Part 3 (1/2)
5.
ATHER ROY REMAINED BY THE DOOR, AND THE GRAND PATRIARCH, ERASMUS TIEBOLD, ADVANCED AROUND THE CONCAVE table-the screen for his camera obscura-till he realized that the girl would continue to drift away from him, trailing her damaged fingertips around the rim of the tabletop like someone house-proud checking for dust. He came to a standstill and started to talk. He spoke softly. ”I thought I would give you some time to reflect,” he said.
Laura Hame had reached a point equidistant between Father Roy and himself. She stopped and looked at him. ”Where's Aunt Marta?”
”She is at home with Downright and the estimable Mr. and Mrs. Bridges.”
”So, she left me to you.”
”Yes. You do know that we are kin, Laura. Your Tiebold grandfather was my cousin.”
The girl nodded.
”And when you sent me a letter, you gave me a certain amount of responsibility for you.” The Grand Patriarch produced the letter and laid it on the tabletop. Then he told Father Roy to close the door. Laura stumbled against the wall away from them, but once the door was sealed and the image from the twenty-four-inch lens and forty-inch mirror of the camera obscura flowed in full, brilliant color, the girl came back and stood staring at him, her face lit from below. The Grand Patriarch pointed at the camera housing. ”Can you reach that handle above your head?” he said.
She put her hand on it.
”Give it a turn.”
She had to use both hands and hang her weight on the handle to bring it down. The camera moved with a hollow, rolling noise. The image swam, and the east bank of the Sva swung into the light as the bridges to the west slid away into darkness. Laura stopped winding and looked down on a slightly different slice of the city.
”Does it make you feel G.o.dlike?” the Grand Patriarch asked. ”Like a hidden and disembodied witness?”
”No,” said the girl.
The Grand Patriarch touched the image on the tabletop. ”Why did you write to me?”
”I wrote to the Director of the Regulatory Body and the editor of the Founderston Herald as well.”
”And none of the letters were signed with your name?”
”No. They are all signed 'Lazarus,' and I had someone else copy them out for me.”
”Why disown what you chose to do?”
”I did what my father asked me to do. It was his idea. There wasn't any other way.”
The Grand Patriarch made a gesture-putting that aside for now. ”I can't question your father about his motives, but perhaps you can answer for him.”
”I want to go!” Laura said, plaintive. ”I need to go In and overwrite this nightmare. I'm so tired my heart won't slow down. What will happen when I can't make myself wake up? I don't know what happens in the end. But the man in the coffin never gets out. He dies in there. He takes a long time to die. I don't want to go on and dream that.”
”So-is that what you caught? A man trapped in a coffin until he dies?”
Laura blinked at him. She looked surprised and momentarily relieved. ”No. I didn't catch the nightmare to its end. I woke up before I got there.”
”Then I don't see how you can dream a death you didn't catch,” the Grand Patriarch said, practical. ”Laura, I want to talk to you about what you've done.”
The girl sighed and shrugged. ”My letter explains it.”
”Well then, according to your letter, you wanted to gain support for people who were being terrorized?”
Laura nodded.
”And in order to do that you chose to terrorize people?”
She stared at him, sullen. ”What other way was there to show them? How else could I prove it? I didn't have any evidence. I couldn't take photographs of what was happening.”
The Grand Patriarch paced back and forth for a moment, thinking. He ran his hand along the table through rooftops and courtyards, streets, flights of steps, waterways, hurrying people. ”In my grandparents' day, no one was taking photographs. Do you think that the people back then believed that testimony-to any crime-needed photographic evidence to support it? Are people now any less inclined to listen to testimony? To listen in good faith?”
”You would say 'faith,' ” the girl said, insolent but without any great energy.
”Faith doesn't just mean faith in G.o.d, Laura. It means faith in people, in the truth, in truth-telling. Faith in your own ability to make yourself heard. Faith that people will understand what you take the time to explain to them. Faith that people don't need to be tricked, or sold the truth.”
”I wanted to do what Da told me to. He left me a letter asking me to do what I did. I followed his wishes. I kept faith with him.”
The Grand Patriarch studied the girl before him. ”Do you think you did the right thing?”
”I was asked. And it wasn't just Da. I kept catching dreams about convicts. Why would I dream about convicts unless the Place wanted me to help them too?”
”You caught dreams about convicts?”
”I found convicts in dreams. Sometimes it seemed they found me. I did what I could. I could only think to do what Da asked me to.” Laura sounded quite desperate. She pressed her forearms into her stomach so hard that she stooped. She seemed to be trying to hold herself together. Then she took a deep, shuddering breath, straightened up, and said, ”Besides, if you could do something that no one else could, wouldn't you have to find your own way of acting in the world?”
”I can't think what you might mean,” said the Grand Patriarch. ”Unless you're boasting-as dreamhunters do-about the size of your penumbra.” He shook his head and saw that she was echoing his gesture. ”Tell me, how does finding a new way match up with just doing what your father asked you to do?”
”Maybe I found a new father,” she said, and gave a little, wild laugh.
The Grand Patriarch's a.s.sessing stare was so prolonged and intent that Laura dropped her gaze. Then she heard Father Roy shuffling his feet. When the Grand Patriarch resumed his questions, his tone was careful, almost gentle. ”Your aunt says that the letter you sent me was not in your own hand. Did you therefore mean to get away with it?”
Laura nodded.
”And you involved someone else in your plans.”
”Someone copied the letters for me.”
”Your cousin?”
”No!” Laura was horrified. ”I wouldn't do that to Rose! This was my responsibility. But I've done enough now, and I don't want to do any more. Everyone knows now. Someone else can figure out what to do next.” She stamped her foot, in petulance and frustration and weary misery.
The Grand Patriarch told her to calm herself. Father Roy approached and handed her a handkerchief. She took it, spread it open, and held it against her face. The wounds on her lips had reopened, and they printed the white cotton with bright red blotches.
”There are dreamhunters who get on the wrong side of the Regulatory Body,” the Grand Patriarch told her. ”And I've tried to help them. They've confided in me-misgivings, fears, rumors.”
Laura removed the handkerchief and licked her bleeding lips.