There was no compassion to be had on this side of the Schism; there was only the weeping and the laughter. Tears of joy sometimes (for an hour without dread, a breath's length even), laughter coming just as paradoxically in the face of some new horror, fashioned by the Engineer for the provision of grief.
There was a further sophistication to the torture, devised by a mind that understood exquisitely the nature of suffering. The prisoners were allowed to see into the world they had once occupied. Their resting places-when they were not enduring pleasure-looked out onto the very locations where they had once worked the Configuration that had brought them here. In Frank's case, onto the upper room of number fifty-five, Lodovico Street.
For the best part of a year it had been an unilluminating view: nobody had ever stepped into the house. And then, they'd come: Rory and the lovely Julia. And hope had begun again....
There were ways to escape, he'd heard it whispered; loopholes in the system that might allow a mind supple or cunning enough egress into the room from which it had come. If a prisoner were able to make such an escape, there was no way that the hierophants could follow. They had to be summoned across the Schism. Without such an invitation they were left like dogs on the doorstep, scratching and scratching but unable to get in. Escape therefore, if it could be achieved, brought with it a decree absolute, total dissolution of the mistaken marriage which the prisoner had made. It was a risk worth taking. Indeed it was no risk at all. What punishment could be meted out worse than the thought of pain without hope of release?
He had been lucky. Some prisoners had departed from the world without leaving sufficient sign of themselves from which, given an adequate collision of circumstances, their bodies might be remade. He had. Almost his last act, bar the shouting, had been to empty his testicles onto the floor. Dead sperm was a meager keepsake of his essential self, but enough. When dear brother Rory (sweet butterfingered Rory) had let his chisel slip, there was something of Frank to profit from the pain. He had found a
fingerhold for himself, and a glimpse of strength with which he might haul himself to safety. Now it was up to Julia.
Sometimes, suffering in the wall, he thought she would desert him out of fear. Either that or she'd rationalize the vision she'd seen, and decide she'd been dreaming. If so, he was lost. He lacked the energy to repeat the appearance.
But there were signs that gave him cause for hope. The fact that she returned to the room on two or three occasions, for instance, and simply stood in the gloom, watching the wall. She'd even muttered a few words on the second visit, though he'd caught only scraps. The word "here" was amongst them. And
"waiting, " and "soon. " Enough to keep him from despair.
He had another prop to his optimism. She was lost, wasn't she? He'd seen that in her face, when-before the day Rory had chiseled himself-she and his brother had had occasion to be in the room together. He'd read the looks between the lines, the moments when her guard had slipped, and the sadness and frustration she felt were apparent.
Yes, she was lost. Married to a man she felt no love for, and unable to see a way out.
Well, here he was. They could save each other, the way the poets promised lovers should. He was mystery, he was darkness, he was all she had dreamed of. And if she would only free him he would service her-oh yes-until her pleasure reached that threshold that, like all thresholds, was a place where the strong grew stronger, and the weak perished.
Pleasure was pain there, and vice versa. And he knew it well enough to call it home.
SIX
It turned cold in the third week of September: an Arctic chill brought on a rapacious wind that stripped the trees of leaves in a handful of days.
The cold necessitated a change of costume, and a change of plan. Instead of walking, Julia took the car. Drove down to the city center in the early afternoon and found a bar in which the lunchtime trade was brisk but not clamorous.
The customers came and went: Young Turks from firms of lawyers and accountants, debating their ambitions; parties of wine-imbibers whose only claim to sobriety was their suits; and, more interestingly, a smattering of individuals who sat alone at their tables and simply drank. She garnered a good crop of admiring glances, but they were mostly from the Young Turks. It wasn't until she'd been in the place an hour, and the wage slaves were returning to their treadmills, that she caught sight of somebody watching her reflection in the bar mirror. For the next ten minutes his eyes were glued to her. She went on drinking, trying to conceal any sign of agitation. And then, without warning, he stood up and crossed to her table.
"Drinking alone?" he said.
She wanted to run. Her heart was pounding so furiously she was certain he must hear it. But no. He asked her if she wanted another drink; she said she did. Clearly pleased not to have been rebuffed, he went to the bar, ordered doubles, and returned to her side. He was ruddy-featured, and one size larger than his dark blue suit. Only his eyes betrayed any sign of nervousness, resting on her for moments only, then darting away like startled fish.
There would be no serious conversation: that she had already decided. She didn't want to know much about him. His name, if necessary. His profession and marital status, if he insisted. Beyond that let him be just a body.
As it was there was no danger of a confessional. She'd met more talkative paving stones. He smiled occasionally-a short, nervous smile that showed teeth too even to be real-and offered more drinks. She said no, wanting the chase over with as soon as possible, and instead asked if he had time for a coffee. He said he had.
"The house is only a few minutes from here," she replied, and they went to her car. She kept wondering, as she drove-the meat on the seat beside her-why this was so very easy. Was it that the man was plainly a victim-with his ineffectual eyes and his artificial teeth-born, did he but know it, to make this journey? Yes, perhaps that was it. She was not afraid, because all of this was so perfectly predictable...
As she turned the key in the front door and stepped into the house, she thought she heard a noise in the kitchen. Had Rory returned home early, ill perhaps? She called out.
There was no reply; the house was empty. Almost.
From the threshold on, she had the thing planned meticulously. She closed the door. The man in the blue suit stared at his manicured hands, and waited for his cue.
"I get lonely sometimes," she told him as she brushed past him. It was a line she'd come up with in bed the previous night.
He only nodded by way of response, the expression on his face a mingling of fear and incredulity: he clearly couldn't quite believe his luck.
"Do you want another drink?" she asked him, "or shall we go straight upstairs?"
He only nodded again.
"Which?"
"I think maybe I've drunk enough already."
"Upstairs then."
He made an indecisive move in her direction, as though he might have intended a kiss. She wanted no courtship, however. Skirting his touch, she crossed to the bottom of the stairs.