Rank
Victor had insisted upon printing instead of publication. The distribution seemed to mean nothing to him. Instead he kept repeating the phrase:
“Seven copies for seven men.” Urgent, and resolute.
It wasn’t fiscally responsible to take the request. No one printed less than fifty volumes with our new machines, and as a publisher myself, it was kind of me to meet with him about this at all.
But Victor promised to pay handsomely for the time and labor, and he had additional special requests.
He wanted it done on vellum instead of paper, with Sumi ink instead of India ink.
Wood and leather as well, instead of pulp-and-cloth covers. For maximum longevity.
“Vellum?” I’d exclaimed at the time. “How long does it need to last, a thousand years?”
Then I laughed and he did not. His gaze flicked to the floor, as if he were processing the pain of rejection before facing me again with a soft “Please, if it would be possible, I would like vellum.”
My heart swelled, and beyond my understanding, I was filled with an irrational and unnatural desire to stroke the side of his face. Such longings did not usually come to me. I was not that sort of man. At once, I curled my hand into a fist and pushed forward.
The inks and other materials would be accessible within a few short weeks, I told him, but the vellum would have to wait months to be shipped from the Americas.
In spite of the delay, Victor seemed satisfied.
He promised to visit to remit payment in the coming winter months for a finished product in the early summer.
He took down the address of my shop with a charcoal pencil and stuck it in the pocket closest to his heart.
Then, breathless, we parted at the station, Victor going his way and I going mine. I stood on the platform to watch him as he cut through the crowd like a ghost. Inconceivable hair blowing in the wind, adrift in a sea of black hats.
The manuscript sat on my desk for a week afterward, bowing the legs below its weight, pulling my gaze like magnetized iron every time I moved through the space. I ignored it for many days, until my taste for the story grew again, prickling beneath my skin.
Then finally, on the evening of a great frost, I could not stand it and courted the tale once more. I poured a glass of rye, lit my candles. Settled it upon my knees.
Touched his first words again with dry fingertips.
Victor’s handwriting was unbeautiful, like a child’s. Like a man who learned to write too late in life to consider anything but purpose for the function. It was a pity I could not print that, too, as it ineffably and irredeemably made the reading of it all the better.
And much worse.