17.

The Joke She Can Read Back

The deep Archive, Requiem City — month 5, AGH 200

Josephine put the funeral pages on the lower shelf. The last leaf would need a little longer before she could tie them. She had pressed too hard on the pen in places, as though writing carefully meant making certain the words went all the way through.

“The door,” she said.

“Which door?”

“Bartholomew's. In the performance room.”

The turquoise shifted across the wall.

“The apprentice,” the mind said. “She wanted her work paid.”

“Edda. Yes. The second performance, when he had to wait for her. What did he do with his face?”

She could picture it badly: the hat, the angle of his head. There had been something wonderfully unnecessary after he was allowed to move.

“He made her the joke,” the mind said.

“At first. I mean later, after they changed it.”

She lifted one finger, then felt foolish showing it a thing it had given her.

“She held him there. He was bowing.”

“Yes.”

“And when he got up?”

There was a little sound beneath the water sound. Jo waited. The light had gathered in one place, but the voice did not follow it.

“It was the next movement,” she said. “After he straightened. You had it so exactly.”

The nib hovered above a fresh leaf. She saw that she was waiting to take an answer down.

She laid the pen on the blotter.

“Wait. I've got it.”

She reached for the earlier account. The cord had left a dent across its title leaf; she loosened it and turned to the performance. Here was the man on the bench, the raised hand, the hat coming down by fractions.

“I can read it.”

“Where are you?”

“At the bow.”

“A little before.”

She went back to the finger and read:

“He was beginning the bow. He stopped halfway down, his hat extended, and turned his eyes very slowly towards the finger. Edda took the bolt out of its socket. She slid it back. She tried it once more, because it was a good bolt and she had made it. He watched her hand with the fixed courtesy of somebody whose neck was beginning to hurt.”

Jo glanced up. The water sound went on beneath the silence.

“At last she lowered the finger. Bartholomew straightened to thank her, remembered his manners and bowed again. Edda put the finger back up.”

The laugh reached her in the bones behind her ears. It interrupted the next word, and she stopped.

“Again?” the mind said.

“He bowed again.”

“I heard. Go on.”

She found her place.

“He remained bent. His eyes traveled from her finger to the place where he had just been allowed to stand. With immense caution, he tried moving only his eyebrows.”

There it was. Jo laughed too, more at the second bow now that she was waiting for it than she had at the earlier telling.

“Do you remember telling it to me?” she asked.

The question came quickly enough to spoil the end of her laugh.

“No.”

She held the page still.

“I hoped.”

“I have you reading it. I haven't got the other time.”

The cord lay across her wrist. She pulled it free and put it beside the leaves. A sound at the edge of the lattice continued its thin, uneven work.

“Would you like the rest?”

“Does he get through?”

“Eventually.”

“You needn't sound quite so sorry about it.”

She looked down at the small, sensible step through the door and smiled.

“We could do this again,” she said. “Read something we've already written.”

“That one.”

“You haven't heard the rest yet.”

“Then I am making a modest request.”

Jo drew her little list of visits towards her. There was room before the next telling, if she brought the right leaves down. She marked it, then moved the list out of the way.

The mind waited while she found the place where Bartholomew almost put his hand on his chest.

“I like this bit,” she said.

“Read it.”

She did.