exhausted, I came to a corridor. Mazy was walking toward me, his white cassock dragging on the ground.
The abbot looked at me as if he’d never seen me before. I imagined he must have spies everywhere, and it would therefore be hard to remember all of their names and faces. I told him there was talk of the bishop’s abduction, even his death, and that the rumors were insistent.
“Do they mention proof or witnesses?”
“No, Monsignor.”
“Fantasy and rumor are sins the Church has not condemned enough,” Mazy said. “Come with me and I’ll show you the bishop is alive.”
We walked down the corridor; leaves and rain blew in through the open windows. Down below was a geometric garden, where plants and shrubs surrounded deep ponds made of black stone. I asked the abbot whether they raised fish.
“There are some sea creatures that we use to make ink, which we then sell abroad. Darel advised us in this undertaking. Our botany is inspired by calligraphy as well. No strangers are allowed to walk through the garden because of all the thorns and poisons in the species we cultivate. Everything we use to write with can also be used to kill.”
We were approaching a carved door. It was being guarded by a giant of a man with hundreds of keys hanging from the belt of his green uniform. Seeing us, he nodded respectfully to Abbot Mazy and stepped aside. This set his keys jangling, like bells calling the faithful to mass.
“Signac holds all of the keys to the palace. We’ve tried to convince him to leave them behind, but he takes them wherever he goes. I trust no one more than good Signac. He’s always right where you need him, to open a door or close it forever.”
The guard reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a key tied with a red ribbon, then turned it in the lock.
“The bishop was gravely ill,” the abbot explained. “When we thought he was about to die, he had a revelation: he would be saved if he took a vow of silence. The Church was forced to renounce his voice, just when it needed it most. Since then, he has only ever communicated in writing.”
“And how long is this silence to last?”
“Until the final silence.”
Mazy opened the door onto a room made of white marble. I stood in the doorway, not daring to approach the man at the desk. He was leaning over a piece of paper, holding a pen with difficulty, as if it were intolerably heavy. I couldn’t see his face. The marble everywhere was like a prelude to the tomb. It was so cold and so white, even in the semi-darkness, that it resembled a grotto carved out of ice.
The abbot pulled back the gray drapes. Light cut a swath through the clouds and stained-glass windows, illuminating the paper. The bishop dipped his pen in the inkwell and wrote a few letters stripped of any adornment. He wrote slowly, as if all action consisted of a series of inactions.
Everything was completely still, except for the bishop’s unhurried hand.
The abbot asked me whether the bishop was alive. It was then I understood this was a test and that Mazy needed others to see what he saw. The bishop looked like a living corpse, but it was true he did move, and even more true that a reply in the negative would not please Mazy.
Without knowing if it was the truth or a lie, I replied:
“The bishop lives.”
Hunched over, the bishop’s face was still obscured. Watching people write is always a bit mysterious, as they speak of things we can’t see. The abbot gestured for me to leave and pulled the drapes closed, like a curtain coming down on the final act. Seemingly indifferent to the dark and to the performance that had ended, the bishop continued to write.
Kolm’s Walking Stick
After Arnim Palace, I went to the courts to ask for Kolm, but no information was provided about executioners for fear of revenge. When I insisted, they let me leave a message in a basket. The note, proposing we meet the next day, fell in among others that looked as if they had been there for years, waiting for someone who never came. A rope was lowered down, and the basket was hung on a hook. The messages soon rose up until they disappeared into one of the upper windows.
I waited for the executioner in front of the courthouse the following day. Suddenly, I felt hands around my neck, and my feet left the ground once again. As I fought for air and recovered from his little joke, Kolm told me that someone from the hanged man’s troupe in Toulouse had insisted on accusing him. The law had more to worry about than an actor who had taken his role too far, but he had nevertheless decided to leave as a precaution.
The walking stick with the metal fist still hung off his belt. I asked whether it continued to malfunction.
“It destroys everything it touches.”
“I know someone who can fix it.”
“I’m used to it now.”
I insisted; I didn’t want to look for Von Knepper on my own.
We walked around behind a church and into a deserted cul-de-sac until we reached a green door. The owner’s name-Laghi-was engraved on the lintel. A carriage clock was visible through the window; on top of the wooden base, a Vulcan was about to let his hammer fall on an anvil. I pulled the bell, but no one came. Kolm pounded impatiently on the door.
A maid opened, said it was late and we should come back the next day. The executioner showed her the silver hand, as if it symbolized some higher authority. Mechanical artifacts held extraordinary power in that house, and the servant let us in, as if we had shown her an order signed by the king himself. We were led into a cold room that had only one chair. Kolm sat down despondently and left me on my feet to nervously pace. After we had been waiting for a while, I wandered into the next room.
Up against the wall was a chest with dozens of wide drawers, similar to the ones at Siccard House. I opened the first with some difficulty and found a variety of mechanisms and gears. Most were made of metal, but some had been carved out of glass. It was obvious that certain pieces fit together like the parts of a sentence, but no matter how long I studied and weighed those pieces in my hands, I couldn’t imagine the grammar that regulated their construction. However, just as an archaeologist may only need to know one word to then decipher an entire dead language, I found something in the third drawer that revealed the whole: sixty-five empty compartments surrounded one glass eye.
There were footsteps and the sound of keys next door. I assumed it must be M. Laghi, the owner, but saw two men come in from outside. I watched them through the half-open door. There was good reason to hide my face because one of them was familiar: the keeper of the keys from Arnim Palace. The maid stared in terror at Signac’s arms and chest. His keys jangled, a sound conveying the authority bestowed by heavy oak doors and thick iron grillwork.
“Monsieur Laghi won’t be long. You can wait for him in the carriage,” the servant said in a quavering voice.
I came out of my hiding place only after they left. Seeing the keeper of the keys had left me shaken. Kolm, on the other hand, sat dozing, completely unaware.
“Let’s leave your walking stick. We can come back for it later,” I said, anxious to leave.
The executioner jolted awake and stared at me blankly for a moment. There was no leaving then, for M. Laghi was walking toward us.
He was dressed entirely in black, as if he were going to a funeral, and in his hand was a small chest. Kolm tried to intercept him, holding up his walking stick, but Laghi barely glanced at it. The executioner, used to asserting his authority, was taken aback by the owner’s disdain. Laghi was in such a hurry, it was as if he already inhabited the future.
“What do you want? Are you with them?” he asked, gesturing to the closed door and, through it, to the abbot’s men waiting for him outside.
“I need you to fix this walking stick.”
