Карин Тидбек - The Memory Theater

Instead, she took to the streets at night, when the air smelled of damp stone and dewy flowers. She walked through the cemetery, where mausoleums and proud obelisks spoke of poets and philosophers. She climbed the stairs to the castle and waited for the rising sun to tint its towers rose. Then she went back to her house with the flowery door and slept.

It went on like this for a few days and nights: days spent sleeping, nights spent walking. Until, as she sat for the sunrise by the castle, the bench shifted under the weight of another person.

“You look lost, madam.”

The voice was a mellow tenor or an alto, neither particularly male nor female. It belonged to a slender figure impeccably dressed in a three-piece tweed suit and a hat with a rounded crown. The stranger’s skin was smooth and lustrous in the morning light, like a well-thumbed leather book cover, and lay in deep folds between nose and mouth. Despite the fact that they had addressed her formally, there was something eerily frank about how they looked at her.

“Perhaps,” Augusta replied.

The stranger nodded. “For how long?”

Augusta shrugged.

“Not sure?” the stranger said. “I have seen you walking around town,” they continued. “Wandering, always wandering. I followed you here. You look out of place. Where are you from?”

Augusta scoffed. “What would you know? Go away.”

She had used her lady voice, and yet the stranger didn’t move.

“That kind of magic will not work on me,” they said calmly. “Now, where are you from?”

The stranger’s gaze was much too direct. Augusta had an impulse to poke their eyes out. The stranger’s hand on her own made her aware that she had actually almost done so.

“I am a lady of the Gardens,” Augusta said. “Unhand me.”

The stranger’s hand squeezed hers a little, enough that she could feel that it was much stronger than her own, then let go. “You are not the first to pass through,” they said.

Augusta shrunk back, cradling her hand. “That’s not nice,” she muttered.

The stranger merely smiled. “You will have to control yourself better. One can’t assault people if one doesn’t like what they’re doing here. Not me, nor anyone else.”

Augusta blinked. “Why?”

“It can get you in trouble. Now, for introductions.” The stranger tipped their hat. “You may call me Pinax.”

“I see,” Augusta said.

Pinax looked at her expectantly.

“You may call me the Most Honorable Augusta Prima,” Augusta said. “And you may address me as ‘your ladyship.’ ”

“I would prefer not to, but fair enough.”

Augusta snorted. Pinax seemed to be waiting for her to speak. She forced herself to sit still on the bench, that thing which was called waiting. Stay and do nothing while time passed. All this time that ran off and disappeared. She could feel her body rotting from the inside out.

“You say I am not the first,” she said eventually, mostly because she couldn’t bear the silence anymore.

Pinax nodded. “That’s right, your ladyship.”

“I know nothing of anyone leaving.”

“That’s the nature of your people, though, isn’t it? To not remember. To live the same evening over and over again.”

Augusta drew herself up. “ I remember.”

“How much?”

“I found a thing under the dog-rose bush…” She hesitated.

Pinax waited, quietly.

“A thing under the dog-rose bush,” Augusta repeated, lamely. “I found a corpse. It had a watch.”

“And then?”

“I showed the watch to my page, and he told me about time. And I wanted to see if time really passed in the Gardens.”

“And did it?”

“The watch moved,” Augusta said. “Here and there. And then the lady Mnemosyne found me in my bower. And then I was here. She banished me .” The enormity of it.

“I see. And do you remember the beginning of the Gardens?” said Pinax.

A jumble of parties. Drinking, dancing. Beyond that, a void. The before . Augusta crossed her arms and stared up at the castle.

“This is familiar,” she said. “A city, much like this. But also very different.”

They sat in silence.

“He called himself Phantasos,” Pinax said eventually. “I found him right here, under the lilac. He said he was the lord of the Gardens.”

Augusta scoffed. “There is no lord of the Gardens. Mnemosyne is our lady.”

“Ah. Mnemosyne. Yes. He was her consort.”

“Where is this Phantasos?”

“He left.”

“Where is he? I need to find him. If he left of his own free will, he could take me back.”

“He has another life now,” Pinax said.

The moment was still. Augusta tried to move, but it was still the same. It sat on her like a stone, making it hard to breathe.

“It’s difficult, isn’t it,” Pinax said. “Being outside.”

“Yes,” she managed.

Pinax took her hand. “Come.”

Augusta didn’t have the energy to pull away.

Pinax led her down the hill from the castle. The city was waking up again. Eventually they turned onto a street where linden trees rose up beside granite buildings, and the noise of traffic died down. Pinax stopped outside a two-story stone house nestled between two taller buildings.

“This is where I live,” Pinax said, and unlocked the heavy door.

Augusta stepped into darkness. Her feet echoed on marble. Pinax flicked a switch on the wall, and the space flooded with yellow light. They stood in a long, narrow corridor lined with doors on either side. Pinax walked ahead to the end of the hallway and opened a door.

“Here,” they said, and motioned Augusta inside.

The room was entirely lined with books. Augusta had never seen so many: fat volumes, slender notebooks, tiny books, and huge folios, all ordered in neat rows. On an ornate carpet stood two leather armchairs and a small table. The plush chaise longue under the room’s single window was covered in rolled-up manuscripts.

“Please, have a seat,” Pinax said. “I’ll make us some tea.”

Augusta sank down in a chair as Pinax left. She could hear them walk back down the hallway and then into another room, where they made tea-making noises: a whistling kettle, the pouring of hot water into a pot, cups and saucers bumping together. After not too long, they returned with a tray with a teapot and two cups, and a plate of plain bread and cheese. Augusta picked up a slice of bread and bit into it. It was bland and slid down her gullet only reluctantly. She dropped the rest on the floor.

Pinax frowned. “That’s not acceptable in my house. Please don’t do that again.”

“Bring me something else,” Augusta said.

“I am not your servant,” Pinax said. “Please pick up the bread.”

“You do it,” Augusta said.

“You are a guest,” Pinax said. “You have stepped over my threshold and eaten my food. You’ll have to abide by my rules.”

Augusta felt the blood drain from her face. She had eaten the bread without thinking.

Pinax leaned back in their chair. “This is my domain.”

Augusta found herself bending down and picking up the piece of bread. “Who are you?”

Pinax gave her a level look. “Perhaps when I feel so inclined, I might tell you a story. For now, my patience has run out. You may leave.”

Augusta got out of the chair. Pinax nodded at her. She left the house without daring to look back.

The sky clouded over until it lay over the plain like a flat lid. Thick yellow grass reached to Dora’s knees. The terrain wasn’t quite level anymore but had bumps and hollows in which water gathered.

Thistle kneeled by the closest hollow and scooped some water into his cupped hands. Dora crouched down next to him. The water was tasteless and clear. It was as if someone had poured it there just now.