The Ninth Berth – Tractate 6: The Kidogjfoy Papers

6/N

This is the sixth part of my serialized novella The Ninth Berth. Previously: Tractate 5.

Tractate 6: The Kidogjfoy Papers

04:58 – 05:44

I’d slept barely two hours. And no coffee in that godforsaken train.

I shifted on the thin mattress with heavy eyelids and a twitching shoulder when the train brakes howled. Just before we stopped, light flared from Kagami’s berth and lit up the room.

Seraphina was curled up under a blue blanket, still asleep. The contour of her lips quivered. She blinked and without effort opened her eyes. She looked at the ceiling, almost coy, then rose on her elbows and turned her reading light. She stretched and ran her fingers through her hair with grace.

I reached to the cord hanging from the window blinds and pulled them open. In the dark beyond the glass a faint glow bled from the other side of the train.

Shesh yawned as the speakers resonated:

Esteemed passengers, this is a short safety stop. The local time is five o’clock and the temperature 282 kelvin. Please immediately exit the facilities—do not remain seated. Your friendly crew will proceed to an inspection. We shall depart at half past five sharp. We wish you a pleasant pause and a smooth onward journey.

That stop wasn’t part of the schedule. Another delay.

Here we go again, Seraphina muttered.

Kagami wiped his face with a handkerchief and put his shoes on as if going to work. I grabbed my jacket and followed him out.

The cold got in my chest before I reached the door. We stepped out the carriage and onto a platform just three or four steps wide. Scattered lampposts threw sad cones of light over the concrete and passengers’ silhouettes. I ambled towards the locomotive. The only edifice stood at the end of the platform, a ramshackle wooden cabin with door and windows half their normal sizes. A sign hung on its shingled roof like a broken jaw: KIDOGJFOY.

Across the platform there was no other rail track but only a strip of derelict ground, mix of gravel and cracked concrete slabs. Next to a mound of detritus stood the rusted carcass of a car. Beyond, uncultivated plains stretched as far as I could see.

I strolled back towards our carriage and spotted Shesh in conference with passengers from other carriages, a young couple and a tall bald man. Shesh carried his suitcase with his hand and the other arm gestured towards the train’s facade and when he lifted it they all laughed.

Kagami and Seraphina were by our car. I walked to them and they saw me but didn’t stop their discussion. I heard her first:

What do you mean?

I cannot tell you, Kagami said, with a morose frown. But I cannot tell you not to worry.

She turned to me:

Miles, you don’t look all right.

I’m all right. Didn’t sleep much.

Hung out with Czerny?

Actually, yes. You don’t wanna know.

Jesus. You’ll tell me. Let’s walk, I’m freezing.

The three of us ambled away from the train and the platform. About ten meters farther, Kagami stopped and looked up at the star-filled sky. Seraphina looked up too. So did I.

Cloudless, starry sky. I know nothing of astronomy—I can barely spot the North Star—but starlight always enraptures me. You’re seeing the past, millions and billions years ago. The closest thing to time travel.

You see Taurus? Kagami said, raising a finger. Just left of Orion’s shoulder. That smudge is the Crab Nebula. The pulsar B0531+21 is inside.

A dead star, she said with authority. Nothing to see.

Yes. Nothing to see with our eyes. But it emits light in the form radio waves, X rays, gamma rays. It spins thirty times a second. Precise as an atomic clock 6500 light-years away.

He took a breath and added:

It was a star. It exploded into a supernova in 1054 AD. That is when we saw it on Earth. But it had been dead for 6500 years, long before the pyramids of Egypt.

Let that sink in, she said, looking down at her feet. What physics you said you do?

High-energy physics. I specialize in quantum field theory.

QFT? Feynman path integrals and all? Math sacrilege, if you want my honest opinion.

Kagami chuckled. Yes, pure mathematicians hate Feynman path integrals. Like they hate statistics.

Different hate. At least statisticians don’t integrate over an undefined infinite-dimensional domain.

That is fair. Maybe physics progressed because physicists don’t worry so much about mathematical rigor. Even imperfect mathematics help us understand the universe.

Cute. I’ve seen enough math to know that reality doesn’t owe us comprehensibility. And physics hasn’t progressed lately.

Kagami smiled faintly, not disagreeing. He paused, then added:

I am here for work because of the progress I made in physics. But I don’t know how I can help.

You’ll see soon enough, she said. You’re going to the collider?

Yes.

We kept walking away from the train and past the forlorn wasteland with the car skeleton I’d seen earlier. I glanced behind and at the cabin bearing the station’s name. A small shape scurried out of it carrying a cardboard box. Their stance was unusually peart, like an overexcited kid about to trip.

I checked my watch.

It’s already five twenty. Let’s not miss the train.

Would be a pity, she said.

Kagami checked his phone, intrigued.

My phone says five twelve. It’s always on time.

We turned to Seraphina.

I don’t have a watch. I’m never on time.

Whatever, I said. We’ll see when people get in.

We resumed our walk. Kagami had moved ahead and stood by the ditch between us and the grassy field where no tree or habitation was visible.

That’s when I saw it. She saw it too. She grabbed my arm and hissed. What is this?

A male deer with wide antlers stood five meters from us. It appeared as if it crept out from the dark, its spotless sleek dark brown fur and bright eyes staring at us.

Don’t worry, I said. It won’t attack humans, it’s a herbivore.

Not sure he remembers that, she said, as the stag took a step in our direction.

She released my arm and stepped back. Kagami was farther than us and was recording a video with his phone.

Let’s just walk back to the train, I said. Czerny won’t let it in.

I checked my watch again. The mechanical hands now showed 5:17.

What time do you have? I asked Kagami.

Five seventeen, he said.

I must have misread before, I thought. Sleep deprivation.

We turned back. The stag paced and shook its head as if to shoo away flies and galloped towards the tracks and along the train. The last travelers rushed inside. It roared at the locomotive, kept on for the cabin, and without a halt struck the door with its hooves and hit the KIDOGJFOY sign with his antlers, the letters falling to the ground. Furious kicks demolished the windows in a bang of shattered glass.

Kagami trotted towards car number 3, still recording. Seraphina and I had slowed down to observe the rampage. When the stag saw us it turned away from the cabin and in our direction. I took her hand and we ran to the car and I pushed her in and closed the door behind me.

Czerny was waiting in the small entrance hall. He looked amused:

Summoning the evil spirits? Entropy can’t decrease, it’s the law. Watcha gonna do? The Maxwell demon won’t save you, Paul. Please reenter your premises, telegrams await. And we’re late!

Shesh and Kagami were in the compartment, each holding an A4 brown paper envelope.

We were waiting for you, my friends, he said.

What’s that? I asked.

Two other envelopes were on my bed and Seraphina’s.

Shesh’s envelope had ‘Menachem S.’ handwritten in black ink. Kagami’s bore Japanese characters and mine was ‘M. W. Marston (Paul).’ I didn’t see what was on hers.

Could just be a prank from that guy, I said.

This feels wrong, she said, squinting at the paper.

Kagami unsealed his envelope and pulled out a printed photo. He held it in two hands and opened his mouth in disbelief. He showed us the photo. Younger Kagami with a woman and a young girl.

It’s my daughter and my wife, before she passed. His voice was steady, like he couldn’t afford a tremble.

Shesh put a hand on his shoulder.

You looked happy... Your daughter must be a grown up now. What’s her name?

Yaeko is nineteen now. She lives with me, she’s a student. But why is this photo here?

Mystery... Shesh said, unstartled.

Was the photo in your luggage? I asked.

No, Kagami said. I have never seen it. Or I do not remember.

The photo didn’t leave his hands and he studied it with reverence and without sadness, then he closed his eyes for a couple of seconds.

Seraphina held her envelope. My turn, I guess, she said.

She tore the brown paper open and took out a letter. Her eyes scanned it once. Then again, slower. Her lips compressed. Tears slipped down her cheek and darkened the cotton of her white shirt.

Bad news? I said, as tactfully as I could.

It’s my brother’s handwriting, she whispered. I thought he was dead.

She scanned the letter again and slid her fingers over the lines as in reading Braille. Nobody spoke. She slowly folded the letter in two and placed it in her topology book and kept the book on her lap.

She glanced at me and my envelope. I opened it, not without apprehension. I unfolded a white sheet of paper. It was empty. No text, no ink.

Well, nothing for me, I said.

Nothing else inside? she said. The corner of her eyes still glistened.

I ran a finger inside the envelope. Nothing else.

Rabbi, your turn, I said.

Shesh shook his envelope beside his ear like a child guessing a toy, squinting as if to eavesdrop secret words inside.

That’s not a letter, he said.

He clamped the envelope under his left arm while his right hand tore it open. He lifted the unopened side with three fingers and gave a little shake.

A copper key dropped onto the bedsheet.