Jasmine smiled at me again, a little more inscrutably this time. ‘We don’t mind, do we?’
‘Not at all,’ I said.
Vishram seated himself at the back of the room, against the wall. Crossing one leg over the other, he took off his glasses and began to polish the lenses. I would be issued with a standard business visa, Jasmine told me, valid for up to seventy-two hours. The visa permitted travel between the Red Quarter and the Blue Quarter, one journey in each direction. It was a stipulation of this type of visa that contact with local people be kept to an absolute minimum. Obviously the system worked on a trust basis — but then presumably I had earned that trust, she added with a glance in Vishram’s direction, or I wouldn’t have been selected in the first place. I should remember that the laws of both countries were equally specific about the dangers of psychological contamination. She need hardly say that the kingdom had been divided for its own good, and that it was in no one’s interest to jeopardise twenty-seven years of comparative equilibrium.
‘What about contact with other delegates?’ I said.
‘No restrictions.’ Jasmine consulted her computer. ‘We haven’t mentioned medication.’
‘Medication?’
‘As you might imagine, things are a bit different over there. The pace of life is slower, but it’s also more unpredictable. There’s more indecision, more ambiguity. If you like, we can issue you with medication that will help you to adapt’.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said.
Jasmine watched me carefully.
‘I want to experience the Blue Quarter for myself,’ I went on. ‘I want to see it as it is. Not diminished in any way — or enhanced, for that matter.’
‘All right’. Jasmine looked beyond me. ‘Mr Vishram? Anything to add?’
Vishram held his glasses at arm’s length to check the lenses for smears, but it seemed that he had done a good job. ‘No,’ he said, putting the glasses back on. ‘I think you’ve covered everything.’
‘Don’t let the rules and regulations suffocate you, Tom,’ Jasmine said. ‘They’re just there to provide you with a framework within which you can operate quite freely.’
‘Hopefully,’ Vishram said, rising to his feet, ‘it will be an experience that you never forget.’
‘You make it sound rather daunting,’ I said.
Vishram merely smiled and turned away. On reaching the door, though, he paused, and I assumed he was going to offer me one last piece of advice or reassurance. Instead, he returned to an earlier and unrelated topic of conversation.
‘Don’t forget to have a word with Sonya, will you,’ he said, ‘or this wretched book of mine will never get written.’
Chapter Three
I stepped out of the train just after midday on Monday. A shiver shook me as I stood on the platform, and I wrapped my overcoat more tightly around me. The cloth felt clammy to the touch. Though it prided itself on its spas, its Turkish baths, and its swimming pools, Aquaville had never enjoyed a healthy reputation. In recent years it had been ravaged by flu epidemics, and locals were always falling prey to arthritis and pneumonia. Some argued that the maladies originated in the phlegmatic character itself, its innate quality being cold and damp, but others believed that the Blue Quarter’s first administration should shoulder the blame. In adding some two hundred miles of new waterways to the canals and lakes that existed prior to the Rearrangement, it stood accused of actually altering the city’s climate. I felt fortified by the vitamin supplements Sonya had given me at the weekend. Even so, it would be a miracle if I didn’t come down with something.
I had been told that a conference official would meet me, but I couldn’t see anybody waiting at the barrier. Phlegmatic people had never been known for their efficiency — and besides, the train was at least an hour late. I decided to make my own way to the hotel. According to Jasmine, it was only ten minutes on foot. Picking up my case, I set off towards the exit. I had walked no more than ten yards when a man seemed to rise up out of the crowd beside me. He had moist pale-green skin and a dark pencil moustache, and his black hair had been smoothed down with some kind of oil or pomade. He thrust what felt like a postcard into my pocket.
‘Something that might interest you.’
He spoke out of the corner of his mouth, his face angled away from me and lifted a fraction, as if he was scouring the busy concourse for someone he knew. Then he was gone — like a swimmer caught by a rip-tide, or a drowning man being taken down for the third time.
I walked on. The incident had lasted no more than a few seconds, and yet the contents of my mind had been upended. My thoughts flew past me in a jumbled state, like clothes in a tumble-dryer, and a light sweat had surfaced on my forehead and my chest. I didn’t look at the card. I didn’t even reach into my pocket to check it was still there. It seemed important to keep moving, to behave as though nothing had happened.
Outside the station the crowd thickened and grew sluggish, and I paused once again to take in my surroundings. The streets were narrower than I had expected, and many of the buildings had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Of the several hotels that I could see, for instance, only one — the Tethys — had been painted at all recently. There was a waterway to my right, with taxis moored against a floating wooden quay, but I decided to walk instead. I soon regretted it. I couldn’t seem to synchronise my progress with that of the people milling all around me. They moved with so little purpose, with such a lack of certainty, that I kept colliding with them or treading on their feet. Once, I stepped aside to let a blind man pass only to stumble over an iron bollard and almost drop my suitcase in the canal. I’d not been hurt. All the same, I was beginning to wish I could sit down for a moment and close my eyes. I thought of Jasmine and her offer of medication. I would have swallowed something there and then, if I’d had it on me.
‘Mr Parry?’
I looked round. A young woman with pale-blonde hair was hurrying towards me. In her hand she held a placard on which was scrawled T. PARRIE.
‘Sorry I missed you at the station,’ she said.
I didn’t say anything. I had only just recognised the name on the placard as my own.
She talked on, a tiny muscle twitching under her left eye. ‘Shall we walk? Or would you rather take a taxi? We can take a taxi if you —’
‘Walking’s fine,’ I said.
She led the way, hesitating at several junctions, and even, once, taking a wrong turning, which meant we had to retrace our steps. She must have apologised at least a dozen times, her head sinking between her shoulders, her mouth curling at the corners in a hapless imitation of a smile. I would probably have fared better on my own — or no worse, at any rate. I still had a slight feeling of disorientation, though, and trembled every once in a while like someone suffering from a mild form of exposure, and when we finally got to the hotel, a majestic old building with wrought-iron balconies clinging to a mottled, off-white façade, I plunged into the lobby with a sigh of relief, as if I had been adrift on a stormy ocean for many days and had now, at long last, reached the safety of the shore.
‘Welcome to the Sheraton, sir.’
I spun round. A middle-aged man in a pale-grey top hat and a tail-coat of the same colour had appeared at my shoulder.
‘Are you here for the conference?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘My name’s Howard. Guest Relations.’ Clasping one hand in the other, he bowed from the waist. ‘At your service, sir.’
‘Thank you.’ I attempted a modest bow of my own.
Howard waited until the young blonde woman had taken her leave, then his right arm described a generous arc in front of me, rather as if he were scattering rose petals in my path. I understood that I was being ushered towards reception. He gave the man behind the desk my name and informed him that I would like to check in. Eyebrows raised, the man consulted a computer screen and slowly shook his head. My room wasn’t ready, he told us. Clasping his hands again, almost wringing them this time, Howard asked whether I would mind waiting in the lobby. Aware of his mortification, I didn’t feel I could object. I sat down in an armchair and took out my guide to the Blue Quarter. Every now and then I would lift my eyes and look through the window at the garden, where the flags of the four countries flew side by side on tall white poles.