The neighborhood surrounding the little Quartier des Jouettes cottage was quiet, even for a Saturday morning. I’d passed a group or two of Standard Academy cadets, but other than those children—savoring their brief freedom with a stroll down the shaded boulevards in civilian dress—the Company lakefront was practically deserted. It was out of season, after all.
I didn’t find anyone on the first floor of the cottage, either. As had become my habit, I entered from the alley—through the gate in the garden wall, up the back terrace and into the conservatory. The kitchen was empty, but the warm kettle and unwrapped pat of butter on the counter suggested that breakfast had at least been contemplated. Hypatia plucked an orange from the potted tree by the steps and began to peel it absently. The blazing morning sun played off of the red pigment of her hands, dripping in juice from a Company hothouse.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor attic to find Jan Collier, affixing an earring at the vanity mirror. Jøberg enjoyed a paper copy of the Free Citizen and a cigarette on the half-made bed, his knees pulled up to his chest.
“Good morning, Mr. Collier,” I said. I removed a pile of Jøberg’s clothes from the nearest armchair and took a seat.
Collier turned over his shoulder to face me.
“Oh, Captain Smith,” he said, “—I didn’t know we were expecting you.”
Hypatia wandered to Collier’s side at the vanity and set about to investigate the powders, serums, and brushes, laid out like battalions at drill.
“I was in the neighborhood,” I lied, returning the reflection of Collier’s smile. “I thought I’d drop by.”
Jøberg folded his paper and set it down.
“We’re delighted to have you, Captain,” he insisted. “May I offer you some tea?”
The pot and two cups sat on the bedside table. I shook my head.
“No, thank you,” I said, “I’ve already eaten.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, removing the cigarette from his mouth just long enough to take a drink of his own.
Over his shoulder, the high dormer windows framed a view north into the heart of the City, with the spires of Standard Tower piercing both foreground tree tops and distant clouds. He added another lemon slice to his tea and continued to sip. Collier rose from his place at the opposite end of the attic. The dark green silk of his chemise slipped from one shoulder and was replaced by an automatic hand. He settled himself in the Vienna cafe chair by the open window and drank his tea, black.
“How are you feeling this morning, Captain?” Collier inquired. He took a cigarette from the silver case at the foot of the bed and gestured to Jøberg for the lighter. It was tossed in his direction, caught gracefully, and lifted to waiting lips. “Any fresh cuts on those wrists to bandage?” He asked, “I’m very good at playing nurse.”
I pulled the chair a little closer to where Rainer sat on the bed. Hypatia, for her part, sat very near Collier, admiring his perfume.
“I get the sense, Captain,” Jøberg declared, “That this is not a social call. Is there something we’ve done to upset our arrangement?”
I looked at the smattering of notes of a hundred different kinds, strewn around the revolutionary in the tangled sheets of the wide bed. There were copies of the Free Citizen, The Standard Times, and L’Humaniste—not to mention a clipping or two of City Magazine—circled and underlined and redacted, with commentary in English and French trailing like vines up the margins and between the lines. —That was the sense I got of the communication between the revolutionary and his pet in Collier, as well: a twisted little garden unto itself, ringing with the rapid pater of Franco-Anglo birdsong, wholly overgrown and dripping in seductive light. It was littered in cigarette stubs and empty plates and bespoke lingerie; polluted with crumpled bars of music and half-finished polemics and solutions to Dirichlet problems, the boundary values to which had long been forgotten. But who, I wondered, was its architect?
“Not at all,” I insisted. “But we settled things so briefly on the evening of the Anniversary, and it’s been a whirlwind ever since. It seemed like we ought to have a longer chat.” I paused. “Put another way,” I added, “I suppose I wanted to show the proper courtesy—one professional to another.”
Collier rose from his chair and joined Rainer on the bed, leaning against Jøberg’s shoulder.
“In uniform or out, Captain,” Jan observed, offering a disarming smile, “I know you better than to believe you think there’s anything the least bit professional about playing with matches.”
“We want very different things, Mr. Collier,” I said, “But it’s a mistake not to appreciate technique—masterfully and intentionally applied. More so even in one’s enemies than one’s friends.”
Collier laughed, falling back into the sheets.
“She’s too serious for me,” he declared, twining fingers tightly in Jøberg’s. “You deal with her, Rainer.”
Hypatia settled herself, cross-legged, on the pillows, peering with one part fascination and another part contempt at Collier, unfurled beside her. She said nothing.
“I’m your guest in this house, Captain,” Jøberg picked up the discussion, “What we converse, and when, and the terms of our conversation are entirely up to you.”
His expression was one of calm amusement. As he spoke, his thumb rubbed absently at Collier’s languid palm.
“I’ve followed the paper trail for a very long time,” I explained. “I have a good sense of the dates and the names, and could reconstruct a tidy timeline of your partnership. But I suppose what I’m interested in are those things that don’t make it down to paper—what I’ve only ever inferred.”
“An oral history,” Jøberg smiled.
Of course I was much more invested the way he told the story than the story itself—and his expression said that he knew it. But that was as good a start as any, when it came to mapping out the rules by which we would play.
Hypatia rested back a little against the headboard. “He’ll get as much out of watching you listen as you’ll get out of watching him talk,” she declared.
“The most fundamental rule of the game,” I agreed. “That’s why we’ll play it now, with relatively little on the table to risk.”
She looked down again at Collier.
“And this one?” She asked. “There are two of them, you know.”
“There are two of me, too,” I reminded her. “Only they don’t know that, do they?”
