Mysterium

“It will,” said Bisonette’s distant, metallic voice. “Corporal Trebach is not in a position to argue with the Bureau.”

“He seems disposed to.”

“He’ll be tamed. The weight of the Bureau is about to fall on his shoulders. The corporal has not led an impeccable life.”

“If you threaten him, he’ll blame me. I’m the one on the scene.”

“No doubt. But we’ll also tell him you’ve been ordered to report any obstruction. That should rein him in. He doesn’t have to like you, Lieutenant.”

“All right. What about the Ideological Branch? I’ve had complaints from the Ordinal attache.”

“Delafleur? A pompous idiot. Une puce. Pay no attention.”

“The Ideological Branch—”

“The Ideological Branch is under control,” the Censeur said. “I’m giving them what they want.”

“What Delafleur wants is to destroy the town.”

“He can’t. Not now.”

“Not until spring?”

“Precisely.”

“Is there a schedule?”

“Do you need to know more? There should be a packet from the Oversight Committee in a week or two. All I want is your guarantee that the situation is stable for a few more months.”

“It is,” Demarch said, understanding that his head had just been inserted in a noose: if anything went wrong now, the blame would fall on him. But he was trapped in his own momentum. He heard himself say, “I guarantee it.”

“That’s all, then.” The Censeur broke the connection.

Demarch hung up the telephone and sighed. Then he turned and saw Evelyn Woodward standing in the doorway.

∞

How much had she heard? It was impossible to know. Or to guess what she would make of it. Briefly, he reran the conversation in his mind, sorting his own words from the Censeur’s: how much could she guess?

She seemed to look at him oddly, but that could have been his imagination. She was an alien, after all. Mistakes were easy to make with these people, especially in matters of body language.

She said, “I came to see if you wanted coffee.”

“Yes, please, Evelyn. I would like a cup of coffee.” He gestured at the desk, which had once been her desk, in a room in which she had once kept accounts for her auberge. “A little more work to do tonight.”

“I see. Well, I’ll be back in a minute.”

She closed the door behind her.

Demarch picked up the most immediate paper on the desk. It was the first of Linneth Stone’s reports, essentially her working notes. He had intended to read it tonight, but he wasn’t enthusiastic at the prospect. Linneth Stone was a career academic and wrote like one, tedious pensees in the passive voice.

On the evidence of Subject’s accounts and numerous contemporary published Works (cf. Time magazine, Newsweek, etc.), the Institution of Marriage in the United States was undergoing a process of rapid Change, from predominantly traditional, religiously sanctioned Monogamie (with a minority of exceptions) to a commonplace of Divorce and Re-Marriage and unorthodox Arrangements including unmarried Parenting and even a certain sanctioning of like-gender Relations.

Venery, bastardy, and sodomy, in other words. Demarch thought of his own wife and child in the capital. Dorothea had been instrumental in his rise through the ranks of the Bureau: she was a Francophone of good family, an essential career asset for someone like Demarch, born an Anglophone in a rural town. The Bureau de la Convenance was a vast, incestuous bureaucracy—a labyrinth of old families. Demarch’s connection had been tenuous, through his mother Celestine, who was cousin to a retired superieur ancien named Foucault; that and his university degree had been enough to get him in the door of the Academie at Belle He. Dorothea opened doors more arcane and significant. Her father, a Censeur, had shepherded Demarch through a long stint as an Ideological Branch operative. He had earned his bona fides there, had put in years and fought for promotion. Still, even today, aging Censeurs like Bisonette spoke to him with the disdain of a pure-blood for a halfbreed.

Dorothea had been essential to-him and he could not imagine leaving her. Divorce was not altogether uncommon among Valentinians in the upper echelons of the civil service, but Demarch disapproved. According to Linneth, American literature spoke often of love. Well, so did every popular literature. But the educated classes were supposed to know better. Marriage had very little to do with love. It was an institution, like the Bureau or the Federal Bank. You don’t cease banking simply because you no longer “love” the bank.