Watson, Ian - Novel 16 (29 page)

 
          
Gupta
spotted him. ‘Alex!’

           
Thessany turned her head. ‘Is that
the Indian who climbed Babel with you?’

 
          
‘Yes.
He’s one fellow who
could
make
himself invisible!’

 
          
‘Do
you mean that seriously?’

           
‘Well. .. yes. I do.’

           
Gupta had observed that Alex was accompanied;
or accompanying. He stared in disgust from the brand mark on Alex’s cheek, to
the portions of whip-marks he could see, to Thessany.

 
          
‘Pardon
me, good madam!’ Gupta sounded virulently sardonic. ‘May I have your gracious
leave to speak with an old friend?’

 
          
‘Yes,
but calm down,’ she said. ‘All is not as it seems. Your friend here made the
mistake of breaking into the temple of Marduk.’

 
          
‘And
they whipped him and branded him? Ah.’ Gupta looked puzzled. ‘Is that true,
Alex?’

 
          
‘Not
precisely. But - ’

           
‘I thought not!’

           
‘Any other great lady,’ said
Thessany, ‘might be sorely offended by your scepticism, Indian. Please don’t
leap to the wrong conclusions.’

 
          
‘My
name is Gupta, not Indian.’

           
‘Mr Gupta. My apologies. Alex, in
view of.. . you- know-what ... I want to ask: how much do you trust this
person?’

 
          
‘I
trust him quite a lot.’ Alex grinned sloppily. ‘He lent me some money.’

 
          
‘Oh
did
he? You never mentioned that. How
much was it.’

 
          
‘Shekel
and a half.’

 
          
Fumbling
in a hidden purse, Thessany produced two silver coins. ‘I don’t normally burden
myself with cash, but today I had to pay a boatman. Here you are, Mr Gupta.
Your debt is quit. With thanks.’ She thrust the coins into Gupta’s hand.

 
          
Gupta
promptly tossed the silver on the ground. ‘I am not being bought off!’

 
          
The
money didn’t stay long on the ground; an urchin darted, snatched, and scampered
away.

 
          
‘You
have just contributed to the poor,’ said Thessany. ‘Congratulations.’

 
          
‘Not
I! You have.’

 
          
‘Proud
Mr Gupta, let me ask you: can you become invisible?’

 
          
‘Oh,
you wish me to vanish! Disappear! Never offend your eyes again! Amidst my other
business concerns I have been making enquiries about you, let me tell you.’

 
          
‘What
sort of enquiries? With whom?’

 
          
‘General
enquiries; on Alex’s account. I promised my assistance.’

 
          
‘You
can
assist him, Mr Gupta. Teach him
to become invisible.’

 
          
‘You
are japing me!’

 
          
‘No
she isn’t,’ said Alex.

 
          
‘When
we saw you just now, Alex said to me, “There’s a fellow who can make himself
invisible.” I ask in all seriousness, can you do it? If you can, and will tell
Alex how, you’ll make a perilous exploit much less risky.’

 
          
‘What
exploit?’

 
          
It
was Alex who shook his head. ‘No, we can’t tell you. Even knowing is
dangerous.’

 
          
‘Seriously,
this is how you wish me to assist you, Alex?’

 
          
‘You’ll
have kept your promise,’ said Thessany.

           
‘Your conscience will be clear.
You’ll have a light heart.’

 
          
‘And
I shall not turn into a weasel in the next life, ha ha! You’re quite sure,
Alex?’

 
          
‘Absolutely.’

 
          
‘So
be it.’

 
          
‘Shall
we share some refreshments?’ suggested Thessany. ‘I know a little place up
Zababa Street, with the sweetest roof garden.’

 
          
The
roof was shaded by crowns of palms; you could reach and pluck fresh sticky
dates. Hibiscus bloomed in tubs; the furled pink parasols of fallen flowers lay
scattered like cocktail ornaments. And there was a brick pot of fox-tailed
lilies. Alex and Thessany drank cold beer; Gupta, lemonade.

 
          
‘It’s
an odd fact,’ expounded Gupta, ‘that it’s quite impossible to keep your eyes
open during a sneeze. Now sneezing is sometimes caused by sexual excitement.
That’s why many women close their eyes while kissing, out of secret fear of
sneezing in their partner’s face! So a vision of bodily beauty excites - but it
can also cause momentary blindness. Hence the myth about naked goddesses
blinding men who spy on them.’

 
          
‘All
eyes will be on Deborah for a while, blinded to everything else . . .’

 
          
‘That’s
too late in the proceedings, Alex,’ said Thessany.

 
          
‘Equally,
certain polluting sights may be unseeable. Would you stare closely at someone
excreting or drooling phlegm?’

 
          
Thessany
giggled. ‘I must bear that in mind, if Aunt Damekin pesters me.’

 
          
‘More
importantly, people can recognize only what they already know. If the eye sees
nonsense, the mind concocts a plausible alternative; something else is seen instead.
To avoid observation you can dress shapelessly, in contradictory colours which
cancel out. But this is only the start. The body, you see, has a language of
its own consisting of a finite number of fixed phrases. The body doesn’t flow
smoothly; though our mind perceives smooth movement. The body actually jerks
about, jumping from one state of posture to the next. Gestures and expressions
are rituals, to which we respond ritually without realizing. If your body can
learn to glide through the gaps between these discrete states of posture,
carrying out its true actions therein, then these acts often go unnoticed by
other people. Or, if you dislocate the seeming connectedness of your behaviour
so that your body engages in contradictory manoeuvres, then the mind of the
observer applies the Blade of Simplicity and cuts away what it can’t
reconcile. If you continually break step while walking and destroy all
regularity, it quickly becomes unpleasant for an onlooker to watch you, though
he doesn’t know why. Contrariwise, extreme monotony of motion drugs the
observing eye.

 
          
‘Watch
me. I’ll demonstrate a few tricks of posture and movement. . .’

 
          
Half
an hour later, Alex was sure he would need to spend a whole year (or five) as
the Indian’s disciple in order to master these indisciplines. These
dislocations of the expected; these ruptures of normality into which a person
might, effectively, vanish.

 
          
Gupta
reassured him: ‘We were both hypnotized deeply in
Babel
not so long ago. So you are still very
receptive; and in any case I can hypnotize, albeit not as deeply as
tekhne
can. At the moment I’m busy
training Kamberchanian’s strippers, using my own light touch of hypnosis. What’s
more, given the proper stimuli of circumstances, a hypnotic trance state may return
spontaneously, just as a drug fugue may. Everyone in this city has been
hypnotized before, so everyone is potentially suggestible; which helps.

 
          
‘What
I suggest is that I train you under light hypnosis for a couple of days.
Obviously I can’t transfer years of knowledge and experience in so short a
time. But I
can
write down a word
which I will hide in your mind. When the moment of peril comes, look and read
aloud. Your body will remember. At that moment you must not oppose your body.
You must believe that you are truly invisible; you must have no doubts. For
example, you should walk as though no one else can see you; and thus would bump
into you, ha ha!’

 
          
‘Under
hypnosis,’ observed Thessany, ‘Alex might well tell you his mission.’

 
          
‘Only
if I ask him. I promise I shall not. I swear by my friendship for him.’

 
          
She
nodded. ‘Okay. Alex will go with you for two days. And I’d like to say that I’m
quite impressed by your demonstrations, Gupta guru. I’m a bit busy for the next
few weeks, but later I’d like to study with you - deeply and obediently, till I
learn. I shall of course pay lavishly; on the understanding that I am your only
serious pupil.’

 
          
‘One
or two of the strippers may become serious.’

 
          
‘And
one or two thieves? And one or two assassins?’

 
          
‘Ha
ha! Invisible assassins might stab me without my noticing. Invisible thieves
might steal your lavish money from me.’

 
          
She
leaned forward intently. ‘Doesn’t a Master truly succeed in his teachings only
when his pupil masters him; bewilders him?’

 
          
‘For
that insight alone, lady, I would accept you as a pupil. However, I must
continue to perfect the strippers.’

           
‘All right. But no gentry or nobles,
priests or politicians.’

 
          
‘Agreed;
since I prefer to practise my art in the gutters.’

 
          
‘So
as to avoid becoming a courtly charlatan; a performing monkey? So that mud may
be made into gold rather than gold into mud?’

 
          
‘Ah,
you do understand. I definitely accept you.’

 
          
‘I’ll
pay you lavishly; but you can keep the money - better still, jewels - in an old
rag stuffed in a dungheap for ever, if you like.’

 
          
‘Alex,
my friend,’ said Gupta, ‘you are fortunate to have found such a mistress.’

 
          
‘Yes.
Yes, I am.’

 
          
‘And
now,’ said Thessany, ‘let us visit a scrivener so that Alex has a tablet with
him granting leave of absence. Otherwise, before he learns to become
invisible, constables may notice how recently he was whipped and branded, and
arrest him on suspicion.’

 
          
Gupta
took Alex back with him, not to the inn, but to the adjoining strip parlour.

           
Yet here, where the topic is the
intriguing one of the art of invisibility, the events of these twenty-four
double hours which Alex spent at the skin shop, now renamed The Eye of Horus,
must needs also be invisible; for Alex was in a hypnotic trance during that
time, unaware consciously of what Gupta was training him to do. One hastens
forward to the hour of his return to Thessany’s house, with a sealed scrap of
paper tucked in his kilt at which he mustn’t yet look.

 
          
His
body ached in odd ways which seemed to bear no relation to his whipping. He
felt as if he had been extensively massaged without actually being touched.
Several new muscles might have been invented, or grown suddenly from threads,
especially in his legs and hips.

           
As he was approaching the house he
noticed a raggy beggar sitting crossed-legged at the mouth of an alley.

 
          
That
was no beggar! It was the ruffian - Aristander’s agent.

 
          
Alex
glanced twice - which was perhaps one glance too many - then ignored the man.
I’m
a slave,’ he told himself. ‘Been a
slave for years. I slave and slave slavishly. That’s all there is in my life:
slavery. Nothing else.’