Mysterium

The Proctor smiled again. “You’ve spent too much time proofreading. Meso-America. I’ve read the manuscript. Your publishers have been cooperative. It’s a fine scholarly work, insofar as I can judge. The Ideological Branch gave it careful attention, of course. Disseminating falsehoods anti-religio is still a felony. But we do try to be reasonable. Science is science. You don’t strike me as a subversive.”

“Thank you. Comparative ethnology isn’t advocative. There have been court cases—”

“I know. This isn’t about your book, in any case, though the book is what qualifies you. We want you to do some work for the Bureau de la Convenance Religieuse.”

“I have my own work.”

“Nothing that can’t wait. We’ve arranged a sabbatical—if you choose to take it.”

“My book—”

“You must be nearly finished with the proofs.”

She didn’t deny it. Demarch would know all this. There was a saying: God sees the sparrow fall. The Bureau takes notes.

He said, “We’ll need you for six months—possibly as much as a year.”

She was aghast. It was too big an idea to swallow: the Bureau wanted her to work for them, to go away for six months, interrupt her life, such as it was… “For what?”

“To practice the science of ethnology,” Demarch said. “The thing you’re good at.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It isn’t simple to explain.”

“I’m not sure I want an explanation. You said I had a choice? I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“I understand. I sympathize, Miss Stone, believe it or not. If it were up to me, I would leave it at that. But I don’t think the Bureau as a whole would be happy with your decision.”

“But if I have a choice—”

“You do. So do my superiors. They have the choice of putting in a word with your publishers, say, or talking to the chancellor about your academic qualifications in light of your family history.” He saw her expression and held up his hands. “I won’t say any of this is inevitable. Only that you run a risk if you refuse to cooperate.”

She didn’t answer, couldn’t find words to answer.

He added, “We’re not talking about manual labor on some penal farm. This is the work you’re trained to do, after all, and only six months out of a long career. It’s much less than some people have been asked to give up for their country.”

Please, Linneth thought, don’t start talking about the war, the noble dead. It would be too much. But Demarch seemed to sense her reaction. He fell silent, his eyes fixed on her.

She said, “What would the Bureau want with an ethnologist?” A woman, at that, she did not add. It seemed out of character.

“Basically, we want you to write an analysis of a foreign village—its mores and taboos, something of its history.”

“In six months?”

“A sketch, not a thesis.”

“Isn’t that the kind of thing you can look up in a book?”

“Not in this case, no.”

“I would be working from the field?”

“Yes.”

“Where?” It was something to do with the war, she guessed. New Spain, almost certainly.

Demarch said, “You agree to cooperate?”

“Rather than losing tenure? Facing a felony charge or some secret trial?”

“You know better than that.”

“Under the circumstances, what can I say?”

Demarch had stopped smiling. “You can say, ‘I agree.’ ”

The words. He actually wanted the words.

— Linneth gave him a long, defiant look. Demarch didn’t acknowledge it, only gazed passively back. His uniform was crisp and neat and somehow more intimidating because of it. Her own rain-wet clothing smelled of damp wool and defeat.

She lowered her head. “I agree,” she whispered.

“Pardon me?” His voice was neutral.

“I agree.”

“Yes.” He reached for his attache case. “Then let me show you some extraordinary photographs.”

∞

She was allowed three days to finish her corrections to the page proofs. Linneth paid scrupulous attention to the work, using it to blot out of her mind the story Lieutenant Demarch had told her. Even after she had seen the photos (the strange town so seemingly real, the shopfronts displaying impossible goods, the signs in a language only approximately English), she still half-believed that it was a hoax, some elaborate ruse the Bureau had devised to trick her into confessing— well, something, anything; that she would end up in prison after all.