He seemed torn between relief and anxiety, two conflicting emotions that distorted the already tormented features of his face.
“Something else?” Ophelia asked, with surprise.
“Mademoiselle Silence was senior censor,” Blaise reminded her. “Among all the works in the Memorial, a senior censor decides which conform to the city’s outlook, and which don’t. If one of them is questionable, he or she can decide to transfer it to the reserved section, or . . . eh bien . . . proceed with its destruction, pure and simple.”
Ophelia thought, bitterly, of her museum, on Anima. “And what kind of senior censor was Mademoiselle Silence?”
“The radical sort,” Blaise suddenly whispered, very quietly, as though the formidable ears of his superior could hear him from beyond the grave. “She hunted down, relentlessly, all the works she deemed harmful. At the first sign of any ambiguous words, the book went directement into the incinerator. We lost some unique editions due to this purge. The Lords of LUX issued several warnings to Mademoiselle Silence, as you can imagine: they subsidize the Memorial to develop its collections, not to throw them into the flames. It was no good, she always ended up resuming her excessive behavior. Until the revision of the catalogue, at least.”
With a movement familiar to him, Blaise made Ophelia step to one side; they thus avoided a lantern that, incredibly, had unhooked itself from a store awning just as they were passing beneath it.
“The introduction of Sir Henry’s reading groups changed everything,” he continued, as if nothing had happened. “Mademoiselle Silence was strictly prohibited from destroying any more works. This intensely annoyed her, and, believe me, I often had to pay for her foul moods.”
“I do believe you. I met her only once, and the memory is still painful.”
“It’s precisely that occasion that I wanted to get to,” whispered Blaise. “The day when I . . . when you . . . bon, the day when the book trolley tipped over.”
“Yes?” Ophelia encouraged him.
“Those . . . those books, Mademoiselle destroyed them. Despite the prohibition. Just prior to dying. When she gave me the order to remove them, I swear to you I had no idea the fate she had in store for them,” Blaise stammered, as if fearing censure. “I was just supposed to transport them to her department for her to examine them.”
To Ophelia, it seemed as if the merry bustle of the bazaar, its exotic aromas, its eye-catching knickknacks, had suddenly become distant. She knew, with absolute certainty, that continuing this discussion would be to venture onto an isolated and dangerous path, a path that decent citizens didn’t take. “Go on,” she said, all the same. “Why did she destroy those books? What was so distinctive about them?”
Blaise rubbed his large, pointed nose, bothered by the smoke from an incense stall they were just passing. “They were just tales for children! They were published after the Rupture, and described the beginnings of the new world. They were very fine editions, but, honnêtement, they were starting to gather dust. Our young readers never borrowed them.”
“From what you’re saying, the tales weren’t particularly subversive.”
“Oh, they made a few allusions to the ‘hm-hms’ of the old world,” Blaise said, coughing to avoid saying the word “wars,” “but with metaphoric and pacific intent. They were rather naive, even, from what little I recall. I have no idea what possessed Mademoiselle Silence to target them, despite orders.”
“Because of their author, perhaps?” Ophelia suggested.
“Long dead and long forgotten,” Blaise said, with a shrug. “A certain ‘E. G.’”
“Erjay?”
“‘E. G.,’” Blaise repeated, trying to modify his accent. “Just the initials. Might as well say anonymous. I did some research on him, but there’s no other known work by him, apart from these tales. Very few were printed, and we held perhaps the last remaining volumes at the Memorial. Such beautiful books!” he sighed. “Lost forever!”
“So, the last thing Mademoiselle Silence did before her death was to burn the tales of an unknown writer,” Ophelia recapped. “It’s pretty strange.”
“En fait, I’ve kept the strangest for last. The place where Mademoiselle Silence’s body was discovered . . . That library ladder she fell off. . .” Blaise suddenly put his hand to his nose, as if a smell from the past, stronger even than all those of the bazaar, had just turned his stomach. “Oh, Mademoiselle Eulalia! If you had smelt it, that terrible stench . . . The reek of abject fear. Her corpse,” he said, after taking a deep breath, “was found exactly where the books by our mysterious E. G. were shelved. I mean, before they were removed. All that remained were empty shelves, but she still had to go and inspect them, in the middle of the night, without rhyme or reason!”
“That determination speaks volumes,” Ophelia acknowledged. “But it doesn’t explain the terror that gripped her at the moment of dying. Do you think . . . Do you believe there could be some link there with the Secretarium?”
“The Secretarium?” asked Blaise, surprised. “I can’t really see the connection. Mademoiselle Silence had no more access to it than I do. I know there are rumors circulating about that place, but they’re nothing more. Here are your ancient baths, Mademoiselle Eulalia!”
He had just passed under an arch that led to a side street. The steel and glass of the market gave way to stone and water. The remains of columns formed a circular gallery, open to the sky, around a pool that didn’t look too clean. The fruit sellers who had set up shop there were forever chasing away wasps with mechanical rackets.
Ophelia now better understood Blaise’s reaction on seeing her tickets. This place bore no resemblance whatsoever to a cabaret. The thought that Mediana had made a fool of her made her furious in a way she had rarely felt.
And then, she spotted it. On the other side of the pool. A round sign, battered by the wind, was swinging above a rusty, old door. Ophelia had to bang into many stalls and skid on much rotten fruit to reach it.
“You think this bight be it, bademoiselle?” asked a surprised Blaise, holding his nose again, unable to bear the smell any longer.
She didn’t reply. She was observing. The sign had lost its paint, washed out by sun and rain, but its form was undoubtedly that of an orange. Of course, it could be a coincidence, but Ophelia’s instinct whispered to her that it wasn’t. She banged the door’s knocker, crushing her fingers in the process.
A spyhole opened almost immediately.
“What may I do to help you?” a little voice inquired.
Ophelia showed her tickets, and, after the click of a lock, the door opened on a child. He was wearing just a simple loincloth, doing justice to his chocolate-hued skin; being barefoot on cobbles scorched by the sun didn’t seem to bother him. Politely, he ushered them in, turning the key behind them. On the other side of the door there was a small courtyard, open-air and ill-paved, which might have once served as a changing room for the ancient baths.