While her head was swirling with doubt, Ophelia crashed straight into a trolley in front of her. The books stacked on it were sent flying, and, to add to the confusion, she dropped her own bag, whose contents spread across the floor.
The man pushing the trolley didn’t get angry. He merely sighed and gathered up his books with resignation.
“I’m so sorry,” Ophelia whispered, kneeling beside him, despite her toga.
“You shouldn’t be, mademoiselle. I alone am at fault.”
The man had said this with disillusion in his voice and a stoop, as if he carried the weight of the sins of the world on his shoulders. A badge saying “assistant” was pinned to his uniform. Ophelia retrieved her personal belongings, but they had got so mixed up with the children’s books that she found her fake identity papers caught between the pages of one of them.
“But of course. You again, always you.”
A woman had sneaked up like a cat. Her badge indicated that she worked at the Memorial as a “senior censor.” Her ears, slender and triangular as a cat’s, were pricked up with contempt. An Acoustic.
“Throwing books on the floor. Books I had entrusted into your care. It’s an offense as much to my hearing as to my work.” The Memorialist spoke in a very low, almost inaudible voice, as if she couldn’t bear the sound of it herself.
“Forgive me, Mademoiselle Silence,” replied the assistant, still returning the books to the trolley. Ophelia wanted to intervene, to explain that the fault was hers, but the Memorialist cut her short:
“You are, and you will remain forever, a subordinate; you have no ambition. But that is not my case, so for pity’s sake, don’t tarnish me with your incompetence. Take that trolley over to my department, and don’t drop another thing.”
“Yes, Mademoiselle Silence.”
The assistant loaded on the remaining books and proceeded along the corridor, his head so sunken, it seemed about to disappear into his body.
The Memorialist’s ears immediately swiveled toward Ophelia, swiftly followed by her eyes. “As for you, open up your bag.”
Ophelia gripped the strap tightly. This woman inspired such dislike in her that, as a precaution, she moved back. It really wasn’t the time for her claws to show themselves.
“Why?”
“Because I’m ordering you to.”
“There’s nothing in my belongings of interest to you.”
The Memorialist made a suspicious, somewhat disgusted face, and Ophelia then became aware of the state of her bag. From having dragged it around and lost it, she had turned this perfectly respectable piece of luggage into a disgusting, tattered thing.
“That, little powerless one, is for me to decide. Since we no longer lend out books, we’ve seen no end of pilferers. Open your bag.”
Ophelia felt a drop of sweat roll down her neck. Obeying would mean showing her false papers, and that wasn’t something she wished to do to a professional archivist, and a suspicious one at that.
“Maybe you would prefer me to call security?” The Memorialist had whispered her question while tugging the chain on her uniform to reveal a whistle at its end. Just as Ophelia was wondering how to get herself out of this situation, there was a resounding crackling noise. The woman dropped her whistle to block her ears. Barely had the racket subsided than a booming voice, amplified by a megaphone, reverberated throughout the corridors:
“Wake up, citizens! This Memorial’s just a massive joke! They’re amputating our past! They’re amputating our language! Down with the Index! Death to the censors!”
“Him again,” muttered the Memorialist, looking offended. She turned her attention away from Ophelia, who took advantage of the diversion to scarper. The readers had all lifted their noses out of their books with shocked expressions, as the voice through the megaphone chanted, “Death to the censors! Death to the censors!” before giving way to an abrupt silence. Either the agitator had been stopped, or he had run away.
Out of breath, Ophelia returned to the atrium, where Ambrose was already waiting for her. Sitting nonchalantly in his wheelchair, with a half-smile, he didn’t seem bothered by the incident.
“It’s Fearless-and-Almost-Blameless,” he explained. “He always has to come and disturb the peace of this place. He barks a lot, but he doesn’t bite. He didn’t scare you, I hope?”
Ophelia merely shook her head. If she uttered a word right then, right there, her voice would betray her distress. This visit to the Memorial was a disaster. Her bag weighed her down as if it were her own morale slung on her shoulder.
Ambrose observed her with his gentle, antelope eyes. “You know, mademoiselle, the Memorial isn’t somewhere one can visit in half a day. I’ve been coming here regularly for years, and there are still a whole load of things that are unknown to me.” He raised his face, with a meaningful look, and Ophelia followed his eyes. The gigantic terrestrial globe that was gravitating above them was plunging them entirely in its shadow. “It’s not simply a decorative globe,” Ambrose continued, in a dreamy murmur. “It’s the Secretarium. Within it are stored all the collections that are not accessible to the public—the rarest and oldest. They say there’s a strongroom inside it, and in there can be found the ‘ultimate truth.’ Of course, it’s a tall tale to make kids dream, but I do believe that the strongroom really does exist.”
Ophelia’s heart, which, just a moment before, had been heavy in her chest, started to beat like crazy. “The ultimate truth?” she whispered.
Ambrose threw her a sidelong glance, disconcerted by the emotion coloring her glasses. “As I told you, it’s just a tall tale told to children, it’s not to be taken seriously.”
Ophelia, on the contrary, took it very seriously. “How does one enter this Secretarium?”
“It’s impossible, mademoiselle,” Ambrose replied, becoming even more disconcerted. “It isn’t even open to citizens. Only the Forerunners have access to it. And there again, only the most virtuoso among them.”
Ophelia contemplated the globe, which, at this moment, had superimposed itself so perfectly on the midday sun that it was producing the effect of an eclipse. It was linked to no floor of the Memorial, was furnished with no gangway, and allowed nothing to be seen of the secret rooms it harbored. A sudden thought returned her to the students in the reading cubicles, and the recruiting poster.
“In that case, I’ll be a virtuoso,” she declared, to Ambrose’s astonishment.
THE APPLICATION
The birdtrain took off. Ophelia had a final look at the statue of the headless soldier, guarding the entrance to the Memorial, surrounded by mimosas. She made him a promise. The next time she came to see him, she’d be ready.