The Stranger

managed.”

I decided to take advantage of the fortuitous moment and inquire cautiously: “But still—what do you think they meant when they were talking about the darkness we peer into? That all makes me a bit uneasy.”

“And you should be uneasy about it,” Juffin snapped. “It’s completely understandable. Remember how you got here?”

“I do,” I murmured. “But I try not to think about it.”

“Very well. You’ll have plenty of time to think. But you have to agree, it doesn’t happen to everyone—to flit from one world to another, with all your wits about you and your body in one piece! You and I are the kind that happens to—and that’s not all that happens to us. The old crones practice magic, but not like everyone else here —once a year in their own kitchens. They practice very long and hard. You might say it’s the only thing they do. And experience tells them there’s something not quite right about us. That ‘not quite right’ is what they call ‘darkness.’ Understand?”

“Not really,” I admitted.

“Okay, let me put it this way, then. Are you sometimes scared, or happy, just like that, out of the blue, apropos of nothing? You hurry out on some stupid errand, and suddenly you feel a thrill of improbable, intense, boundless joy? Or it happens that everything seems to be in its rightful place, your beloved is sleeping sweetly next to you, you’re young and full of as much energy as a puppy—and suddenly you feel you are suspended in emptiness, and a leaden sorrow clamps down on your heart, as though you were dead. Not only that, but as though you had never been alive. And sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror, and you can’t remember who that chap is, or why he’s there at all. Then your own reflection turns around and walks away, and you watch silently as it retreats. You don’t have to say anything. I already know that this happens to you from time to time. The same thing happens to me, Max; only I’ve had enough time to get used to it. It happens because something ineffable is reaching for us—we never know where and when it will show up and start tugging on our sleeve. The fact is, you and I have a talent for a strange craft that no one really understands. And, frankly, I can’t tell you anything about it that makes any sense. You know, it’s not customary to talk about this aloud. And it’s dangerous. Things like this should stay secret. There is one person here in Echo who understands more than we do about these things. You’ll meet him at some point. But until then—nary a word. Agreed?”

“Who am I going to talk to, I wonder, besides you? Chuff?”

“Well, yes—you can talk to Chuff, of course. And to me. But soon you’ll embark on a much stormier existence.”

“You’re always threatening that . . .”

“Wasn’t tonight enough proof for you? I would be glad to take you with me to the House by the Bridge, but things move slowly in Echo. I submitted the request for your appointment to the Court . . . yes, the day after our trip to the Glutton. As all matters in my department are decided with maximum efficiency and promptness, everything should be settled within two or three dozen days.”

“You call that ‘maximum efficiency and promptness’?”

“Yes, and so must you.”

Then we were home. Juffin went to his room, and I stayed behind, alone, just the time to think about the darkness into which I was peering. Those dames had given me a scare! And then Juffin, with his lecture about the secret reasons behind the jumps and starts in my moods . . . arghhh!

When I was in my own room, I pulled out the salvaged “box-in-distress” from the pocket of my looxi. Take it easy, sweetheart, Uncle Max may not be all there, but he’s kind and good! He’ll protect you from all misfortune; he’s just going to peer into the darkness . . . But at the very moment of the deepest flowering of my honestly acquired phobia, a warm clump of fur jumped out this very darkness: Max sad—don’t be sad! My little friend Chuff wagged his stumpy tail so violently that the devilish darkness scattered into little bits. I relaxed, banished from my mind the paranoid murmurings of the matronly sirens, and Chuff and I went to the living room to find something to eat while we read the evening news.

As it turned out, I didn’t go to sleep before dawn that day. I waited for Juffin to talk over the events of the evening one more time over a mug of kamra. I must admit, I expected that from that moment on, Sir Juffin would be wracking his brains over the mysterious murder. In other words, like good old Sherlock Holmes, or the equally old and good Commissioner Maigret, he would suck on his pipe for hours on end, and wander about at the scene of the crime. And at the end of yet another sleepless night, and not without my help, he would crack the case of the “ABC Gum Corpse.” Then everyone dances with delight.

I was sorely disappointed. Our morning conference lasted all of twenty minutes. The entire time, Sir Juffin speculated about my lonely future—that is, how I would survive the next three days without him. It turned out that the time for his annual friendly visit to the Royal Court had rolled around, and as this joyful occasion is granted by King only a few times a year, he was generally in no hurry to release his charming vassal. On average, according to Sir Juffin’s calculations, these forced circumstances lasted about three or four days. Then the cries of distress of his subjects, abandoned temporarily to the caprices of fate, would force the monarch to loosen his embrace and return his captive to the World again.

I must say, I understand His Majesty. In the literature of the Unified Kingdom, the detective novel does not seem to exist at all, and newspaper articles and dry accounts of the courtiers about all the other courtiers cannot compete with the juicy worldly gossip of Sir Juffin Hully, Venerable Head of all that transpires.

For my part, I coped fairly well with the loneliness. I walked a lot, gazed at passersby, learned the names of streets. At the same time I inquired about the prices of houses for lease. I was very particular about my choice of a future home. I wanted it to be close to the Street of the Copper Pots, at the end of which stood the House by the Bridge, the residence of the Headquarters of Perfect Public Order. At night I “did my homework”—again and again I grilled the objects of material culture about their past. It was pleasant to realize that I could already perform these tricks without Juffin’s guidance. Objects were increasingly willing to share their memories with me. Only the box from the bedchamber of the late Sir Makluk-Olli held its tongue with the obstinacy of a partisan of the Resistance, we observed no more outbursts of uncontrollable fear in it. Thank goodness for that!

Late on the evening of the fourth day, Sir Juffin Hully returned, laden with royal gifts, fresh news (to me all quite abstract), and problems from work that had accumulated in his absence. In short, neither that evening, nor the next, did we return to the subject of the Mysterious Murder in the Empty Room.

Eventually, life began to resume its normal pattern. Juffin started coming home earlier. We took up our leisurely dinner discussions again, and even our evening seminars. Two weeks had passed since the event of the murder in Sir Makluk’s house. That is to say, two weeks by my count—the locals don’t divide the year into weeks and months. They count days by dozens, and define their temporal coordinates very laconically—around such and such a day in about such and such a year. That’s all. So if we use the local method of calculating time, more than a dozen days had passed since our nocturnal visit to our neighbor’s house. This was too long to sustain the flame of my curiosity: it sparks like lightning, but it dies just as quickly if it finds no immediate sustenance.

Oh, if only the balsam-filled box that I rescued had begun to talk before I forgot about it and turned my attention to more garrulous objects! Then Sir Juffin gradually began to teach me more captivating things. Who knows how humdrum this silly matter could have ended up, had it not been for my own amnesia?

Somehow or other, the next sign of a fast-approaching tempest caught up with me early in the evening of what had otherwise been a delightful day. I was enjoying the masterpieces of the ancient poetry of Uguland, having dared for the first time to drag the weighty folio out of the dust of the library into the garden. I scrambled onto the branch of a spreading Vaxari tree, a wonderful variety of tree exceptionally well-suited for climbing by men of middle age who have fallen back into the habits of childhood.

From this vantage point, I noticed a man in gray hurrying over to our grounds from the direction of Sir Makluk’s house. I remembered immediately the circumstances of our prior visit, and decided to go inside the house just in case. Sir Juffin had still not returned, and I was determined to hear the news firsthand. I descended the tree too slowly for my own taste; but all the same I crossed the threshold before Sir Makluk’s servant reached the home stretch—the path of transparent colored pebbles that led up to the house.

In the hall I ran into Kimpa, who was already hurrying to admit the visitor. As soon as the door was opened, I declared:

“Sir Juffin Hully isn’t here at the moment, so I’m the one to talk to!”