Victoria could feel, in her other body, on the next floor, a sob rising to her throat. She understood nothing of this conversation, but part of her sensed, dimly, that Mommy was unhappy, and that it was, in a way, because of Father.
Father was terrifying. Far more terrifying than Twit. Far more terrifying than Mommy’s shadow. On the rare occasions Victoria had seen him, he’d not had a single word, a single gesture, a single glance for her.
Father didn’t love her.
Leaping from his chair with two pirouettes, Godfather emptied the dregs of a carafe into a glass. “By cutting my thread, the Web condemned me to eternal solitude. Honestly, you might be used to it, but I don’t know how you can put up with staying here, day after day. Immobility has become intolerable to me!”
Godfather guffawed, as if he’d just said something very funny, and Victoria thought how he himself would have made the best father in the world.
He drank half of his glass, then offered the other half to Mommy. “I have many vices; ingratitude is not one of them. I lost my whole family, but I’ve gained another one in exchange. You had every right to choose a new guardian for your daughter, and you kept me, despite everything. Believe it or not, what I do today I do also for you, for Victoria, for Ophelia, and, even if it galls me to say it, for Thorn. And for you, too, Madam Rosaline.”
Godfather winked again at Great-Godmother, who rolled her eyes, although Victoria found her at once much less yellow and much more pink. He then took off his big, holey hat, mumbling, “Ladies!” and left the drawing room with a little jig.
Victoria suddenly longed to leave her other body in the bedroom and follow Godfather out of the house, to go with him to see the real trees and the real birds.
“He’s not entirely wrong,” Great-Godmother suddenly said, in her funny accent. “You’re not alone, Berenilde. I’ve just crossed half the arks to be back with you, and I have the firm intention of imposing my company on you. But just look at this weather!” she said, with exasperation, slapping her hand on the window. “It’s more depressing in your place than inside a pickle jar. You going to have to buck up, starting with a good sweep. What would Mr. Thorn say if he found your manor shrouded in dust?”
Mommy let out a little laugh, and seemed the first to be surprised. “He would refuse point-blank to come in.”
Victoria returned to being the Other-Victoria in bed. She yawned and closed her eyes, worn out by her too-heavy body. Outside, the rain had stopped. If Great-Godmother really could bring back the sun, it was worth staying at home a little longer.
THE GLOVES
A violent gust of wind shook the ladder. Ophelia dropped the spent bulb she had just unscrewed from the top of the lamp. She clung to the rungs, waiting for the squall to stop, before pulling a new one out of her haversack. Bulbs from Heliopolis contained the light in its pure state. They required neither firing by gas nor powering by electricity, and they didn’t burn the fingers when handled. They were screwed on merely to prevent them breaking at the first gust of wind. The city had adopted them with the same enthusiasm it had shown toward the transcendiums from Cyclope. With her eyes shut tight to avoid being dazzled, Ophelia handled the bulbs carefully so as not to break them all—she had no desire to be even more indebted to the Good Family. Every hour she lost on extra chores wasn’t being devoted to her apprenticeship. And she didn’t have much time left.
“Apprentice Eulalia, quicken your pace.”
Ophelia turned to look at the megaphone at the top of the watchtower. There was a whole team of supervisors observing every corner of the conservatoire using the network of periscopes, and they were ruthless.
Ladder under arm, she walked along the wall to the next lamp, reciting her last radio lesson out loud. Phenomenology, epistemology, biblioteconomy, synchrony, diachrony . . . every time she went to the amphitheater and put on her earphones, it was as if she were putting a funnel into each ear through which a stream of unpronounceable words poured. Far from feeling increasingly erudite, she felt even more ignorant. Anima’s museum hadn’t prepared her for this.
And yet those lessons were feasible when compared with those given by Lady Septima. Ophelia spent hours in the laboratory doing endless readings to hone her skills, sometimes to the point of feeling nauseous, but her teacher was never satisfied: “Your hands lack precision.”
She energetically screwed the dazzling bulb into its lamp. She had three days left to prove to all of them that she was fit to join one of Sir Henry’s groups. She would practice all night if necessary, but she would achieve her goal!
The wind carried the distant sound of the gong. Dawn, at last.
“Apprentice Eulalia, your chore is completed!” the voice from the megaphone announced. “Please return to your division.”
Ophelia climbed down her ladder, not sorry that was over. But she couldn’t resist a final look at the sea of clouds above the wall. The lofty tower of the Memorial, perched on the edge of its tiny ark, was barely visible in the crystalline limpidity of the morning.
Eighteen days already. Eighteen days since Mademoiselle Silence had met her death over there, and no one even mentioned it anymore. The city’s Official Journal had concluded that it was an accident; the rumors had stopped; and the reading groups had resumed. The matter was considered closed.
But not for Ophelia. A woman had died in dubious circumstances shortly after her arrival in Babel, at the location central to her search; this couldn’t be a mere coincidence. Had Ophelia not been retained at the conservatoire by the internal rules, she would have already gone over there. A little more patience. She would access the Memorial’s Secretarium in the end, and, at the same time, the answers she was seeking.
Ophelia walked along the covered arcades, where remnants of fog lingered between the columns, and then passed under the portico of the Hall of Residence. The apprentices were already debating on the walls and ceilings of the atrium. Here, perpetual disagreement reigned, with some forever suspecting others of stealing their ideas. As soon as tempers were rising, the Hall’s megaphone would request calm, and everyone would obediently dive back into their work. It sometimes seemed to Ophelia that the conservatoire of virtuosos was more about taming than education.
She went to the cloakroom to swap her overalls for her uniform, and was confronted with a group of Totemists all getting undressed. Her sister Agatha, who subscribed to the Gazette of Fashion Across the Arks, had once told her, between cheeky giggles, that the women and men of Totem had the world’s most beautiful bodies. Without being a specialist in the subject, Ophelia had to agree. The Totemists greeted her with smiles as bright as their skin was dark; she did her best to return them without seeming embarrassed. The Good Family was a co-educational establishment right down to the basics of daily life. Either one put one’s modesty aside or one surrendered one’s place to someone else.