The City & the City - China Mieville [88]
Not that I would ever do such a thing. Having to unsee acquaintances or friends is a rare and notoriously uncomfortable circumstance. What I did do was walk past my own house.
I half expected to see one of my neighbours, none of whom, I think, knew I was abroad, and who might therefore be expected to greet me before noticing my Ul Qoman visitor’s badge and hurriedly attempting to unbreach. Their lights were on, but they were all indoors.
In Ul Qoma I was in Ioy Street. It is pretty equally crosshatched with RosidStrász where I lived. The building two doors along from my own house was a late-night Ul Qoman liquor store, half the pedestrians around me in Ul Qoma, so I was able to stop grosstopically, physically close to my own front door, and unsee it of course, but equally of course not quite, with an emotion the name of which I have no idea. I came slowly closer, keeping my eyes on the entrances in Ul Qoma.
Someone was watching me. It looked like an old woman. I could hardly see her in the dark, certainly not her face in any detail, but something was curious in the way she stood. I took in her clothes and could not tell which city she was in. That is a common instant of uncertainty, but this one went on for much longer than usual. And my alarm did not subside, it grew, as her locus refused to clarify.
I saw others in similar shadows, similarly hard to make sense of, emerging, sort of, not approaching me, not even moving but holding themselves so they grew more in focus. The woman continued to stare at me, and she took a step or two in my direction, so either she was in Ul Qoma or breaching.
That made me step back. I kept backing away. There was an ugly pause, until as if in belated echo she and those others did the same, and were gone suddenly into shared dark. I got out of there, not quite running but fast. I found better-lit avenues.
I did not walk straight to the hotel. After my heart had slowed and I had spent some minutes in a not-empty spot, I walked to the same vantage point I had taken before, overlooking Bol Ye’an. I was much more careful in my scrutiny than I had been, and tried to affect Ul Qoman bearing, and for the hour I watched that unlit excavation, no militsya came. So far they tended to be either violently present or altogether absent. Doubtless there was a method of ensuring subtle intervention from the Ul Qoman police, but I did not know it.
At the Hilton I requested a 5 a.m. wakeup call, and asked the woman behind the desk if she would print me up a message, as the tiny room called a “business centre” was closed. First she did so on marked Hilton paper. “Would you mind doing it on plain?” I said. I winked. “Just in case it’s intercepted.” She smiled, not sure what intimacy it was she was privy to. “Can you read that back to me?”
“‘Urgent. Come ASAP. Don’t call.’”
“Perfect.”
I was back overlooking the site the next morning, having taken a circuitous walked route through the city. Though as law demanded I wore my visitor’s mark, I had placed it at the very edge of my lapel, where cloth folded, only visible to those who knew to look. I wore it on a jacket that was a genuine Ul Qoman design and was, like my hat, not new but new to me. I had set out some hours before any shops were open, but a surprised Ul Qoman man at the farthest reach of my walk was several dinar richer and lighter his outer clothes.
Nothing guaranteed that I was not watched, but I did not think I was by the militsya. It was not long after dawn, but Ul Qomans were everywhere. I would not risk walking closer to Bol Ye’an. As the morning wore on the city filled with hundreds