CHAPTER FIVE The Difference Between Two Identical Rooms

The Eleanor behind the desk was reading a newspaper.

She wore the same dark coat as the woman beside me. Her hair was arranged in the same way, and the small silver clasp at her throat caught the light whenever she turned a page. Even the leather suitcase beside her chair was identical.

I looked from one to the other.

Neither seemed particularly surprised.

“Good morning,” said the woman behind the desk.

“Good morning,” replied the woman beside me.

They spoke simultaneously.

Then the woman behind the desk lowered her newspaper.

“You've brought him back rather sooner than I expected.”

“He was beginning to remember,” said the other Eleanor.

“Was he?”

“A little.”

The woman behind the desk looked at me.

“Do you remember me?”

“No.”

“Then we have some time.”

She returned to her newspaper.

I stood in the doorway, waiting for one of them to explain. Neither did.

“Which one of you is Eleanor?” I asked.

They looked at each other.

“I am,” they said together.

I had the uncomfortable feeling that I had asked a question whose answer was obvious to everyone except me.

The Eleanor beside me picked up her suitcase.

“Come along.”

“Where?”

“To the other room.”

“What other room?”

She pointed towards the eastern gallery.

I glanced at the woman behind the desk. She had begun reading again, apparently uninterested in our departure.

“Will she still be here when we come back?” I asked.

Eleanor considered this.

“Of course.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because she always is.”

I followed her into the gallery.

We passed the clocks, the miniature stations, and the door to the library. At the far end, where I remembered the entrance corridor, there was another desk. Behind it sat another woman, reading another newspaper.

I stopped.

She looked up.

“Good morning,” she said.

I looked back at Eleanor.

She appeared entirely unsurprised.

“How many of you are there?” I asked.

“That's not a useful question.”

“Why not?”

“Because you haven't decided what counts as one.”

She opened a door beside the desk. Beyond it was a room containing a table, a lamp, and a set of bookshelves. The room was smaller than the library I had visited before, but its arrangement was identical. A green-shaded lamp stood at the centre of the table. The shelves contained rows of grey-bound catalogues.

On the table lay a photograph.

I approached it.

The photograph showed a room with a table, a lamp, and bookshelves. On the table lay a photograph of a room with a table, a lamp, and bookshelves. In that photograph, on the table, lay another photograph.

The images diminished into the distance, each one containing the same room, until the final details dissolved into a grainy blur.

“Is this the library?” I asked.

“It's a photograph of the library.”

“Which library?”

Eleanor sat down.

“The one in which the photograph was taken.”

I looked again at the picture.

“But the photograph contains the room in which it was taken.”

“Yes.”

“And the room contains the photograph.”

“Yes.”

“Which came first?”

She folded her hands.

“Does the question make sense?”

I was beginning to dislike that question.

I picked up the photograph and turned it over. On the back, someone had written a short instruction:

Look for the difference.

I examined the image again. The rooms appeared identical. The lamp stood at the same angle; the books were arranged in the same order; the chair was tucked beneath the table. Even the small crack in the plaster above the door appeared in every image.

Then I noticed that the chair in the innermost room was empty.

I looked at the chair in the room around me.

It was empty too.

But in the next room, visible through the open doorway, a woman sat reading a newspaper.

I turned back to the photograph.

The innermost room was too small to show a newspaper, yet I could make out a dark rectangle on the table. It might have been a book. It might have been a folded sheet of paper.

I could not be sure.

“Have you found it?” Eleanor asked.

“Found what?”

“The difference.”

“I think so.”

She held out her hand for the photograph. I gave it to her.

“Good,” she said. “Now you can begin to look.”

“Look for what?”

She put the photograph on the table.

“For the difference that makes the difference.”

I was about to protest that she had told me nothing at all when I noticed the catalogues on the shelves. They were all bound in the same grey cloth, and each bore the same title: Catalogue of the Station and Its Dependencies.

I took one down.

It was much thinner than the volume I had seen earlier. Its index contained only a handful of entries. The last one read:

Library. See Catalogue.

I opened the book at the page indicated.

The entry for the catalogue referred me to the library. The entry for the library referred me to the catalogue. The two references formed a closed circle.

I took another volume from the shelf.

Its index was identical.

So was the third.

I examined the remaining books. Each contained the same entries, in the same order, printed on the same pages. Yet their page counts differed. One ended at page twenty-four, another at page thirty-six, and a third at page forty-eight.

I opened the last one.

On its final page was a small diagram showing a square containing four smaller squares. Each of those contained four still smaller squares. The pattern continued until the squares were no longer distinguishable.

Beneath the diagram was a sentence:

The catalogue is complete at every level.

I turned to Eleanor.

“What does that mean?”

She looked at the diagram.

“It means that you can always find what you're looking for.”

“Then why can't I find Platform 0?”

“Because you keep looking for it in the wrong place.”

“Where should I look?”

She pointed to the photograph.

I stared at it, then at the diagram, then at the catalogue in my hands.

For the first time, I began to suspect that the building was not a collection of rooms connected by corridors. Perhaps the rooms were related in some other way, one that did not depend on their physical positions. A room could contain another room without being larger than it. A catalogue could refer to itself without being the same thing as itself. A place could be both the destination of a journey and the starting point of another.

The thought was intriguing, but it did not help me find the platform.

I returned the catalogue to the shelf.

“Can you take me there?” I asked.

Eleanor stood up.

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because you haven't noticed the difference.”

“I have noticed several differences.”

“Yes,” she said. “But you haven't noticed the one that matters.”

She walked to the door and opened it.

Beyond it was the main gallery of the museum. The glass cases stood in their familiar rows. At the far end, the woman behind the desk was reading her newspaper.

But the gallery was empty.

I turned back to Eleanor.

“Where have all the exhibits gone?”

She looked around the room.

“What exhibits?”

I stepped into the gallery. The glass cases were still there, but they were empty. The clocks had disappeared. The railway uniforms were gone. The miniature stations were nowhere to be seen.

I approached the nearest case.

A small label remained at its centre.

RAILWAY STATION.

Beneath it, in smaller letters, was a date.

Tomorrow's date.

I looked at the next case.

Its label read:

MUSEUM.

The next:

LIBRARY.

And the next:

CATALOGUE.

At the far end of the gallery, a final case contained a label with no words at all. I leaned closer. Beneath the glass lay a small, folded piece of paper.

I opened the case.

The paper was a railway ticket.

It bore my name, my destination, and the time of departure: 10:42.

On the reverse was a single sentence.

Valid for return journey only.

I heard Eleanor close the door behind me.

When I turned, she was gone.

The museum entrance stood open. Beyond it, the station concourse was crowded with people. The departure board displayed a list of destinations, each with its own platform number.

I walked towards it.

My train was due to depart in three minutes.

Platform Seven.

For the first time that morning, I knew exactly where I had to go.

I crossed the concourse, passed through the ticket barriers, and descended the stairs to the platform. A train was waiting. The doors were open, and passengers were boarding.

I found an empty seat beside the window.

As the train began to move, I looked back at the station.

For a moment I saw the museum entrance, and beyond it the library. At the far end of the library stood a small table with a green-shaded lamp.

Someone was sitting at the table, reading a book.

I could not make out the person's face.

Then the train passed into a tunnel, and the station disappeared.

I settled back in my seat.

I had escaped.

At least, that was what I thought until I noticed the catalogue lying on the seat opposite me.

It was bound in grey cloth.

On its cover, in faded lettering, were the words Catalogue of the Station and Its Dependencies.

I opened it.

The first entry in the index read:

Railway Station. See Museum.

I turned the page.

Museum. See Library.

I turned again.

Library. See Catalogue.

The final entry read:

Catalogue. See Railway Station.

I closed the book and looked out of the window.

The train was slowing.

Outside, beneath a station sign, stood a woman holding a small leather suitcase.

She raised her hand as the train approached.

I recognised her.

But I could not remember which Eleanor she was.