The City & the City - China Mieville [115]
“Those are old,” Buidze said, watching me. “They were dug up ages ago.”
“I see,” I said, reading the labels. They had been disinterred in the early days of the dig. I turned at the sound of Professor Nancy entering. She stopped hard, stared at Ashil, at me. She opened her mouth. She had lived in Ul Qoma many years, was trained to see its minutiae. She recognised what she saw. “Professor,” I said. She nodded. She stared at Buidze and he at her. She nodded and backed out.
“When Mahalia was in charge of the keys, she went for walks after locking up, didn’t she?” I said. Buidze shrugged, bewildered. “She offered to lock up when it wasn’t her turn, too. More than once.” All the small artefacts were in their cloth-lined beds. I did not rummage, but I felt around at the rear of the drawer without what I imagined was the preferred care.
He shifted, but Buidze would not challenge me. At the rear of the third shelf up, of things brought to light still more than a year ago, one of the cloth-wrapped items gave under my finger in a way that made me pause. “You have to wear gloves,” Buidze said.
I unwrapped it and within was newspaper, and in the twist of paper was a piece of wood still flecked with paint and marked by where screws had held it. Not ancient nor carved: the offcut of a door, an absolute piece of nothing.
Buidze stared. I held it up. “What dynasty’s this?” I said.
“Don’t,” said Ashil to me. He followed me out. Buidze came behind us.
“I’m Mahalia,” I said. “I’ve just locked up. I’ve just volunteered to do it, though it’s someone else’s turn. Now a little walk.”
I marched us out into the open air, past the carefully layered hole where students glanced at us in surprise, on into the wasteland, where there was that rubble of history, and beyond it out of the gate that would open to a university ID, that opened for us because of where and what we were, that we propped open, into the park. Not much of a park this close to the excavation, but scrub and a few trees crossed by paths. There were Ul Qomans visible, but none too close. There was no unbroken Ul Qoman space between the dig and the bulk of the Ul Qoman park. Besźel intruded.
We saw other figures at the edges of the clearing: Besź sitting on the rocks or by the crosshatched pond. The park was only slightly in Besźel, a few metres at the edge of vegetation, a rill of crossover in paths and bushes, and a little stretch of totality cutting the two Ul Qoman sections off from each other. Maps made clear to walkers where they might go. It was here in the crosshatch that the students might stand, scandalously, touching distance from a foreign power, a pornography of separation.
“Breach watches fringes like this,” Ashil said to me. “There are cameras. We’d see anyone emerge into Besźel who didn’t come in by it.”
Buidze was hanging back. Ashil spoke so he could not hear. Buidze was trying not to watch us. I paced.
“Orciny …” I said. No way in or out of here in Ul Qoma but back through Bol Ye’an dig. “Dissensi? Bullshit. That’s not how she delivered. This is what she was doing. Have you seen The Great Escape?” I walked to the edge of the crosshatched zone, where Ul Qoma ended for metres. Of course I was in Breach now, could wander on into Besźel if I wanted, but I stopped as if I were only in Ul Qoma. I walked to the edge of the space it shared with Besźel, where Besźel became briefly total and separated it from the rest of Ul Qoma. I made sure Ashil was watching me. I mimed placing the piece of wood in my pocket, stuffing it in fact down past my belt, down the inside of my trousers. “Hole in her pockets.”
I walked a few steps in the crosshatch, dropping the thankfully unsplintering wood down my leg. I stood still when it hit the ground. I stood as if contemplating the skyline and moved my feet gently, letting it onto the earth, where I trod it in and scuffed plant muck and dirt onto it. When I walked away, without looking back, the wood was a nothing shape, invisible if you did not know it was there.
“When she goes, someone in Besźel—or someone who looks like