While writing, I made some moodboards for my characters. They are online on my Tumblr, matveiplatovthebold if you are interested.
XXIII. In the end, I'll say: what is private is political (2)
III. Giacomo Bellini
We had left Venice somewhat sullen. I had tried to write to my sister Laura, but got no response. I couldn't take the risk of breaking into her rooms. A messenger shabti would have been the best solution, but making a shabti capable of entering the palace was absolutely beyond my reach, and I did not know any good statuary magician. This whole situation was quite disturbing. It seemed clear to me I had attended a show that was not intended for me. Why Laura? I had just followed the Di Angelo trail, I had run into a thousand other problems.
What now? What haven't I done yet? Who's next? My father, my sisters, my adorable little brother? My grandmother ? Murdering Esme's uncle was bad enough, what was coming scared the shit out of me. I would have liked to tell myself that I didn't care, but that obviously wasn't true. However, the orders of the first Nome, were unquestionable. What if shy away… I shook my head so as not to think about it. I was a weapon, that was it. Weapons don't complain.
Alice left for Vienna first, to sort out some business (I had my own doubts about the nature of this business, and believe me, I didn't like it at all). As for me, I had made a detour through the First Nome to alert Iskandar. He sighed deeply when I finished my report, discouraged more than worried by the idea of yet another Italo-magical war. The news of Set's actions disturbed him further. He made me repeat our conversation to the word, then swear not to tell anyone.
"Where Set is, there goes Horus, and vice versa. Sending him back to the Duat without trying to find out more would not only be risky, it would be terribly reckless, he explained. I have some research to do ...
- Must I…
- No, you've done enough. I won't need you for a little while. Help out the Balkans Nome instead, Isfet must not relocate there. And send to me, if you see her, your cousin. Esme Sabbia if I remember correctly. "
Of course he remembered. Iskandar himself was a bastard, he had a certain affection for them. The great families were not wrong to think that they formed the bulk of the battalion of his spies and henchmen. The idea that he could drag Esme into this mess revolted me. But I had no choice, I was already playing a tight game with Iskandar, hiding some things from him. Not all of them, just the elements that could potentially offer him more leverage on Michel.
In Sarajevo, I joined Alice in the company of Arthur Chase, a man whom I had not seen for years. Together, we took the direction of our island. Esme was no longer there, I guess she had joined the rest of my family in Venice. The weather had cooled, the tree leaves were dying one after one. A few clouds were unraveling in this pastel-hued November afternoon's sky. A last ray of sun was hanging over the sea.
We had found Michel on the terrace in front of a stack of copies. Louis was sitting in front of some spelling exercise, the kind he hated the most. He had serious difficulties in reading and writing, but Michel, as the good french teacher he was, had spent years stubbornly teaching him how to read and write, and now had bet with Alice, that he would make him learn the rules of the past participle grammatical agreement (I had said I'd eat my shirt if he'd succeed).
I noticed his black eye, matched with a few bruises and scratches. His right hand was bandaged, and I suspected from his stiffness that his back injury had reopened. I saved my questions for later, when we'd be alone.
" Is it interesting ?
- As much as the works of ten-year-old kids can be.
- Well, is it bad then?
- It depends for whom, he sighed. "
The status of chief of Nome automatically conferred the authorization to teach in Cairo. There had been a vacancy and he had been asked if he could urgently provide the elemental magic course for non-specialist beginner children. He had accepted. The heads of Nome-mission were under closer surveillance, and as he already had to travel to Cairo every week to complete his report, this did not bother him too much.
I went home to change and put away my things. I then put the coffee maker on the gas and watched through the door the rest of the group sitting on the patio. Chase had moved closer to Louis, intrigued.
"Why did you wrote 'offertes' Louis?" He asked, glancing at his draft. "The is verb avoir, and even if it would have been être the subject is a masculine noun.
- Because the object complement is placed before the auxiliary verb. "
Arthur frowned.
"What kind of rule is this?
- Don't worry, I never understood it either," Alice laughed. "Grammar's great mysteries !
- The French language is a child of chaos," Arthur commented, shaking his head.
- Still, have you already listened to Romanian?
- How is Romanian?
- As if an Italian had made a kid in an orgy with Ukrainians, Serbs and Bulgarians. "
I poured myself a hot cup of coffee and went out onto the terrace to join them. Michel glanced at Louis' work and smiled at him, looking satisfied.
"It's much better Louis, you're almost there." "
The child had a victorious expression and stirred in his chair:
"Can I play now?
- Go ahead. "
He got up and ran off in the garden.
Well, well, in a week my shirt was going to go. I took a few sips of my coffee, grabbed a few copies at random, and looked at the names. Keane, that's old nobility. Pharaoh's blood by the grandmother I think. And there are others, an Iwasaki, a Dee… And this? Yasmine Abdi. I didn't know the name at all, but she got the best mark. Per Ankh's young blood.
"Wait, I'll show you one," Michel told me. "I've got my winner. "
He gave me Julius Kane's copy. The kids had to do some basic multiplication and division to calculate the masses of the different movable elements. Julius had given up on his calculation, and instead of the numbers had drawn little figures hanging from the results bar. The boy's boldness made me laugh heartily.
"I should give him a bad mark, but somehow I just want to have this masterpiece framed. "
I had a bright vision of Michel receiving Jabari at the Nome, with his son's hanged men embellishing the reception room above the fireplace.
"It's kind of danse macabre isn't it?" Chase joked. "14th century aesthetic. He missed his orientation, he should be an artist.
- A Kane doing statuary magic ! " The idea made me laugh. "You have spent too much time with the surrealists. Keep it in a drawer, you can always offer it to him in some twenty years.
- As a wedding present, said Alice.
- Come on, he's only ten years old!
- He's engaged if the rumor can be trusted.
- If only you could see the file I've put together just for your wedding, Michel, added Alice.
- Oh, I can guess. That's why I'll never get married, don't worry.
- I have kept engravings from the time when you modeled at the Beaux arts.
- What? "
I gave him big eyes.
"Hey, that was just a small job like any other, he defended himself.
- You were already prostituting yourself for books ! "
He rolled his eyes.
"How much longer are you going to mention the Baron Charlus ?"
"Until I die, Michmich," Alice replied. "Remember how your poor mother would knock her brains out.
- It was not prostitution.
- I can't believe they let you teach, I laughed. With such a past!
- Hey, come on, weren't the Egyptians the ones who'd wrote dirty jokes about the Ennead? Arthur hissed.
- Or the ones obsessed with the fate of Osiris' penis in their religion's most important myth! Alice added. No wait, my favorite is the one where Hathor tries to cure Ra of his depression by showing him her vagina. And though it works, it's because he just bursts into laughter. And after all that, you still want to give us moral lessons! "
I had burst into laughter at that precise moment.
"I will never tell you Egyptian myths again," Michel grumbled.
"At least your mythology is original and festive," Chase tempered. "
Clouds covered the sky, and the air suddenly cooled. We returned to the living room. Alice and Chase went out to get some wood for the fireplace. Miloš had left somewhere, Jeanne was taking a nap.
Michel went upstairs to put away the stack of copies in the library. I followed him and took off his shirt. He protested at first, as he always did, but then raised his arms to let me remove the garment. As I expected, a large bandage covered his chest and back.
"Does it hurt ?
- Just a little, he lied. "
I sighed and undid the bandage to examine his back. Our bodies didn't heal like most people. Laura had explained the process to me: just as we age more slowly, little by little our appearance reflected our mental state and our magical level. Moreover, according to some researchers, the two influenced each other. I has no trouble believing it. Many ex-combatants testified that they had gradually lost their magical abilities for some time during the conflict. But the war had been a special experience, even for magicians.
My fingers ran over the bloody lines and hollows without touching them.
"What did you put on it?"
- Sea buck-thorn, St. John's wort, blue lotus.
- It should be fine. Was it training? Or you had to deal monsters?
- Yes" he just said, showing his right arm. " And my back wound has just reopened itself.
- Come on, you might as well change the bandage. "
The physical wounds that we received once we passed our pivotal age disappeared with greater ease, except those of magical origin. Some, however, associated with a specific memory, were engraved in our magical system and reopened spontaneously. Michel's back injury, remnants of a shell explosion at Chemin des Dames, was one of those. I had also taken part in the Nivelle offensive, and had won a rib injury there which tended to reopen. For the moment I watched its evolution.
We went down to the ground floor where our room was, a little behind, to the east. The parquet was made of maple wood, large French windows opened onto a balcony a few meters above the ground, as if planted in the sky. I brought a roll of bandage from the drugstore (we had miles of it in reserve, all of us here leading dangerous lives). I put his bandage back on, kissing him on the chest for good measure.
"In Venice…" I started. The stopped, not knowing where to begin.
"Alice explained to me, he reassured me.
- What exactly ?
- The party, that damn Orsini, your family.
- That's all ?
- This is already a lot ? Or is there something else? "
She didn't mention Set. I kept this information to myself.
"My sister Laura. She tried to warn me. But of what exactly? "
I looked at the sky over the stone balcony. In the living room, someone, Chase or Alice, was strumming the strings of a mandolin. A slow, somewhat melancholy music mingled with the fire's crackle. Apart from this chanting, silence reigned.
" You have class tomorrow ?
- Yes. Can you babysit the kids? "
I just nodded. I had no desire to leave the island.
"I'm on vacation for a few months anyway. "
I finished fixing the bandage.
"What happened exactly?
- A guy I could have helped, but failed to.
- It happens.
- Yes, he whispered.
- It reflects your mood. It's kind of like a cornerstone, you know.
- Awesome. I'm going to drag it around all my life ...
- Only when you're sad or worried. "
I kissed him on the neck.
"Or we'll just keep you happy and pleased." "
He kissed me back, then sat up sharply, his eyes shining. As always, his dark mood had passed as quickly as it had come.
" I have an idea !
"Gods help us all !" I sighed.
- I'll make them dig a tunnel!
- What? "
He got up, and ran to the library. Returned with two books. I realized that his thoughts had suddenly shifted to his classroom.
"When I was their age I was obsessed with tunnels.
- I thought you hated them?
- Well, only since Verdun, they make me claustrophobic. "
The trench warfare experience. A guy from the Ninth had once had a panic attack in front of me in a dirt-made corridor.
"But who cares," he continued, "I won't be the one to dig it.
- What you're saying has no logic. You'll have to go inside the tunnel, at some point. "
He brushed aside my objection with the back of his hand.
" It is not the same.
- You're exhausting, I sighed. "
He sat on the bed and opened a book to throw in some notes.
"You could just let them make pillars of earth all year round," I noticed. "This is the classic pedagogy. "
It was difficult enough managing this small Nome. Recently, he had yet again got into trouble when someone denounced he was teachning his student in Arabic and not in Greek.
I lay down on the bed, feeling the tension and the accumulated fatigue of the last few days invade my body.
"Their columns piss me off and it's a stupid exercise. At least a tunnel is group work. With that they will stop fighting among themselves and annoing the sit out of me.
- They are magicians, they will never stop fighting among themselves.
- Especially my two terrors, Kane and Abdi.
- It is normal that they fight, they incarnate both the class warfare and the sex wars.
- Yes, well, enough is enough. "
I stifled a yawn.
"You can always close the tunnel on them and let them fight to the death," I suggested.
- It's tempting, he conceded. "
He put his book on my stomach, like a support, to continue writing on it. I let him do it, running my hand through his locks. "You have remnants of flour in your hair," I was surprised. Then I closed my eyes and fell asleep until dinner.
IV. Alice Huet
After Venice I went to Vienna to see, you've guessed it, Johann. Was that stupid of me? Yes. Was I digging my own grave? Certainly. What would my friends say? Alice enough with your bullshit! It wasn't enough. Johann had an apartment in Vienna. At the end of the party, someone had slipped me a note with the address on it. Morrigan accompanied him. She then gave me an inquisitive look and whispered:
"Remember the choice, Alice. It's not every day that you can choose your future. This single little freedom, you should give it away.
- I want to see you again.
- I would like it too. It's in the god's hands. "
I took the train to Vienna and found Johann in his living room hung with blue fabrics. We stared at each other carrying those words inside of us that we couldn't say. Moments later, we were just two lovers in tears, counting our wounds:
"You hid your children's existence from me!"
- You threatened me! You could have threatened them!
- I could have… You stabbed me Alice! Stabbed!
- You hit me!
- You cheated on me!
- You too, you cheated on me. "
In heavy silence, we stared at each other again.
"Why are we like this? Tell me why, I beg you! "
- I do not know. I can't live without you Alice.
- Is that why you wrote to me?
- I do not know. I really can't live without you.
- Me neither, me neither!
- Listen my love, we share a bond you and me, we are like that, but it will change, everything can change, everything can start again. We can be new, a new love, two new lovers.
- Do you know the difference between an injury and a crack? The wound heals, the crack remains. You cracked me, Johann. Look, I'm cracked! I still love you but my love is all cracked.
- In Japan, they have an art, kintsugi they call it : how to repair broken objects with gold. We won't hide our cracks, they are too beautiful, they are too us. We'll cover ourselves with gold my love, I will retrieve for you all the pearls of the seas.
- You speak well, you speak too well. Just like your beautiful words in Venice, your speeches of freedom and hope, of chaos and war You have an ocean-tongue, your words flow by themselves.
- I believe in each of them.
- And I'm afraid of that my love, I'm afraid of us my love. Your words lay on my conscience but not really on my heart. But your eyes are like shipwrecks, and I think I don't care that I'm boarding a ruin. "
Afterwards, we made love, for days on end, away from the windows. Then I had to leave. I always have to leave at the end. If I stay, the grief comes back. Sometimes it is better to leave before the sorrow comes.
" Stay ! He begged me.
Sorry my love, my heart is like the Morrigan's sad eyes, hopelessly tender and distant.
Sitting in a cafe opposite, I found a ghost. He ordered me a coffee and I sat down next to him.
"Hi Arthur, it's been a long time. How did you find me ?
- Everybody knows Orsini's address. I knew you'd go to him.
- So you heard about our little party?
- Little is not the word I was looking for. Why are you leaving? You have an only chance to stay and make it all work.
- I fled every single responsibility I ever had, as a demigod, as a mother, and as a woman. I'm not going to change now.
- We can always change Alice.
- You can talk ! Running away is what you've been doing all your life.
- Maybe this time, you're protecting yourself more than you fleeing ...
- You're cute Arthur, always there to say a nice word. Are you coming to Sarajevo with me?
- That's why I came by.
- Came to leave?
- We're strange birds, aren't we? "
Arthur Chase had a sorry smile for me. He was always sad and weak this time of year, as always before the solstice. Being Phoebus' daughter, I found it beautiful to be this subjected to the cycles of the sun. We were two children of the day that the light terrified.
"Who was there, Alice?"
- I do not know. That was the point of the masks. I don't know who agreed either. But I think a very large number of people were there. I think all the powers in Europe, clan chieftains, Nome leaders, received the message as a threat.
"Among the Celts, was there the Morrigan?"
- She was no goddess, I believe… Even though she did bore the name. She seemed powerful to me, dangerous.
- The gods are good at making themselves look like humans. You should know something about it.
- Exactly, I know enough to distinguish them. Do you have a cigarette? "
He lit a cigarette for me, and we smoked without saying a word. Arthur Chase had that kind of attentive and discreet presence that made the silences pleasant.
"Hey, how is it to be a Celt? They don't really have demigods, do they? Or it is much rarer ...
- Nobody really knows Alice, they are the most mysterious of us all. "
I crushed my butt in the ashtray.
"Are you good with omens?
- I predicted a bright future for you.
- Silly. Though it's true, no one was believing it. "
I was just a street urchin in a New York bar, dancing on the tables and singing at the top of my lungs until dawn. We would go together to watch the sunrises, try to guess which Pantheon was leading the chariot that day!
"See, for years to come, I have a choice to make between glory, wisdom and love.
"It's Paris's choice," he replied.
- But you don't know… You are wise, you are so wise Arthur, tell me. Why did Paris choose love?
- "Without love in life, without its joys and sorrows ... We have lived for nothing. " He crooned.
- What if I don't know how to love? Why would I choose love? "
Arthur smirked.
"Magic is double-edged. Maybe it's someone else's love and not yours, maybe it's your ability to love. Maybe it's a love you don't know yet. You can't solve a prophecy like that, you can't predict its outcome, which is highly ironic.
- But that's not a prophecy. It's a choice. It's a way of knowing that I have to choose, when I wouldn't have known if I hadn't been told so. I want to understand the implications of this choice.
- Alice, choosing is like blindly throwing stones. Our actions' consequences, even revealed by the most powerful of magic, are never but a distant and fuzzy shadow.
- Let's be rational then. In one choice I can save one person, in another two, in the last a lot. The last choice is the one of wisdom.
- Of course, since you rationally chose to help as many people as possible.
- And the choice of glory then? Who would like to chose it? What is glory for?
- I have two suggestions.
- I'm listening to you.
- Did you see faces, silhouettes when you were asked this choice?
- Yes.
- So it is likely that those you can save are among them. You will have to take this element into consideration.
- And the other suggestion?
- Maybe the only person you can save is yourself… "
In the morning light, these words carried such a heavy meaning that they made me waver. But Arthur was sitting next to it, and the sun embracing us both whispered the words of comfort our hearts were both craving.