The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [26]
"A friend," Jack said, and a look was exchanged between him and Mother Jolley whose meaning became clear to Orphan only when Jack added, "a comrade."
The fat woman surveyed Orphan for a moment longer, as if dubious of his entitlement to such distinction. Finally, with a reluctant nod, she moved back and pulled the door open. "Follow me, gents."
Orphan, shooting Jack a glance that said, what the hell is going on?, followed him nevertheless, and the three of them, like an ill-matched family of nestling dolls, walked in single file into a narrow hallway, where the accumulated decades of tobacco smoke lay sedately in the still air.
They walked down a flight of stairs that opened onto a stone-walled antechamber, empty save for a large, stout oak door. Mother Jolley moved aside, allowing Orphan and Jack to crowd beside her. The door had no handle; Mother Jolley pressed a hidden lever on the wall and the door swung open, making no sound.
But noise erupted through the open door, as startling as a gale. The hoarse shouts of excited men and women mingled with the scream of animals, and a heavy, musky scent ebbed into the air of the antechamber, the mixture of human sweat and excitement – and of fear and animal faeces.
Jack walked through, and Orphan followed. Mother Jolley herded them in and the door closed behind her, shutting out the above-stairs world.
"Welcome to the cock pit," she said.
Orphan looked around. They were in a wide basement. Burning torches hung on the walls, giving the place the aura of a Middle Ages torture chamber. The ground was uneven and sloped down until it became a circular arena. It was surrounded by people – mostly men, but some women too – all shouting, waving fists, flashing money.
Inside the ring two large roosters fought in a cloud of blood and feathers. Orphan, sickened, followed Jack to the edge of the crowd. The roosters had small, thin blades attached where their spurs should have been. The blades flashed in the torchlight. The screaming of the fighting birds filled the air with menace.
Jack was circling the ring. Orphan followed him, and they finally came to a stop in a dark corner of the basement, where Jack leaned against the wooden supports that rose from ground to ceiling. He motioned to Orphan to do the same.
"Why," Orphan said, having to almost shout to be heard over the noise of the fight, "are we here?"
Jack nodded. "Now, that is the question," he agreed. "Why are any of us here? What is our purpose on this earth?"
He flashed Orphan a grin, which wasn't returned.
In the ring, a red-and-black rooster was crowned the winner. The lifeless corpse of its opponent was scooped off the ground. Orphan followed the man who lifted it – a short, stocky man wearing a bloodied butcher's apron – as he carried the dead bird to the opposite side of the basement from them. Coals glowed in a brazier, and on a wire mesh chicken pieces sizzled and smoked. The man in the apron laid the latest carcass on the surface of a table by the coals and began plucking feathers.
"I wasn't joking," Jack said. He turned to Orphan and looked hard into his face. "Why we are here – why we are here – that's a question I think you need to have answered for you."
The umpire, a tall moustachioed man with pale, blotchy skin that made his head look like a mushroom that had never seen the sun, announced the next bout, and two fresh roosters were kicked into the ring, where they immediately set on each other.
"Did you think to ask yourself," Jack said, speaking softly despite the noise of the crowd, forcing Orphan to bend closer to listen to him, "just why the Bookman wished to destroy the Martian probe in the park? Or did you think, as you seem to, that his one and only purpose was to hurt you? That he launched that public, spectacular