Why are the chrysanthemums tumbling? Have they been thrown? Scattered by something or someone? Have they meaning?
The baby cried again.
Local time should follow physical law, she thought. I was taught that. It was a lesson from a scenario. She looked at her bare feet and wondered whether it would hurt to walk on the broken glass. The lessons of other scenarios still apply. They still apply.
When she looked up, there was a man on the other side of the desk. She did not know how long he had been standing there. His expression was deliberately neutral and fixed on hers, anchored there with what she soon took to be embarrassment. She noticed the rain jewelling his eyelashes. With that, Saskia Brandt returned. She forgot about the chrysanthemums. She wound the clock inside herself.
He was carrying two canvas bags.
‘Put them on the desk,’ she said, buttoning her lab coat, ‘then go and close the door.’
‘Very well.’
As the man turned, she considered him. He wore a beige, double-breasted suit and a bowler hat. He was no older than twenty-three. His gait was relaxed and his shoulders were wide. He was a mountain climber, perhaps. Shorter than average. Certainly shorter than Saskia.
He had left a storm lantern and a doctor’s bag near the hat stand.
‘Stay there,’ she said, when he had closed the door. ‘And don’t turn around.’
‘I do apologise for walking straight in,’ he said. His hands were clasped behind his back, at ease. ‘I didn’t know if the location was secure.’
Saskia pondered his words. No mention of his lock-picking skills. Then she caught sight of a baguette in one of the canvas bags. It rekindled her hunger, which was deeper than any she had known before. She gripped the bread with both hands, twisted away a piece, and stuffed it into her mouth. It tasted good but was difficult to chew. She had little saliva. She turned the bag upside down on the desk and clawed through the food: a jar of Cornichon pickles; paté in a twist of greased paper; a wooden box containing cheeses; aioli in a jar; and punitions, or shortbread biscuits. She swallowed the bread and undressed the paté, halving it in two bites. Duck. Then she opened the jar of aioli, scooped some in her fingers, and pressed it into her mouth.
She sagged against the desk, breathing heavily. Scintillations had been creeping into the edge of her vision. Now they rolled back.
‘You can turn around now,’ she said.
The man turned. His face was more pretty than handsome. He had a strong tan and this offset his blue eyes. He was subdued by her presence but Saskia detected a latent gadabout charm. He was careful to look into her eyes alone.
‘Miss…’
‘I’m Saskia Brandt, Agent Singular.’ Her expression was stern. ‘You may call me Saskia when we’re alone, or Ms Tucholsky. I’ve lost the distinction, frankly.’
‘Saskia, I am Hans Gausewitz.’ He tilted his bowler. ‘Everyone calls me Gaus.’
Saskia upended the second bag. A hat box, shoe box, and a dress fell onto the table. She opened the shoe box. Inside were black leather boots. She pushed her hand into one. Conversationally, she said, ‘Have you ever met a woman like me, Gaus?’
‘I have never…’ he said, faltering. ‘I have never met an Agent Singular.’
Saskia looked at him. ‘I’m not like your contemporaries.’
His eyes flicked down to her chest, which was imperfectly covered by the lab coat, and returned to her eyes.
‘You are the most–’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not. When you look into my eyes, they do not look back. I am dead.’
He tried to smile. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Imagine a puppet whose strings thread its woods. My brain is dead, Gaus, and my muscles and organs dying. Only my will survives. Its seat is a tiny machine in my skull, no bigger than a house spider, and it is the spider that conducts the whole, sorry orchestra.’
As she spoke, his expression changed from polite enquiry to horror. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Then how do you see…Saskia?’
‘Well enough. Now,’ she said, ‘I thank you for the food and the clothes. You may go. In one hour, I will telephone you with the location of the Meta cache. You will be richer than Croesus of Lydia as long as you never speak of me. If you do, you will be found and everything will be taken from you. Understand?’
Saskia observed his reaction. She expected to see worry and he did not disappoint her.
‘I wish to help. They told me that Meta will–’
‘Never mind what we do, Agent Intemporal.’
Saskia found underclothes. To her relief, the corset had elastic sides. She let her lab coat drop to the floor. Gaus’s eyes dropped with it.
‘I’m in the last hours of my mission,’ she said. ‘I don’t have time to supervise you.’
Quietly, Gaus said, ‘I want to help.’
‘Start with this bloody corset,’ she said, turning her back to him. Gaus reached across the desk and took the sides of the corset in his hands. He fastened the hooks. Saskia reminded herself that Gaus was an intemporal who had been born in the late 1880s. Though he knew about time travel, he had never experienced technology sufficient to resurrect a dead body, and it was to his credit that he had reacted rationally at all.
And to my credit, too.
The corset was fastened. She said, ‘You’re good to offer, Gaus. Through that door you’ll find the administrator’s desk and most of the paperwork held by the mortuary. See if you can find the death certificate for Ms Mira Tucholsky, admitted earlier this evening. I’m also keen to recover my possessions. A photograph in particular. You have gloves?’
‘I do.’
‘My toe tag is in the main room beneath the work bench. It has a four-digit number. That might help.’
The mention of her toe seemed to shock him. He said, ‘It…might.’
He pushed through into the anteroom. When she heard him begin to open drawers, Saskia pulled her hair into a ponytail, tied it with the string, and made a bun at the back. She secured this by passing the lancet through it horizontally, being careful with its double-edged blade. Then she finished getting dressed. The clothes were pleasingly black: blouse, long gloves, a cape with a burgundy bow, and a wide hat whose brim rested on the length of the lancet.
Gaus returned with a sheet of paper. He placed it on the desk and shared a pleased look with Saskia. She could not suppress her smile. Perhaps she should let Gaus help her after all.
The death certificate had been signed by a Dr Vetsch, whose surgery was on Champ-de-Blé. It gave the circumstances of her death as ‘suspicious’. Saskia raised an eyebrow at that. Blood loss through an incision to the femoral artery. Her name was unknown. There was a crime number. The form was otherwise blank.
‘Did you find any belongings with this?’
Gaus shook his head.
Saskia thought sadly upon the photograph. The picture was her first and last principle. Everything else flowed from it. Her memory was not enough. She needed the thing itself.
‘Never mind. Our next step will be to locate Dr Vetsch. Will you come with me?’
‘Assuredly.’
Saskia saw the tungsten intensity in his eyes, a brightness he could not dim with his indifferent slouch against the desk. Saskia’s instinct was to extinguish this light.
‘Do you know the word “zombie”, Gaus?’
He smiled. ‘No.’
‘It’s just as well. Let us say that we are star-crossed. We are not destined to be.’
His smile vanished, and his hurt was plain. Saskia wondered whether he would abandon her there and then. But he was stronger than that. He corrected his slouch. He nodded. He did not flinch, even when Saskia put her darkening hand to his cheek and said, ‘Make the decision cold. Are you certain?’