The City & the City - China Mieville [39]
“Inspector, yes, I’m … Please accept my apologies. I’d meant to call you back but it’s been, everything’s been, I’m very sorry …” She shifted between English and good Besź.
“I understand, Professor. I am sorry too about Miss Geary. I know this must be a very bad time for all of you and your colleagues.”
“I, we, we’re all in shock here, Inspector. Real shock. I don’t know what to tell you. Mahalia was a great young woman and—”
“Of course.”
“Where are you? Are you … local? Would you like to meet?”
“I’m afraid I’m calling internationally, Professor; I’m still in Besźel.”
“I see. So … how can I help you, Inspector? Is there any problem? I mean any problem other than, than all of this, I mean …” I heard her breath. “I’m expecting Mahalia’s parents any day now.”
“Yes, I just was with them actually. The embassy here is putting in paperwork for them, and they should come to you soon. No, I am calling you because I want to know more about Mahalia and what she was doing.”
“Forgive me, Inspector Borlú, but I was under the impression … this crime … will you not be invoking Breach, I thought…?” She had calmed and was speaking only Besź now, so what the hell I gave up on my English, which was no better than her Besź.
“Yes. The Oversight Committee … excuse me, Professor I don’t know how much you know about how these matters go. But yes, responsibility for this will be passed over. You understand how that will work, then?”
“I think so.”
“Alright. I’m just doing some last work. I’m curious, is all. We hear interesting things about Mahalia. I want to know some things about her work. Can you help me? You were her advisor, yes? Do you have time to speak to me about that for a few minutes?”
“Of course, Inspector, you’ve waited long enough. I don’t know quite what—”
“I want to know what she was working on. And about her history with you and with the program. And tell me about Bol Ye’an, too. She was studying Orciny, I understand.”
“What?” Isabelle Nancy was shocked. “Orciny? Absolutely not. This is an archaeology department.”
“Forgive me, I’d been under the impression … What do you mean, this is archaeology?”
“I mean that if she were studying Orciny, and there might be excellent reasons to do so, she’d be doing her doctorate in Folklore or Anthropology or maybe Comp Lit. Granted, the edges of disciplines are getting vague. Also that Mahalia is one of a number of young archaeologists more interested in Foucault and Baudrillard than in Gordon Childe or in trowels.” She did not sound angry but sad and amused. “But we wouldn’t have accepted her unless her PhD was real archaeology.”
“So what was it?”
“Bol Ye’an’s an old dig, Inspector.”
“Please tell me.”
“I’m sure you’re aware of all the controversy around early artefacts in this region, Inspector. Bol Ye’an’s uncovering pieces that are a good couple of millennia old. Whichever theory you subscribe to on Cleavage, split or convergence, what we’re looking for predates it, predates Ul Qoma and Besźel. It’s root stuff.”
“It must be extraordinary.”
“Of course. Also pretty incomprehensible. You understand we know next to nothing about the culture that produced all this?”
“I think so. That’s why all the interest, yes?”
“Well … yes. That and the kind of things you have here. What Mahalia was doing was trying to decode what the title of her project called ‘A Hermeneutics of Identity’ from the layouts of gears and so on.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Then she did a good job. The aim of a PhD’s to ensure that no one, including your advisor, understands what you’re doing after the first couple of years. I’m joking, you understand. What she’s doing would have had ramifications for theories of the two cities. Where they came from, you know. She played her cards pretty close, so I was never sure month to month where she stood exactly on the issue, but she still had a couple of years to make up her mind. Or to just make something up.”
“So she was helping