Chapter 70
Quill
Atrianima
The Remsen
Carlos Rafael Rivera
Lara pulled me into her arms and hugged me so tight I couldn’t breathe, as if she were going to D.C. not for a week, but for a whole year.
It was Sunday morning, and she would be back next Sunday.
“Please take care of yourself.” She let go of me, smiled with teary eyes, and ran her hands over my upper arms. “I trust you not to let Streusel starve.”
For the first time in a long while, I managed to smile.
“As long as enough neighborhood cats stray over here.”
Lara’s smile vanished, and the color drained from her face.
Davian, two meters away, snorted with amusement, which made Lara look back and forth between us before she regained her composure and slapped my upper arm.
“Quill!”
She knew I didn’t like cats, and she knew my unrestrained sense of humor, which sometimes made me question myself and which only Thomas appreciated.
I watched as Lara hugged Davian too, and he looked like he didn’t want to let her go.
They hadn’t spoken much to each other this week, but when Lara smiled at him and said goodbye, I put aside my fear that something had happened between them.
Monica was waiting in her cream-colored Cadillac Seville at the side of the road, ready to drive Lara to Maplecrest, where the buses would take the first-year journalism students to D.C.
Lara waved to us, and it wasn’t until the car turned onto the next street and ultimately disappeared from view that I managed to uncross my arms and turn to Davian.
Fading Hours
Ahmet Kenan Bilgic, Turgut Mavuk
To my surprise, he was already rushing up the porch steps as if in a hurry and disappeared into the house, kindly leaving the door open.
I sighed.
A week alone with me in the same house.
He was afraid. And something told me I wouldn’t see him. Just as had been the case these past few days.
I had gone too far. And he was making me feel it, avoiding me. Rightly so.
How could I blame him? My behavior had been so pathetic.
After closing the front door behind me, I listened.
Davian had never been loud. He lived quietly, made hardly any sound. Yet I often listened longingly for signs of life from him, for anything from him that would let me know he wasn’t far away.
But there was nothing. No creaking, no sighing, no drawers opening and closing.
With a heavy feeling in my stomach, I walked into the kitchen and decided to do the dishes, tidy up a bit, to kill time, because he wouldn’t be able to hide from me forever.
As unpleasant as it might get and as much as the thought hurt, we had to talk. I owed him an apology.
After an hour, I started tidying up the living room and dining room as well, did the laundry, and eventually decided to cook something for us.
But I burned half the potatoes so badly that the pot was ready for the scrap heap and the kitchen became so thick with smoke that I had to let the dog out into the garden while I aired it out.
Why couldn’t I even manage something as simple as cooking?
Admittedly, it was overwhelming, pushing me to the limits of my clumsiness whenever I tried to cook a halfway decent meal for the three or four of us. I often told myself it was worth their smiles, but I knew they would never tell me how rancid my food tasted.
Dissatisfied, I stared at the plates with the half-crumbled potato remnants, the slightly charred chicken pieces, and the herb quark.
For this I’d nearly set the house on fire?
I tried to arrange it nicely and eventually forced myself upstairs, where I knocked gently on Davian’s study door.
No response.
After another knock, I carefully pushed the door open.
Davian wasn’t even here.
Was he asleep?
Fuck. I didn’t want to wake him up either.
I walked down the hallway toward his bedroom but stopped, puzzled, when I peered through the open door into the empty room.
He wasn’t in the bathroom either, so, with a growing sense of unease in my stomach, I headed back downstairs.
I hadn’t seen him leave the house…
The distant, muffled sound of a saw pierced the silence.
As I walked through the garden toward the wooden shed, my suspicion was confirmed. Davian seemed to be sawing something.
I tried to open the door, but pulled unsuccessfully at the handle.
What the…
Had he seriously barricaded himself in his workshop?
I knocked, called his name, but the saw was too loud.
Beside me sat Streusel, wagging his tail, tilting his head in every direction before he began scratching at the door with his paw.
Frustrated, I stared through the window, where Davian, completely focused and wearing ear protection, was sawing some wood.
Even when I waved, he didn’t seem to notice I was there.
He… wanted to be alone.
Gritting my teeth, I kicked a stone away, which Streusel immediately chased after, and decided to go back inside, where the food had gone cold in the meantime.
I had no appetite, would eat later.
Frustrated, I left Davian a note on the table.
I hope it's edible. I'm sorry. Let's talk. Please.
CCTV
Cho Young-Wuk
I had retreated upstairs to his study, because when he eventually came back into the house, he would sooner or later come to this room. And waiting for him in his bedroom was absolutely not an option.
Another two hours passed, during which I tried to get back to writing. But for the first time in as long as I could remember, my mind was blank.
I had started a spontaneous new book idea that had felt good two weeks ago, but for which I now lacked enthusiasm.
Sighing, I pushed the ten written pages aside, smudging parts of the ink in the process.
What was the point… This book wouldn’t have a future anyway.
With growing exhaustion and inner emptiness, I leaned back in Davian’s chair and let my gaze wander through his office.
As so often, my eyes lingered on the large floor-to-ceiling built-in cabinet, whose mysterious existence I had long since pushed to the back of my mind.
This time, however, my gaze settled on the small silver key stuck in the otherwise empty lock.
Davian must have left it there…
I stared at the key. Curiosity crept up on me from the shadows.
No, Quill. Pull yourself together.
I forced myself to look away, for I had already made enough missteps in too short a time. The last time I’d snooped around in someone’s private belongings, I’d nearly been stabbed and had shot someone.
With a queasy stomach, I reached for the fountain pen and stared at the sheet of paper. But after just a few minutes, during which my mind was unable to focus even remotely on writing, I looked back at the cabinet.
What other secrets are you keeping from me, Davian?
No matter what bizarre explanations my mind tried to surprise me with, I kept coming back to the same devastating thought.
A second gun. More bullets.
Driven by growing desperation, I pushed myself up, sending the chair sliding back.
Why would he have opened that cabinet?
More panic, more despair. And with every passing second, my hope faded further and further, until I couldn’t stand it any longer and rushed through the study, turned the key, and yanked open the cabinet doors like a woman possessed.
Someone Remarkable
Rupert Gregson-Williams
With my heart pounding, I scanned every inch of the cabinet’s contents.
Batteries of Ink.
Batteries of Ink.
Batteries of Ink.
Batteries of Ink.
My breath caught in my throat.
Batteries of Ink.
Batteries of Ink.
Confusion killed any worry I had.
Hundreds of… Atrianima copies.
“What the…”
Only when I carefully reached forward and ran my fingers over the spines of the hardcover editions – bound in midnight blue linen and adorned with silver lettering – did I try to convince myself that I wasn’t dreaming.
I should be relieved, but this…
What on earth did this mean?
My gaze fell on the small note lying on one of the middle shelves in front of the books.
The world needs your writing.
Why do you think anyone needs the chaos I bring to paper?
Because someone out there will resonate with what you write. Deeply.
I wanted to smile, but the shock hit me out of nowhere, faster than any other possible explanation for all of this could ever have.
Davian couldn’t…
He could.
Overwhelmed, I looked back at the books that filled the cabinet from top to bottom.
This collection alone was worth a fortune. And there was only one logical explanation for why Davian owned them all but had never sold them.
He hated these books.
He hated his books.
“I should never have published Batteries of Ink.”
Mexico City Invitational 1966
Carlos Rafael Rivera
I turned sharply.
Davian stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, his gaze empty, fixed on the books.
“A simple midlife crisis. That’s all it took for me to write this book.”
He pulled himself out of his trance, pushed off from the doorframe, and entered the room with both hands in his pants pockets, without taking his eyes off the books.
“I had a stable job, good money, a good relationship with Lara, Tony, Monica… Joseph.”
I swallowed, unable to move.
“If he’d found out I was writing, our relationship would have taken a hit. And there was nothing worse I feared back then. That I could ruin Lara’s and my life because of a stupid mistake.”
He stepped closer until he came to a stop beside me and stared into the closet.
“Lara convinced me to publish it anyway. Under a pseudonym. The fact that she accepted that part of me gave me the push I needed to do it.”
He smiled, but there was something painful in his eyes. Something vulnerable.
“And for a few months, I actually believed I could juggle two identities, two completely different lifestyles, at the same time.”
He shook his head, snorted softly, and looked down at the floor.
“Who could have guessed that so many people would turn an erotic novel into a bestseller?”
I tucked my lips in, unable to think straight.
Standing next to me was…
I swallowed again, feeling excitement well up deep inside me and, at the same time, turn everything I’d thought I knew upside down.
He looked back at the books.
“They wanted interviews on morning shows I couldn’t appear on, wanted to make a goddamn movie adaptation, eventually the second book…”
He broke off, his jaw visibly clenching.
Then he turned his head toward me, so that I lost myself in the desperate gleam of his eyes.
“I tried…” Hoarseness threatened to break his voice, and he parted his lips, raising his eyebrows ever so slightly, yet he struggled to find the fragile words that seemed to weigh heavily on his tongue. “But… you should have seen me, Quill.”
It was as if I could feel his despair right down to my bones.
“When I write as if the world were ending, I’m no longer myself.
I’m like a man possessed, while everything around me threatens to fall apart.
I forget the people who matter to me. I forget myself.
I lose myself in an obsession with what I’m creating, and I let myself be consumed by it so completely that I don’t even notice when it’s too late. ”
He couldn’t hold my gaze, looked back at… his books.
“Like an architect who builds a city and would be willing to go down with it.”
A tear escaped from his eye and rolled down his cheek.
“The first time, I lost my wife because of it. The second time… maybe almost my daughter?”
He looked at the shelf, at our note, fixing his eyes on it as if he needed it. And as if it were ruining him at the same time.
“I’m grateful I never found out.”
His voice faded into a hoarse whisper.
He said nothing more, closing his eyes in resignation.
Someone Remarkable
Rupert Gregson-Williams
“You…” Hesitantly, I listened to the pounding in my chest. “…are Atrianima.”
Davian opened his eyes and stared at the silver lettering in front of us.
“I am Atrianima.”
Suddenly, he grabbed the cabinet doors and slammed them shut.
“And I hate it with every fiber of my being.”
He lowered his head, braced himself against the cabinet, then pushed off, rushed past me to his desk, and there, for a second, let his gaze linger on what I had written.
“And do you know what's so pathetic about it?” He lifted his head, looked at me, and it was impossible to miss how close he was to tears. “It’s not because I’m ruining my life or losing people who mean something to me.
” With his lips pressed together, he looked away, grimaced, before forcing himself to look at me again.
“It’s because I can never be Atrianima again without killing Davian in the process. ”
The overwhelming sense of despair that threatened to consume me grew and grew, so that I could neither think clearly nor react to him.
He had given me his own book on that damn bridge. And I had annotated his own book for him.
Several times he had told me how much he hated that book, how little he would ever like it, even though he had owned two sought-after copies of it. Worn-out copies.
He was the author I had looked up to for years, the one I had desperately wanted to meet. My inspiration. A master of words that would haunt me forever…
“You”
He raised his finger and I forgot every thought as he pointed at me, with an intensity in his eyes that took my breath away.
“You remind me with every second you’re near me, with every word you say, every smile, every goddamn tear, every breath, and every single touch, no matter how small, of how intoxicating it is to be him.”
He shot around the desk, straight toward me, and I froze to the spot as he came to a halt in front of me, fists clenched.
“How goddamn beautiful it is to write.”
The desperation in his voice carried over into his eyes.
“I hate that you understand me, Quill. That you make me so addicted to something I can’t have.”
His voice sounded strained. As if he were cutting himself on every word. Just like I was.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed his hands twitching, as if he wanted to reach for mine. But the next moment, he stepped past me and strode to the door, where he paused again, hesitated, and eventually turned back to me.
“Now you know.”
He sounded exhausted. Done with his life.
“And I hope you understand now why I’ll be more than glad when this campus loses interest in my book and the newspapers and publishers eventually forget my name.”
He looked me straight in the eyes.
“There won’t be a new edition.” A shake of his head, but the determination in his eyes was clear. “And no second book either. Never.”
He turned around, strode into the hallway, and disappeared.
It took a moment for me to realize how loudly my heart was pounding, how my stomach was trembling with moths, and how storms were raging inside me that I would never be able to control.
I fell victim to them, let myself be overwhelmed, let the tears flow.
Dazed, I stepped up to the fireplace and sank down against the mantelpiece.
Davian was Atrianima. And Atrianima would be my downfall.
We long for
what we carry within ourselves.
For something we understand.
Something that understands us.
– Blue