ATDTDA (19): If you were a vector, mademoiselle, 536-540

[Paul Nightingale]

The final part of the section introduces, via "a small ivory-colored
rectangle ..." etc, "the name Pleiade Lafrisee, with an address in Paris"
(537). So named, she is; although an air of mystery attaches to her. Not
least, Kit is suspicious from her first appearance. He does, however, keep
his thoughts to himself (in the restaurant, "Whatever else this cupcake
might be up to ..." etc, 538); and this means he, in effect, maintains a
distance from Root and others. He meets Pleiade after leaving Root to "just
wander for a bit" (536); given that the text has just referred to Fleetwood
Vibe, the reader might recall Kit's visit to the Vibe mansion (or "cottage",
159). On that occasion he was left on his own and met Dittany in the stables
(162-163), before meeting the ghostly FV (163ff).

Within the narrative, Pleiade is inseparable from Root. His return on 538
signals success at gambling, so she offers to buy everyone dinner: "most of
the party" includes any number of other mathematicians in attendance,
including at the bottom of the page Barry Nebulay. When Kit and Pleiade
meet, she is "looking [him] directly in the face, right away ruling out all
sorts of introductory chitchat, with a gaze animal, timeless" (537). Her
first words refer to his "moment's independence from the rest of that ring
you came in here with", perhaps indicating that she has been watching
him/them for a while. Either way, she cancels his "moment's independence" by
leading him back to the crowd; and at dinner Dr V Ganesh Rao draws attention
to himself by managing to make himself disappear (539). In fact, characters
are only 'visible' in the text when named, eg Root, Barry, Ganesh: any
number of others ("those mathematics people", according to Pleiade, 537) are
present but invisible until the text exposes--ie names--them.

Barry thinks Ganesh's disappearance might be a trick, "looking under the
table for hidden compartments" (539): he refuses to admit of a reality such
as the one Ganesh has described (one the Zombinis might be familiar with, eg
511). Reappearing in the kitchen, Ganesh is taller and blond; he admits he
cannot reverse the trick, at which point one might be thinking of Kit's
ongoing transformation (if the mathematics 'performed' by Ganesh is a
commentary on Kit's personal trajectory, then kitchen = engine room).

Here, Kit decides that Pleiade, for whatever reason, is untrustworthy; like
Ganesh, perhaps, she occupies an alternative reality, one that only admits
of her partial exposure. Upon her appearance, she offered a business card as
evidence of her identity; other than that, nothing is known of her, of
course. Perhaps the fabulous success she enjoys at the gambling tables is
nothing to do with Root's system; rather, it allows her to ingratiate
herself with them. However, it is Root, rather than Kit, who makes sure that
she gets the check (540): at the outset, when she offered to buy them all
dinner, it involved the suspension of the Gentlemen's Code in favour of some
kind of egalitarian principle, "most of the party [taking] her up on her
offer" (538).