Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [124]
“You are very pretty, I think,” he said, intending to be polite, but surprised at how sincere and confident he sounded. “It is just a lot of prettiness to handle at the same time.”
He heard them giggle and it pleased him.
“We rejoice that you’ve finally joined us as our grandmother wanted you to, Mr d’Allier,” said Geraldine suddenly, turning toward Gabriel.
So that was why they had kindly proposed to take him to his room, he reflected. They had something to say to him.
“Oh, that Lancelot thing, it was really about me, then. But I fail to see where I fit in.”
“She saw you in her crystal cabinet,” explained Geraldine, as if that clarified anything.
“That sounds great, but I am not sure I understand.”
“You can follow us there, if you’re not too tired,” proposed Reginald.
For a few minutes, they followed a mind-boggling series of corridors and stairways, the siblings sometimes whispering to each other in some strange language, until they reached a door that Reginald opened with a key linked by a chain to the pocket of his velvet waistcoat.
“Please, go in,” he said, as the siblings stepped aside. Gabriel entered a polyhedral kiosk where the crystal all around him seemed to have a different quality than elsewhere in the palace. It was less translucent and more reflective, so that he could see infinite images of himself surrounding him, quite as if he were standing at the bottom of a kaleidoscope.
“Now, close your eyes, think of something or someone, and open them again,” said Reginald, still standing in the corridor.
Gabriel, of course, could not help thinking about Stella. As he opened his eyes, he saw dim shapes coming from inside the crystal and joining each other like pools of spilled water, gaining depth, light and colour as they did. And then they were her, walking away along the Marco Polo Midway in her black hooded coat with her overbrimming satchel that always seemed about to burst. She was doing her usual tightrope routine on the edge of the sidewalk, leaving little light footprints in a thin layer of fresh snow, which always made Gabriel want to run and catch her before she fell. All around him he could see the city in the dubious daylight, as completely and clearly as if he were in the middle of the street, and could even hear, he thought, the faint sound of distant bells floating from the church of St. Anthony. He felt like extending his arms but he realized that he would only bump against the crystal. Her own arms wide apart, meanwhile, Stella dwindled into the perspective distance and the ill-starred, starry-eyed Gabriel knew that for his own sake he had to let her go for good.
“How can I stop this?”
“Close your eyes and turn away,” said Geraldine.
He did as he was told and waited for a while, nauseated and disconsolate, the picture persisting, as if trapped under his eyelids. He could have spared himself that trick, he thought bitterly.
“Well, that was something,” he said, peeling back his eyelids again, quickly wiping a tear with his bandaged hand before he turned back and went out.
“Did you see what I saw?” he asked, a bit embarrassed, as Reginald locked the door.
“How could we? It is your mind, not ours,” Geraldine said reassuringly, but the insistent smile on Reginald’s face could have been from more than politeness.
“But I still do not see why your grandmother chose me,” said Gabriel, trying to shake off the memory of Stella walking out of his helpless reach.
The siblings shrugged their four shoulders.
“Maybe she liked your name,” offered Reginald pensively. “But mostly she remembered that only someone called d’Allier knew of her story, someone whose knowledge of the city and commitment to its values could not be doubted.”
Gabriel wondered with concern what exactly Isabelle d’Ussonville had