The Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford Page B

left the lamps burning, for now the evil night had shown me the face of its minions. Sometime near morning I woke in a cold sweat, filled to brimming with a nauseating anger born of jealousy. “So,” I said to my reflection in Arden’s mirror, “not only has Arla lied to me, but she has already cheated on me.” I spat out the word “impure.” By dawn, the only regret I had was that I had apologized to her.

10
    My miserable rooms at the Hotel de Skree were a veritable earthly paradise compared to the thought of what I would face at the church that morning. I would have preferred to wrestle a demon than go and meet Arla and pretend at cordiality, while all the time I knew that she knew I had, through the diseased magic of Anamasobia, been transformed into a fraud. “The slut could easily give me away in front of the whole rogue’s gallery,” I thought. Even if I were to make it through the day’s proceedings without trouble, I had given up hope of ever solving the case, which meant that whatever tribulation and torture I would escape in the territory would later be heaped a hundredfold upon me by the Master.
    Still, I got up, bathed, dressed as neatly as always, put my instruments in order, donned my coat, and went to work. It was lightly snowing by the time I left the hotel. Standing outside, dressed again in his absurd black hat, was the recurring nightmare of Mayor Bataldo, smiling as broadly as ever. After having run the scalpel over his testicles the day before, I now wondered what it would take to subdue his idiocy. For a moment, I pictured cutting it out of him, a large laughing black mass, like a comedic tumor on the brain.
    â€œYour honor,” he said, waving as though we were longtime friends who had not met in months.
    I had run out of imprecations and could do no more than nod tersely.
    â€œA splendid selection of our populace awaits your educated opinion,” he said, and took up walking next to me.
    Then it struck me that if I could not shoot him, I might make some use of him. “Why was I never informed that the Beaton girl had a child?” I asked.
    â€œAn excellent question,” he said, and stopped to look bemusedly at the falling snow. “I suppose I never thought it was important.”
    â€œHow is it she has a child and is not married?” I asked.
    â€œPlease, your honor,” he said with a laugh, “need I really explain to you, a man of science, how it happens?”
    â€œNo, you dolt. I mean, what was the situation?”
    â€œWell, I believe she was in love with one of the young miners, a fellow by the name of Canan, who, after creating the situation, as you so delicately put it, was done in by another situation, namely a cave-in,” he said.
    â€œThey were not married?” I asked.
    â€œYou have to understand something about Anamasobia,” he said. “The rules of refined society are sometimes bent a little here and there, living as we do in such proximity to the ungodly, as I explained to you a few nights ago. I’m sure they would have eventually taken the vows.”
    â€œI see,” I said. “Is the child male or female?”
    â€œMale,” he replied, and we continued on our way toward the church.
    â€œShe is a promiscuous young woman,” I said.
    â€œPromiscuous in her mind, making love to many ideas, and always has been very rebellious.”
    â€œHow can you allow such things to go on among your people?” I asked, stopping again.
    â€œIn the territory, such qualities are not always a detriment,” he said. “She is a fine person, though, sometimes too serious for me.”
    â€œAnd who might I find who would not be?” I said, ending the conversation.
    He laughed quietly all the way to the church.
    Arla awaited me at the altar. I greeted her with an emotionless hello and she returned the salutation in the same curt manner. I laid out the instruments, and we