Cloud Atlas

Guilt? None. A cuckolder’s triumph? Not specially, no. Still rather miffed at Ayrs, if anything. The other evening, the Dhondts came to dinner and Mrs. D. asked for some piano music to help the food go down, so I played that “Angel of Mons” piece I wrote on holiday with you in the Scilly Isles two summers ago, though disclaimed its authorship by saying “a friend” had composed it. I’ve been rewriting it. It’s better and more fluid and subtle than those sherbety Schubertian pastiches V.A. spewed out in his twenties. J. and the Dhondts loved it so much they insisted on an encore. Was only six bars in when V.A. exercised a hitherto unknown veto. “I’d advise your friend to master the Ancients before he frolics with the Moderns.” Sounds like innocuous enough advice? However, he pronounced friend in a precise semitone that told me he was quite aware of my friend’s true identity. Perhaps he used the same ruse himself, at Grieg’s in Oslo? “Without a thorough mastery of counterpoint and harmonics,” V.A. puffed, “this fellow’ll never amount to anything but a hawker of fatuous gimmickry. Tell your friend that from me.” I fumed in silence. V.A. told J. to put on a gramophone recording of his own Sirocco Wind Quintet. She obeyed the truculent old bully. To console myself, I remembered how J.’s body is under her crepe de chine summer dress, and how hungrily she slips into my bed. V. well, I shall gloat a little over my employer’s cuckold’s horns. Serves him right. An old sick prig is still a prig.

Augustowski sent this enigmatic telegram after the performance in Cracow. To translate from the French: FIRST TODTENVOGEL MYSTIFIED STOP SECOND PERFORMANCE FISTICUFFS STOP THIRD ADORED STOP FOURTH TALK OF TOWN STOP. We weren’t sure what to think until newspaper clippings followed, hot on the telegram’s heels, translated by Augustowski on the back of a concert program. Well, our “Todtenvogel” has become a cause celebre! So far as we can see, the critics interpreted its disintegration of the Wagnerian themes as a frontal assault on the German Republic. A band of nationalist parliamentarians strong-armed the festival authorities into a fifth performance. The theater, eyeing receipts, complied with pleasure. The German ambassador made an official complaint, so a sixth was sold out within another twenty-four hours. The effect of all this is to raise the value of Ayrs’s stock through the roof everywhere but Germany, where apparently, he is denounced as a Jewish devil. National newspapers across the Continent have written to request interviews. I have the pleasure of dispatching a polite but firm pro forma rejection to each. “I’m too busy composing,” grumbles Ayrs. “If they want to know ‘what I mean’ they should listen to my bloody music.” He’s thriving on the attention, though. Even Mrs. Willems admits, since my arrival the Master is invigorated.

Hostilities continue on the Eva front. Of concern is how she sniffs something rotten between my father and me. She wonders, publicly, why I never receive letters from my family, or why I don’t have some clothes of my own sent over. She asked if one of my sisters would like to be her pen-friend. To win time I had to promise to put her proposal to ’em, and I might need you to do another forgery. Make it very good. The devious vixen is almost a female Me.

August in Belgium is blistering this year. The meadow is turning yellow, the gardener is anxious about fires, farmers are worried about the harvest, but show me a placid farmer and I’ll show you a sane conductor. Will seal this envelope now and walk to the village post office through the woods behind the lake. It wouldn’t do to leave these pages lying around for a certain seventeen-year-old snoop to come across.

The important matter. Yes, I will meet Otto Jansch in Bruges to hand over the illuminated manuscripts in person, but you must broker all the arrangements. Don’t want Jansch knowing whose hospitality I’m enjoying. Like all dealers, Jansch is a gluttonous, glabrous grasper, only more so. He wouldn’t hesitate to try blackmail to lower our price—or even dispense with a price altogether. Tell him I’ll expect payment on the nail in crisp banknotes, none of his funny credit arrangements with me. Then I’ll forward a postal order to you, including the sum you loaned me. This way, you won’t be incriminated if any monkey business takes place. I am already disgraced and thus have no reputation to lose by blowing the whistle on him. Tell Jansch that, too.

Sincerely,

R.F.

ZEDELGHEM

EVENING, 16^th—VIII—1931

Sixsmith,

Your tedious letter from my father’s “solicitor” was an Ace of Diamonds. Bravo. Read it aloud over breakfast—excited only passing interest. Saffron Walden postmark also a masterly touch. Did you actually drag yourself away from your lab into the sunny Essex afternoon to post it yourself? Ayrs invited our “Mr. Cummings” to see me at Zedelghem, but you’d written time was v. tight, so Mrs. Crommelynck said Hendrick’ll drive me into town to sign the documents there. Ayrs grumbled about losing a day’s work, but he’s only happy when he’s grumbling.

Hendrick and I set off this dewy morning down the same roads I cycled from Bruges half a summertime ago. Wore a smart jacket of Ayrs’s—much of his wardrobe is gravitating into mine, now my few items rescued from the Imperial’s grasp are beginning to wear out. The Enfield was roped to the rear fender so I could honor my promise to return said bicycle to the good constable. Our vellum-bound loot I had camouflaged in MS paper, which everyone at Zedelghem knows I am never without, and stowed out of casual sight in a mucky satchel I’ve appropriated. Hendrick had the Cowley’s top down so there was too much wind for conversation. Taciturn chap, as is appropriate to his station. Peculiar to admit it, but since I’ve started servicing Mrs. Crommelynck I feel edgier with the husband’s valet than I do with the husband. (Jocasta continues to bestow her favor on me, every third or fourth night, though never when Eva is at home, which is v. wise. Anyway, one mustn’t gobble one’s birthday chocolates all at once.) My unease stems from the probability that Hendrick knows. Oh, we above the stairs like to congratulate ourselves on our cleverness, but there are no secrets to those who strip the sheets. Not too worried. Don’t place unreasonable demands on the servants, and Hendrick is canny enough to lay his bets on a strident mistress with many years ahead of her, not on an invalid master of Ayrs’s prospects. Hendrick’s an odd one, really. Hard to guess his tastes. Would make an excellent croupier.

He dropped me outside the Guildhall, untied the Enfield, and left me to run various errands and pay his respects, he said, to an ailing great-aunt. Rode my two wheels through crowds of sightseers, schoolchildren, and burghers and only got lost a few times. At the police station, the musical inspector made a great fuss of me and sent out for coffee and pastries. He was delighted my position with Ayrs has worked out so well. By the time I got away it was ten o’clock and time for my appointment. Didn’t hurry. Good form to let tradesmen wait a little.

Jansch was propping up the bar of Le Royal and greeted me with an “Aha, as I live and breathe, the Invisible Man, back by popular demand!” I swear, Sixsmith, that warty old Shylock looks more repulsive every time I clap eyes on him. Has he got a magical portrait of himself stashed in his attic, getting more beautiful by the year? Couldn’t fathom why he seemed so pleased to see me. Looked around the lounge for tipped-off creditors—one beetly glare and I would have bolted. Jansch read my mind. “So suspicious, Roberto? I’m hardly going to make trouble for a naughty goose who lays such illuminated eggs, am I? Come now”—he indicated the bar—“what’s your poison?”

Replied that sharing a building with Jansch, even such a large one, was poisonous enough, so I’d rather get down to business straightaway. He chuckled, clapped me on the shoulder, and led me up to the room he’d reserved for our transaction. Nobody followed us, but that didn’t guarantee anything. Was now wishing I’d had you arrange a more public rendezvous, so Tam Brewer’s thugs couldn’t clap a sack over my head, throw me in a trunk, and haul me back to London. Got the books out of the satchel, and he got his pince-nez out of his jacket pocket. Jansch examined ’em at a desk by the window. He tried to knock the price down, claiming the condition of the volumes was more “fair” than “good.” Calmly, I wrapped the books up, put ’em in my satchel, and made the stingy Jew chase me down the corridor until he admitted the volumes were indeed “good.” Let him woo me back to the room, where we counted the banknotes, slowly, until the sum agreed was paid in full. Business over, he sighed, claimed I’d beggared him, smiled that smile, and put his hairy paw on my knee. Said it was books I’d come to sell. He asked why let business preclude pleasure? Surely a young buck abroad could find a use for a little pocket money? Left Jansch asleep an hour later and his wallet starved. Proceeded directly to the bank across the square and was seen to by the manager’s own secretary. Sweet bird of solvency. As Pater is fond of saying, “One’s own sweat is one’s best reward!” (not that he ever sweated in his sinecured pulpit overly much). Next stop was