6. Sam A Fiffle
Sam: A Fiffle
—Edgar Meers, Introduction to Appraisal
I’ve always been a meddler. Perhaps it’s wise, when witnessing mischief, to turn the other way.
I’ve seen others do it often enough. But I cannot; something goads me on, making it impossible to look away.
I remember once when I was quite small, perhaps only six or so, and I saw one boy trick another into doing his dirty work.
They needed to visit the tanner, whose dog was ferocious.
The older boy held up two sticks in his fists and instructed his friend to choose.
The boy who chose the shorter stick would brave the tanner and his dog.
I watched the younger boy frowning with concentration. One stick in each fist. One was clearly longer than the other. His hand wavered over the longer stick as he tried to make up his mind.
I couldn’t help myself. “He’s broken the long stick in the middle,” I shouted, from my spot under a nearby tree. They knew that I was there, but they’d ignored me until then.
The older boy turned to glare at me. First he was furious, and then he was gleeful.
He launched himself upon me to exact his vengeance.
After being repeatedly pummeled, I was compelled to walk home with my clothes full of dirt.
Yes, full of dirt. He had taken the trouble of pouring dirt into my pockets.
My father saw me coming, and he put down his work to observe me as I approached. “Well, Sam.”
I didn’t reply but only looked down at my ruined clothes.
“Even the pigs don’t roll as thoroughly in the dirt,” he said, smiling.
I looked at him hopefully. “Can you help me wash the clothes before Mamá sees?”
He leaned in and whispered, “I don’t think we’ll be able to deceive her.” He sat back. “What happened? Were you meddling again?”
“I suppose I was.” I told him what had happened.
My father laughed as if I’d told him a very good joke, and unexpectedly I felt my spirits rise.
“It’s not a bad quality, Sam,” my father said, when he had stopped laughing.
“I love your meddling, for it comes from wanting to set wrongs to right. But you must be prepared to pay the price,” he said, looking at me gravely.
“For there will almost always be a price.”
He was right, of course, as my father usually was, but now, so many years later, I’d already made the choices and paid several times over. I imagined, quite erroneously, that now there could be no further costs. What could be the harm of meddling when I was relegated to the spirit realm?
I continued to watch Clem Quinn, for the incident in Pebbles boded ill.
He resumed his air of imperturbable cheeriness as he skimmed along the pathways, winding his way out of the green toward one of the lower quadrangles that contained the student dormitories.
Quinn’s accommodations lay in Langford Hall, otherwise known as the “Brig”: a massive and nondescript brick block that had, some years earlier, been the target of a student prank resulting in an unusual rooftop decoration—a modest-sized sailing vessel, the Peony, with two tall masts and fluttering white sails.
Now the erstwhile annoyance had become a point of pride, and no one would hear of it being removed.
Taking the steps quickly, Quinn climbed to the fourth floor, unlocked his rooms, and entered his apartment. He locked the door behind him.
The rooms were immaculate and contained very few belongings.
Quinn had only one pair of shoes. In the rickety wardrobe, there was an autumn cape, an extra set of trousers, and two shirts along with smallclothes, all of them exactingly ironed.
The narrow bed looked almost pained by the severity of the tucked corners.
A large canvas carry-all, containing something bulky, hung on a hook behind the door.
Quinn had a stack of writing paper on the desk, a composition notebook, a collection of books, and a small, very dainty jewelry box made of rosewood.
What Quinn did next perplexed me. He put his hat on the shelf inside the wardrobe and his spectacles in his coat pocket.
He opened the carry-all, withdrawing a very strange, heavy-looking helmet.
He put it on. The skull of the helmet was solid, smooth, and slightly pointed, covering the ears and forehead.
Below this, chain mail draped across his face and neck, leaving only small slits for his eyes.
Then, nonsensically, he sat down at his desk.
He opened one of the books, Introduction to Appraisal, and began reading. He took notes on a piece of paper next to the book.
What kind of man wears a helmet to read a textbook?
There are only two reasons to wear armor.
The first is to enter the spirit realm, where armor is a matter of survival.
The second is to decorate one’s person in public settings, where armor is a matter of vanity.
Quinn was in neither place, and I could not fathom his purpose.
I looked more closely at his text. Introduction to Appraisal, I knew from experience, is long on mathematical minutiae and short on entertainment.
The computational methods used for basic enchantment are doubtlessly essential, but I’ve yet to meet the man who enjoys calculating dead worth to the third decimal place and estimating proportional probabilities.
Necessary but mind-numbing. At the moment, Quinn was reading about the “scale” method, which posits that every act of enchantment can be imagined as a set of scales with the relic of the dead on one side and the intended enchantment on the other; the enchantment occurs when the scales are balanced.
It is the favored method at Commonwealth, and it is as basic as algebra.
I still could not fathom why he would wear a helmet to study the scale method. But that is exactly what he did for another three hours.
Finally I lost my patience and wandered. My attention drifted to other parts of the campus, and I passed some time in my more customary pursuits, following the perambulations of certain faculty and students who required very careful observation.
But I didn’t entirely lose sight of Quinn, and as the Friday afternoon yielded to early evening, I returned to the Brig to see whether he had, at long last, removed the helmet.
Before making it to the fourth floor, I discovered that preparations were underway on the second floor for what promised to be a boisterous social gathering.
Officially, young ladies are not permitted on campus (as visitors—they are entirely welcome as cooks and cleaners).
Nonetheless, every weekend, little gatherings spring up all over the dormitories like mushrooms, and wherever they appear, the young ladies appear, like fairies alighting, full of their own enchantments and their own lively sense of mischief.
Already the second-floor party looked unsavory, to my eye.
In terms of its arrangements, the gathering could not have been more different from the splendor of the Cisneros Society party.
The tiny rooms did not easily accommodate crowds; the students had moved most of the furniture into the hallway, making an awkward tower held together by tenuous enchantment.
Inside, a gaggle of young men had gathered around the desk, where the occupant of the rooms had arranged tumblers of rum and beer. Some things never change.
On the fourth floor, Quinn continued his reading with unbending tenacity.
A high-pitched laugh skittered up the stairs, trailing off into silence.
Quinn raised his head at the sound. A moment later, there was a knock on the door.
“Just a moment,” Quinn called. He removed the helmet, stowed it quickly in the wardrobe, and examined his reflection in the mirror that hung inside the door.
To me, he looked damp and rumpled, but he seemed satisfied with his appearance.
He opened the door and found two young men on the landing.
They had the same slim waist, pallid brow, and perfect teeth.
The same strong neck and costly clothes.
One wore a pair of greaves, and the other wore a vambrace etched with ornate swirls.
As fashions shift direction, so does the herd.
Only trendsetters, like Simeon, and those rare few impervious to vanity, like Barney the boiled ham, manage to set themselves apart in any particular.
The two at Quinn’s door were as common as could be, tall and smooth and dapper, differing only in their expressions: one looked more curious than sly; the other looked more sly than curious.
“Are you Quinn?” the curious one asked. He peered over Quinn’s shoulder into the room.
Quinn smiled affably. “That’s me.”
The sly gentleman smiled back. “We’re having a fiffle on the second floor if you’d like to join.”
“A fiffle!” Quinn appeared charmed. “What’s a fiffle?”
“Some festivities, fun, and friends.” The sly man winked broadly.
“Oh.” Quinn’s face filled with regret. “That’s very kind. I’d love to. It’s just…well, I have a great deal of work.”
This was surprising to the dapper gentlemen, and then the eyes of the curious man lit up with understanding. “Oh, I get it. You’ve already got a friend there with you tonight, is that it?”
Quinn blinked. “In a manner of speaking,” he said doubtfully. I am sure he paid the textbook an unprecedented compliment.
“Well, then!” the sly young man chuckled, reaching out to pat him encouragingly on the shoulder. “Not quite so friendly yet?” He gave Quinn a knowing smile. “Come down when you’re done, eh?”