Part 33 (2/2)

”Dumb,” he said.

”I can give you a better example.”

”Hm.”

She gave him Quintillian's highly-colored example of a law-case, freely subst.i.tuting modern for ancient symbols, and spreading them around the parts of the little park. His head swiveled from side to side as she placed this and that here and there, though she had no need to look. ”In the third place,” she said, ”we put a broken toy car, to remind us of the driver's license that expired. In the fourth placea”that arch sort of thing behind you to the lefta”we hang a man, say a Negro all dressed in white, with pointed shoes hanging down, and a sign on him: INRI.”

”What on earth.”

”Vivid. Concrete. The judge has said: unless you have doc.u.mentary proof, you will lose the case. The Negro in white means having it on paper.”

”In black and white.”

”Yes. The fact that he's hanged means we have captured this black-and-white proof, and the sign, that it is this that will save us.”

”Good G.o.d.”

”It sounds terribly complicated, I know. And I suppose it's really not any better than a notebook.”

”Then why all that guff? I don't get it.”

”Because,” she said carefully, sensing that despite his outward truculence he understood her, ”it can happena”if you practice this arta”that the symbols you put next to one another will modify themselves without your choosing it, and that when next you call them forth, they may say something new and revelatory to you, something you didn't know you knew. Out of the proper arrangement of what you do know, what you don't know may arise spontaneously. That's the advantage of a system. Memory is fluid and vague. Systems are precise and articulated. Reason apprehends them better. No doubt that's the case with those cards you spoke of.”

”Cards?”

Too soon? ”You spoke of brooding over a deck of cards.”

”My aunt. Not my aunt really,” as though disclaiming her. ”My grandfather's aunt. She had these cards. Lay them out, think about them. Brood on the past. Predict things.”

”Tarot?”

”Hm?”

”Were they the Tarot deck? You know, the hanged man, the female pope, the tower a”

”I don't know.. How would I know? n.o.body ever explained anything to me.” He brooded. ”I don't remember those pictures, though.”

”Where did they come from?”

”I dunno. England, I guess. Since they were Violet's.”

She started, but he was lost in thought and didn't see. ”And there were some cards with pictures? Besides the court cards?”

”Oh yeah. A whole slew of *em. People, places, things, notions.”

She leaned back, interlacing her fingers slowly. It had happened before that a place which she had put to multiple memory uses, like this park, came to be haunted by figments, hortatory or merely weird, called into being simply by the overlap of old juxtapositions, speaking, sometimes, of a meaning she would not otherwise have seen. If it were not for the sour smell of this one's overcoat, the undeniable this-worldness of the striped pajamas beneath it, she might have thought him to be one of them. It didn't matter. There is no chance. ”Tell me,” she said. ”These cards.”

”What if you wanted to forget a certain year?” he said. ”Not remember it, but forget it. No help there, is there? No system for that, oh no.”

”Oh, I suppose there are methods,” she said, thinking of his bottle.

He seemed sunk in bitter reflection, eyes vacant, long neck bent like a sad bird's, hands folded in his lap. She was casting about for words to form a new question about the cards when he said: ”The last time she read those cards for me, she said I'd meet a dark and beautiful girl, of all cornball things.”

”Did you?”

”She said I'd win this girl's love through no virtue I had, and lose her through no fault of my own.”

He said nothing else for a time, and (though not sure now that he heard or registered much of anything she said to him) she ventured softly: ”That's often the way, with love.” Then, when he didn't respond: ”I have a certain question that a certain deck of cards might answer. Does your aunt still a”

”She's dead.”

”Oh.”

”My aunt, though. I mean she wasn't my aunt, but my aunt. Sophie.” He made a gesture which seemed to mean This is complex and boring, but surely you catch my drift.

”The cards are still in your family,” she guessed.

”Oh, yeah. Never throw out anything.”

”Where exactly a”

He raised a hand to stop her question, suddenly wary. ”I don't want to go into family matters.”

She waited a moment and then said: ”It was you who mentioned your great-great-grandfather, who built this park.” Why suddenly was she visted with a vision of Sleeping Beauty's castle? A chateau. With a hedge of thorn, impa.s.sable.

”John Drinkwater,” he said, nodding.

Drinkwater. The architect a A mental snap of fingers. That hedge wasn't thorn. ”Was he married to a woman named Violet Bramble?”

He nodded.

”A mystic, a seer of sorts?”

”Who the h.e.l.l knows what she was.”

Urgency suddenly compelled her to a gesture, rash perhaps, but there was no time to waste. She took from her pocket the key to the park and held it up before him by its chain, as old mesmerists used to do before their subjects. ”It seems to me,” she said, seeing him take notice, ”that you deserve free access here. This is my key.” He held out a hand, and she drew the key somewhat away. ”What I require in exchange is an introduction to the woman who is or is not your aunt, and explicit directions as to how to find her. All right?”

As though in fact mesmerized, staring fixedly at the glinting bit of bra.s.s, he told her what she wanted to know. She placed the key in his filthy glove. ”A deal,” she said.

Auberon clutched the key, his only possession now, though Hawksquill couldn't know that, and, the spell broken, looked away, not sure he hadn't betrayed something, but unwilling to feel guilt.

Hawksquill rose. ”It's been most illuminating,” she said. ”Enjoy the park. As I said, it can be handy.”

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