The great-uncle was a remarkable Animist. He could mend absolutely everything with his bare hands and the most unlikely objects yielded to him like puppy dogs.
“There has to be a mistake,” he said. “Although I’m an archivist, I’ve never heard of such an unnatural combination. The less Animists have to do with these particular strangers, the better they feel. Full stop.”
“But the marriage will still happen,” Ophelia muttered, resuming her washing-up.
“But what the devil’s got into your mother and you?” exclaimed the great-uncle, aghast. “Of all the arks, the Pole’s the one with the worst reputation. They have powers there that send you out of your mind! They’re not even a real family—they’re wild packs that tear each other apart. Are you aware of all that’s said about them?”
Ophelia broke another plate. Consumed by his outrage, the great-uncle didn’t realize the impact his words were having on her. It wouldn’t have been obvious in any case: Ophelia had been endowed with a moonlike face on which her feelings rarely surfaced. “No,” she simply replied, “I’m not aware of all that’s said and I’m not interested. I need serious documentation. So the only thing I’d like, if you don’t mind, is access to the archives.”
The great-uncle pieced together the second plate and placed it on the draining board. The room’s beams started cracking and creaking—the archivist’s black mood was spreading to the whole building. “I don’t recognize you anymore! You put up a terrible fuss about your cousins, and now that they’re shoving a barbarian into your bed, here you are, just resigned to it!”
Ophelia froze, sponge in one hand, cup in the other, and closed her eyes. Plunged into the darkness behind her eyelids, she looked deep within herself. Resigned? To be resigned you have to accept a situation, and to accept a situation you have to understand the whys and wherefores. Ophelia, however, had no clue. Just a few hours earlier, she didn’t even know that she was engaged. She felt as though she were heading towards an abyss, as though her life were no longer her own. When she dared to think of the future, it was just the endless unknown. Dumbfounded, incredulous, dizzy—she was all of these, like a patient who’s just been diagnosed with an incurable illness. But she wasn’t resigned.
“No, I certainly can’t conceive of such nonsense,” continued her great-uncle. “And then, what would he be coming over here to do, this stranger? All this, what’s in it for him? With all due respect, my dear, you’re not the most lucrative leaf on our family tree. What I mean is, it’s just a museum that you run, not a goldsmith’s!”
Ophelia dropped a cup. This clumsiness wasn’t about being recalcitrant or temperamental; it was pathological. Objects were forever slipping between her fingers. Her great-uncle was used to it—he mended everything in her wake. “I don’t think you’ve quite understood,” stated Ophelia, stiffly. “It’s not this man who’s coming to live on Anima, it’s me who’s got to follow him to the Pole.”
This time it was the great-uncle who broke the crockery he was busy putting away. He swore in his old dialect.
A clear light was now coming through the flat’s window. It cleansed the atmosphere like pure water and cast little glimmers on the bedstead, the stopper of a decanter, and the gramophone’s horn. Ophelia couldn’t understand what all that sun was doing there. It felt wrong in the middle of that particular conversation. And it made the snow of the Pole feel so distant, so unreal that she no longer really believed in it herself. She took off her glasses, gave them a polish with her apron, and put them back on her nose—as a reflex, as though doing that could help her see things more clearly. The lenses, which had lost any color when removed, soon regained their gray tint. These old spectacles were an extension of Ophelia; the color they took on matched her moods.
“I notice that Mom forgot to tell you the most important thing. It’s the Doyennes who betrothed me to this man. For now, they alone are privy to the details of the marriage contract.”
“The Doyennes?” gulped the great-uncle. His face, along with all its wrinkles, was contorted. He was finally understanding the scenario in which his great-niece found herself involved. “A diplomatic marriage,” he whispered, flatly. “Poor soul . . . ” He stuffed two fresh pinches of snuff into his nose and sneezed so hard he had to push his dentures back in place. “My poor child, if the Doyennes have got involved, there’s no longer any conceivable way out. But why?” he asked, making his moustache quiver. “Why you? Why over there?”
Ophelia washed her hands under the tap and rebuttoned her gloves. She had broken enough china for today. “It would seem that this man’s family made direct contact with the Doyennes to arrange the marriage. I have no idea what made them target me rather than someone else. I’d like to believe it was a misunderstanding, really.”
“And your mother?”
“Delighted,” muttered Ophelia, bitterly. “She’s been promised a good match for me, which is much more than she was hoping for.” In the shadow of her hair and her glasses, she set her lips. “It’s not in my power to reject this offer. I’ll follow my future husband wherever duty and honor oblige me to. But that’s as far as things will go,” she concluded, pulling at her gloves with determination. “This marriage isn’t about to be consummated.”
Looking upset, the great-uncle stared at her. “No, dear girl, no, forget that. Look at yourself. You’re the height of a stool and the weight of a bolster . . . However he makes you feel, I advise you never to set your will against that of your husband. You’ll end up with broken bones.”
Ophelia turned the handle of the gramophone to get the deck moving again and clumsily placed the needle on the record’s first groove. The little opera aria rang out once again from the horn. With arms behind her back, she looked at him with a vacant expression and said nothing more. This is what Ophelia was like: in situations where any young girl would have cried, moaned, shouted, implored, she usually just observed in silence. Her cousins liked to say that she was a bit simple.
“Listen,” muttered the great-uncle while scratching his ill-shaven neck, “let’s not overdramatize, either. I doubtless went over the top when telling you about this family earlier on. Who knows? Maybe you’ll like your guy?”
Ophelia looked closely at her great-uncle. The strong sunlight seemed to accentuate the features on his face and deepen each wrinkle. With a twinge of sorrow, she suddenly realized that this man, whom she had always thought to be solid as a rock and impervious to the passing of time, was today a tired old man. And she had just, unintentionally, aged him even more. She forced herself to smile. “What I need is some good documentation.”
The great-uncle’s eyes regained a little of their sparkle. “Put your coat back on, dear girl, we’re going down!”