The Architecture of Impossible Relations [revised vesion]

I found the building at the end of a road that did not appear on my map.

It stood beyond a low stone wall, its windows reflecting a sky I could not see from where I stood. There was no sign above the entrance, only a brass handle polished by many hands.

Inside, a woman sat behind a desk.

“Are you lost?” she asked.

“I don't think so.”

“Then you'll be all right.”

She returned to her papers, and I went through a door into a long corridor.

At the end of it, a staircase descended to a courtyard. A fountain stood in the middle, surrounded by four doorways. I chose the one opposite the entrance. It led to a passage, then another staircase, then a small room with a window overlooking the courtyard.

Through the window I could see the fountain below. I could also see the door through which I had entered the courtyard.

I went back.

The door opened onto the entrance hall.

I tried another route. It led through a gallery of portraits, down a flight of stairs, and into a garden enclosed by high walls. A narrow path crossed the garden to a gate. Beyond the gate lay the courtyard with the fountain.

I returned to the entrance hall and found the woman still at her desk.

“How many courtyards are there?” I asked.

She looked up. “How many have you seen?”

“One.”

“Then you have seen one.”

I began to explore more carefully.

Every corridor led somewhere. Every staircase went up or down. Every door opened onto a room, a passage, a courtyard, or a garden. I never found a locked door or a staircase that ended in a blank wall. Yet the routes refused to agree with one another.

A room I reached from the east appeared to lie west of the entrance when approached from the north. A window overlooking the garden opened, from the other side, onto a courtyard I had never seen. Once, after following a corridor straight ahead, I returned to the same room from behind.

I began to draw a map.

The first few lines were easy. I marked the entrance hall, the fountain courtyard, the gallery, and the garden. Then the lines crossed. I erased them and began again. The second map contradicted the first. The third seemed correct until I tried to follow it.

I spread the pages across the floor of a small room and studied them. Each showed a route I had actually travelled. None could accommodate all the others.

I went back to the woman.

“Is there a plan of the building?”

“Of course.”

She reached beneath the desk and produced a wooden model.

It showed a building of corridors, staircases, courtyards, and gardens. I recognised the fountain and the gallery. The model had an entrance hall, and beyond it a small room with a window.

I leaned closer.

Inside that room stood another model of the building.

I could see its tiny entrance hall, its tiny fountain, its tiny gallery. In the room where the second model stood, there was a third.

I looked up at the woman.

“Which one is this?”

She glanced at the model. “This one.”

“But the others—”

“Are also this one.”

I left the model on the desk.

For a while I continued exploring, trying to discover a route that would make the building intelligible. But the more I learned about one part, the less certain I became about how it belonged to the rest.

Eventually I stopped drawing maps.

I learnt instead to recognise the small things that made a place familiar: a crack in a stair, the smell of damp stone, a window through which the afternoon light fell across a particular patch of floor. I learnt which doors brought me back to the fountain, which passages led to the garden, which staircase returned me to the gallery.

I could find my way almost anywhere.

One morning I discovered a door I had not noticed before. It opened onto a narrow terrace overlooking the country beyond the walls. I saw fields, trees, and a road winding towards a distant hill. The road divided, joined again, and disappeared behind the hill. From where I stood, I could not tell which branch led where.

I went outside.

The air was cold. A tree grew beside the terrace, its branches dividing into smaller branches, each repeating the shape of the whole. Beyond it, the hedges traced the same pattern across the fields. The road curved around a copse and seemed to return to itself, though I could not be certain from that distance.

I stood there until the light began to fade.

Then I went back inside.

I knew the way to the entrance hall. I knew which corridor would take me there, and which turn to make before the gallery. I passed the fountain, crossed the courtyard, and reached the door without once consulting a map.

The woman was still at her desk.

“Leaving?” she asked.

“For now.”

She nodded.

Outside, the road ran between the fields towards the distant hill. I took it, carrying my maps folded in my pocket.

At the first fork, I stopped.

Then I chose a path and continued walking.