Against A Dark Background (27 page)

Zefla pulled harder on the string door-pull and stood back. ‘Maybe it does,’ she said. ‘But the guy feels closer to the place living in an antiquated ruin like this.’

‘Method scholarship?’ Sharrow said sceptically. ‘More likely this is Cenuij’s idea of a joke.’

Zefla shook her head earnestly. ‘Oh, no. I can tell, he was genuine. I think he wanted to come himself, but he reckoned your man here would be more receptive to us.’

‘Huh,’ Sharrow said, frowning at the skeleton of a tiny animal lying just inside the doorway’s recess. ‘That description could cover a tankful of shit.’

A window creaked open on the third floor and a small, grey-haired, bearded man stuck his head out and looked down at them.

‘Hello?’ he said.

‘Hello,’ Zefla called. ‘We’re looking for a gentleman called Ivexton Travapeth:

‘Yes,’ said the little man.

Zefla paused, then said, ‘You’re not him, then?’

‘No.’

‘Right. Do you know where we can find him?’

‘Yes.’

Zefla looked at Sharrow, who started whistling.

‘Could you tell us where he is?’ Zefla said.

‘Yes,’ the little man said, blinking.

‘Wrong department,’ Sharrow muttered, folding her arms and turning to look back out over the city. ‘It’s the Formal Logic building and they’re working to rule.’

‘Where is he?’ Zefla asked, trying not to giggle.

‘Oh, here,’ the man nodded.

‘May we see him?’ Zefla said.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Keep going,’ Sharrow told Zefla quietly. ‘The Passports only last a year.’

‘Good,’ Zefla said. ‘Thank you. We’d have phoned or screened, but Mister Travapeth seems to discourage that sort of contact.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes. Could you let us in?’

‘Yes, yes,’ the small man nodded.

Sharrow started to make loud snoring noises.

Zefla nudged her. ‘Please come down and let us in,’ she said, smiling at the little man.

‘Very well,’ the grey-bearded man said and disappeared. The window banged shut.

Sharrow’s head thumped onto Zefla’s shoulder. She yawned. ‘Wake me when the door opens or the universe ends, whichever’s sooner.’

Zefla patted her auburn locks.

The door opened, creaking. Sharrow turned to look. The small grey-bearded man peeked out, looked up and down the street, then opened the door wide. He was pulling on a pair of floppy trousers with attached soft-shoes; he tied the cord and tucked his shirt into his trousers as he stood there, grinning at the two women. He was tiny, even smaller than he’d looked in the window. Zefla thought he looked cuddly.

‘Good-morning,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he replied, and beckoned them to enter. Zefla and Sharrow stepped over the high sill into a dull but not dark space looking onto a small courtyard, partially shielded from them by a sheet hanging from the floor above. The air smelled of sweat and cooked fats. A grunting, wheezing male-sounding noise came from the other side of the grubby sheet. Zefla glanced at Sharrow, who shrugged.

‘I hope you’re hearing that too,’ she told Zefla, ‘or I’m more tired than I thought and flashing-back to last night.’

The grey-bearded man went on before them, still hitching up his trousers and tucking in the last few folds of his creased shirt as he bustled forward round the edge of the hanging sheet. They followed. The courtyard was small and cluttered; balconies ran round the two floors above, giving access to other rooms. A light covering of membrane made a gauzy roof above.

The floor of the atrium was covered with carpets and mats on which stood half a dozen over-stuffed bookshelves and a couple of tables covered with layers and rolls of paper. Exercise equipment in the shape of dumbbells, weights, heavy clubs and flexible bars lay strewn amongst the stuff of ancient scholarship.

In the centre of it all stood the tallish, gaunt figure of an almost naked elderly man with a white mat of hair on his chest and a shock of thick black hair on his head. He was clad in a grubby loincloth and clutched a pair of hand-weights which he was raising alternately, breathing heavily and grunting with each lift. There was sweat on his fined, tanned face. Zefla reckoned he was seventy at least, though his figure was relatively youthful; only the white chest-hair and a certain slackness round his belly revealed his age. ‘Ha; good-morning, lovely ladies!’ he said in a deep voice. `Ivexton Travapeth at your service.’

He thumped the hand-weights down on a massive book that seemed to be holding down one corner of an age-brown chart, raising dust and making the table beneath shudder. `And how may this humble and undeserving scholar help two such radiantly pulchritudinous gentle-ladies?’ He stood, arms crossed, biceps bulging, on the balls of his feet, facing them, still breathing heavily. His expression was somewhere between mischievous and lecherous.

Good-morning, Mister Travapeth,’ Zefla said, nodding as she stepped forward and put out her hand. They shook.
My name is Ms Franck; this is my assistant, Ms Demri.’

Sharrow nodded as Travapeth glanced, smiling, at her. `We’re researchers for an independent screen production company, MGK Productions. Our card.’ Zefla handed him a card from one of Miz’s many front companies.

Travapeth squinted at the card. ‘Ali, you are from Golter. I thought so from your accent, of course. How may Travapeth help you, my saxicolous damsels?’

Zefla smiled. `We’d like to talk to you about a place called Pharpech.’

Ivexton Travapeth rocked back on his heels a little. `Indeed?’ he said.

At that point the little man rushed out of the shadows behind the scholar, holding open a long grey gown. He jumped up and tried to put the gown over the tall man’s shoulders. He failed, and tried several more times while Travapeth boomed:

`Pharpech! Ali, dear, belovable lady, you utter a word - an almost magical word - which summons up such a welter of emotions in this well-travelled breast-’ There was a hollow thud as Travapeth struck his white-haired chest with one fist. - I scarcely know where or how to begin to respond.’

The little man put the gown over one forearm and pulled a chair from beneath a table, stationing it behind Travapeth. He climbed up onto the chair and went to put the gown over the scholar’s shoulders just as Travapeth moved away towards a chest-high wooden stand holding a set of dumbbells. The little grey-haired man fell to the floor with a squeal.

Travapeth lifted the dumbbells from the stand, grunting.

`You say screen production company?’ he said, straining to lift the dumbbells to his chin. The little man picked himself up and dusted himself down, retrieved the gown from the carpet and looked sulkily at Travapeth. Sharrow had her lips tightly closed.

`That’s right,’ Zefla smiled.

The little grey-haired man scowled at Travapeth, then left the gown draped over the chair and returned to the shadows, muttering incoherently and shaking his head.

`Hmm,’ Travapeth said, finally heaving the dumbbells level with the top of his shoulders and standing there panting for a moment. He swallowed.
I happen to know His Majesty King Tard the Seventeenth rather well,’ he boomed. He smiled at the two women with a sort of radiant humility.
I was present at his coronation, you know, back when you two beautiful ladies were still suckling at the generous globes of your mothers’ breasts, I imagine.’ He sighed contemplatively, perhaps sadly, then looked more serious as he strained at the dumbbells, and after a while relaxed.
And I have to say,’ he panted,
His Majesty has shown … a consistent reluctance … to allow any sort of pictographic record . . . to be taken of his realm . . . which the modern world seems to regard as . . . bordering on the pathological.’

We understand that,’ Zefla said.
Nevertheless, Pharpech appears to be a fascinating and even romantic place, from what one reads about it, and we do feel that it would be worth some time and effort - by an experienced and highly talented team of individuals widely respected in their respective fields - to produce a true, factual and faithful account of life in what represents one of the last vestiges of a time gone by, miraculously still surviving into the present day.’

Travapeth seemed to strain again. Then he grunted; he put the dumbbells back on their stand and reached with a shaking hand for a stained towel lying crumpled on top of a bookcase.

‘Quite so,’ he said, shaking the towel until it uncrumpled. ‘But try explaining that to His Majesty!

‘Let me be candid,’ Zefla said as Travapeth wiped under his armpits, and then his face. (Sharrow looked away.) ‘Our intention is to go there initially without any equipment-without even still cameras, if that’s what it takes - and perhaps, with your good offices, if that proves agreeable to you, establish some sort of understanding with whatever authorities control the sort of very limited access rights we’d require for the extremely respectful and tasteful prestige documentary production we have in mind.’

Travapeth nodded, blew his nose noisily into the towel and put it back on top of the bookcase. Sharrow coughed and studied the upper balcony. Zefla glided smoothly on. ‘We do of course recognise the difficulties involved, and we hope that-as a highly respected scholar and the foremost expert on Pharpech in the entire system - you would agree to act as our historical and anthropological consultant.’

Travapeth s brows knitted together as he flexed his shoulders and went to a sit-up bench, lying on it and jamming his feet under the bars.

‘Yes, I see,’ he said, clasping his hands behind his neck.

‘Should you agree to this, Zefla continued, ‘we would of course credit you on screen.’

‘Mm-hmm, Travapeth said, grunting as he did a sit-up.

‘And, naturally,’ Zefla said, ‘there would be a substantial fee involved, reflecting both the added academic weight your involvement in this prestigious project would contribute and the worth of your valuable time.’

Travapeth sat back on the narrow padding of the sit-up bench with a sigh. He stared up at the courtyard’s membrane ceiling.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘financial matters are hardly my first concern.’

‘Of course,’ Zefla agreed. ‘I can well imagine.’

‘But-just to give me a rough idea . . .?’ He performed another sit-up then twisted, touching both elbows off his knees in turn.

‘Might we suggest ten thousand, inclusive?’ Zefla said.

The scholar paused, touching elbow to knee.

‘Four immediately,’ Zefla said, ’should you be prepared to help us, then three on first day of principal photography and three on transmission.’

‘Repeat fees?’ Travapeth grunted, still swinging from side to side.

‘Industry Prestige Documentary Production standard.’

‘Single screen credit?’

‘Same size, half the duration of the director’s.’

‘Call it fifteen.’

Zefla sucked her breath in and sounded apologetic. ‘I’m not really authorised to exceed twelve thousand for any single individual.’

Travapeth sat back panting heavily. ‘Butler!’ he shouted into the air, his voice resounding round the atrium. His sweatstreaked face looked upside-down at Zefla. ‘My dear girl,’ he breathed, ‘you won’t need any other individual. I am all that you require; all that you could possibly ask for,’ he leered.

From the corner of her eye Zefla caught Sharrow turning away with a hand stuffed in her mouth, just as the little man appeared from the shadows again, struggling to carry a huge hide bucket full of water.

‘Fifteen,’ Travapeth repeated, closing his eyes. ‘Six, five four.’

Zefla looked down, shaking her head and rubbing her chin.

‘Well, then,’ Travapeth sighed. ‘In three equal tranches; I can’t say fairer than that.’

The little man grabbed the chair with the gown draped over it and dragged it with him as he staggered up to where Travapeth lay panting on the sit-up bench; he climbed up onto the chair, heaved the bucket up level with his chest, then dumped the water over Travapeth’s deepbreathing, nine-tenths naked frame. Zefla stepped back quickly from the splash.

The scholar shuddered mightily as the water poured off him onto the mat beneath. He spluttered and blinked his eyes as his butler climbed down from the seat and walked away.

Travapeth smiled wetly at Zefla. ‘Do we have a deal, dear girl?’

Zefla glanced at Sharrow, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

‘Ugh! Fate! Did you see his loincloth going clingy and see-through after the little guy poured the water over him? Yech!’

‘Thankfully, my eyes were averted at that point’

‘And that stuff about “the generous globes of your mothers’ breasts”!’ Zefla said in a booming voice, then squealed, hand over her mouth as they walked laughing down Imagery Lane through units and packs of students moving between lectures.

‘I thought I was going to throw up,’ Sharrow said.

‘Well you shouldn’t have tried to put your whole hand into your mouth,’ Zefla told her.

‘It was that or howl.’

‘Still, at least he seems to know what he’s talking about.’

‘Hmm,’ Sharrow said. ‘So far so plausible; we’ll see if Cenuij is impressed.’ She nodded down the street to their right. ‘Let’s go down here. There’s a place I remember.’

‘Okay,’ Zefla said. They turned down Structuralist Street.

‘Down here somewhere,’ Sharrow said, looking around. The street was busy and edged with cafes and estaminets.

‘Actually,’ Zefla said, putting her arm through Sharrow’s again and looking up at the high membrane waving slowly two kilometres above. ‘Now I think about it, maybe I do kind of admire his brazenness.’

Sharrow glared at Zefla. ‘You really can’t hate anybody for more than about three seconds, can you?’

Zefla smiled guiltily. ‘Ah, he wasn’t that bad.’ She shrugged. ‘He’s a character.’

‘Let’s hope he stays a minor one,’ Sharrow muttered. .

Zefla laughed. ‘What’s the aim of this sentimental journey, anyway?’ She looked along the crowded street. ‘Where are we heading for now?’

‘The Bistro Onomatopoeia,’ Sharrow told her.

‘Oh, I remember that place,’ Zefla said. She peered into the distance, a pretend frown on her face. ‘How do you spell it again?’ she asked.