Pascale Auber & the Ruritanian Riddle

XVII The WPA - 1

Most weeks, the WPA meet at a coffee house. It is in the district where the river is canalized a bit below street level and lined with plane trees. This particular coffee house has a street-level dining room open to one side of the building, and below it a basement that opens via two pairs of leather-bound double doors to the river on the other side. The basement was intended as a storeroom, but it is dry, large, and airy. The WPA gets the let of it for free, on the condition that all attendees of the meeting purchase a beverage.

At this particular meeting, I had tucked my rather large bag under a tall chair and perched precariously atop it, a cup of chocolate chaud balanced on my knee. The rather-large-bag contained a change of clothing, that is to say, an evening gown for my dinner at Delmonte's. I was, for the time being, dressed simply, in a brown plaid walking suit and a flat, straw hat.

My mind, of course, was not on my clothes. It was on the two men debating at the front of the room. The one on the left, bareheaded and in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, was Comrade Gabriel Dantès. If anyone could be said to lead this group that I had infiltrated, Dantes was the man. He was young, dark-haired, and handsome. He also held a chemistry degree from the university of Mervo - a chemistry degree with a specialty in explosives.

The man on the other side of the heavy wooden table was a newcomer to the group, angry behind his reddish-blond beard. "These people do not care about us! Any of us! They will work us until we die; what does it matter if a few of them die, if it buys us our freedom?"

Dantès glared at the man. "The only way to guarantee a fair wage is through collective action," he said, arms wide, palms up, "Peaceful collective action. Not violence."

It occurred to me that, at least sometimes, I rather liked Gabriel Dantès. However, I then recalled that he alone of the people in the room had the expertise to actually build the bombs that had gone off in various parts of the capital. I sipped my hot chocolate.

"You're a fool," the bearded man retorted. "A naive fool."

A woman seated beside me murmured, "He isn't wrong."

I turned to face her. "You think we ought to be out rioting in the streets?"

"Rioting? I would like to see more than that," she said.

I was about to speak further when there was a terrible crash from the front of the room.

The bearded man had flipped the table.