Read Online The City & the City by China Miéville - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: China Miéville
Ads: Link
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 , 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 lothere, for a start. Or make the wrong phone call we can put our brothers in shit, 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 anything, she was 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 , disputed zones, places that Besźel thinks are Ul Qoma’s and Ul Qoma Besźel’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 Besźel 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 spaces 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 documents on, you know, 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?”
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
“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 , 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 lothere, for a start. Or make the wrong phone call we can put our brothers in shit, 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 anything, she was 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 , disputed zones, places that Besźel thinks are Ul Qoma’s and Ul Qoma Besźel’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 Besźel 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 spaces 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 documents on, you know, 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?”
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
Similar Books
