head hurt?

It was a long, dull pain that came and went.

Grieve kissed him on the back of the head.

Stark twirled his stick, came over, and knelt again by James and Grieve. Torquin and the maid were still by the door.

—I want to explain to you, said Stark, exactly what's to happen.

You must be curious. It has already long ago been set in motion. There's nothing anyone can do to stop it now, so you can give up for good any ideas of heroism. Besides, you should see as I do, as we do, the rightness of our actions.

He smiled. It was a bold smile, full of confidence and majesty.

—The rod. You heard through the door, didn't you? Biscuits, the rod? Yes, we are going to set the rod upon the populace of this nation such as has never been done. Fifteen years ago, I came upon a method, a scientific method for accomplishing a particular design. That design I will reveal in a moment. At the time it seemed too drastic to me, and the consequences certainly unknowable and dire. But as time passed and my ideas progressed, I came to see that what had to happen, what I would cause to happen, would be of benefit, if not to this nation, then to all others.

—I don't understand what you're saying, said James.

—But you will remember it? said Stark, a question in his voice.

—Of course, said James. Of course I will remember it.

—There is a sort of gas, said Stark, that when released in the upper atmosphere creates clouds that will extend outward to cover an assigned distance of geography. These clouds emit a tone, as certain chemical processes occur amidst their gases. The tone is not one that human beings can hear. It is so high-pitched, in fact, that dogs and others who hear high pitches cannot hear it either. It addresses, in fact, a different sonic range entirely. What I discovered was that in this sonic range there was a particular range that complements and mimics the range of our hearing. By creating a cloud that would sing, that would emit the note I wanted, it seemed I could broadcast the tone across whatever landscape the cloud hung then above. The note is so high-pitched that it is not stopped by conventional walls, or even by ordinary soundproofing.

—But what does the sound do? asked James. What's the point of it?

—The point, said Stark, and James could feel Grieve stiff against his back, is that the sound destroys the ability of any human being to hear. Anyone caught beneath this cloud will be made permanently deaf.

Stark rose to his feet. His face took on a faraway countenance.

—Those who have been deaf to suffering will now be deaf in truth.

—But what about airplanes? asked James. What about airports? What about in the cities? People driving cars? No one will understand what's happening. Millions of people will die.

—Millions will die, said Stark. Within a hundred years they would all be dead anyway. And no one has ever proved that a long life is better than a short one. In fact, the evidence is much to the contrary.

—If that's true, said James, then why don't you kill yourself now? Why didn't you go to the White House? Instead you sent others with your warnings, your little notes.

—I would have, said Stark, but for the fact that there were many who wanted to do this thing for me. It was right that they go, because it was a thing that they could do, while there is a thing yet that I can do, that they cannot.

—What is that? asked James.

—To interpret the disaster to the world. Part of that, of course, is in your keeping. You are to have the record of it all. In the floor of this building there is a stair down beneath the ground. It leads to my cellar, where the wine is kept. Beneath that, there is another stair that leads to a bunker. I have built this bunker so that we may preserve our hearing and emerge, in three days' time, to find the clouds abated. You will stay with me this day, and memorize all that I need you to memorize, and then in the morning we will all go down into the ground together. Do you see?

Stark put his hand on James's shoulder.

—Do you see that you have been singled out from the rest to be saved?

James looked from Stark to Torquin to the girl. Torquin and the girl were looking at him with a kind of awe. How lucky he was, they seemed to be thinking.

There was something hypnotic to Stark's rhetoric. James spoke.

—I haven't got a choice. I will do what you say, if only because of Grieve. You should know, though, that luck has played a part in your plan. It's because of her that I'll help you.

—Luck is the key to every plan, said Stark.

James leaned back against Grieve. He could feel the side of her face against his. He looked up. Through the colored glass, he could see clouds moving and changing with the wind.

They sat a moment and Torquin came over. He asked James if he would have a word with him.

James got up, in much uncertainty. He followed after the man to the far side of the room. Torquin was looking at him in a somewhat menacing manner. Then all at once Torquin stuck out his hand for a handshake, and a smile broke across his blocky features.

—I didn't know what you were made of, said Torquin, but when you pulled the trigger on me, I knew you were the right sort, even if the gun didn't go off. I like a man with guts.

James shook his hand.

Torquin leaned in closer and said in a whisper:

—Some of them around here couldn't paddle a baby. You'd be disgusted if you saw how spineless they can be.

He laughed in a conspiratorial kind of way, stepped back and spoke again in an ordinary tone of voice.

—Anyway, I wanted to say there's no hard feelings on my part. We're going to be in close quarters for a while now.

James smiled.

—That we are.

Torquin gestured to the maid.

—Her name's Margret. I don't want any bad blood between the two of you either. She's a good girl, was just doing her job. Matter of fact, we're engaged.

James agreed that it was so; she had just been doing her job. He smiled at Margret.

Torquin nodded and went out the door. Margret came over. She stood very close.

—You know, she said. Don't tell him about how we . . . I mean . . . I was just acting, but he wouldn't like it, you know.

James assured her he would say nothing about anything to anyone.

—Thanks so much, she said, almost curtsying. I'm going now. I'll see you later—I mean, tomorrow, I suppose.

—James!

Grieve was calling.

Margret left and James went back across the room.

—Come back in an hour, said Stark. There's much for you to do.

He gestured at the desk on which sat various papers, leather ledgers, and assorted books.

James nodded. Grieve took his hand and led him out.

The hospital was empty. Much of the work of the past few days had been the transfer of the truly afflicted liars to other institutions.

These patients are particularly undesirable in psychiatric institutions, but Stark's hospital had been dedicated solely to them. It was the only institution of its kind in the world.

They wandered through the empty halls, looking in rooms and running together in a sort of anxious glee. James felt a lightness in his soul. The disaster was impending, and it horrified him, but the fact that he knew he would slip it, that he would escape it, and that Grieve would as well, gave him a joy like mercury that ran through his limbs and legs. I want her to be happy, he thought, and he looked at Grieve, skipping beside him. He felt too a gladness in knowing the extent of what was true and what was not. He had been plagued for days by versions of things, which had yielded enormities of misunderstanding and difficulty. Now at least he knew something, and he could hold on to it.

Grieve drew him down onto a bed in a long white room full of pallets. Thirty white pallets in a row, and on one they lay together. His head still swam in a slightness of pain from the blackjack, but he felt Grieve about him and in him, and he in her, and the immediacy of what was to come gathered them up like cloth lifted at the corners. The room was lifted like cloth at the corners and carried in a haze of motion. James held Grieve in his arms and she held him. What more could there be?

A dozen minutes passed, a dozen more, an hour, and the light had gone out of the windows, gone long into the corners and edges of the room, making shadows of the beds, and shadows of the hung linens.

—We are for each other, said Grieve. How fine that is, how perfect. Do you know that my father was an adviser once to the king of Siam? He learned all the king's secrets, and then controlled the king like a puppet. He does so still today. That's where we're going after the clouds come.