Mysterium

“You spent the night at the house of—” And Delafleur made a show of consulting his notebook. “Madame Ellen Stockton.”

Thibault flushed. Which of these pig farmers had betrayed him? His head throbbed mercilessly. He couldn’t force himself to raise his eyes to meet Delafleur’s. He felt the Proctor’s breath on his face—the man was that close.

“Tell me what you talk about with the woman.”

“Nothing of any consequence,” Thibault said, grimly aware that he was begging now. He tried to smile. “I wasn’t there to talk!”

“That won’t do. You don’t understand, Monsieur Thibault. The town is on the verge of panic. We want to prevent lies from spreading. Two infantrymen were attacked in their car on night patrol while you were in bed with this woman—did you know that? You’re lucky you weren’t killed yourself.” He shook his head as if he had been personally insulted. “Worse, there are rumors being repeated even in the barracks. Which could have tragic consequences. This isn’t an ordinary offense.”

In the end Thibault told him what Ellen had said about the bomb— the “atomic” bomb—but he was careful to defend her honor: Ellen didn’t really know anything about this, he said; it all came from the boy, from Clifford, who behaved oddly, who was often out of the house. And Delafleur nodded, making notes.

Thibault had never liked the boy, anyway. The boy would not be a loss.

∞

The Proctors took him to the makeshift stockade in the City Hall basement and locked him in a cell there.

Thibault, who hated confinement, paced his cage and remembered what Ellen had said.

They’ll hum up everyone, she had said. Even you.

Was that possible? It was true, there had been some muttering in the barracks and at mess hall—Thibault had never taken such things seriously. But there was the firebreak. That was real enough. And the tower in the forest. And his imprisonment.

Lukas Thibault’s head felt as if it had been cracked like a walnut. He wished he could see the sky.

Even you, my charming soldier.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Work at the test site peaked and ebbed, many of the civilian workers had been sent back to Fort LeDuc. A battalion of physicists and engineers remained behind to initiate the bomb sequence and study the results. The stillness of completion had descended on the circle of cleared land; the air was cold and tense.

Clearly, Demarch thought, these were the final hours. Censeur Bisonette had flown in from the capital for a one-day tour: Two Rivers, before the end. Demarch stood on the snowy margin of the test grounds while Bisonette marched about with his press of Bureau personnel, Delafleur unctuously proclaiming each tedious landmark. This was followed by a lunch in one of the freshly emptied tin sheds, trestle tables stocked with the only decent food ever to be trucked into town: breads, meats, fresh cheeses, leek and potato soup in steaming bouilloires.

Demarch sat at the Censeur’s left, Delafleur to his right. Despite this ostensible equity, conversation flowed mainly between Bisonette and the Ideological Branch attache. More evidence of a shift of patronage, Demarch thought, or an even deeper movement in the geology of the Bureau de la Convenance. He felt left out but was too numb to care. The wine helped. Red wine from what had once been Spanish cellars in California. Spoils of war.

After the meal he had Bisonette’s attention exclusively, which was really no improvement. Demarch rode in the Censeur’s car during what was meant to be a tour of the town itself, though it was difficult to see much beyond the bustle of security cars on every side. The procession wound eastward from the fragmentary highway, over roads full of potholes, past drab businesses and gray houses under a sunless sky. The wealth of the town and its impoverishment were both much in evidence.

Bisonette was unimpressed. “I notice there are no public buildings.”

“Only the school, the courthouse—City Hall.”

“Not much civic spirit.”

“Well, this wasn’t a city of any proportion, Censeur. You might say the same of Montmagny or Sur-Mer.”

“At least at Montmagny there are temples.”

“The churches here—”

“Aggrandized peasant huts. Their theology is impoverished, too. Like a line drawing of Christianity, all the details left out.”

Well, Demarch had thought as much himself. He nodded.

The cavalcade wound through Beacon Street and back to the motor hotel the Bureau had appropriated as headquarters. The chauffeur parked and stood outside without offering to open the doors. Demarch moved to get out, but Bisonette touched his arm. “A moment.”

He tensed now, waiting.

“News from the capital,” Bisonette said. “Your friend Guy Marris has left the Bureau.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. With three fingers missing.”

Demarch stiffened. Three fingers was the traditional penalty for stealing Bureau property. Or lying to a hierarch.

Bisonette said, “I understand the two of you were close.”

Nauseated, weightless, Demarch could only nod.