“Judging by your reaction, the experience was pretty disappointing.”
She put her glasses back on, astonished to hear a human voice addressing her. An adolescent was seated right in front of her, arms resting on a chair of carved wood, in the shade of a large parasol. The dazzling white of his clothes brought out the bronze hue of his skin. There was something strange about him that Ophelia couldn’t quite define. In truth, he would have seemed more at home in a tearoom than in the middle of the public highway. He was observing Ophelia with such curiosity that he paid no attention to the torrent of townsfolk around him.
“The public signaling guide,” he finally explained, indicating the statue-automaton. “You have to give it the precise address of your destination, otherwise it won’t understand you. And without wishing to offend you, mademoiselle, I think your accent’s a bit too much for it.”
The adolescent spoke himself with the typical Babel accent, which was both mellifluous and refined. Everything about him was gentle: his antelope eyes, his long, silky black hair, the fine features of his face, even the satin of his clothes. Ophelia was probably older than him, but, right now, she felt like a child before him.
“I’ve lost my bag and my papers,” she said, in a croaky voice she wasn’t proud of. “I don’t know what to do. It’s my first time on Babel.”
The adolescent turned with difficulty in his chair, and Ophelia was struck again by the indefinable strangeness he emanated. “Take that avenue, go right to the end of it, and cross the bridge,” he said, pointing eastwards. “From there you’ll see a very large edifice looking like a lighthouse; once you’ve spotted it, you can’t get lost anymore.”
“And this edifice, what exactly is it?”
The adolescent smiled, faintly. “The Babel Memorial. It’s over there that the XXIInd Interfamilial Exhibition was held. That’s what you were asking the guide about, isn’t it? Pardonnez-moi, mademoiselle, I couldn’t stop myself from listening to you. My father says that curiosity is a ‘fine flaw,’ but I always tend to meddle in what’s none of my business. And to talk too much, also,” he admitted, apologetically, “but I get that from my father as well. On the subject of your bag, I’m sure you’ll find it again soon. Honesty is a civic duty on Babel.”
Ophelia was overcome with gratitude. This young man had restored all her courage. “Thank you, sir.”
“Ambrose. Without the ‘sir,’ mademoiselle.”
“O . . . Eulalia. Thank you, Ambrose.”
“Good luck, mademoiselle.”
He hesitated a moment, as if wanting to add something, then changed his mind. Ophelia crossed the junction against the traffic, to outraged cries from the cyclists and rickshaw drivers, but she couldn’t resist looking back. She felt as if she’d missed an important detail. She understood what it was as she saw Ambrose struggling to maneuver his chair.
It was a wheelchair. He’d got stuck between the cobbles.
Ophelia immediately turned back, prompting a fresh wave of disapproval, and leant with all her weight on the chair to release the wheel. Ambrose looked up at her in surprise, thinking she’d already be long gone.
“It’s ridiculous,” he said, with an embarrassed little laugh, “I get caught out every time. That’s why I’d never make a good whaxi.”
“A whaxi?”
“A whistle-for taxi, mademoiselle. Anything that can move and take a passenger. You don’t have them where you live?”
As Ophelia merely nodded evasively, Ambrose considered her with renewed curiosity. “I helped you. You helped me. We’re friends.”
This declaration was so spontaneous, Ophelia couldn’t help but shake the hand he held out to her. It was at that very moment that she knew why this adolescent seemed strange: he had a left arm where his right arm should have been, a right arm where his left arm should have been. And judging by the bizarre angle of his babouches, his legs were similarly reversed. It was the most unusual disability Ophelia had ever encountered in someone—as if Ambrose had also been the victim of a mirror accident.
“If you’re happy to have me as your driver, Mademoiselle Eulalia, jump on!” He turned a crank fitted to his chair, producing a prolonged clanking of gears. Ophelia perched awkwardly on the rear running board and almost fell as soon as Ambrose lowered the handbrake, propelling the chair forward. She felt the road’s every cobble unrolling beneath her. On several occasions, she had to step down and release the wheels from potholes, while Ambrose raised the springs of his chair by turning the crank. The large parasol, badly attached to the back of the seat, creaked noisily in the wind, drowning out Ambrose’s gentle voice as he chatted away. It was a pretty uncomfortable journey, but Ophelia stopped thinking about it the moment the chair launched onto a bridge between two arks, and Ambrose pointed into the distance with his inverted hand.
Between the infinity of the sky and the sea of clouds, a huge, spiraling tower, topped with a glass dome, stood on a floating island barely big enough to support it. An entire side of the building jutted out into the void, but so perfect was the architectural equilibrium, the whole edifice remained upright all the same.
“The Babel Memorial,” declared Ambrose. “It’s our oldest monument, half of it dating back to the old world. It’s said that all of humanity’s memory resides within it.”
“Humanity’s memory,” Ophelia repeated to her deepest self. At the thought that Thorn might have made his way there, she felt a drumming in her chest. She leant over the seat to be heard by Ambrose, of whom she could only see waves of black hair. “Only half?”
“Part of the tower collapsed with the Rupture, but it was rebuilt by LUX centuries ago. I like going to the Memorial, there are thousands of books there! I adore books, don’t you? I could spend my days reading them, on whatever subject. I attempted to write one once, but I’m as hopeless an author as I am a whaxi driver; I always get sidetracked. Don’t go thinking the Memorial is some sort of old, dusty library, Mademoiselle Eulalia. It’s at the cutting edge of modernity, with familiotheques, transcendiuses, and phantograms! And all thanks to LUX.”
Ophelia hadn’t the slightest idea what familiotheques, transcendiuses, and phantograms were, but the word “LUX” rang a bell. She then recalled that it was printed on all the advertising posters on the tram.
“And a headless soldier?” she asked. “Is there one there?”
Ambrose lifted his lever abruptly, braking so suddenly that Ophelia banged her head on his. “You mustn’t use that word in public, mademoiselle,” he muttered, giving her a surprised glance over his shoulder. “I don’t know about where you’re from, but here we have an Index.”
“An Index?”