The two examiners exchanged another look, but made no comment. They were both so impassive, Ophelia couldn’t tell whether she’d made a strong impression on them, or not. She didn’t even know what an analytical machine was.
The woman returned the trophy to the cabinet, and handed Ophelia a fountain pen. “We ask all applicants to sign the register. Before doing it yourself, I would like you to read this pen.”
Ophelia gripped the gloves she was about to put back on. “You expect me to supply you with information about the other applicants?”
“It will be your final test.”
“I can’t read a possession without the consent of its owner.”
“The Good Family is the owner of this fountain pen, as it is of these trophies,” the woman said, gesturing at the cabinet. “There’s no difference.”
Ophelia contemplated the object for a long time; a ray of sunlight, suddenly escaping through the shutter, bounced off the gold of its nib. Her final test.
She buttoned up her gloves. “I’m sorry, madame, there is a difference. These trophies belong to the past. The future of their owners doesn’t depend on what I might divulge about them.”
The woman pursed her lips, and it seemed to Ophelia that the network of her veins became even more prominent beneath the bluish pallor of her skin. The ray of sunlight, swallowed by a cloud, went out like a flame on the nib.
“Sign and go, young lady.”
“Should I leave you a contact address? I’m currently staying at the son of Mr. Laza . . . ”
“That will not be necessary,” the woman interrupted her.
As Ophelia was scribbling a clumsy “Eulalia” on the applications register, she felt a lump rising in her throat. The examiners each wrote down a grade on the same piece of paper, which was then slipped into a cartridge and sent to a different department via a pneumatic tube.
As soon as she got out, she dived into the closest restroom and splashed water on her face.
She hadn’t been able to stop herself. Once again, her professional ethics had had the upper hand. She had just let slip away her only chance of accessing the Memorial’s Secretarium, of researching into the “ultimate truth,” of unmasking God, of finding Thorn again, and all out of consideration for whom? Applicants who didn’t hesitate to use their own powers to get rid of the competition.
“Mademoiselle Eulalia?”
She had barely left the restroom when a young girl had approached her. A student, going by her uniform.
“Yes?”
“Kindly follow me, please. Lady Helen would like to converse with you.”
Ophelia was no expert on family spirits. Out of the twenty-one in existence, she had known only two up until now, and both those encounters had left her with a memorable impression. When she entered Lady Helen’s office, she knew that this occasion would be no different.
The chair the family spirit was sitting in was linked to a tentacular mechanism. Dozens of articulated arms were humming away, one opening the drawer of a filing cabinet, another raising the cover of a hoist, and another emptying the contents of a pneumatic tube. Some were gathering pending correspondence to the left, others collecting dealt-with correspondence to the right, and all without a lull.
The first thing that struck Ophelia, once the surprise of this mechanical ballet had faded, was that Helen didn’t remotely resemble the statues one saw of her in the city, standing magnificently to the right of Pollux. Her nose and ears were elephantine, as though the gigantism afflicting her had concentrated on those parts of her anatomy. In general, nothing seemed normally proportioned in this family spirit. Her head was too large compared with her body, her fingers too long compared with her hands, her bosom too generous compared with her torso. She looked like a huge caricature brought to life.
Ophelia felt her stomach lurch when Helen stamped a paper, placed it on the pile of dealt-with correspondence, and then slowly raised her eyes in her direction; they had completely disappeared behind an optical appliance of crazy complexity. Her slender fingers, similar to a spider’s legs, removed two detachable lenses from among the dozens that were stacked on her huge nose, as if that would allow her better to see the little visitor who was standing on the other side of her desk.
The student escorting Ophelia closed the door, and turned the spoked handle several times; it was as if she were closing a vault from the inside. The thousand and one little sounds that filled the conservatoire—pounding of feet, raising of voices, banging of doors—were instantly smothered under a triple layer of silence. Now that Ophelia thought about it, owing to the luminous globes, there wasn’t a single window in the office; merely a strange periscope that descended from the ceiling.
“Howard Harper.”
Helen’s voice had suddenly reverberated against all the marble and metal in the room. It was a voice so grating, so drawn out, so sepulchral that Ophelia wondered for a moment whether she was attempting to call up a spirit.
“That was a time when the powerless still had family names,” Helen continued, systematically articulating each syllable. “Today they have all sunk into oblivion. All apart from one: Harper. Even I, endowed with an appalling memory, know that particular name. And you, young lady, do you know it?”
“No, madame,” replied Ophelia, puzzled. Where was this conversation leading her? Was this the usual procedure for every applicant?
“Howard Harper is the man who contributed to building the place you are in right now,” said Helen, leaning heavily against the back of her chair. “Before him, this little ark was nothing but a jungle shrouded in clouds, and only one virtuoso conservatoire existed: that of my brother and his dear offspring. I, myself, was never able to have children. Of all the family spirits, I’m the only one to be infertile . . . and that’s not the only defect to afflict me,” she added, with an ironic tone that made her voice even more grating. “Howard Harper is the one who showed me a different path. He was my very first Godson.”
“The trophy,” murmured Ophelia.
Helen considered her through her stack of lenses. The golden glint of an eye, tiny as a star, so distant did it seem, shone from the other side. “The trophy, yes. With a bare minimum of education, you would have immediately identified its owner. I listened to your so-called evaluation from here, and I found it woefully incomplete. Lack of historical knowledge, absence of dates, anecdotes devoid of relevance: your family power is interesting, but you, young lady, you are an ignoramus. If you had fallen into the trap of the examiners by reading the fountain pen, you wouldn’t even be here in my office.”
Ophelia squeezed her hands tight behind her back. She had received all manner of insult during her life, and of much greater cruelty, but this one hit her straight in the heart. Reading objects was the one field in which she was gifted. Being criticized for her abilities awoke in her a sensitivity whose existence she’d not even suspected.