Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [70]
Such was Brentford’s good education that when he found a door marked A. H., he knocked on it instead of storming inside. Much to his surprise, he eventually heard someone say, “Come in.” But the room, full of trunks and props, was otherwise empty. Little Tommy Twaddle, though, was sitting on a sofa, upright and grinning, with a letter in his hand that Brentford supposed was addressed to him.
He approached, noticing that the dummy’s eyes were rolling, following him as he came closer. A five-year-old child would have fled in panic at the uncanniness of it; Brentford tried hard to convince himself that he had got beyond that stage. It was with a slightly trembling hand, though, that he picked up a corner of the letter and pulled. The dummy’s own hand resisted, and even, Brentford felt, pulled the letter back a little, while the creature kept on flashing this stupid grin that he would gladly have bashed in. Brentford pulled harder, but this time the damned thing lunged and bit his hand through his glove. Brentford tore the letter away and slapped the dummy on his articulated jaw. He jerked to one side, but quickly sprang back to its position on the sofa.
“It doesn’t even hurt,” he said, in a creaking, exasperating voice.
Brentford had torn open the envelope and was reading the letter, which simply said: “Two o’clock at your Botanical Building apartment. Sybil.”
Brentford crumpled the letter and threw it at the dummy, hitting his wooden head.
“You missed! You missed!” he croaked, as Brentford, massaging his hand, left the room in a hurry.
CHAPTER XVIII
Lessons Of Darkness
Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.
Psalm 69
Gabriel thought he would never make it to the Midway and the Trilby Temple. The snowstorm was raging, pushing and shoving the few and stray pedestrians, blinding them, freezing them to the bone. More than once he almost renounced the effort, sheltering under archways or carriage doors, but he needed Stella more than anything else and did not want to miss her at any cost. As soon as he had left the Scavengers, he had forgotten the Seven Sleepers and had returned, as to a home and hearth, to his obsession with his star-studded sweetheart.
When he arrived on the deserted Midway, the Trilby Temple had already closed its door. His face rashing from the cold wind, Gabriel went straight to the Artist’s entrance at the rear of the building, where he had waited for Stella two or three times before. But no sooner had he got there than he beheld, almost miragenous through the whirling snowflakes, four hooded shapes hurrying away down the back alley. One of them, judging by her rather small size, could well have been Stella. He had no fixed rendezvous with her and was therefore not surprised that she had not waited for him, but he still found it painful and somewhat suspect to see her leaving with other people. He instantly felt the green-eyed tapeworm moving in his bowels, and decided to follow the receding shapes before they disappeared from sight.
Unafraid of being heard, thanks to the howling wind and the thickening layer of snow that muffled his steps to a faint leathery crunch he himself barely perceived, he took to the alley, hugging the walls, crouching behind the garbage bins.
He must have overdone it, for when he emerged from the alley, the group had disappeared without a trace. There must have been a taxsleigh waiting for them, but it would be ridiculous to try and follow its tracks, with all this snow falling down. Gabriel sighed, desperate. The driven snow stung his cheeks and eyelids, ephemeral pins leaving a minute burn behind, but missing Stella hurt him more than the surrounding cold. He had no idea what to do, and trudged back toward the Artists’ entrance, not knowing exactly