The world was never quiet

Lie 11 : I won't set the hospital on fire

"Fist rule of the investigator: make yourself scarce."

I jumped, caught red-handed shadowing. The Baudelaire had gone through this lost convenience store rejoicing in the name of Last Chance General Store. Inviting isn't it? It was halfway between the motel I had found shelter in and the Village of Fowl Devotees. Why was I there? For the Baudelaire. Remember, I came there to find them, not Jacques. And my escape… Didn't really fix things, let's say. They were accused of murder. Their names were added to mine on the posters even though they thought I was dead for months – the irony always gets me.

When I learnt they were wanted, I remembered my double-promise. I told them I would find them and everything would be fine. I already failed the latter. I could find them and get them out this mess – and I needed to keep myself busy. Jacques' notebook was more than full of information about them and the few Volunteer Factual Dispatches I managed to get my hand on mentioned they were there. Someone sabotaged the system, for that matter. I was sure of it and ended up being right.

But spending my time matching my information with Jacques' made me forget the ABC and, I let someone get too close. Looking back, and with the perspective I have now, I know I should have been way more careful. After all, I wasn't siding with the noble hearts anymore and everyone just happened to know it – but I wasn't with the Arsonists either and Olaf knew it. We didn't promise to kill each other for fun.

You know, a friend summarized my situation. The circumstances in which he did can give rise to smiles: he was lying half naked on a mattress with broken springs, a dying cigarette between his lips, staring at me. I was trying to find some sleep when he said I only put out the fires I don't start. I'll give you time to meditate the sentence. We're not there yet, though. I just met this friend and lighted my first fires. Both literally and metaphorically.

"It's a Very Flawed Début," he let out sighing. "Don't you think?

- A début in what?" I faked ignorance. I didn't know yet on which side he was. "I'm waiting for someone. Something.

- The Volunteer Fighting Disease, perhaps?

- Rather the Violent Fire Due to those Volunteers."

He nodded and offered me his hand to stand up. A gloved hand. I took it and stared at him. Well, stared. I tried to. His face was partly hidden by his hat's shade, but he was tall. Imposing. Not exactly the kind of Volunteer I was used to, though all things considered, it depended on the side of the Schism. I couldn't see his eyes, as I said, but I knew he was staring at me. He knew who I was. Good for him, because I knew who he was too.

"Are you who I am think you are?

- Of course," I smiled. "And you, mister Snicket? Are you who I think you are?"

He seemed to smile. And nod. How did I know? Not complicated. As I said, the only four people who were following the Baudelaire were Olaf, Lemony and Jacques Snicket and I. Jacques was dead, leaving only Olaf, Lemony and I. And what I read and heard about him matched with this figure wrapped in an old trench and in a heavy scent of coffee and cigarette.

He looked around and took off his hat. My heart stopped. In every ways, he looked like his late brother. The same clever eyes, though less sad, the same thin face, though a bit less, the same look, though a bit less confident. The only thing they didn't share was the unibrow. Lemony was slightly thicker than Jacques too. The way he nodded again, I knew he knew. And closed my eyes for a second.

"My condolences," I sighed. "For him.

- You deserve them more than I do. Thank you anyway.

- He was a noble heart.

- Not you."

I smiled. Indeed, I wasn't. But it wasn't an accusation. Wasn't a reproach, at least not a reproach like Jacques'. It was a simple observation, a fair conclusion. A thought, randomly shared. Way later, though not later than yesterday, Lemony and I would talk about this day when he was about to abduct me and I was about to get rid of him around a cup of bitter tea. You may smile, but at this point, believe me, I was on my guard. I learnt later that Jacques was following the Baudelaire's track because his brother was too. But in the end, no one knew why he was following them. Nor for whom. Nor for which side of the Schism.

"Are you following those poor orphans," I bluntly asked. "For our dear Volunteers?

- Are you following them for our dear Arsonists?

- I'm not an Arsonist.

- No, but you still start more fires than you put out."

He said, despite not having put out any fires in years. Ha, the Snicket, the Baudelaire, the Quagmire can pretend to have noble hearts. I know they're darker than that. How appearances can be deceptive. How VFD hides as much filth as treasures. Olaf is an example; I could be a second one.

What an incredible first meeting, right? I still counted Lemony as a threat and he still counted me as a murderer – though not his brother's, he already knew, don't know how, that I didn't kill him. I put my bag on my shoulder, and it felt like it'd got heavier. A feeling I had every times I faced someone who was looking for its content. And Lemony, even if it wasn't his primary objective, was looking for it.

Back then, I didn't know he was going to become one of my most important ally, but I already knew I would be better off having him on my side. So I played poker. I took his brother's notebook out of my bag and handed it to him, hoping he wouldn't take it. I still had not copied out what was written inside and I needed it. I knew there were information about my mother, my father and who they really were and I needed to know. He looked at it before going back to me.

"Here, take it. I don't think he would want me to have it after…" I shook my head. "Anyway.

- Keep it. Its content does not interest me.

- But the Baudelaire…

- I have enough on them," he cut me. "Plus, my brother and I were no longer in touch.

- He never spoke about you."

I don't know why I said that. I put the notebook back in my stuff and I didn't notice his reaction. At first, at least. When I raised my eyes, I realized he was staring into space. I unintentionally put my fingers on one of the few places that hurt. Don't worry, Lemony, I won't list them. I'll only say that your brother and Beatrice are two examples, though I had no idea at this point. It wouldn't take long for me to know anyway.

He ended up shrugging and the sketch of a smile appeared on his lips. He grabbed a pack of cigarettes and handed it to me. He lightened one absentmindedly. I didn't smoke. Still don't, except with him, but I accepted. And I managed not to cough. We stayed like this, weighing the pros and cons of killing each other. And we eventually decided to drop the idea.

I can't help comparing the two brothers. Lemony was, still is, a negative image of Jacques. When Jacques was optimistic, Lemony was pessimistic. Where Lemony was pragmatic, realist, Jacques, well… Wasn't. It's probably the reason why the former never blamed me the way the latter did.

I know what you're thinking. I'm shameless, undignified, I slept - sleep with Lemony and I still constantly say that I never loved anyone but Jacques. Just take another point of view, if you please. Lemony slept - sleep with me and still constantly says he never loved anyone but Beatrice. We both are pieces of a jigsaw that misses a piece, and it so happens that his and mine sometimes complete each other. Not always, but often. And when they do, we both forget for an instant that we lost everything. It's sappy, but it's the truth: we're both broken and we always end up fixing each other. And the cracks reappear. Invariably. But anyway, we're not there yet and I'm almost uncomfortable writing this while he's next door.

"The best cover an investigator can find is a taxi," he suddenly said. "No one suspects a taxi. It can come and go, as long as someone is inboard.

- Does your taxi has someone inboard?

- No." He crushed his cigarette under his sole. "Not yet.

- Is that a proposal?

- I don't know. Is it?"

He offered me a sideways glance. A sideways smile. And I offered him back a sideways glance, a sideways smile. I didn't know whether he was a friend or a foe. But he didn't know whether I was a friend of a foe either – we were playing liar's poker with cards we didn't have. And I was still hoping for a razor to come by and slice my wrist, so I nodded. So did he, and he walked to the car, parked in the middle of nowhere. How did I manage not to hear it?

I followed. It appears that following Snicket is my fate. I crushed my cigarette too. He stopped for a while, waited for a couple of seconds before he opened the door. He turned to me and looked at me top-down, down-top, from my hair to my toes and from my toes to my hair.

"I'll only ask you once. Have you killed my brother?

- No.

- I see." He nodded, again, and gestured the back seats. "We're going to Heimlich Hospital. This is where the Baudelaire are."

And it was true, Lemony; you never asked me again. After everything I did and everything I said, everything I didn't do and everything I didn't say, you never asked me again if I had killed Jacques. I never knew why, if you trusted me – I doubt it, or if you didn't want to bring the subject back between us. I don't think you'll ever tell me. I just want you to know that I thank you for this. Whatever you think about it. Whatever you believe.

I sat, put my bag next to me and watched the convenience store getting smaller and smaller. Looking back, I realized how protected, how smothered I was, to the point that I knew nothing of the world. I didn't know such places existed so close to home. But I didn't know that my own father was part of a secret organization and that he, at some point, thought it was a good idea to kill my mother, so you know… Kit Snicket, Olaf told me. I still thought she was the only one involved in this. Not for long.

"I was taught the truth about my mother's death," I uttered. Lemony was driving in silence. "Some dark story about…

- Poisoned darts. Futile to try to ensnare me, I know what happened.

- You know?

- I was in the theatre this evening. With my sister and Beatrice Baudelaire." He shrugged. "Who told you?"

I kept quiet. I wasn't sure it was a good idea to tell him I knew thanks to dear old Olaf. But the brutal honesty we both demonstrated since he'd found me urged me to continue down this path. Don't fool yourself, though – it didn't last. Neither on his side or mine. I took out my notebook and wrote his name next to Beatrice and Kit's before I actually replied.

"Olaf.

- Why of course," he huffed, glancing at me in the inside mirror. "He's well placed to talk about it.

- He said your sister brought the darts and Beatrice…

- Shot them. Indeed.

- And what were you doing, then?

- I prevented Olaf from interfering. Inter alia."

He didn't seem moved. In fact, he looked like he didn't care at all. It was the past and, if my information are true, it wasn't the first nor the last time he helped the Volunteers getting rid of busybodies. I added a few more notes before I stopped. Why prevent Olaf from interfering?

He never talked about my mother. He didn't seem to know her – he wasn't the type of guys I picture rushing to help a soon-to-be murdered woman, even if the said woman was on his side. When I told you about my conversation with Olaf, I said I discovered his parents were also dead after this conversation. Well, after is now.

"Why…

- Because the Volunteers offered a group rate this evening. Your mother and Olaf's parents.

- You mean that Beatrice Baudelaire…

- Yes," he barged in. Sharply. A bit too much for my taste. "You just realized the Volunteers were not all white?

- I never doubted it. It's even more funnier to see they blame me for Jacques' murder."

I turned my eyes to the window and shook my head. He didn't say anything. What could he say? Maybe they weren't better than me, but at all events, I wasn't better than them. We drove for a long time before we got to see any building.

And Heimlich Hospital wasn't just any building. It was a work of art, in a way. Only a half of the building was built – and this part was beautiful. But very honestly, the whole thing would have been very common if it'd been coherent. What gave it this simultaneous decrepit and shining, splendid and hideous, refined and vulgar look was the other side of the building. The lack of, rather: it was all scaffolds covered with ripped tarps. You know what? Of all the places I've seen, I think it is the one that resembles VFD the most. Noble and ludicrously trivial, wonderful and rotten to the core, I can't see any better metaphor. Too bad that the metaphor burnt down to ashes. Literally.

Lemony stopped near the Hospital and stared at it. There were moves everywhere, inside, outside, everywhere but in the unfinished half. People were really talented in feigning that nothing was wrong with the building. It was an interesting picture. Fascinating. To the point where I literally spent more than five minutes staring at this unending ballet before I finally looked at Lemony. He barely looked at me and lighted another cigarette. And you wonder why you smell cigarette so bad.

"And so? What do we do?

- I'm staying here," he declared, putting his lighter back in his pocket. "You do what you want.

- Wait, what? But you're…

- Following them. And they're inside the hospital.

- But why would you follow them if not to go and take them?"

He didn't reply. He just smoked and looked above my shoulder or, rather, through me. Frustrated, I sighed and watched the hospital. I didn't understand Lemony and god knows it took me a long time to understand him, and I didn't understand what we were doing here. A bit of patience, and I would understand him – and I wouldn't dare tell it to him. We were always respectful of each other's personal illusions. It would have been a severe lack of courtesy to highlight how stupid we were to believe in all these things, all these stories we told ourselves every night to be able to sleep. He's always been better than me in this game anyway, no matter how many lies I told myself, I never get to sleep.

Still don't succeed today. Even if I have to admit that when I know Lemony is somewhere close, I doze off easily – yes, I finally happened to trust him. It's probably the only person I know and who's still alive who doesn't want to have me dead and buried. And even if he wanted to, I would probably oblige him so…

"Well, I see," I sighed, annoyed. "I'm going. I'm taking them.

- And you would take them where, exactly? In their house's ruins? In yours? Maybe the 667 Dark Avenue's ashes?

- You enjoy that, don't you?

- Not at all.

- I'm still going. They're not safe.

- Not more than you are."

Haaa, those sibylline comments, as laconic as possible. I hate them, especially when they're applying to me. I gritted my teeth and didn't reply. He was right: I couldn't get in without a proper disguise. My brain was working full-speed but the only idea I got was the most questionable and least safe idea possible. I couldn't dress up as a patient or I would end up on a surgery table, and I couldn't dress up as a random nobody or I would never be able to reach a surgery table. What choices did I have left, other than dressing up as a doctor?

I had a little understanding of medicine – not much, of course, but it was part of all the things my multiple teachers tried to teach me. I thought everyone had to learn this kind of stuff. It wasn't entirely wrong, if the world meant VFD and its children. Thanks dad, I thought when I opened the door. I stopped before emerging from the car, and looked above my shoulder.

"Do you have a gown I could borrow?

- In the boot.

- Too kind," I said, struggling my way out the car. "I'll give it back… When I can.

- I'll find you before you even think of me anyway. Don't get yourself killed.

- Yes sir, I'll be careful and won't set the hospital on fire."

I rolled my eyes, took my bag and opened the boot to find an unspeakable mess of unpaired clothing. I sighed and grabbed the first gown I found, as well as a shirt. It was cleaner than the one I was wearing, even if it wasn't much. I waved at him and walked to the first café I found to change.

I couldn't get myself to throw away the jacket I was wearing – it was Jacques'. I stared at it for a while, for too long if you ask me, before I stuffed it in my bag. I'd hidden my dark circles, drew wrinkles on my eyes to age myself a bit and put talc all over my hair to age myself a lot. A last glance to the café's face and I walked into Heimlich Hospital under Lemony Snicket's eyes. My last ally, though I had no idea.