What Lot's Wife Saw Read online

  Main Characters

  Phileas Book: Creator of the Epistleword for The Times

  Residence: Paris

  Governor Bera

  Residence: the Colony

  Xavier Turia Hermenegildo, aka Bernard Bateau

  Residence: the Colony

  Position: Presiding Judge

  Place of Birth: Valencia, Spain

  Selim Duden Bercant, aka Andrew Drake

  Residence: the Colony

  Position: Captain of the Guards

  Place of Birth: Antalya, Turkey

  Dusan Zehta Danilovitz, aka Montague Montenegro

  Residence: the Colony

  Position: Orthodox Priest

  Place of Birth: Danilovgrad, Montenegro

  Nicodeme Le Rhône, aka Charles Siccouane

  Residence: the Colony

  Position: Private Secretary to the Governor

  Place of Birth: Marseilles, France

  Arduino Tiberio Flagrante, aka Niccolo Fabrizio

  Residence: the Colony

  Position: Surgeon General

  Place of Birth: Rome, Italy

  Judith Swarnlake, aka Regina Bera

  Residence: the Colony

  Position: Governor’s Wife

  Place of Birth: Liverpool, United Kingdom

  Bianca Bateau

  Residence: the Colony

  Position: Chambermaid to Regina Bera

  Place of Birth: the Colony

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Main Characters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Copyright

  1

  Perhaps reality is but a mass delusion, thought Phileas Book, watching the waves of the Mediterranean Sea breaking against the concrete quays of Paris. Even after all this time, how could one reconcile the sight of the Louvre with the proximity of salt water, or of the Avenue Montparnasse with the tang of the sea breeze? The bewildered Parisians inhaled the new air, which differed from the sweet scent of the Seine, misted their car windows, clogged their nostrils and reminded them that the map of Europe had changed. They now inhabited a coastal city. They, who had once lived at the very heart of the continent, were now forced to replace their limber riverboats with huge ocean-going vessels, and the familiar path of their river with the vast Mediterranean horizon that seemed to have no end.

  A quarter of a century had already passed and yet the memory of that supernatural wave, which, like a flying carpet had come unbidden one autumn from Africa and slammed into the suburbs of Montreuil and Chantilly to bring the sea to Paris’s doorstep, continued to torment the sleep of Parisians. The new port, destined to host massive ships, seemed, in their eyes, to be a horrible concrete tombstone of their romantic past. Either from bitterness or superstition, they avoided the quays in autumn, lit candles in the dry bed of the Seine and returned to their homes earlier than usual. The erstwhile City of Light reacted to the hubris of the Overflow by ageing prematurely. It had suddenly filled with wrinkles and scars, drawn curtains and unlit landings, whispers laced with guilt and shadows that walked soundlessly so as not to provoke the avenging earth. The newly built port, despite being a marvel of engineering, had so many venomous looks directed against it that it was a wonder that it had not yet detached itself from the French coast to plunge to the depths and thus bury the shame forever.

  Phileas Book belonged to the somewhat infamous minority that appeared to have made peace with the insulting presence of the port. He strolled alone on the quayside this November dusk. He left his raincoat open and allowed the rolling sea, which relentlessly crashed and sucked against the concrete, to splash his shirt. He kept up a furious monologue as his boots stamped along the wet pavement. He was obviously caught up in some internal argument, typical of the ones that so often convulsed this eccentric Times correspondent and that lent credence to those rumours about his upcoming dismissal. Whenever Book disagreed with Book, Book sulked and ignored himself for days on end.

  The Parisians who watched him strolling along the empty pier would disapprove: does this person have no memory? The truth was that Phileas Book remembered only too well. It was particularly in autumn that the demons which haunted him gained strength – they became the tortured cries, the strangled moans of the drowned, the distorted faces, the sun-parched clothes that crackled from the ingrained salt, and the arms that desperately stretched out from the muddy waves. His wanderings by the port would enrage rather than calm his demons, but Book had long accepted that cohabitation with them was mandatory and that there was enough room in his tormented consciousness for everyone, even for himself. When he felt the sea breeze caressing his face – a sea only a few blocks from Montmartre, gods are you not blushing? – the old map of France was sometimes dredged up in his brain, and he would momentarily lose awareness of his surroundings. He would walk towards the waves, believing that he was heading for one of the now inundated vineyards, but thankfully, the protective wall that the designers had presciently placed in his path would stop him from plunging over the edge. The vineyards of his memory now lay many leagues under his field of vision and had been long since colonised by seaweed, no longer able to lend any colour to the waves with the tannins of their grapes.

  Phileas Book belonged to the habitants-étrangers of Paris, and despite never having really bonded with the locals he had bonded with the city, to the great indignation of his newspaper, which was forced to post all the material for his work from London. Paris touched him as it nobly suffered not only the pain of the horribly wounded, but also the stigma of the traitor. To those who would accuse it of conceding the use of its sea too easily to the fleet of the Seventy-Five and of its port as the seat of their Consortium, it would answer that neither the sea nor the port truly belonged to it as it had always been landlocked. It would have named the true culprits as the whims of nature that had suddenly wrapped the Mediterranean Sea around the neck of France while plunging her tender trunk – Orléans, Burgundy, Limoges – as well as the priceless fingertips – Marseilles, Nice, Toulon – to the depths, transforming her into a disembodied bust.

  The dismembered do not negotiate, they lack the necessary tools for it, and so the Consortium succeeded in its submission of Paris even more completely than the Overflow had. In Book’s opinion, Paris, at least, by sentencing itself to silence, had reacted with more maturity than the others who felt the scourge of the Overflow. It did not tear its hair out in lament like the Balkans, nor curse like the Iberians, nor yet lose its sanity like the Italians had; it just aged, turned introspective and quietly mourned. This Book admired, as he himself had managed neither to mourn nor to age with dignity.

  The walk in the port that he imposed on himself every evening in memory of those drowned nearly always ended violently and painfully as, walking absent-mindedly, he would bump forcef
ully into the steel barriers which circumscribed the public promenade. Just as he did today, banging his forehead on the fencing and acquiring a new bump. He rubbed it in surprise. Where had that steel fence come from? He was unwilling to accept that only half the quay belonged to the walkers and visitors, the contemplators, the idle, the lovers or the habitants-étrangers like himself; the other half belonged to those who had paid for it.

  Behind the fencing stretched the vast naval base of the Consortium of the Seventy-Five, the convoluted design of which was reminiscent of an artificial fjord. A multitude of jetties invaded the sea like so many tentacles, each one splitting into branches, corners, curves, lines and breakwaters, creating a lagoon of uncountable artificial coves where the strange ships of the Consortium could be berthed. Book drew near to the fence and peered at the maze-like port, which was now blood red from the setting sun. He examined the bizarrely shaped vessels whose method of propulsion was still beyond him, and watched the workers unload wooden boxes that bore the logo of the Consortium on their sides. He heard the sacks of valuable salt being dragged along and inhaled its aroma, the aroma of fear and money. He waved nervously at the guard who had been fingering his club while watching him from behind the barrier and then abruptly turned on his heels. Book started back on his return journey, walking carefully along the edge of the promenade, knowing that if he were ever to fall into the sea, no one would pluck him out and he would have to swim all the way to Africa.

  Despite the viciousness of the barrier, he preferred this side of the port for his tribute because he usually found it deserted. The Parisians would not deign to approach the borders of their ignominy and so Book enjoyed the silence and the reassuring absence of humanity. All he could see were empty benches, bare warehouse walls, bins overflowing with rubbish and limping dogs licking their wounds. Occasionally he would pass some panel with the torn remnants of advertisements on it, which could no longer reveal their message as the scraps of paper were covered by urine stains and misspelt graffiti, scrawled in thick marker pen. Only the poster of the Consortium which advertised the mysterious salt remained strangely untouched no matter where in town it appeared, as if the vandals so respected its ugliness that they refrained from defacing it further.

  Even in this isolated corner of the city, the only one where Phileas Book could find some peace, the nightmarish poster dominated the fading wall. He hurried past it and felt it breathing next to him as if it were a living thing. The poster depicted the all-familiar naked woman with the violet skin, seated in the lotus position, who had no face, just a cavernous mouth from which unfolded a sinuous tongue, and from the tip of which sprouted, like the head of a mushroom, a staring eyeball. The legend underneath read “What did Lot’s wife see?” in trembling letters, as if written by a dying man.

  Book closed his eyes. The tangle of symbols on this poster pursued him even in his sleep. The eye of the telescopic tongue managed to stare at him no matter where he stood in town, irrespective of whether he turned his back to it, and even, as now, when he pretended that both it and he had ceased to exist.

  Under the poster a man sat cross-legged, naked from the waist up. He had placed a glass saltshaker in front of him and his red eyes gazed at it in ecstasy while he muttered monotonously, like a chant, “God is Salt.”

  Book, without meaning to, tipped the shaker over with the edge of his boot.

  “Blasphemer,” sighed the man and he wrapped his fingers around Book’s leg, “mindless blasphemer.”

  He began to lick Book’s boot. The violet colour of his tongue left no doubts as to his condition. Book withdrew his foot carefully and pushed him gently with his heel, to dislodge him without hurting him. The man put up no resistance; they rarely did. They were multiplying dangerously, Book thought, and one always found them under the posters. He returned to his office determined to wash his boots with soap.

  Book’s office was barely large enough for himself: a table, an armchair and an umbrella stand. Actually, it was just an attic over a ground-floor camping goods store, which Book rented along with the use of a toilet. It was never intended to be a place to receive visitors so it lacked superfluous furniture such as a second chair.

  He sat on the only chair, a well-worn armchair, and opened this week’s package with The Times letterhead which had arrived from London. He emptied the contents onto the table, creating an irregular heap of the letters that had been received by The Times from its readers. For a few seconds his eyes hungrily scanned the pile of envelopes much like a prospector who is gathering his strength, facing a promising riverbank, before he starts panning for gold. At that moment, he heard an insistent knock on the door.

  “Is this Mr Phileas Book’s office?”

  Given that no one had knocked on this door for the last fifteen years, Book was so surprised that it took him two whole minutes to answer. It then took Book a quarter of an hour to ask the visitor whether he found the umbrella stand comfortable, since he hadn’t seemed to mind not having been offered the armchair. All this time, the visitor had parked his thighs on the umbrella handles and had been talking solidly as if he were reciting a prepared text. Book tried to find a coherent connection between himself, the stranger’s presence and his chosen subject but failed to reach any positive conclusion. He shouldn’t have answered – what on earth had come over him to make him open his door? Now it was too late, the visitor was pointing with his long, manicured fingernail at the heirloom on the wall.

  “You come from the South, Mr Book?”

  “There is no South.”

  “I mean the old South.” He smiled as only someone born in the North could smile. “It wasn’t easy to root you out, you don’t even have a phone. I assumed you lived in London but I then gathered from The Times that I would have to cross the Channel to meet you. They don’t even have your address since they communicate with you via a Post Office box. So, I travelled from Paris to London only to be told that I must return whence I came. I have been looking for days and I work for people who can’t wait.”

  Book had never imagined someone outside of The Times’ circle looking for him, especially someone sporting a tie of such hues as his visitor wore. He preferred not to mention it, but it upset him when he saw people attracted by violet. He realised that he missed classic ties. Twenty years ago no one would have dared wear such a brash colour.

  The visitor described how difficult it had been to locate him, as if he was telling him off, and wondered why Book lived in Paris. “Is it to be as close as possible to the old South?”

  Book refused to bite.

  “We mustn’t live in the past,” the stranger admonished him.

  He looked no more than twenty-five years old, and Book was forty. The young man surely did not remember, whereas Book would never be able to forget. He gazed through the window at the enormous billboard of the Consortium that ruined the beauty of the square.

  “We are very interested in your work, Mr Book, and we wish to learn more about it. We were informed that you compile crosswords for The Times.”

  Book nodded and asked to whom the plural referred. The visitor ignored the question, but Book had already reached his own conclusions, based on the shades of the tie. Not only did this fool work for the Seventy-Five but he tried to suck up to them by wearing the colour of their product – surely a low-grade employee, a clerk, a messenger or an enforcer, perhaps?

  “… Or, rather, I didn’t express myself clearly, Mr Book, because the term ‘crossword’ doesn’t quite fit your constructs. You have invented a new type of crossword, not using letters, but ‘letters’.”

  He pulled a folder from the pile that was spread on the table and held it up. “Would you like to show me how it’s done?”

  Book simply referred him to the Sunday Times supplement where his Epistleword was printed every week. There he supplied the relevant letters which he gathered, mostly, from The Times Correspondence Department, having deleted the names, edited out some paragraphs and changed the place
names. Anyone who had an inquisitive spirit, was capable of analysis and synthesis and had plenty of time to spare could try to find the common denominator behind the dissimilar documents and so fill in the blanks of the Epistleword. Very few bothered and even fewer reached the solution, but the diehard readers of the paper could not imagine The Times without Book’s Epistleword and that saved him from dismissal. By now he had become accepted as a rather iconic fixture, in some ways like the Geographical Museum, which, although everyone knows where it is, no one visits. He tried not to think about it while he absent-mindedly studied the youth facing him, who was clumsily pretending to open the folder and even more clumsily pretending to know what it was talking about.

  “Let’s see, Mr Book, if I properly understand the Epistleword instructions. So, I read the badly written letter from a Mr X, who is complaining about the rubbish collection in Kensington, and after taking into account the age of his house, the description of the weather conditions and adding a touch of the day of the week, I answer the question: ‘Which of Mr X’s five senses is keener than the others?’, in order to find three down. Am I right?”

  Book did not dignify him with either an aye or a nay as he thought that he was dealing with a complete incompetent.

  The youth burst into laughter. “In any case, I must admit that the shape of the Epistleword is charming. It resembles a meandros, the decorative Greek key pattern. Thus no one can understand which squares you mean to be ‘across’ and which ‘down’. To make things even more obtuse, you have given the Epistleword three dimensions: Across, Down and Diagonal. The instructions insist that the only way for the solvers to orientate themselves is to imagine that they are within the shape, looking out, and not from the outside, looking in. Do you not think that your crossword is too complicated to be entertaining?”

  He threw the folder back on the table and Book patiently arranged it at the bottom of the pile.

  “I heard that The Times do not intend to renew your employment. After twenty, and more, years – is that not how long you have worked for them? – it’s sad. Your dismissal will spell the end of a whole culture, useless but charming, which requires the puzzle to encompass the solver and be developed around him. Truly, does your future not worry you?”