Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [133]
“Then … you … searched my place?”
“Be glad she did,” said Mougrabin. “That is how she found the book. She knew it was dangerous for you and she brought it to me.”
“I did not find the song, and so understood Wynne had the only copy,” Stella went on with difficulty. “So the next time I met him at the Trilby Temple, well … It was horrible, believe me, going to the Ingersarvik, with this hypnotized woman and that old …”
“Shh …” said Mougrabin, coming back to her.
He took her in his arms, and softly rocking her, stroked her lustrous wavy hair with his mutilated hand. “It is over now. Now you must go and prepare yourself.”
Stella left the room, looking at Gabriel with a sorrowful expression. He nodded, so slightly that she may not have noticed. He struggled to understand why she had deemed it necessary to go through this ordeal. But that was typical of radicals, he thought, this ability to convince themselves of the necessity of anything, provided it would turn their beliefs into action, their dreams into realities. Not to mention the influence of that damned Russian freak, who now came back to Gabriel with eyes that were, this time, unmistakably tearful, including the glass one.
“It is a small love, the one that cannot be shared,” said Mougrabin, squeezing his arm. “Sharing this one with you was … exceedingly painful. But it was also an honour.”
He squeezed Gabriel’s arm harder, and spoke in a low hissing voice.
“Freedom is not always a feast, Mr. d’Allier. It wants weeping and gnashing of teeth. It wants sacrifices. It wants blood. I am ready to make those sacrifices.”
He released his grip and opened a drawer, pulling out the wax roll Stella had so dearly bought.
“I would be still more honoured if you would come with us on the mission,” he said, now matter-of-factly. “And Stella would be happy, I am sure, for you to see what a brave and loyal young woman she is.”
Gabriel shrugged his shoulders. He felt empty. His love had been mutilated beyond recognition, a revolting shambles of rotting body parts like those of a tupilaaq hastily knocked together. He watched Mougrabin easing his maimed body into a vest and a jacket, and knew he could never touch Stella again. But he also realized—watching the anarchist distributing about himself small fulminate phials, poisoned pins on a pincushion, phosphoric cords, and what-not—that, after all, it was more interesting to be Mougrabin’s girlfriend than his.
If Gabriel had feared that the bombers would not be ready at such short notice, he was soon reassured. Mougrabin had been briefed extensively by Schwarz senior, who had previously studied, with the help of his daughter, every official building in the city and planned the destruction of each in both the most efficient and spectacular way. Blowing things up in New Venice was easy enough, since for all its pretention it was rather crudely built, but it was Schwarz’s theory that each building had its own personality and its own way to be blown up that would respect its features while producing maximum damage. He called this Anarchitecture.
Since it had been decided that killing or dismembering people was to be avoided, Hardenberg had insisted that the Treschler machine be preferred over bombs, as it crumbled the building in on itself, with little steel or stone flying about. This had required a slight modification of the blueprints from the anarchitects, since it was now the acoustic qualities of the building and the vibratory characteristics of its material that had to be taken into account. But on the whole that was less troublesome for everyone than fiddling around with mercury fulminate.
The N.A.N.A. was the target of choice for reasons even beyond its symbolic value. First, it was impressive enough. A long redbrick building, with a central gate topped by a dungeon, it evoked a British castle or college, and it looked so defiantly colonial that it was, in a sense, asking for trouble. Then too, as a late addition to the city, it was a bit off the beaten