The Stranger - Max Frei [112]
“You know best,” I sighed. “Let’s go eat, Juffin. These walls need a rest from us.”
Even the Glutton was gloomy. Madame Zizinda looked like she had been crying. The food exceeded all expectations, as usual, but we weren’t in any mood to appreciate its merits. Juffin ordered a glass of Jubatic Juice, sniffed it critically, and pushed it away.
This was perhaps the most incoherent, senseless night I had experienced in all the time I had been here. Hm. In all the time I had been here. It hadn’t been too long, to be honest. It wasn’t at all hard to imagine that in addition to tourists from neighboring cities, inhabitants of other worlds had made their way to Echo, just as I had done. Sinning Magicians!
“Juffin,” I whispered. “What if it’s a countryman of mine?”
My boss raised his eyebrows and nodded slowly.
“Let’s go to the Ministry. A conversation like this isn’t for strangers’ ears. Tell Madame Zizinda to send kamra and something harder to my office. Only not this stuff,” he added, looking at the liquid distastefully.
In the office the chief stared at me with his penetrating gaze.
“Why?”
“Because it explains everything. No magic, right? In any case, no obvious magic. That’s number one. Number two, if I’m here, why might there not be other guests like me? A door, no matter how well locked, always remains a door while a house is still standing. And Juffin, you yourself say that it’s not customary to kill like that in Echo. Where I was born, back there, treating ladies that way is quite popular among madmen. Some madmen. We call them ‘maniacs.’ That’s my third, and most important, argument. It’s all too familiar. I’ve seen similar things on television.”
“Where did you see it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. I tried to think of a quick and comprehensible way of describing television to a person who had never seen it. “Let’s just say that it gives you the ability to stay home and watch what’s going on in other places. Not everything, of course, but the main things. Things that are surprising or important. And then there are movies. With the help of a special apparatus. No magic. Although who knows what the gauge on your Magic Meter would show?”
“Exactly. Oh, you should have brought that television along with you—what a fascinating little gadget!”
“But what do you think about the murderer?” I asked, trying to steer my chief back to the problem at hand. “Do you think he might be a native of my country?”
“Well, it’s an elegant and logical hypothesis—just something you’d come up with. We’ll have to try it out. I’ll go see Maba Kalox, and you’ll come with me. Maba knows your story, so don’t try to impress him with the legend of your origins.”
“Sir!” I exclaimed, indignant. “It’s not my legend, it’s yours. A prime example of the genre of fictional falsification. ‘Sir Max is from the Borderlands of the County Vook and the Barren Lands—an uncouth barbarian, but one heck of a sleuth!’”
“It’s mine alright,” Juffin sighed. “At least I’m good for something. Let’s go.”
At this point, I must elaborate on how I ended up in Echo, since, strange as it may seem, it is directly connected with how these events further unfolded.
For the first twenty-nine years of his muddled existence, Max, the Max I was then, nocturnal dispatcher at a newspaper, average in every possible sense of the word, had grown used to attributing special significance to his dreams. Events in dreams seemed even more real to me than everyday reality. It even went so far that when matters in my dreams weren’t going very well, nothing could comfort me when I was awake. Moreover, even on the best of days, when reality was absolutely agreeable to me, I didn’t quite see the difference between the dream world and the waking world. I dragged all my problems around with me, there and back—as well as joys and satisfactions, when there were any, of course.
Among the myriad dreams I saw (for it was like watching myself starring in a strange movie) there were several that stood out for their frequency.