The Mole

My father was a plain man. His wardrobe only contained the same sets of starched shirts and stiff suits he wore to “work”; his only distinguishing physical features were his dull storm-blue eyes, a rare trait that he did not pass to me, and a small, star-shaped birthmark just below his left eye.

He had such a plain, plain face that the men with dark green coats and caps would always ring him up in the middle of the night to give him his “jobs”. As a child, I listened at the top of the staircase, the sleeves of my nightgown wrapped around the banister, until he caught me one night.

He was not angry with me. He sat me on his lap in the armchair by the hearth and explained to me what his “job” was. “I shall be like a ‘mole’,” he said, “digging into the earth to uncover dark truths otherwise invisible to the light.”

But when I asked what these truths were, he merely brushed back my bangs to kiss my forehead before carrying me upstairs to bed.

***

“There’s a parcel for you, dear,” said my landlady as soon as I stepped into the door. By her tone, there was something conspiratorial about whatever it was I had received; puzzled, I tucked my hat under my arm, thanked her, and took the curious object in my hands.

It was a light, slim, thing, wrapped in thick brown paper, and I could tell from its shape and mass that it had to be a book. Working as a bookkeeper’s assistant had familiarized me to the weight of any given amount of paper.

“Have you any inkling of who sent this? I wasn’t expecting any gifts,” I said. A friend or a family member would surely have notified me first, and it was neither my birthday nor any other day of festivities.

“Not a clue,” she replied. “The postman said you ought to be careful with it, since it has great value.”

After bidding her good afternoon, I headed upstairs to uncover the mystery for myself.

***

It was a little leather notebook, dyed black and rather crudely hand-bound. There was no label or inscription on the cover, so I flipped it open. The pages seemed almost crusty, and as I was prying them apart, I glimpsed something between the inside of the back cover that subconsciously unsettled me. However, I was immediately distracted by a slip of paper falling out from between the front cover and the first page.

I snatched it out of the air before it reached the ground. It was a cheque of twenty thousand pounds, and it was addressed to my name. The sender was a hastily scribbled signature I had never seen in my life.

Twenty thousand pounds! I felt a rush of vertigo claiming my good senses, and I staggered to a chair at the dining room table to compose myself. If it were true, I would be rich, but I could think of no good reason why such a large fortune would be bestowed upon me. Had either of my parents died, God forbid, my inheritance would not amount to nearly as much.

I began reading the notebook, hoping to find the answers I sought.

***

To whom it may concern,

Should you have come into possession of this book, I would only hope that it is because I wish for you to have this information rather than it haven been stolen from me. Within this sheaf of papers are my memoirs, so to speak, although they are not as exciting as one may hope, considering my present career.

***

It was my father’s handwriting, with its interplay of neat loops and lazy scrawls. The book contained records of his experiences working as a double agent for certain questionable organizations, dating from years ago and growing more recent as I neared the end, and the latest entries were no more than a month ago.

***

Surprisingly, the operation is going rather well. The men here seem to be dedicated to upholding a pretense of camaraderie and vulgar comedy even in the most inappropriate of circumstances, and although it is distasteful to me, it is far easier to play along than the clandestine traditions and regulations that some other societies have.

My clients have promised me the full 40,000 pounds should I succeed, an added incentive for me to perform well on this assignment.

***

I allowed myself a small, warm smile. Of course he would give half his earnings to his only child and only keep the other half for him and his wife. I made a mental note to visit them on Saturday, feeling a tad remorseful for only thinking of it after they had helped me.

I fell into fantasies; did I really have to wait until Saturday if I could just quit my job? Even some lesser noblemen were less wealthy than I. Living expenses would never trouble me again, and I no longer had to worry about marrying well when considering my personal life. All I had to do was be careful and not make any foolish investments or have the money somehow taken away from me.

Exhausted from the tedious shelving I had been doing all day at work, I drifted from daydreams into true slumber. Perhaps I would buy a motor car or a nice house in the countryside. I had always wanted to pursue my calling as a poet, despite the age of the Romantics at its twilight, and this could be a rare opportunity…

***

I dreamt of a star-nosed mole, an animal I had only seen in an encyclopaedia, tunnelling through the ground in an attempt to excavate something. The opposite happened; strong hands dug it out of the dirt, and what waited was a wicked crescent blade framing the darkened sky and reflecting the distant pinpricks of light.

***

I woke up in the early hours of the morning. Cursing the inconstancy of my sleep cycle, I flicked to the passage I had been reading just before I fell asleep. A few lines near the bottom of the page caught my eye:

***

It appears that they have gotten ahold of two critical pieces of information: firstly, that there is a traitor among their midst, and the geographic location from whence he came… For the first time since I began my career, I can call myself a coward and a failure.

I cannot allow them to harm my family at any cost, even if it means terminating the operation. I would rather forfeit my business reputation than the duty to defend my own.

***

It would be an understatement to say that the implications were unsettling. I abandoned the notebook and dialed up my mother; the operator noticed the tremor in my voice, and I had to reassure her that I was all right. I waited with increased anxiety with every ring of the telephone, relieved that the noise at least drowned out the sounds of my own feet on the floorboards and the wind whispering through the bare trees into the crack in my window.

As I waited, I flipped to the next page, which was dated merely a day before I received the parcel. Naturally, it was the last entry, and it was quite short as well.

***

However, they have promised me that, should they successfully seize the guilty parties at H——— Dock during their next shipment, which should transpire within the week, they will send me back with half of the original payment. It is very kind of them to put my personal life into consideration, although it reflects poorly on my part. In light of their generosity, I shall strive to be professional as best I can.

***

The knot in my chest loosened. The military arrests at the port had been on the news yesterday; my employer had even discussed it with me in passing, and were the twenty thousand pounds not safe here with me?

My mother finally answered. “Good Lord, my child, whatever is the matter?” she asked, sounding as nervous as I was a few minutes prior. “You’ve never called me before dawn.”

“I received good news about Father, Mother,” I explained. “We’re rich now! Did you hear? Oh, of course I shall give half of this sum to you and him… I can only imagine he delivered it like this for the sake of convenience.”

“Indeed, I did. He wrote to me that he planned to visit you before returning home. He believes, and rightly so, that you currently need the money more than we do. Besides, he knows I have a weak heart, and he believes that you would be better equipped to hear his story firsthand.”

“Ah, perfect! We’ll have much to discuss for certain. Good night, Mother; sorry for worrying you like so, and I’ll call again when Father is here and you’re better rested.”

“Good night, my child,” she said, a smile in her voice.

I felt fatigue slowing my steps once more; however, as I set the book down on the table to properly prepare for bed, I glimpsed a line of letters chaotically scribbled on the last page directly opposite to the inside of the back cover.

I’m sorry child I must have picked up on their horrid morbid humour to write all this

On the inner hinge of the notebook, there was a blotchy, pale brown strip that the dye did not touch. My eyes slid over to it, inexplicably searching for what had disturbed me when I first opened the book, and saw a small, dark star in the middle of the strip.

Goodbye and hello