Jesse Ball - Samedi the Deafness

There was an elephant, and its features vaguely resembled his own. The elephant was being eaten by many small furred devils, who also vaguely resembled him. They were led, however, by a man with a large baton. His face was entirely blank.

— Who is this supposed to be? asked James.

— Don't let them do that to you again, said the man. I couldn't bear it. I just couldn't.

He shut his door, leaving James with the gift of a drawing.

James went back over to the maids' door. He took out the glass, thought better of it, and simply placed his ear against the door.

— Grieve, said one voice. What happened out there, did you hear?

— No, Grieve, said another. I didn't hear a thing.

— But, Grieve, said still a third, I think it's all got to do with that James Sim.

Grieve's voice came then.

— I wish you wouldn't talk about him.

The others began to sing a sort of song they had made up to make fun of Grieve for liking James.

They are like children, thought James. He started back down the hall. There was another door on the other side of no. 53.

James approached it. The doorknob turned easily. Behind it was a small passage, and a mild light fell all along it. The passage was lined with small paintings, each no larger than a book, but well-done and obviously expensive and old. Many were landscapes, some impressionist, some more figurative. James looked at them. One he recognized as Cézanne. It must be an original, he thought.

The passage was only five feet wide. He continued on. At the end there was a turn. The passage continued back until the point where it would be immediately below James's room. There was indeed a ladder.

Up the ladder James went.

He emerged into a tiny room, a room even tinier than the previously tiny room that he had inhabited. The room was full of pillows, and the window to the outside was thrown open. On the walls were sort of old-fashioned devices for listening and seeing into the room beyond. Into his room!

But the most surprising thing was that he was not alone in the little room. There was someone in among the pillows.

— I knew you would find me here, she said. I longed for you to find me here, and I said to myself, if he is such a man as can find me here, then I will give myself to him. Not today, you understand, but one day, perhaps, provided that you continue to show yourself to such advantage.

It was, of course, Grieve, Lily Violet, Anastasia, among the pillows.

— I love you, she said. I find it splendid to have dropped you like a witful lobster into this boiling pot. But you are learning your way out. You are. Come here! she said.

James sat down in the pillows. She pulled him on top of her.

— Why is this room here? asked James.

— I should think, said Grieve, it would be obvious.

And she bit him very hard on the neck.

— If you like, we can take off our clothes, but we cannot sleep together, and if you do anything I don't like I will scream and someone will come immediately.

— I wouldn't want that to happen, said James, thinking of the scene in the hall.

— So be good, said Grieve, and began to unbutton his shirt.

When James woke, it was dark. He was still lying in the tiny room. A small light came down from the moon, found purchase in the glass of the window, and met with him and with the walls.

Grieve was gone. James was naked. In fact, his clothes were gone as well.

He went over to the wall where the listening and seeing apparatuses hung. He flicked open the seeing apparatus and looked through it. He was looking at his own bed, on which Grieve lay sleeping soundly.

The devil, he thought. She got up and left me here sleeping. What kind of girl would do that?

And across the end of the bed he saw his clothes, neatly folded. That's not right, he said. That girl is not right in the head.

He thought of the walk he would have to make, along the hallway and up the stairs. It wasn't far. He could make it if he hurried, perhaps, at this hour, without seeing anyone.

He would try. He had better, he thought. Otherwise he would be stuck until she took mercy on him. Somehow he thought that it would not do to be at the mercy of Grieve Cochrane.

James raced along the passage, padding softly on his bare feet. He came to the hall door and eased it open. Out it he looked carefully. No one was there.

Good, he thought, this is going to work.

He stepped out into the hall and cautiously made for the stairs.

A cough, then, from the shadows.

One of the maids, an older woman, perhaps forty-five or fifty, stood holding a broom.

— Good evening, she said. Are you lost?

— No, said James. Good-bye.

— Good-bye, said the maid softly, as if she were patting a kept field mouse upon its furry head before closing the cardboard box of its home. Good-bye.

Back in the room, James slid into bed beside Grieve. She too was still naked. His arrival did not seem to disturb her, however.

There was a note in the pillowcase. James climbed back out of bed and went to the window. The light that had entered the small room returned to him there and then, and he looked with it upon the note.

James Leslie is the same as James Carlyle.

He and Grieve (Lily Violet) were once promised to each other.

Well, I knew that already, thought James. Though not the first bit. On the back of the note there was more writing.

Carlyle gave me a note which I delivered to Grieve's father. I couldn't read the note, since it was in cipher, but I recognized your name.

I'm sorry about before. But what was I to do? And it isn't true anyway. I just want to help you.

James thought this over. He returned to bed and curled against Grieve's warm sleep, which crept over him even as he surrendered himself to it. It was like a wooden puzzle, and all the people were distinct oblong shards of wood jutting out. Pull one, pull all, and none would move. But there was one, one special shard, that could be pulled. And after that, another, and after that, another. But who to trust?

He could hear Grieve mumbling in her sleep. She had done it last night too. But the words didn't make any sense. He listened now, and marked well in his mind what she said.

James lay on his side and looked at Grieve. He turned onto his back and looked at the ceiling. His eyes crept about the room. No. 17, he thought. The room I have been given, complete with observatory.

He wondered whether all the rooms had such observatories. No, of course not. Of course not.

He realized suddenly that he had left the elephant drawing of himself on the floor in the tiny room. This worried him immensely. A gift like that certainly should not be left on the floor.

But that room is composed solely of floor. Floor and pillows and nothing in between. There was nowhere else I could have put it, he thought.

But he knew that this logic would not hold up. The man must not see that James had left his drawing discarded on the floor. Yes, he would go first thing in the morning to fetch the drawing. What he would do with it, he could not say. He would like to bury it along with the mask. But apparently the police had the mask.