The City and the City Part 4

Read the travelogues of the last-but-one century and those older, and the strange and beautiful right-to-left Illitan calligraphy-and its jarring phonetics-is constantly remarked on. At some point everyone has heard Sterne, from his travelogue: "In the Land of Alphabets Arabic Arabic caught caught Dame Sanskrit's Dame Sanskrit's eye (drunk he was despite Muhamed's injunctions, else her age would have dissuaded). Nine months later a eye (drunk he was despite Muhamed's injunctions, else her age would have dissuaded). Nine months later a disowned child disowned child was put out. The feral babe is was put out. The feral babe is Illitan Illitan, Hermes-Aphrodite not without beauty. He has something of both his parents in his form, but the voice of those who raised him-the birds."

The script was lost in 1923, overnight, a culmination of Ya Ilsa's reforms: it was Ataturk who imitated him, not, as is usually claimed, the other way around. Even in Ul Qoma, no one can read Illitan script now but archivists and activists.

Anyway whether in its original or later written form, Illitan bears no resemblance to Bes. Nor does it sound similar. But these distinctions are not as deep as they appear. Despite careful cultural differentiation, in the shape of their grammars and the relations of their phonemes (if not the base sounds themselves), the languages are closely related-they share a common ancestor, after all. It feels almost seditious to say so. Still.

Besel's dark ages are very dark. Sometime between two thousand and seventeen hundred years ago the city was founded, here in this curl of coastline. There are still remains from those times in the heart of the town, when it was a port hiding a few kilometres up the river to shelter from the pirates of the sh.o.r.e. The city's founding came at the same time as another's, of course. The ruins are surrounded now or in some places incorporated, antique foundations, into the substance of the city. There are older ruins too, like the mosaic remnants in Yozhef Park. These Romanesque remains predate Besel, we think. We built Besel on their bones, perhaps.

It may or may not have been Besel, that we built, back then, while others may have been building Ul Qoma on the same bones. Perhaps there was one thing back then that later schismed on the ruins, or perhaps our ancestral Besel had not yet met and standoffishly entwined with its neighbour. I am not a student of the Cleavage, but if I were I still would not know.

"BOSS." Lizbyet Corwi called me. "Boss you are on fire. How did you know? Meet me at sixty-eight BudapestStrasz."

I had not yet dressed in day clothes though it was after noon. My kitchen table was a landscape of papers. The books I had on politics and history were propped in a Babel-tower by the milk. I should keep my laptop from the mess, but I never bothered. I brushed cocoa away from my notes. The blackface character on my French drinking chocolate smiled at me. "What are you talking about? What's that address?"

"It's in Bundalia," she said. An industrial presuburb northwest of Funicular Park, by the river. "And are you kidding me what is it? I did what you said-I asked around, got the basic gist of which groups there are, who thinks what of each other, blah blah. I spent the morning going round, asking questions. Putting the fear in. Can't say you get much respect from these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds with the uniform on, you know? And I can't say I had much hopes for this, but I figured what the h.e.l.l else did we have to do? Anyway I'm going around trying to get a sense of the politics and whatnot, and one of the guys at one of the-I guess you'd say lodges maybe-he starts to give me something. Wasn't going to admit it at first, but I could tell. You're a f.u.c.king genius, sir. Sixty-eight BudapestStrasz is a unificationist HQ."

Her awe was already close to suspicion. She would have looked at me even harder if she had seen the doc.u.ments on my table, that I had negotiated with my hands when she phoned me. Several books were open to their indices, propped to show what references they had to unificationism. I really had not come across the BudapestStrasz address.

In typical political cliche, unificationists were split on many axes. Some groups were illegal, sister-organisations in both Besel and Ul Qoma. The banned had at various points in their history advocated the use of violence to bring the cities to their G.o.d-, destiny-, history-, or people-intended unity. Some had, mostly cack-handedly, targeted nationalist intellectuals-bricks through windows and s.h.i.+t through doors. They had been accused of furtively propagandising among refugees and new immigrants with limited expertise at seeing and unseeing, at being in one particular city. The activists wanted to weaponise such urban uncertainty.

These extremists were vocally criticised by others keen to retain freedom of movement and a.s.sembly, whatever their secret thoughts and whatever threads connected them all out of view. There were other divisions, between different visions of what the united city would be like, what would be its language, what would be its name. Even these legal grouplets would be watched without ceasing, and checked up on regularly by the authorities in whichever their city. "Swiss cheese," Shenvoi said when I spoke to him that morning. "Probably more informers and moles in the unifs even than in the True Citizens or n.a.z.is or other nutters. I wouldn't worry about them-they're not going to do d.i.c.k without the say-so of someone in security."

Also, the unifs must know, though they would hope never to see proof of it, that nothing they did would be unknown to Breach. That meant I would be under Breach's purview too, during my visit, if I was not already.

Always the question of how to get through the city. I should have taxied as Corwi was waiting, but no, two trams, a change at Vencelas Square. Swaying under the carved and clockwork figures of Bes burghers on the town facades, ignoring, unseeing, the s.h.i.+nier fronts of the elsewhere, the alter parts.

The length of BudapestStrasz, patches of winter buddleia frothed out from old buildings. It's a traditional urban weed in Besel, but not in Ul Qoma, where they trim it as it intrudes, so BudapestStrasz being the Besel part of a crosshatched area, each bush, unflowered at that time, emerged unkempt for one or two or three local buildings, then would end in a sharp vertical plane at the edge of Besel.

The buildings in Besel were brick and plaster, each surmounted with one of the household Lares Lares staring at me, a little manlike grotesque, and bearded with that weed. A few decades before these places would not have been so tumbling down; they would have emitted more noise and the street would have been filled with young clerks in dark suits and visiting foremen. Behind the northern buildings were industrial yards, and beyond them a curl in the river, where docks used to bustle and where their iron skeletons still graveyard lay. staring at me, a little manlike grotesque, and bearded with that weed. A few decades before these places would not have been so tumbling down; they would have emitted more noise and the street would have been filled with young clerks in dark suits and visiting foremen. Behind the northern buildings were industrial yards, and beyond them a curl in the river, where docks used to bustle and where their iron skeletons still graveyard lay.

Back then the region of Ul Qoma that shared the s.p.a.ce had been quiet. It had grown more noisy: the neighbours had moved in economic antiphase. As the river industry of Besel had slowed, Ul Qoma's business picked up, and now there were more foreigners walking on the worn-down crosshatched cobbles than Bes locals. The once-collapsing Ul Qoma rookeries, crenellated and lumpenbaroque (not that I saw them-I unsaw carefully, but they still registered a little, illicitly, and I remembered the styles from photographs), were renovated, the sites of galleries and .uq startups.

I watched the local buildings' numbers. They rose in stutters, interspersed with foreign alter s.p.a.ces. In Besel the area was pretty unpeopled, but not elsewhere across the border, and I had to unseeing dodge many smart young businessmen and -women. Their voices were muted to me, random noise. That aural fade comes from years of Bes care. When I reached the tar-painted front where Corwi waited with an unhappy-looking man, we stood together in a near-deserted part of Besel city, surrounded by a busy unheard throng.

"Boss. This is Pall Drodin."

Drodin was a tall and thin man in his late thirties. He wore several rings in his ears, a leather jacket with obscure and unmerited members.h.i.+p insignia of various military and other organisations on it, anomalously smart though dirty trousers. He eyed me unhappily, smoking.

He was not arrested. Corwi had not taken him in. I nodded a greeting to her, then turned around slowly 180 degrees and looked at the buildings around us. I focused only the Bes ones, of course.

"Breach?" I said. Drodin looked startled. So in truth did Corwi, though she covered it. When Drodin said nothing I said, "Don't you think we're watched by powers?"

"Yeah, no, we are." He sounded resentful. I am sure he was. "Sure. Sure. You asking me where they are?" It is a more or less meaningless question but one that no Bes nor Ul Qoman can banish. Drodin did not look anywhere other than in my eyes. "You see the building over the road? The one that used to be a match factory?" A mural's remains in scabs of paint almost a century old, a salamander smiling through its corona of flames. "You see stuff moving, in there. Stuff you know, like, comes and goes, like it shouldn't."

"So you can see them appear?" He looked uneasy again. "You think that's where they manifest?"

"No no, but process of elimination."

"Drodin, get in. We'll be in in a second," Corwi said. Nodded him in and he went. "What the f.u.c.k, boss?"

"Problem?"

"All this Breach s.h.i.+t." She lowered her voice on Breach Breach. "What are you doing?" I did not say anything. "I'm trying to establish a power dynamic here and I'm I'm at the end of it, not Breach, boss. I don't want that s.h.i.+t in the picture. Where the f.u.c.k you getting this spooky s.h.i.+t from?" When I still said nothing she shook her head and led me inside. at the end of it, not Breach, boss. I don't want that s.h.i.+t in the picture. Where the f.u.c.k you getting this spooky s.h.i.+t from?" When I still said nothing she shook her head and led me inside.

The Besqoma Solidarity Front did not make much of an effort with their decor. There were two rooms, two and a half at generous count, full of cabinets and shelves stacked with files and books. In one corner wall s.p.a.ce had been cleared and cleaned, it looked like, for backdrop, and a webcam pointed at it and an empty chair.

"Broadcasts," Drodin said. He saw where I was looking. "Online." He started to tell me a web address until I shook my head.

"Everyone else left when I came in," Corwi told me.

Drodin sat down behind his desk in the back room. There were two other chairs in there. He did not offer them, but Corwi and I sat anyway. More mess of books, a dirty computer. On a wall a large-scale map of Besel and Ul Qoma. To avoid prosecution the lines and shades of division were there-total, alter, and crosshatched-but ostentatiously subtle, distinctions of greyscale. We sat looking at each other a while.

"Look," Drodin said. "I know ... you understand I'm not used to ... You guys don't like me, and that's fine, that's understood." We said nothing. He played with some of the things on his desktop. "And I'm no snitch either."

"Jesus, Drodin," Corwi said, "if it's absolution you're after, get a priest." But he continued.

"It's just... If this has something to do with what she was into, then you're all going to think it has something to do with us and maybe it even might have have something to do with us and I'm giving no one any excuses to come down on us. You know? You know?" something to do with us and I'm giving no one any excuses to come down on us. You know? You know?"

"Alright enough," Corwi said. "Cut the s.h.i.+t." She looked around the room. "I know you think you're clever, but seriously, how many misdemeanours do you think I'm looking at right now? Your map, for a start-You reckon it's careful, but it wouldn't take a particularly patriotic prosecutor to interpret it in a way that'll leave you inside. What else? You want me to go through your books? How many are on the proscribed list? Want me to go through your papers? This place has Insulting Bes Sovereignty in the Second Degree flas.h.i.+ng over it like neon."

"Like the Ul Qoma club districts," I said. "Ul Qoma neon. Would you like that, Drodin? Prefer it to the local variety?"

"So while we appreciate your help, Mr. Drodin, let's not kid ourselves as to why you're doing it."

"You don't understand." He muttered it. "I have to protect my people. There's weird s.h.i.+t out there. There's weird s.h.i.+t going on."

"Alright," Corwi said. "Whatever. What's the story, Drodin?" She took the photograph of Fulana and put it in front of him. "Tell my boss what you started telling me."

"Yeah," he said. "That's her." Corwi and I leaned forward. Perfect synchronised timing.

I said, "What's her name?"

"What she said, she said her name was Byela Mar." Drodin shrugged. "It's what she said. I know, but what can I tell you?"

It was an obvious, and elegantly punning, pseudonym. Byela is a unis.e.x Bes name; Mar is at least plausible as a surname. Together their phonemes approximate the phrase bye lai mar bye lai mar, literally "only the baitfish," a fis.h.i.+ng phrase to say "nothing worth noting."

"It isn't unusual. Lots of our contacts and members go by handles."

"Noms," I said, "de unification." "de unification." I could not tell if he understood. "Tell us about Byela." Byela, Fulana, Marya was accruing names. I could not tell if he understood. "Tell us about Byela." Byela, Fulana, Marya was accruing names.

"She was here I don't know, three years ago or so? Bit less? I hadn't seen her since then. She was obviously foreign."

"From Ul Qoma?"

"No. Spoke okay Illitan but not fluent. She'd talk in Bes or Illitan-or, well, the root. I never heard her talk anything else-she wouldn't tell me where she came from. From her accent I'd say American or English maybe. I don't know what she was doing. It's not... it's kind of rude to ask too much about people in this line."

"So, what, she came to meetings? She was an organiser?" Corwi turned to me and said without lowering her voice, "I don't even know what it is these f.u.c.kers do, boss. I don't even know what to ask." Drodin watched her, no more sour than he had been since we arrived.

"She turned up like I said a couple of years ago. She wanted to use our library. We've got pamphlets and old books on ... well on the cities, a lot of stuff they don't stock in other places."

"We should take a look, boss," Corwi said. "See there's nothing inappropriate."

"f.u.c.k's sake, I'm helping, aren't I? You want to get me on banned books? There's nothing Cla.s.s One, and the Cla.s.s Twos we got are mostly available on-f.u.c.king-line anyway."

"Alright alright," I said. Pointed for him to continue.

"So she came and we talked a lot. She wasn't here long. Like a couple of weeks. Don't ask me about what she did otherwise and stuff like that because I don't know. All I know is every day she'd come by at odd times and look at books, or talk to me about our history, the history of the cities, about what was going on, about our campaigns, that kind of thing."

"What campaigns?"

"Our brothers and sisters in prison. Here and and in Ul Qoma. For nothing but their beliefs. Amnesty International's on our side there, you know. Talking to contacts. Education. Helping new immigrants. Demos." In Besel, unificationist demonstrations were fractious, small, dangerous things. Obviously the local nationalists would come out to break them up, screaming at the marchers as traitors, and in general the most apolitical local wouldn't have much sympathy for them. It was almost as bad in Ul Qoma, except it was more unlikely they would be allowed to gather in the first place. That must have been a source of anger, though it certainly saved the Ul Qoman unifs from beatings. in Ul Qoma. For nothing but their beliefs. Amnesty International's on our side there, you know. Talking to contacts. Education. Helping new immigrants. Demos." In Besel, unificationist demonstrations were fractious, small, dangerous things. Obviously the local nationalists would come out to break them up, screaming at the marchers as traitors, and in general the most apolitical local wouldn't have much sympathy for them. It was almost as bad in Ul Qoma, except it was more unlikely they would be allowed to gather in the first place. That must have been a source of anger, though it certainly saved the Ul Qoman unifs from beatings.

"How did she look? Did she dress well? What was she like?"

"Yeah she did. Smart. Almost chic, you know? Stood out here." He even laughed at himself. "And she was clever. I really liked her at first, you know? I was really excited. At first."

His pauses were requests for us to chivvy him, so that none of this discussion was at his behest. "But?" I said. "What happened?"

"We had an argument. Actually I only had an argument with her because she was giving some of the other comrades s.h.i.+t, you know? I'd walk into the library or downstairs or whatever and someone or other would be shouting at her. She was never shouting at them, but she'd be talking quietly and driving them mad, and in the end I had to tell her to go. She was ... she was dangerous." Another silence. Corwi and I looked at each other. "No I ain't exaggerating," he said. "She brought you here, didn't she? I told you she was dangerous."

He picked up the photograph and studied it. Across his face went pity, anger, dislike, fear. Fear, certainly. He got up, walked in a circle around his desk-ridiculous, too small a room to pace, but he tried.

"See the problem was ..." He went to his small window and looked out, turned back to us. He was silhouetted against the skyline, of Besel or Ul Qoma or both I could not tell.

"She was asking all this stuff about some of the kookiest underground b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. Old wives' tales, rumours, urban myths, craziness. I didn't think much of it because we get a lot of that s.h.i.+t, and she was obviously smarter than the loons into it, so I figured she was just feeling her way around, getting to know stuff."

"Weren't you curious?"

"Sure. Young foreign girl, clever, mysterious? Intense?" Intense?" He mocked himself with how he said that. He nodded. "Sure I was. I'm curious about all the people who come here. Some of them tell me s.h.i.+t, some of them don't. But I wouldn't be leader of this chapter if I went around pumping them. There's a woman here, a lot older than me ... I been meeting her on and off for fifteen years. Don't know her real name, or anything about her. Okay, bad example because I'm pretty sure she's one of your lot, an agent, but you get the point. I don't ask." He mocked himself with how he said that. He nodded. "Sure I was. I'm curious about all the people who come here. Some of them tell me s.h.i.+t, some of them don't. But I wouldn't be leader of this chapter if I went around pumping them. There's a woman here, a lot older than me ... I been meeting her on and off for fifteen years. Don't know her real name, or anything about her. Okay, bad example because I'm pretty sure she's one of your lot, an agent, but you get the point. I don't ask."

"What was she into, then? Byela Mar. Why did you kick her out?"

"Look, here's the thing. You're into this stuff..." I felt Corwi stiffen as if she would interrupt him, needle him to get on with it, and I touched her no, wait no, wait, to give him his head on this. He was not looking at us but at his provocative map of the cities. "You're into this stuff you know you're skirting with ... well, you know you step out of line you're going to get serious trouble. Like having you lot here, for a start. Or make the wrong phone call we can put our brothers in s.h.i.+t, in Ul Qoma, with the cops there. Or-or there's worse." He looked at us then. "She couldn't stay, she was going to bring Breach down on us. Or something.

"She was into ... No, she wasn't into into anything, she was anything, she was obsessed obsessed. With Orciny."

He was looking at me carefully, so I did nothing but narrow my eyes. I was surprised, though.

By how she did not move it was clear that Corwi did not know what Orciny was. It might undermine her to go into it here, but as I hesitated he was explaining. It was a fairy tale. That was what he said.

"Orciny's the third city. It's between the other two. It's in the dissensi dissensi, disputed zones, places that Besel thinks are Ul Qoma's and Ul Qoma Besel's. When the old commune split, it didn't split into two, it split into three. Orciny's the secret city. It runs things."

If split there was. That beginning was a shadow in history, an unknown-records effaced and vanished for a century either side. Anything could have happened. From that historically brief quite opaque moment came the chaos of our material history, an anarchy of chronology, of mismatched remnants that delighted and horrified investigators. All we know is nomads on the steppes, then those black-box centuries of urban instigation-certain events, and there have been films and stories and games based on speculation (all making the censor at least a little twitchy) about that dual birth-then history comes back and there are Besel and Ul Qoma. Was it schism or conjoining?

As if that were not mystery enough and as if two crosshatched countries were insufficient, bards invented that third, the pretend-existing Orciny. On top floors, in ignorable Roman-style town-houses, in the first wattle-and-daub dwellings, taking up the intricately conjoined and disjointed s.p.a.ces allotted it in the split or coagulation of the tribes, the tiny third city Orciny ensconced, secreted between the two brasher city-states. A community of imaginary overlords, exiles perhaps, in most stories machinating and making things so, ruling with a subtle and absolute grip. Orciny was where the Illuminati lived. That sort of thing.

Some decades previously there would have been no need for explanations-Orciny stories had been children's standards, alongside the tribulations of "King Shavil and the Sea-Monster That Came to Harbour." Harry Potter and Power Rangers are more popular now, and fewer children know those older fables. That's alright.

"Are you saying-what?" I interrupted him. "You're saying that Byela was a folklorist? She was into old stories?" He shrugged. He would not look at me. I tried again to make him out and say what he was implying. He would only shrug. "Why would she be talking to you about this?" I said. "Why was she even here?"

"I don't know. We have stuff on it. It comes up. You know? They have them in Ul Qoma, too, you know, Orciny stories. We don't just keep doc.u.ments on, you know, just just just what we're into. You know? We know our history, we keep all kinds of..." He trailed off. "I realised it wasn't us she was interested in, you know?" what we're into. You know? We know our history, we keep all kinds of..." He trailed off. "I realised it wasn't us she was interested in, you know?"

Like any dissidents they were neurotic archivists. Agree, disagree, show no interest in or obsess over their narrative of history, you couldn't say they didn't sh.o.r.e it up with footnotes and research. Their library must have defensively complete holdings of anything that even implied a blurring of urban boundaries. She had come-you could see it-seeking information not on some ur-unity but on Orciny. What an annoyance when they realised her odd researches weren't quirks of investigation but the very point. When they realised that she did not much care about their project.

"So she was a time-waster?"

"No, man, she was dangerous, like I said. For real. She'd cause trouble for us. She said she wasn't sticking around anyway." He shrugged his shoulders vaguely.

"Why was she dangerous?" I leaned in. "Drodin, was she breaching?"

"Jesus, I don't think so. If she did I don't know s.h.i.+t about it." He put up his hands. "f.u.c.k's sake, you know how watched we are?" He jerked his hand in the direction of the street. "We've got you lot on a semipermanent patrol in the area. Ul Qoman cops can't watch us, obviously, but they're on our brothers and sisters. And more to the G.o.dd.a.m.ned point, watching us out there is ... you know. Breach."

We were all silent a moment then. We all felt watched.

"You've seen it?"

"Course not. What do I look like? Who sees sees it? But we know it's there. Watching. Any excuse ... we're gone. Do you ..." He shook his head, and when he looked back at me it was with anger and perhaps hate. "Do you know how many of my friends have been taken? That I've never seen again? We're it? But we know it's there. Watching. Any excuse ... we're gone. Do you ..." He shook his head, and when he looked back at me it was with anger and perhaps hate. "Do you know how many of my friends have been taken? That I've never seen again? We're more more careful than anyone." careful than anyone."

It was true. A political irony. Those most dedicated to the perforation of the boundary between Besel and Ul Qoma had to observe it most carefully. If I or one of my friends were to have a moment's failure of unseeing (and who did not do that? who failed to fail to see, sometimes?), so long as it was not flaunted or indulged in, we should not be in danger. If I were to glance a second or two on some attractive pa.s.serby in Ul Qoma, if I were to silently enjoy the skyline of the two cities together, be irritated by the noise of an Ul Qoman train, I would not be taken.

Here, though, at this building not just my colleagues but the powers of Breach were always wrathful and as Old Testament as they had the powers and right to be. That terrible presence might appear and disappear a unificationist for even a somatic breach, a startled jump at a misfiring Ul Qoma car. If Byela, Fulana, had been breaching, she would have brought that in. So it was likely not suspicion of that specifically that had made Drodin afraid.

"There was just something." He looked up out of the window at the two cities. "Maybe she would, she would have brought Breach on us, eventually. Or something."

"Hang on," Corwi said. "You said she was leaving ..."

"She said she was going over. To Ul Qoma. Officially." I paused from scribbling notes. I looked at Corwi and she at me. "Didn't see her again. Someone heard she'd gone and they wouldn't let her back here." He shrugged. "I don't know if that's true, and if it is I don't know why. It was just a matter of time ... She was poking around in dangerous s.h.i.+t, it gave me a bad feeling."

"That's not all, though, is it?" I said. "What else?" He stared at me.

"I don't know know, man. She was trouble, she was scary, there was too much ... there was just something. When she was going on and on about all the stuff she was into, it started to give you the creeps. Made you nervous." He looked out of the window again. He shook his head.

"I'm sorry she died," he said. "I'm sorry someone killed her. But I'm not that surprised."

THAT STINK OF INSINUATION and mystery-however cynical or uninterested you thought yourself it stuck to you. I saw Corwi look up and around at the shabby fronts of the warehouses when we left. Perhaps seeing a little long in the direction of a shop she must realise was in Ul Qoma. She felt watched. We both did, and we were right, and fidgety. and mystery-however cynical or uninterested you thought yourself it stuck to you. I saw Corwi look up and around at the shabby fronts of the warehouses when we left. Perhaps seeing a little long in the direction of a shop she must realise was in Ul Qoma. She felt watched. We both did, and we were right, and fidgety.

When we drove out, I took Corwi-a provocation I admit though not aimed at her but at the universe in some way-for lunch in Besel's little Ul Qomatown. It was south of the park. With the particular colours and script of its shop fronts, the shape of its facades, visitors to Besel who saw it would always think they were looking at Ul Qoma, and hurriedly and ostentatiously look away (as close as foreigners could generally get to unseeing). But with a more careful eye, experience, you note the sort of cramped kitsch to the buildings' designs, a squat self-parody. You can see the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs in the shade called Besel Blue, one of the colours illegal in Ul Qoma. These properties are local.

These few streets-mongrel names, Illitan nouns and a Bes suffix, YulSainStrasz, LiligiStrasz, and so on-were the centre of the cultural world for the small community of Ul Qoman expatriates living in Besel. They had come for various reasons-political persecution, economic self-betterment (and how the patriarchs who had gone through the considerable difficulties of emigrating for that reason must be rueing it now), whim, romance. Most of those aged forty and below are second and now third generation, speaking Illitan at home but Bes without an accent in the streets. There is maybe an Ul Qoman influence to their clothes. At various times local bullies and worse break their windows and beat them in the streets.

This is where pining Ul Qoman exiles come for their pastries, their sugar-fried peas, their incense. The scents of Besel Ul Qomatown are a confusion. The instinct is to unsmell them, to think of them as drift across the boundaries, as disrespectful as rain ("Rain and woodsmoke live in both cities," the proverb has it. In Ul Qoma they have the same saw, but one of the subjects is "fog." You may occasionally also hear it of other weather conditions, or even rubbish, sewage, and, spoken by the daring, pigeons or wolves). But those smells are in Besel.

Very occasionally a young Ul Qoman who does not know the area of their city that Ul Qomatown crosshatches will blunder up to ask directions of an ethnically Ul Qoman Besel-dweller, thinking them his or her compatriots. The mistake is quickly detected-there is nothing like being ostentatiously unseen to alarm-and Breach are normally merciful.

"Boss," Corwi said. We sat at a corner cafe, Con ul Cai, that I frequented. I had made a great show of greeting the proprietor by name, like doubtless many of his Bes clientele. Probably he despised me. "Why the f.u.c.k are we here?"

"Come on," I said. "Ul Qoman food. Come on. You know you want it." I offered her cinnamon lentils, thick sweet tea. She declined. "We're here," I said, "because I'm trying to soak up the atmosphere. I'm trying to get into the spirit of Ul Qoma. s.h.i.+t. You're smart, Corwi, I'm not telling you anything you don't know here. Help me with this." I counted off on my fingers. "She was here, this girl. This Fulana, Byela." I almost said Marya. "She was here-what?-three years ago. She was around dodgy local politicos, but she was looking for something else, which they couldn't help her with. Something even they they thought was dodgy. She leaves." I waited. "She was going to Ul Qoma." I swore, Corwi swore. thought was dodgy. She leaves." I waited. "She was going to Ul Qoma." I swore, Corwi swore.

"She's been researching stuff," I said. "She goes over."