Septimania Page 19

  As he read, it became clear to him that Newton’s friend was not only aware of Septimania, but was himself the King. This was the journal of the King of Septimania, circa 1666, a man who had disguised himself as a student—the way Haroun had disguised himself as his own envoy—in order to travel to Cambridge to study. There he had met Newton, recognized his intellect, and encouraged him to travel abroad during the forced sabbatical of 1666. The Chapbook that his grandmother had given him in St. George’s, Whistler Abbey, Malory realized, was written by one of his own ancestors, someone close enough to his Sir Isaac that Newton had felt comfortable enough to scrawl a discovery—perhaps the most important discovery in the history of science—in a margin. Antonella might be waiting for him at the party in the Dacia, but Malory had to read—it was her translation, after all.

  Malory read. He read of Newton’s arrival in Rome, his visit to the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, his introduction to the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. As he read, he turned back and forth, searching within the daily notes for the identity of the woman in the Bernini sculpture with the floating apple. Was it the sister of the King of Septimania, his mother perhaps, a daughter of the Settimio of the time?

  And then the truth walked out of the smoke, like a djinni from a Baghdadi lamp.

  “Here are the facts,” the King wrote one late night. And Malory read on:

  Here are the facts, presented with a desire to bring Reason to a human act, far from cold marble.

  We returned from our visit with Bernini and took our supper without conversation. Isaac repaired to his room and I to mine. My custom was to bathe and be in bed by midnight. But this evening, I sent Settimio away and took myself into the Sanctum Sanctorum, where the silence of my books, the books of Septimania, might give my mind the tranquility to listen to the beating of my heart.

  And so it was in the deepest hours of the night—the clock had struck three times but I was so entwined with the words on the page that I literally defied Gravity—that I felt Isaac’s hand on my shoulder. I had left the door ajar from the vestibule down the passage to the Sanctum Sanctorum, thinking none would enter but—I ask my older self—was I not nurturing an unconscious hope?

  “You have kept a secret,” Isaac said to me, looking around the room in admiration. He was wearing only a nightshirt. His feet were bare.

  “There are secrets I must keep,” I said. “It is part of my duty to Septimania.”

  “This room,” he began.

  “I can tell you a few things about this room,” I said softly. “It contains seven catalogues. Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy. Each contains seven drawers. Each drawer in turn is divided into seven sections. Each catalogue leads to a separate library, entered through one of the seven doors, although many of the volumes are not here within this building—don’t ask me, please, I am not at liberty to tell you where. But make no mistake,” I added quickly. “There is no special meaning to the number seven. None, at least, that I have uncovered.”

  “These books”—Isaac motioned to a stack upon a leather desk.

  “Have only just arrived,” I said. “It is part of Settimio’s employ to assist me with the catalogue, although he has trusted minions to do the actual labor.”

  “Artephius His Secret Book,” Isaac read. “The Epistle of John Pontanus, Nicholas Flamel, his Exposition of the Hieroglyphical Figures which he caused to be painted upon an Arch in St Innocents Churchyard in Paris. Containing both the Theoricke and the Practicke of the Philosophers Stone, Lazarus Zetzner’s Theatrum Chemicum. Are you searching,” Isaac asked me, “in earnest through these books for a recipe for the Philosopher’s Stone?”

  “Ah,” I said. “I have been pondering the properties of stone, following this afternoon’s visit to Bernini. His Apollo and Daphne. That moment when the nymph turned to laurel just as the god was about to capture her, her feet taking root, branches sprouting around her girdle, fingers blossoming into leaf.”

  “I too was thinking of Bernini,” said Isaac.

  “You spoke this afternoon of the attraction of two bodies at a distance. What the Stoics called Sympathy. I wonder,” I continued, “whether Bernini could sculpt another particular moment. A moment of three bodies. The moment when the attraction of the apple to the scientist, or the desire of the scientist for wisdom, proves greater than the power of the tree over its fruit. Surely,” I added, as Isaac’s eyebrows rose on his forehead, “if the Earth can remain suspended above the Sun, and the Moon can remain suspended above the Earth, and the Comets above all else, an apple and a genius can pull off the trick.”

  “You are wondering,” Isaac asked, “if the Sympathy is strong enough, what is stopping a man from sculpting an apple suspended in mid-air?”

  “Suspended between the tree and the outstretched hand,” I answered. “Yes.”

  “I prithee,” he said. “Let’s talk of Nature and not wax mystical.”

  “I live in a world of mystery,” I replied. “Every discovery I make leads irrevocably to another mystery.”

  “One does well, therefore,” Isaac said, “to choose one’s mysteries with care.”

  “Do we choose our mysteries?”

  “Perhaps they choose us.” Isaac sat down next to me on the bench, his nightshirt hiked up to expose one pale, chilblained knee. “I was born on a Christmas morning …”

  “You’ve told me the story many times.” It was my turn to interrupt. “Methinks it is you who is waxing mystical.”

  “Perhaps these questions of Sympathy are best left to chance.”

  And at that moment, I reached down, past the exposed knee and between the legs of my giant and felt Isaac rising against the pull of nature, a force that had more to do with the attraction of two bodies than the force of gravity, an obelisk rising away from knowledge. He groaned, I am forced to say, and his great eyebrows relaxed until his face took on the look of that tiny Christmas-born babe too small to fit in a pint pot.

  And it was then that his own hands made an equal and opposite reaction. His hands, the hands of my Isaac, slipped down between my legs and began a search, first up, then down. A search for something that reason told him should be there, but experiment proved was not. And since our experiment was too far advanced to admit retreat, I removed my trousers, showing him that not finding the expected is sometimes the greatest triumph of Science. In recompense, I then undid my blouse, removed the pins from the bandage around my breasts and let loose the abundant secret that only Settimio and now Isaac knew—that I am as much a nymph as Bernini’s Daphne. I am a woman: not the King but fully the Queen of Septimania. And since the rules that guide the attraction of two bodies are absolute, there was no stopping the congress that had been guiding me in blindness since I first set foot for Cambridge and Woolsthorpe.

  And, as many as the fireflies a peasant sees on a summer’s evening, so many were the Pips that rushed into me from my apple tree love in unimaginable multiplication.

  Malory set the Chapbook down on his lap. He looked out into the cortile, full now with the casualties of Christmas night. But what he saw was the statue in the dining room of the Villa Septimania of Newton and the woman and the apple. The Queen of Septimania. Newton’s friend was not the King but the Queen of Septimania in disguise. If I am descended from this Queen of Septimania, Malory thought, then I am descended from—is it possible?—from the other statue as well. I am the grandson of the man born 309 years to the day before me. I am of the seed of Newton.

  Malory thought about Newton and his Queen. He thought about the red-haired Aldana. But he also thought about another red-haired woman. He thought about her faith in him, her devotion, her arm locked in his, her zabaione lips. Perhaps Antonella had been in disguise all this time, in front of his eyes. Perhaps it was time to search no more. Like the Queen of Septimania with her Newton, Malory had to take action if Septimania were to survive.

  Malory walked out the front door of Fatebenefratelli without a glance up to th
e room where he had last seen Louiza. Night was fully advanced, the new day just clearing its throat at the horizon. He crossed the river at the Ponte Cestio and hugged the still-dark parapet of the river. As he descended the steps to Regina Coeli, the yellow walls of the prison were just beginning to catch the morning light. He turned down the Via della Penitenza and saw Cristina, La Principessa, her hair wrapped up in a kerchief, gliding towards the bus stop, on her way to the first of her three jobs—mopping up the butt ends of Christmas 1978. He opened the gate to the Dacia quietly. The courtyard, the broken-down Dacia were both empty. He walked through the front door into the living room. There was a body on each of the sofas, another curled up in front of the fireplace. None of them was Antonella. Malory climbed the stairs to the two bedrooms.

  He was the great-grandson to the power of seven of Isaac Newton. He was not only King of the Jews and King of the Christians but a direct descendant of the King of Science.

  And yet, as Tibor had warned him, he was also a Holy Roman Fool.

  He hadn’t meant to open any box, but the box was there, open to him, open to the world at the end of the corridor. In the sleepless dawn, at first Malory thought that he had found Tibor and Antonella deep in conversation about the glorious new future of their friend Malory—a new future, if he could admit the possibility, of a Roman Empire of Malory and Antonella, Tibor and Cristina.

  But the cold light of morning broke the scene into other motion. The curls above were red, the tangled mat of hair and beard below was black. Together they moved with a frantic rhythm in the key of F-sharp that shook Malory and stopped his breath. Tibor had kept his promise. He had guided Malory into the depths of Hell.

  Malory turned. He may have been King of Septimania, but he was no King Shahryar. He would not hack Tibor and Antonella in two. He would not vent his wrath on a host of virgins. Malory simply turned, turned downstairs, turned back across the river, up the Clivo, back into the Villa Septimania. And like Haroun al Rashid, like the djinns of a thousand and one other deceived cats and credulous fools, Malory climbed down the spout of his lamp, climbed back into his box, and pulled the top closed.

  2/5

  KNOCK.

  Louiza opened her eyes.

  A tree.

  Louiza closed her eyes.

  A knock.

  Open again, a tree. A tree inside, a single pine tree standing inside a house. Above, a ceiling painted white, planks crisscrossed by whitewashed beams. One cobweb, another. A long thread of dust bobbing in the breath of the room, although it could have been just another cobweb, abandoned.

  Louiza turned her head.

  The back of a sofa. Soft, smelling of dust and sun. A yellow cushion embraced by passionflowers, faded, all faded.

  A knock.

  She turned towards the sound. A wood fire, fresh, three logs propped up like Guy Fawkes. The tree, a smell of pine.

  A third knock, not the fire. Louiza sat up.

  She was in a dining room—at least, there was a round table covered by a lace cloth, half a dozen willow library chairs, an open folder, sheets of paper, a pencil. Next to the table in a bay window shielded by lace curtains, a piano, a small piano. More lace on the piano, and resting on the lace a vase. Flowers. The sofa, the sofa she was sitting on, had yellow cushions. Passionflowers. The fire. Above the fire, a mantle. Marble. A pair of crystal candlesticks, old. Two plaster busts, small. On the wall above, a portrait. A man, a man from long ago, looking down on her. Not unkind.

  She had no idea where she was. She had no idea why there was a pine tree inside the house. She knew something was missing.

  “Lou! Lou, honey!” Three knocks. Outside. There must be a door.

  Louiza stood. The heat of the fire nudged her back in the direction of the knock. She walked towards the sound, out of the dining room and into the hall. She turned the doorknob.

  A man.

  “Lou! Honey! Were you sleeping?”

  The smile, the mouth. A map of ridges and valleys climbing up to a tree line of spiked black hair. The man pushed his way past Louiza, a paper bag of groceries in each arm. Louiza turned towards him and followed down the hall.

  “Hey, Lou! Front door! It’s freezing!”

  Louiza turned back and shut the door. There was a window—nine panes of glass on the front door—frosted. Beyond, a veranda, snow, trees covered with snow.

  Louiza had no idea where she was. She had never seen the man before.

  Something was missing.

  Through the vague light of the hall, through a door at the far end, Louiza saw the man set the two bags down on a table. The man disappeared. A tap opened, the sound of water in a tea kettle, the pop of a flame. The man reappeared, turned towards Louiza, smiling, blowing on his hands, slipping his arms out of his parka.

  “Colder than a Siberian nun!” The man hung the parka on a wooden peg in the hallway. Something dripped onto the floor. “Hey, Lou!” The man was wearing a T-shirt, a white T-shirt. He took Louiza by the shoulders—not roughly but not with delicacy either—and drew her head into his chest.

  Louiza had never seen this man. But with her cheek turned against his chest, she could see the figure tattooed into his bicep. It was a figure she recognized—the long s of the integral sign. The formula for the logarithmic constant of e to the power of x.

  ∫ ex

  Mathematics. Maths. Maths she knew.

  “How about a cuppa your good ol’ English tea?” The man let her go. He walked down the hall and disappeared to the side across from the dining room. She heard the sound of a zipper, water splashing, a soft moan.

  American.

  This was not the cottage. This was not Rome. She had no idea where this was.

  There was a pine tree inside the house. Something was missing.

  Louiza reached up to the wooden peg and took down the dripping parka. She slipped her arms into the sleeves and zipped it shut. She turned the handle of the door. She walked out onto the veranda, yellow boards through the snow, a gable. She breathed. Her eyes opened. Cold climbed from her bare feet to her knees, rung by rung. The Gables. She took another breath.

  There had been a plane. There had been a car, a ride through a city, up a river. A pine forest, a mountain, a yellow house, The Gables.

  Vince—the man was Vince. American. A soldier. He taught at a place called West Point; he taught soldiers. He taught soldiers maths, he taught soldiers mathematics. He drank beer at a bar down by the river. He brought groceries and beer home in paper sacks and made tuna salad for lunch and steak for dinner. And at night he drank beer and then he came upstairs and slept with her.

  Vince. Was Vince her husband?

  Something was missing.

  And in the morning, Vince cooked oatmeal and left a folder of maths problems on the dining room table. Just like at the cottage.

  But she wasn’t at the cottage. She was with Vince, who taught maths to soldiers, who brought her problems and took back the answers and drank beer. She was in America.

  Something was missing. She had to go back. She stepped off the verandah into the snow.

  “Good morning, Louiza.”

  Another man, larger than Vince. In a large parka. Much larger. And under the hood, a red beard. This man she had seen before. This man she remembered.

  “Lou, honey!” Louiza turned. It was Vince, out in the cold with his T-shirt. “Where you goin’? I didn’t see her go out,” he explained to the man with the red beard. “Lou, what you doin’ out here in the snow without no shoes?”

  Louiza looked down at her feet, snow melting in the heat between her toes.

  “Come, come inside, Louiza.” The large man took her arm, took her by her arm in her parka and gently turned her around. His voice was deep; she knew this voice. Louiza’s feet made little angels in the snow.

  Louiza was sitting at the dining room table by the papers. Vince was on one side, the red-bearded man on the other. MacPhearson—that was another name, his name. She had met him at the Orchard with
her mother and father. MacPhearson. She had seen him before. There was steam. There was tea. No parkas. Her feet were dry and warm in long, gray socks. MacPhearson was speaking.

  “Louiza,” MacPhearson said. “How long is it that you’ve been with us?”

  With us? With whom? She was in America, now she remembered, somewhere up the Hudson—that was the name of the river. How long had she been with the Hudson? With America?

  “Little over two months,” Vince said. “Christmas last week.”

  “Thank you, Vince,” the man with the red beard said. Louiza remembered. MacPhearson didn’t like Vince. But Vince couldn’t afford to get angry.

  “You remember the cottage, Louiza?” MacPhearson said.

  Christmas.

  “You did very good work for us back there,” MacPhearson said. “Very good work.”

  The pine tree indoors. Christmas.

  “But the last two months,” MacPhearson said.

  “I’ve been bringing the problems to her,” Vince said. “I’ve been bringing the answers back.”

  “But the answers haven’t made sense, unfortunately.” MacPhearson took a sip of his tea. “Cookie?”

  The answers. The problems.

  “Please,” Louiza said, “I should like to go home.”

  “Lou, honey,” Vince said, “you are home.”

  “Discretion,” MacPhearson said to Louiza. “Do you know the meaning of the word?”

  “Secrecy,” Vince added. MacPhearson held up a hand full of red-haired knuckles and warning. Vince stopped.

  “You have a gift, Louiza,” MacPhearson said. “A gift for solving problems in the realm of imaginary numbers that has had very real results. More,” he chuckled, “than you might imagine. And more than many others might imagine. Which is why, for the immediate future, we need to exercise discretion as to your identity and your location.” And then MacPhearson stopped smiling. “But lately, something is missing, Louiza,” MacPhearson said, taking a bite of shortbread. “Something …”