"Traveling? Where?"
There's somebody I need to see, before he passes out of this life.
"Cadmus Geary," I said.
She murmured her assent. Of course you've been telling his story, she said.
"Some of it."
He lived a troubled life, Cesaria said, and he's going to die a troubled death. I'm going to make certain of that. She spoke without vehemence, but the observation made me glad I was nowhere near the dying man. If Cesaria wanted to give him grief, then grief she would give, and let anyone in his vicinity beware.
You're hurt, she said.
"No, just-"
You 're bleeding. Was that Zelim 's doing?
"I don't know who it was. I was trying to open the drape, to get a better look at you."
-and you were struck.
"Yes."
It was Zelim, Cesaria said. He knows I don't like the light. But he was being overzealous. Zelim? Where are you?
There was a sound off in the far corner of the room like buzzing of bees, and it seemed to my somewhat befuddled eyes that the murky air knotted itself up, and something that resembled a human form appeared in front of me. It was only rudimentary; a slim, androgynous creature with large dark eyes.
Make your peace, Cesaria said. I assumed the instruction was for me, and I proceeded to apologize but she broke in: Not you, Maddox. Zelim. •
The servant bowed his head. "I'm sorry," he said. "The error was mine. I should have spoken to you before I struck you."
Now both of you can leave me, Cesaria said. Zelim, take Maddox into Mr. Jefferson's study and make him a little more presentable. He looks like a schoolboy who's just been in a brawl.
"Come with me," said Zelim, who by now had reached such a level of corporeality that his nakedness was somewhat discomforting to me, despite the naive form of his genitals.
I followed him to the door, and was just about to step out when I heard Cesaria call my name again. I looked back. Nothing had changed. She lay as she had, completely inert. But from the direction of her body there came-how can I describe this without stooping to sentimentality-there came a wave of love (there, I've stooped) which broke invisibly but touched me more profoundly than any visible force could have done. Tears of pleasure ran from my eyes.
"Thank you, Mama," I murmured.
You're very welcome child, she said, now go and be tended to. Where's Zabrina by the way?
"She's outside."
Tell her not to be a ninny. If I were truly dead I'd have every creature in the county weeping and wailing.
I smiled at this. "I think you would," I said.
And tell her to be patient. I'll be home soon.
Mr. Jefferson's study, as Cesaria had referred to it, was one of the small rooms I had passed by on my way to the bedroom. I was ushered into it by Zelim, whose newfound politeness did nothing to sooth my unease at his presence. His voice, like his appearance, was wholly nondescript. It was as though he were holding on to the last vestiges of his humanity (I say holding on, but perhaps it was the other way about; perhaps I was simply witness to the final and happy sloughing off of the man he'd once been). Whichever it was, the sight of him, and the sound of a voice that barely sounded human, distressed me. I didn't want to spend any time in his company. I told him there was nothing he need do for me; I'd quite happily mend myself once I got back downstairs. But he ignored my protestations. His mistress had told him to make good the damage he'd done, and he plainly intended to do so, whether I considered myself an injured party or not.
"Can I get you a glass of brandy?" he said. "I understand you're not a great imbiber of brandy-"
"How do you know that?"
"I listen," he said. So the rumors were true, I thought. The house was indeed a listening machine, delivering news from its various chambers up to Cesaria's suite. "But this is a bottle we seldom touch. It's potent. And it will take away the sting."
"Then thank you," I said. "I will have a little."
He inclined his head to me, as though I'd done him great service by accepting the offer, and retired to the next room, allowing me the freedom to get up and wander around the study. There was plenty to see. Unlike the rest of the rooms, which were empty, it was filled with furniture. Two chairs and a small table, a writing desk set in front of the window, with its own comfortable leather chair tucked in beneath it, a bookcase, weighed down with sober tomes. On the walls were a variety of decorations. On one hung a crude map, painted on the dried pelt of some unlucky animaclass="underline" the territory it charted unfamiliar to me. On another a modestly framed drawing, in a very academic style, of Cesaria reclining on a chaise longue. She was dressed prettily, in a high-waisted gown much decorated with small bows. An unfamiliar Cesaria; at least to me. Was this the way she'd looked when she'd been the glory of Paris society? I assumed so. The rest of the pictures were small, undistinguished landscapes, and I passed over them quickly, saving the chief focus of my attention for the strange object which sat on Jefferson's desk. It looked like a large, carpentered spider.
"It's a copying machine," Zelim explained when he came back in. "Jefferson invented it." He pulled out the chair. "Sit please." I sat down. "By all means try it," he said. There was paper on the desk, and the pen already fitted into the device. Now that I knew its purpose it wasn't hard to fathom how it worked. I raised and dipped my pen-which, courtesy of a system of struts, automatically raised and dipped the second pen, and proceeded to scratch out my name on a second sheet. Glancing over to my right I found my signature replicated almost perfectly.
"Clever," I remarked. "Did he ever use it?"
"There's one at Monticello he used all the time," Zelim explained. "This device he used only once or twice."
"But he definitely used it?" I said. "I mean… Jefferson had his fingers around this very pen?"
"Indeed he did. I saw him with my own eyes. He wrote a letter to John Adams, as I remember."
I couldn't prevent a little shudder of delight, which you might think strange given the divine company I've kept. After all, Jefferson was only human. But that was perhaps the reason I felt the frisson. He was mortal stuff, reaching for a vision that was grander than most of us dare contemplate.
Zelim handed me my glass of brandy. "Again, I apologize for my violence. May I wash the blood off your face?"
"No need," I said.
"It's no trouble."
"I'm fine," I told him. "If you want to make amends-"
"Yes?"
"Talk to me."
"About what?"
"About what it's been like for you, over the centuries."
"Ah…"
"You're Zelim the fisherman, aren't you?"
The pale face before me, despite its lack of specificities, seemed to grow troubled. "I don't ever think of that any longer," he said. "It doesn't seem to be my life."
"More like a story?" I ventured.
"More like a dream. A very distant dream. Why do you ask?"
"I want to be able to describe everything in my book. Only everything, that was my promise to myself. And you're a unique individual. I'd like to be sure I tell it all truthfully."
"There's nothing much to tell," Zelim said. "I was a fisherman, and I was called into service. That's an old story."
"But look what you became."
"Oh this…" he said, glancing down at his body. "Does my nakedness trouble you?"
"No."