The City & the City

The City & the City by China Miéville Page A

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Authors: China Miéville
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy
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trade fairs. Some favour pulled in. The fact that, as these foreign visitors showed, there were even small successes was even more remarkable for that.
    “Right,” she said. “Seriously, watch these guys when they come out—I swear that’s panic in their eyes. Have you seen those cars ferrying them around town, at tourist spots and crosshatchings and whatever? ‘Seeing the sights.’ Right. Those poor sods are trying to find ways out.” I pointed at a display: the plane had landed.
    “So you spoke to Mahalia’s supervisor?” I said. “I tried to call her a couple of times but can’t get through and they won’t give me her mobile.”
    “Not for very long,” Corwi said. “I got hold of her at the centre—there’s like a research centre that’s part of the dig in Ul Qoma. Professor Nancy, she’s one of the bigwigs, she has a whole bunch of students. Anyway I called her and verified that Mahalia was one of hers, that no one had seen her for a while, et cetera et cetera. I told her we had reason to believe dot dot dot. Sent over a picture. She was very shocked.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Sure. She was … kept going on about what a great student Mahalia was, how she couldn’t believe it, what had happened, so on. So you were in Berlin. Do you speak German then?”
    “I used to,” I said. “Kin bisschen.”
    “Why were you there?”
    “I was young. It was a conference. ‘Policing Split Cities.’ They had sessions on Budapest and Jerusalem and Berlin, and Besźel and Ul Qoma.”
    “Fuck!”
    “I know, I know. That’s what we said at the time. Totally missing the point.”
    “Split cities? I’m surprised the acad let you go.”
    “I know, I could almost feel my freebie evaporating in a gust of other people’s patriotism. My super said it wasn’t just a misunderstanding of our status it was an insult to Besźel . Not wrong, I suppose. But it was a subsidised trip abroad, was I going to say no? I had to persuade him. I did at least meet my first Ul Qomans, who’d obviously managed to overcome their own outrage, too. Met one in particular at the conference disco as I recall. We did our bit to ease international tensions over ‘99 Luftballons.’” Corwi snorted, but passengers began to come through and we composed our faces, so they would be respectfully set when the Gearys emerged.
    The immigration officer who escorted them saw us and nodded them gently over. They were recognisable from the photographs wehad been sent by our American counterparts, but I would have known them anyway. They had the expression I have seen only on bereaved parents: their faces looked clayish, lumpy with exhaustion and grief. They shuffled into the concourse as if they were fifteen or twenty years older than they were.
    “Mr. and Mrs. Geary?” I had been practicing my English.
    “Oh,” she said, the woman. She reached out her hand. “Oh yes, you are, you’re Mr. Corwi are you, is that—”
    “No, ma’am. I’m Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Besźel ECS.” I shook her hand, her husband’s hand. “This is constable Lizbyet Corwi. Mr. and Mrs. Geary, I, we, are very deeply sorry for your loss.”
    The two of them blinked like animals and nodded and opened their mouths but said nothing. Grief made them look stupid. It was cruel.
    “May I take you to your hotel?”
    “No, thank you, Inspector,” Mr. Geary said. I glanced at Corwi, but she was following what was said, more or less—her comprehension was good. “We’d like to … we’d like to do what it is we’re here for.” Mrs. Geary clutched and unclutched at her bag. “We’d like to see her.”
    “Of course. Please.” I led them to the vehicle.
    “Are we going to see Professor Nancy?” Mr. Geary asked as Corwi drove us. “And May’s friends?”
    “No, Mr. Geary,” I said. “We can’t do that, I’m afraid. They are not in Besźel. They’re in Ul Qoma.”
    “You know that, Michael, you know how it works here,” his wife said.
    “Yes yes,” he

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