“Are you married, Tyador?” I tried to answer Yallya’s questions though they came too fast really for that. “Is this the first time you’ve been here?”
“No, but the first time for a long time.”
“So you don’t know it.”
“No. I might once have claimed to know London, but not for years.”
“You’re well travelled! And now with all this are you mixing with insiles and breachers?” I did not find this line adorable. “Qussim says you’re spending your time where they’re digging up old hex stuff.”
“It’s like most places, much more bureaucratic than it sounds, no matter how weird the stories are.”
“It’s ridiculous.” She looked contrite, quite suddenly. “I shouldn’t make jokes about it. It’s just because I don’t know almost anything about the girl who died.”
“You never ask,” Dhatt said.
“Well, it’s … Do you have a picture of her?” Yallya said. I must have looked surprised because Dhatt shrugged at me. I reached into my inner pocket jacket, but remembered when I touched it that the only picture I had—a small copy of a copy taken in Besźel, tucked into my wallet—was of Mahalia dead. I would not show that.
“I’m sorry, I don’t.” In the little quiet it occurred to me that Mahalia was only a few years younger than Yallya.
I stayed longer than I had expected. She was a good host, particularly when I got her off this stuff—she let me steer the conversation away. I watched her and Dhatt perform gentle bickering. The proximity of the park and of other people’s affection was moving, to the point of distracting. Watching Yallya and Dhatt made me think of Sariska and Biszaya. I recalled the odd eagerness of Aikam Tsueh.
When I left, Dhatt took me down to the street and headed for the car, but I said to him, “I’ll make my own way.”
He stared. “Are you okay?” he said. “You’ve been funny all night.”
“I’m fine, sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude; it was very kind of you. Really it was a good night, and Yallya … you’re a lucky man. I just, I’m trying to think things through. Look, I’m okay to go. I’ve money. Ul Qoman money.” I showed him my wallet. “I’ve got all my papers. Visitor’s badge. I know it makes you uncomfortable having me out and about, but seriously, I’d like to walk; I need to be out for a bit. It’s a beautiful night.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? It’s raining.”
“I like rain. Anyway, this is drizzle. You wouldn’t last a day in Besźel. We get real rain in Besźel.” An old joke but he smiled and surrendered.
“Whatever. We have to work this out, you know; we’re not getting very far.”
“No.”
“And us the best minds our cities have, right? And Yolanda Rodriguez remains unfound, and now we’ve lost Bowden, too. We’re not going to win medals for this.” He looked around. “Seriously, what is going on?”
“You know everything I know,” I said.
“What bugs me,” he said, “isn’t that there’s no way to make sense of this shit. It’s that there is a way to make sense of it. And it’s not a way I want to go. I don’t believe in …” He waved at malevolent hidden cities. He stared the length of his street. It was total, so none of the lights from windows above was foreign. It was not so late, and we were not alone. People were silhouetted by the lights of a road perpendicular to Dhatt’s street, a road mostly in Besźel. For a moment I thought one of the black figures had, for seconds long enough to constitute breach, watched us, but then they moved on.
When I started walking, watching the wet-edged shapes of the city, I was not going anywhere in particular. I was moving south. Walking alone past people who were not, I indulged the idea of walking to where Sariska or Biszaya lived, or even Corwi—something of that melancholy connection. They knew I was in Ul Qoma: I could find them and could walk alongside them in the street and we would be inches apart but unable to acknowledge each other. Like the old story.
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, nomilitsya 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 of children: those in the strict Ul Qoman school uniforms, and dozens of street children. I attempted to be moderately unobtrusive, watched from behind the overlong headlines of the Ul Qoma Nasyona , eating fried street food for breakfast. People began to arrive at the dig. Arriving often in little groups, they were too far away for me to tell who was who as they entered, showing their passes. I waited a while.