The Black Tower (17 page)

B
LOOD, IN FACT
, is very much on my mind when I watch the three law students align themselves round the dinner table. Father Time is not here to deflect them, and there’s something quite chilling in how they inspect the new guest for weaknesses. Any other man could be warned. Charles can only be watched, helplessly, from the other side of the table. As great a distance as the moon to the sun, or so it seems to me when Lapin, blotting the claret from his lips, sallies forth.

“Monsieur Charles, I believe our hostess has been too modest in her claims on your behalf. She speaks only of your coming into a fortune, when you appear already to have carved out a formidable military career.”

And when Lapin receives (as he expected) a look of puzzlement from his prey, he says, as dryly as he dares:

“Those
are
spurs I see on your boots?”

Lifting his leg, Charles surveys his feet with unfeigned surprise (for these are not his boots).

“Spurs! You’re right!”

“I expect you are likely a cuirassier,” says Lapin. “Perhaps you will regale us some day with stories of battles won.”

Smiling as though in perfect concord, Charles answers:

“I had a pony once.”

A slight pause. Then Rosbif comes gliding forward.

“Are you sure it was a pony, Monsieur? Your vest looks to be made entirely of goatskin.”

“So it is,” says Charles, newly astonished.

“I wonder, Monsieur, did you dress yourself in the dark?”

Far from resenting the question, he
absorbs
it, like an oyster wrapping itself round a piece of grit.

“Dress in the dark,” he says, wonderingly. “What fun! Tomorrow, we shall all dress in the dark!”

And as I watch a scowl flit across Rosbif’s face, I realize a wonder has come to light. The same qualities that leave Charles unprotected leave him unprovokable. The students succumb to a vexed silence, which is broken only after several minutes—by Nankeen, their chief.

“Do you know, Monsieur, I find your
jaw
of great interest.”

The sharp intake of air—that’s mine. But as fate would have it, I’ve overestimated Nankeen’s powers of discernment. For in the next breath, he says:

“I saw a jaw just like it in the Bicêtre asylum. Lovely lady. No longer able to wash or dress herself, but the jaw was quite useful for catching her drool.”

Charles’ brow creases for a second. Then, tilting his mouth down, he says:

“I had a dog that was shot in the jaw once. His name was Troilus.”

Nankeen sets down his fork—the surest sign he is girding for another charge—and just as I’m moving to interpose my own body, someone beats me to it.

My mother.

Setting down her napkin, she announces:

“
All
guests in my home will kindly be respected.”

The shock of her own pronouncement causes her cheeks to puff out, like a goddess of wind. Her head sinks over her plate, and amid the questions that weave silently across the table, mine is the one that registers most strongly in my inner ear:

Why has she never done that for me?

T
HE PREVIOUS TENANT
of Charles’ room was a general’s widow who, in her haste to abscond, left behind a bed with a rather fine canopy of antique damask, as well as a silver vanity case and droppings of talcum. These last lie scattered about the room like plaster dust and emit a scent so sharply feminine that I fight the urge to bow whenever I enter the room.

“The room’s a bit—sorry—Charlotte will get to it—tomorrow at the latest….”

I set his carpetbag on the bed, and because he makes no move toward it, I unpack for him. Blouses, trousers, striped linen underdrawers, and a large morocco cap, the kind a six-year-old boy might wear to go sledding. No more than three days’ worth of clothing, all in all, and not a single keepsake. Not even the hint of an estate.

“Well, now,” I say, after I put the clothes in the dresser. “That should do it.”

“Are there scorpions?” he asks.

“Are there…you mean
here
? Not that I’ve seen.”

“Then I’m sure I shall enjoy it.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he gives the mattress a pair of speculative bounces.

“Where do
you
sleep, Hector?”

It’s the first time he’s addressed me by name.

“Upstairs. In the garret.”

“Well, that’s fine, then. Am I to go to bed now?”

“You may do as you like. We don’t have any rules about sleeping.”

“Oh, I see,” he says, smiling shyly. “Well, then, Hector, you should know I never go to bed without someone sitting nearby. Now please believe me when I tell you it’s very easy. You needn’t say a word. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. And please don’t read to me because that tends to make me fidget. All you need do, really, is sit there, and I go right out.”

It never occurs to me to remonstrate with him. My hand, indeed, is already drawing the chair over.

“Monsieur Tepac,” I say. “Did he sit with you?”

“Why, yes. Agatha, too, sometimes, but her bones would creak, and one can’t ask a bone to be quiet, it can’t be done.”

“I don’t suppose it can.”

“But you’re still young,” he says, agreeably. “I don’t imagine you creak at all.”

“No,” I say, lowering myself with terrific care into the chair. “I’ll try not to.”

We sit for a few moments, regarding each other.

“Perhaps you’d care to get ready for bed,” I say.

“Oh!” He stares down at his dead man’s clothes. “You’re quite right. Let’s see now….”

He gives the boots a gentle tug. Tugs again and then relapses into confusion. And when I think back on this moment, what will most amaze me is the absence of hesitation on my part. I am already moving toward him, you see. With the express purpose of kneeling before him and prying his boots loose. The only thing that stops me is the cracked tremolo issuing from the doorway.

“There you are!” cries Father Time.

Not on his way to bed, no, but dressed for going out. And brimming with the prospect. Even his ragged necktie and old square coat look as if they were bracing for new possibilities.

There are two additions to his customary wardrobe. A lantern, still unlit. And a spade.

“I wonder if you’d care to join me,” he says. “I’m off to the Bois de Boulogne.”

“Professor, it’s…nighttime….”

“Yes, I know. But I just remembered where the archive was.”

“The archive.”

“The one you were asking me about! Concerning your
father,
I mean. When he was taking care of You-Know-Who at the You-Know-Where. Oh, good evening!” he says, suddenly drawing Charles into his ken. “How rude of me. Would you like to tag along, Monsieur?”

“B
URYING SOMEONE
, are we?”

We’re standing at the corner of the Rue d’Ulm and the Rue des Postes, and from the height of his box, a cabdriver scowls down at the spectacle of Father Time, who is caressing his spade like a bound lamb.

“Why, no,” answers the old man. “We’re all very much in the pink, I think. Although with
me,
one never knows. Now if you’d just take us to the Bois de Boulogne, we’d be your eternally devoted
vassals
.”

“Don’t need vassals,” the driver says. “Remuneration’d be nice.”

Stunned by this demand, Father Time turns slowly round to face me. “I say, my boy, do you—”

And before I can equivocate, Charles chimes in: “Oh, yes! That smelly man gave him a whole
pile
of gold coins.”

One of these coins is now prized from my purse and dropped in the cabman’s rein-calloused palm. He gives it his closest attention, then drops it down his trousers—straight into some waiting receptacle, from which the faintest clank emerges, like a far-off tocsin.

“Well, gentlemen,” he says. “At these rates, you can bury ten bodies.”

S
PRING HAS SET
up house in the Bois de Boulogne. Just a few strokes shy of midnight, and life thrums on all sides. Linnets, sparrows…a single butterfly, the color of young cheese…and
lovers,
discarding things in their haste—a pair of clogs, a canezou jacket, a lace stocking. Through the shrubbery, we can hear them, rustling and moaning, as we follow Father Time from the city wall to Lac Inférieur.

Some three hundred yards east of the Parc de Bagatelle, he stops abruptly. Wrinkles his nose and gazes round.

“Do you gentlemen know what a
linden
looks like?”

“Tilia cordata,”
answers Charles, with a trace of outrage.

“Oh, dear me! A fellow Linnaean! Very well, my young worthy, tell Hector what he should be looking for.”

“Well, lindens don’t drop flowers till June. But I’ve always thought they have an April smell. You must imagine a
toad,
Hector. Lying in hay for several days altogether, not a care in the world. That’s what it smells like. You’ll also find very distinct bore holes in the linden’s bark, courtesy of
Chrysoclista linneella
. I could trace them out for you, if it—”

“Please,”
I say, putting out my hand. “I know what lindens look like. But there are hundreds in this vicinity alone. Which one are we to look for, Monsieur?”

“Oh.” Father Time’s mouth unhinges, then quickly snaps to. “Why, the one with the
X
on it, of course.”

We walk now in slowly contracting circles, and the light from Father Time’s lantern walks ahead of us, startling the buds from the trees. For the first time tonight, I notice the cold. Waves of wind, rolling in from the east. At last one gust catches Father Time by the arm and nudges the lantern from his grip. The taper gutters out, the shadows dissolve…and moonlight rains down.

A
full
moon. It’s taken me this long to notice.

Father Time reaches into his pockets for a sulfur match and strikes it against the nearest tree. Instinctively, I turn to look for Charles…and find him ten yards off, standing before a linden tree. Slowly tracing a long cross.

The initial wound of that
X
has been healed over so many times that I might have walked by it a hundred times and noticed nothing out of order. But it’s there all the same.

From Father Time’s limp mouth, a yellow smile buds forth. “You’ve done it!” he shouts. “All we need do now is look
up
. Find Jupiter. Ah, there he is! And now…walk
north.
…”

He takes one pace…two…three. With his boot, he gouges a circle in the ground.

“Shall we begin?” he asks.

“Begin
what,
Monsieur?”

“The digging!”

I strip off my coat. Grab the spade and drive it straight down. The soil, still compacted from a long winter, answers with a dreary clink.

“How far do we need to go?”

“Oh, no more than four or five feet,” says Father Time, easily. “Do get a move on, my boy. It’s a bit nippy.”

On its first sally, the spade claws out no more than a few thimblefuls of dirt. It’s several minutes more before the surface layer is cleared away. From there, the soil grows more yielding but only for a short time—until I reach the stratum of clay.

And now the sweat blossoms right out of me…the breath comes in gasps…I hear:

“May
I
try, Hector?”

If anyone else had asked me, I should have answered yes immediately. What makes me hesitate with him?

“Please,” says Charles. “I’m very good at this sort of thing.”

In fact, he’s a natural wonder. Exerting half as much effort as I, he works at three times the pace. Every so often, he pauses to finger a lock of hair from his eyes, but mostly he digs, with a fixity of purpose that breaks down the earth’s last reserve.

I watch, dazzled, as the chunks of soil fly past me. The only thing that stops him finally is a sound—can you hear it?—a muffled concussion like…

Fwook
.

“Uh-oh,” says Charles.

“What is it?” cries Father Time. “What’s happened?”

“We’ve struck something,” I answer. “A stone. A root, possibly.”

“No root,” says Charles.

Fwook,
cries the spade once more. At last Charles bends down and extracts his prize.

A simple wooden school box. The kind that, as a boy, I might have used for storing my pencils and quills.

“What’s
in
it?” asks Charles.

“Why, it’s the archive!” answers Father Time.

I gaze at that strange box, with its carved swan, its flaking green and gold foliage, its painted tulips popping out of a rust red field.
An archive
.

“But why did you bury it?” I ask.

“Oho! You’d have left it in the house, is that it? For the Committee to find? Dear me, I’d forgotten about the lock. Hector, can you…?”

I grab the spade and swing it down. Three blows, and the lid springs open, like a mouth gulping for air. And there lies a tiny sketchbook, bound in green calf’s leather and girt with a linen cord.

I open its thick, calcified pages. I read:

13 T
HERMIDOR
Y
EAR
II

 

1st meeting with Prisoner: shortly after 1
A.M.
Prisoner alone in cell. Dinner had not been eaten. Nor breakfast.

 

“But whose is this?” I ask.

“Come now,” says Father Time, bending his mantis-frame toward me. “You must recognize the hand. It’s your father’s!”