The atom-man is here too; so’s the secretary, poised above her notebook. So, of course, is Fedora. He nods to Audrey like he did last week, including Serge within the gesture this time. Serge sends a big smile back at him, trying not to look too hard at the bulge on his chest but finding his eyes wandering towards it all the same, hoping he’s guessed the level right: accumulator can’t be more than four volts, surely…
The master of ceremonies gives the same spiel as last week. The same hymns are sung. The same sequence of hiccups, sobs and heaving rattles Miss Dobai’s frame, then modulates into the deep and plaintive tones of Morris, who grumbles about codicils and proxy signatures. The Comanche Chief’s on holiday today: his place is taken by a South Pacific fisherman who drowned diving for abalone and now drifts through balmy waters in a place where all seas meet. Tilly’s on fine form, though, giggling as she mediates between another infantryman and his parents, then a submariner and his brother (there’s a nautical theme to the evening). This second spirit accurately describes the contents of a box of his effects received by the brother just a week ago, even naming the sorting office whose stamp the package bore. Serge realises, as the brother gasps his confirmation of the objects and the name, that the network of Miss Dobai’s collaborators extends far beyond this halclass="underline" she must have postmen working for her, nurses, undertakers, clerks in the Bureau of Records, domestic servants, painters and photographers or their assistants, people scouring newspapers like Sophie and Widsun used to, tabulating death notices, auction listings, engagement and marriage announcements and who knows what else. His hand keeps slipping beneath his jacket, feeling the circuit-board lurking beneath it, his own secret network-then withdrawing, lest it attract attention: it’s not time, not yet…
When Miss Dobai slumps back in her chair, exhausted by her vocal mediation, her master of ceremonies busies himself setting up the table-tilting phase of the séance. A different gentleman comes forward to help him demonstrate the table’s lack of external attachments and to staff the blackboard, and a different lady volunteers to call the letters out. They’re not part of the sham after all, Serge reasons: why should they be? As long as Fedora does his job, only Miss Dobai and her master of ceremonies need be in on it. Serge wonders if it’s Miss Dobai who calls the shots, or this other man. Perhaps there is no Miss Dobai, Baltimore immigrant, frequenter of trains and boats and courts: perhaps the woman on the stage in front of them’s a Londoner, from no further afield than Hackney or Mile End, picked up in some bar where washed-up cabaret performers drink and trained to do the voices, all the sobs and hiccups. Maybe neither she nor he’s behind it all, but someone else entirely, a “control” not even in the room but sitting back at home counting the proceeds of this remote manipulation of human automata. Serge slips his hand back underneath his jacket as the lady starts calling the letters out. He lets the first few sequences be dictated by Fedora: WEHEARWHENTHEYCRY is scrawled across the blackboard after a while.
“How do you hear?” the secretary asks, addressing herself to the table as before.
Fedora’s halfway through spelling out RESONANCE, or maybe RESONATIONS, when Serge intervenes. He flips the switch on in his pocket and, tapping the key to join the circuit, cuts in after the A, just as the lady calls out H. It works: the table tilts; the blackboard-staffing gentleman writes down an H. In front of Serge, Fedora’s shoulders lock up. He looks around, confused. Serge makes the table tilt again at I, then S. He manages one more letter, a T; then, as he waits for U to come round, Fedora, elbow twitching, cuts in again and tilts on E. Serge takes the next round with an R.
“I’ve got ‘RESONAHISTER,’ ” the secretary reads. “It’s not a word.”
On a cue from the master of ceremonies, the lady volunteer goes back to A. Fedora’s taken his hand out of his jacket now, and is trying to attract the master of ceremonies’ attention, but to no avail. Serge has a clear run at the next eleven letters, and dictates the sequence DOBAIISFRAU.
“That’s German for ‘Mrs.,’ ” someone near him murmurs.
D, he adds.
Now Fedora has got the master of ceremonies’ attention: the latter stares at him wide-eyed and apoplectic, urging him to get his act together. He, though, is in no state to do this: Serge can see, even from behind, that he’s panicking. His head’s turning from side to side; his hand is nowhere near his jacket.
“I’ve got ‘DOBAI IS FRAUD,’ ” the secretary says, taken aback. “Who’s saying this? Where are you?”
UPMISSDOBAISCUNT, Serge dictates. So intent is the master of ceremonies on communicating with Fedora that he doesn’t pay attention to the letters being called out. By the time he glances at the board again, the last message has been supplemented by the sequence “AUDREYITSMESERGE.”
“I think we should curtail this session,” announces the master of ceremonies. “Miss Dobai is clearly…”
But he’s lost control of the procedure. Defiantly, the lady volunteer raises her voice above him and continues calling out the letters. As Audrey stares at him open-mouthed, Serge moves in for the kilclass="underline"
TABLECONTROLLEDBYMANINFEDORA.
The room falls silent as the letter-calling stops. All eyes shift to Fedora, who, as though it made a difference, slides from his head the item in question before making swiftly for the door. Two sturdier men than him detain him there; in what passes for an ensuing struggle, his remote controller falls from his jacket to the floor.
“Two-volt,” Serge comments. “I could have gone lower.”
On the stage, Miss Dobai snaps out of her lethargy, rises and strides towards the side-door through which the master of ceremonies has already exited. Two more men try to cut her off but they’re too late: they throw their weight at the door, then, realising it opens into the room, pull it towards them and rush through it after the duo. Others have stormed the stage: they push past the secretary, who sits at her desk dazed, pencil still in hand, and throw themselves upon the table, tearing at it vehemently, as though the piece of furniture had wilfully deceived them. Next to Serge, a woman’s screaming. It could be Paul’s mother, but it’s hard to telclass="underline" the whole place is in uproar, women shrieking and men shouting, running around, grabbing hold of other men whom they suspect of being in on the act. Fistfights are breaking out. Steering between them, Serge wanders to the front of the hall; as the stage empties, its occupants rushing after some poor, innocent detainee who’s managed to pull himself loose and make a dash for the main exit, he climbs the steps and walks up to the table. It’s been snapped in two, its upper surface ripped clean from the stem-or, rather, not quite cleanly: both parts have splintered where they’ve been separated. Nestling among the splinters on the base are the cogs of a small, automatic hinge; beside the hinge, glued to the inside of the hollow leg, a receiver with decoherer and coherer, relay, circuit battery and two antennae more or less identical to the ones lightly scratching Serge’s side. Serge bends down and inspects the shattered contraption from close up. The table’s real enough, at least. Its wood is old, and beginning to rot. A small insect, some kind of wood louse, is crawling out of it, crossing the wires of the receiver’s circuit-board as it heads up towards the opening that’s miraculously appeared, like a new heaven, in the space above it. The insect’s body is dark and wet, like oil or ink. Serge watches it ooze upwards for a while, then turns and walks away.
Scuffles continue outside the hall. People are running up and down Hoxton Street, chasing or being chased or, in some cases, both. Locals who weren’t at the meeting in the first place have been caught up in the mêlée. Audrey is standing in the middle of the road, looking as catatonic as Miss Dobai did before her sudden exit. Serge takes her by the arm and leads her down to Old Street, where he hails a taxi.