The Illumination

The one with the crickety voice led them into the front room of his apartment, which, just as he had promised, contained seven full-length rows of recessed shelving, jammed with several thousand books.

Morse took his time looking over the selection. In the next room, gathered around a coffee table strewn with dice, papers, and metal figurines, was a cluster of seven young teenagers. The one with the green silk fillet braided into her hair, the only girl in the bunch, was sitting on a futon with her knees folded to her chest, clutching a throw pillow like a mother protecting her baby. Camarie was her name, and no matter what she tried, she kept falling in love. With Wallace and that ribbed blue sweater of his—its smoky sort of pencil-shavings smell. With Mr. McKim, her math teacher, and the dry-erase marker bruises on his knuckles. With the News at Nine anchor—the weekend guy—and the way he pressed his lips together and made a little mm sound, as if he were scratching a hard-to-reach itch, whenever he had to report something tragic. With Ben P. and that lock of hair he couldn’t keep out of his eyes. With Ben F. and his strong brown tennis-player’s arms. With Wallace again and how he laughed louder than anyone else at his own jokes. With Nathan and the hundred different ways he had of saying “dude.” With Conrad and how he bit the loose threads from the cuffs of his shirt, bringing his perfect white teeth together like nail clippers. With her brother’s friend Hal and his beard that looked as soft as Jesus’. With Wallace one more time and that night she rolled a ninety-nine for agility and he said, “Kick-ass,” and then winked at her. Boys!

Morse had already chosen the first of his books, a thick volume of Impressionist paintings he knew would sell right away, when the phone on the table rang. Without thinking, he picked it up. The one who lived there flung his hands about as if flailing at a mosquito. “Shit, man. That’s gonna be my mom. Why did you answer? Give me the phone. No, quick, find out who it is, and say, ‘How can I help you?’ ”

The words plunged at Morse like bats, filling the room with their clacks and their squeaks, and he barely had time to fight his way through them before he spoke. “Who am I, and how can I help you?”

“I’m sorry?” the voice in his ear said.

The one folding the slice of pepperoni pizza said, “Tell her, ‘This is the wrong number,’ dude.”

The red-haired one dove in with, “Dude, say good-bye. Hang up.”

Morse repeated the phrases as best he could, then returned the phone to its cradle.

A second later, it rang again. This time the one who lived there answered: “Hey, Mom. Yeah, just me and the campaigners are taking a break.” The blandishing tones of his voice became more bruised, more salted. “You must have dialed the wrong number or something. Okay, listen, don’t freak out. There’s this guy we met and—”

Morse scoured the shelves for the second of his two books. Impressionist Masterpieces in Full Color was the kind of oversize hardcover whose thick, coated paper was cool to the touch and gave off a smart perfume of expensive ink. The binding was so heavy he had to support the book on his hip. He wanted his other choice to be smaller, lighter. He was sure he would know it when he saw it. Dimly, as he scanned the bookcase closest to the front door, he heard the noise of an argument, or half an argument, the raised voice of the one letting the dice clitter in his hand, but it was of no significance to him.

The one whose retainer was drawing a silver line across his teeth groaned. “All right, man. Hurry it on up. You can have that one and one other, but that’s it.”

On impulse Morse selected a worn volume with a frayed silk bookmark dangling over its spine from the corner of the top shelf.

“Fine. Fantastic. You have your two books. Now go. Go. You have to go now.”

Morse heard the one on the phone saying, “Okay, okay, we’re done. He’s leaving. Problem solved,” as he placed the wooden box with the brown lettering on the sideboard and took his exit. In the hallway he made the call button glow beneath his index finger. In the elevator he sat like a king on the stool’s satin cushion. From the lobby he retrieved his silver chariot. And then he was gone, back outside, among the night smells and the speeding cars and the bars with their gray windows and the diners with their bright ones.

Because it was late and the alley behind New Fun Ree was unilluminated, Morse wasn’t able to page through the second book until the next day. It turned out to be a diary, handwritten in blue ink, each page lined from top to bottom with thousands of small slanting letters.

I love how dark your hair gets after you wash it. I love waiting for you in the airport at the bottom of the escalator. I love the way you run your hands under the hot water a hundred times a day when it gets cold outside. I love how you “dot all your t’s and cross all your i’s.” I love my birthday present—thank you so much. I love hearing you rise to someone’s defense, and twice in one night, too: Woody Allen and Neville Chamberlain. I love watching you upend a whole bottle of water after you’ve exercised: that little bobber working in your throat, and the gasp you make after you finish swallowing, and the way you slam the bottle back down on the counter. I love how cute you are when we’re watching basketball together and you pretend to care who’s winning. I love your idea for a hard rock supergroup made up of the members of Europe, Asia, and America—Pangaea. I love your cleansing rituals (but I love your dirtying rituals even more). I love your morning breath.

That was all it was, line after line of love notes, none of them longer than a sentence. They appeared to be from the father of the one with the loose shoelaces and the crickety voice, addressed to his mother.

I love the e-mails you send me in the middle of the day.

I love trying to coax you to pick out a restaurant.

I love the way you groan whenever adult human beings start talking about comic books.

The cover was scuffed, the pages were buckled with moisture, and Morse was uncommonly disappointed. No one would ever buy such a thing. He presumed the one who had allowed him to take it would come looking for it within a day or two. He decided to save it for him.

The next week, when the smaller one, the talker, came by to swap his books and slide Morse a few extra dollars, he made a show of considering his choices. “No, not the Lawrence,” he said. “And not the Ramirez. And definitely not the Railey. A man’s got to have some scruples. How about that one?” and he reached for the diary of miniature love letters.

Morse surprised himself with the force of his objection. “No! Not that one.”

“MP!” The smaller one shook his head. “I’m ashamed of you. A businessman never gets attached to his own merchandise. That’s the first rule of success: sure, fine, love the product, whatever—but love the sale more. I thought I taught you that.”

“Sure, fine, whatever.” Morse slipped the book into his coat. “Not that one.”

The smaller one’s hand cuffed Morse’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m just screwing with you. Hell, give me the Railey. It doesn’t make any difference to me.”

That afternoon, when it began to sprinkle, Morse rolled a sheet of Visqueen over his books. The diary seemed to broadcast its message straight through the plastic, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, pulsing like a beacon. All around him people were braking their cars or ducking into buildings, zipping their jackets or opening their umbrellas. He fixed his mind on the pretty one standing under the awning of the jewelry store and thought, I love your green dress and your loneliness and your matching green shoes. He turned to the one who was limping into the subway station and thought, I love how you have a foot cramp and you keep saying “Stop it, stop it, stop it” to yourself. He watched the one carrying the grape cluster of plastic bags and thought, I love it that you’re walking down the sidewalk and now you’ve turned the corner and I can’t see you anymore because you’re gone. He had expected it to be effortless, expected his love to ease right out of him, as gently and clearly as notes from a piano, but soon enough he realized it was impossible. It couldn’t be done, or at least he couldn’t do it. He did not love anyone, he only understood them, and who in this world would choose understanding over love?

It was a different rain, nearly eight months later, and Morse was watching the water create beads on his poncho, when the smaller one brought him two new books. The first was called Mister Parsons, the second Mansfield Park, and he said, “Two MPs for my main MP. Don’t let them get wet now. I think you’ll like these.”

“One for two or—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, one for two or cash money. Give me that hardback number right there. The big red fella. It’ll match my sofa.”

Morse weaseled the book out from under the Visqueen and handed it to the smaller one, and the smaller one