Mysterium

Still, she allowed herself a small heretical prayer. Deliver me from this lonely sameness, she thought. And this damned rain!

But the gods, her mother would have reminded her, are capricious. Li

She shook her raincoat off in the chipped tile lobby of her walk-up building, carried it dripping upstairs past two landings decorated with circular framed mirrors, the bane of her life, always giving back reflections at the least flattering hours: dawn or dusk. Her hair was wet despite the rain cap and she looked small in the glare of the incandescent lamps. Small nose, small round face, compressed pale lips reluctant to offer a smile. When she first moved in, she had always smiled at herself in these mirrors. She no longer bothered. “Wet mouse,” she whispered. “Li

Her wardrobe was conventionally black, a black blouse and black floorsweeper, buttonhooks tarnished with wear; underneath she wore a modest bustle and corset that contorted her into the shape of, she supposed, an acceptable female don, though there were not many guiding examples.

Li

She walked down the hallway to her door, which was ajar.

She stopped and looked at it.

Had she left it open? Impossible. She was compulsive about locking her door. There had been robberies in the neighborhood.

Perhaps she had been robbed. The thought of it made her sick with apprehension. She pushed on the door and it glided open. There was a light on inside. She was suddenly aware of the sound of her breathing and the rattle of rain on the frame of this old building. She stepped through the tiny entranceway, past the coat closet and into the sitting room.

There was a man inside. He sat calmly in her large chair with one long leg cocked over the other. He seemed to expect her.

He wore the brown uniform of a senior Proctor. He was a middle-aged man, but trim. His hair was thick and black; his eyes were pale and patient. He smiled at her.

Li

He said, “Come in, Miss Stone. Though you hardly need an invitation into your own home. I know this is unexpected. I apologize.”

She didn’t want to come in. She wanted to bolt. She wanted to run back out into the rainy dark. But she drew a ragged breath and put her raincoat in the closet and stepped into the light of her floor lamp, a sculptured wooden electric lamp which was the nicest of her meager furnishings, but which she hated now, because this man had touched it.

“Don’t be afraid,” the Proctor said. She almost laughed.

He said, “You are Li

“Yes.”

“Then sit down. I haven’t come to arrest you.”

She sat on the edge of her reading chair, as far from the Proctor as possible. Her racing heart had begun to recover its pace, but her body was on full alert. She felt keenly attentive. The room seemed terribly bright, wholly electric.

“My name is Demarch.” She looked at his pips. He added, “Lieutenant,” pronouncing it the European way, as Proctors did. “Please relax, Miss Stone. I’m here for a consultation. Your department head said you were the person to speak to.”

So the Bureau had already talked to faculty. This was serious. Demarch wasn’t here to arrest her, he claimed, but who could believe a Proctor?

She remembered the last time the Proctors had come to her door. Her mother had answered. Li

And there were other stories, always new stories, the knock at the door, the disappeared colleague. Academics had been under scrutiny ever since the Alien and Sedition laws were enacted. With her family background, she could hardly be an exception.

Demarch hadn’t paid her the courtesy of knocking. He could have come to see her at her office if it was a consultation he wanted. But she supposed a Proctor wouldn’t do that. They were too accustomed to intimidation. It was their way of life, so familiar as to be invisible.

She said, “Is this about my book?”

“Pagan Cults of Middle America?”

“Meso,” she said. “Meso-America. Not ‘middle.’ ”

The Proctor smiled again. “You’ve spent too much time proofreading. Meso-America. I’ve read the manuscript. Your publishers have been cooperative. It’s a fine scholarly work, insofar as I can judge. The Ideological Branch gave it careful attention, of course. Disseminating falsehoods anti-religio is still a felony. But we do try to be reasonable. Science is science. You don’t strike me as a subversive.”

“Thank you. Comparative ethnology isn’t advocative. There have been court cases—”

“I know. This isn’t about your book, in any case, though the book is what qualifies you. We want you to do some work for the Bureau de la Convenance Religieuse.”

“I have my own work.”

“Nothing that can’t wait. We’ve arranged a sabbatical—if you choose to take it.”

“My book—”

“You must be nearly finished with the proofs.”

She didn’t deny it. Demarch would know all this. There was a saying: God sees the sparrow fall. The Bureau takes notes.

He said, “We’ll need you for six months—possibly as much as a year.”

She was aghast. It was too big an idea to swallow: the Bureau wanted her to work for them, to go away for six months, interrupt her life, such as it was… “For what?”

“To practice the science of ethnology,” Demarch said. “The thing you’re good at.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It isn’t simple to explain.”

“I’m not sure I want an explanation. You said I had a choice? I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“I understand. I sympathize, Miss Stone, believe it or not. If it were up to me, I would leave it at that. But I don’t think the Bureau as a whole would be happy with your decision.”

“But if I have a choice—”

“You do. So do my superiors. They have the choice of putting in a word with your publishers, say, or talking to the chancellor about your academic qualifications in light of your family history.” He saw her expression and held up his hands. “I won’t say any of this is inevitable. Only that you run a risk if you refuse to cooperate.”

She didn’t answer, couldn’t find words to answer.

He added, “We’re not talking about manual labor on some penal farm. This is the work you’re trained to do, after all, and only six months out of a long career. It’s much less than some people have been asked to give up for their country.”

Please, Li

She said, “What would the Bureau want with an ethnologist?” A woman, at that, she did not add. It seemed out of character.

“Basically, we want you to write an analysis of a foreign village—its mores and taboos, something of its history.”

“In six months?”

“A sketch, not a thesis.”

“Isn’t that the kind of thing you can look up in a book?”

“Not in this case, no.”

“I would be working from the field?”

“Yes.”

“Where?” It was something to do with the war, she guessed. New Spain, almost certainly.

Demarch said, “You agree to cooperate?”

“Rather than losing tenure? Facing a felony charge or some secret trial?”