The bookshop in Thiruvananthapuram is closed, like everywhere else at four in the morning. Terrance presses his face to the window. It’s a literary catacomb, books piled to the spiderwebs, up in the rafters, stacked on tables and in boxes underneath. If the book he wants actually exists, it will be in a city and a shop like this, a place of ancient learning where the lights went out centuries ago.
A figure stirs the murk, wraithlike behind fogged glass, resolving by steps into a man of between forty and sixty, swathed in linen and slow composure. Plucked eyebrows make him seem surprised to see Terrance, though his manner suggests otherwise.
“Your train arrived early,” he says, holding the door.
“Very peculiar. Please, come in. I am Nuwan. Your tea is not ready.”
The shopkeeper seats Terrance on a veranda overgrown with ivy. While Nuwan prepares tea, cats slip through shadows in the bushes around the patio. Perhaps they’re all the same cat. It’s hard to tell. Nuwan returns, terracotta tea service, the tea a cloudy brew sweetened with jaggery. His host reclines with crossed ankles, tea to his lips. “The book you want isn’t here,” he says, watching Terrance.
“You know me?” Terrance settles into the frayed armchair, at pains to project calm. Bookshop owners sometimes recognize his name and turn skittish, withholding, seemingly intimidated by his lean, stooped, prematurely aged form.
“Please, drink your tea. I’ll explain. It will help you to relax.”
Nuwan works for a company headquartered in Istanbul. “Founded in Byzantium, we dealt in antiquities, and in the Constantinople period expanded into translation, publishing, various archival and research functions. You’ve purchased hundreds of volumes from our company, often at great expense, at branches in perhaps fifty cities. The company took note, and it was arranged for a series of rumors to lead you here.” He offers Terrance a cigarette, which Nuwan lights with a silver pen. “We have created something special for you. When you have finished your tea, I will take you to it.”
After a single scalding cup and half a cigarette, the bookseller guides Terrance through dim, dusty galleries to a bulkhead door. Behind the door is blackness. Nuwan descends, Terrance following his disembodied voice.
“The book you seek is not here because it cannot exist. There is no perfect philosophy. You must know this. No single book can approach infinity. A confluence of books, however, could be another matter. You have, at times, appreciated a resonance between unrelated texts? A shared affinity perceptible only to you, who has read them together at a given point in history. I can see you have. For a week or so, you stumble about in unaccustomed clarity. A secret order is revealed. You are illuminated. Then the feeling passes. You require more and greater confluence.”
The floor downstairs is gritty, the air cool and well-ventilated, musty but not damp. When the lights come on and his eyes adjust, Terrance sees earthen walls, ceiling and floor, dim bulbs disappearing down long tunnels, bookshelves mounted in crannies and vaults. The word anthropology is painted in lime green letters above the tunnel Nuwan chooses.
Terrance tries to keep a sense of direction, but the twists come too quickly, descending and ascending through chambers labeled in orange, chartreuse, cerise and red, until they arrive in a cave furnished with a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.
On the kitchen table, a color-coded map shows an underground network of three floors, numbered top to bottom, stairwells randomly disposed, two dozen principal caverns branching into hundreds of tunnels. It looks to Terrance like a vascular system.
“I will leave soon,” Nuwan says. “But some orientation is required. There are safety concerns.” The lights are on a back-up generator, Nuwan explains, so if the power goes out Terrance shouldn’t panic. The switchover takes thirty seconds at most. Terrance will also see radon detectors installed at regular intervals. He should observe these to avoid prolonged exposure to radioactivity. There is no alarm system, no way to alert Nuwan in the event that Terrance becomes lost. He should carry his map and compass at all times. Nuwan will deliver supplies on the first of each month, which is when he could possibly become aware of Terrance’s absence. Locating him may require an additional week. Terrance should take especial care with his food. If rats and mice move into the caves, they will use leather and paper to line their nests.
Nuwan attracts his attention to a niche with reading chair and lamp, empty shelves and a card catalog. “This collection has been curated specifically for you. The company believes you have not read any of these books. Should you encounter discrepancies in this regard, please quit the volume from off the shelf and I will take it away at the end of the month.” Nuwan takes a card from a drawer and hands it to Terrance. Title, author, synopsis, page count. “You may want to begin there. Or not, as you please.” Terrance pockets the card.
“Now, I have provided what comforts I can. Your food and toiletries should last in excess of a month. If there is anything you require, or if you simply feel lonely, I am in the shop during working hours. Non-working hours, I reside on the second story. I will be happy to attend to your needs at any time. In fact, I am well paid to do so. Do you have any questions?”
“I will, once I’ve slept. I can’t think of any now.”
Nuwan bows and leaves him lingering over the map. Terrance knows he should sleep, shower and eat, but the claim that he’s never read any of these books seems overly bold – how can they know every book he’s ever read? Even he doesn’t know that.
The sections closest to his chamber are philosophy, psychology, poetry, anthropology, literature and ancient history. These are the smallest collections, and also the subjects he knows best. The largest cavern is modern history, with a dozen tunnels branching into music, chemistry, law, film, finance, linguistics, theology, accounting, art history, cartography, naval warfare, dance. The third floor is a pixelated hive of subjects. Stared at too long, it nauseates.
On the map, Terrance finger-traces a simple route through philosophy into poetry and back, nearly a straight line. A quick stroll. He starts southwest, the way he intended, but is quickly distracted by books. There are incunabula, boxes of papyrus and vellum scrolls. Mounted over the northeast entrance to poetry, a haiku engraved in a katana. Several books have identical blue canvas bindings, gold-embossed titles in the same sans serif typeface, same title page layout, no publication details. Some of these titles are considered lost or apocryphal, most he’s never heard of.
Standing at the center of poetry, Terrance is convinced. There are two hundred books in this chamber and he hasn’t read any of them. The index card in his pocket is for a poetry collection. He pulls the tiny, canvas-backed book. Sandro. Terrance once had a lover by that name.
Heading northeast, back toward philosophy, he skims the slim volume. The first poem is set in Bariloche. Oddly, Terrance’s Sandro was from Bariloche, though they met and loved in Buenos Aires. The first stanza describes a boy struck to the ground by a falling leaf. Sandro once told Terrance the same story. The boy runs home to put the leaf in water, but it’s cold that night and in the morning the leaf has lost its radiance. At the end of the poem the boy returns to the tree and finds a foreign name carved into its bark. Lawrence.
The facing verse describes a man in the bath, a half-healed scar from a fight with a lover, glass slivers slid under the skin just above the knee. The same scar Sandro had. He was jealous of the time Terrance spent with his books and smashed a wineglass to prove his point. Terrance thought he’d picked out all the shards, but missed the ones above the knee, which got infected and needed surgery.
The following stanza considers the indigo flecks in Lawrence’s hazel eyes. Terrence has hazel eyes with indigo flecks. The next, his quiet spells. Terrance starts to skim. They’re all about Sandro, and about Terrance.
When he looks up from his book, Terrance sees he’s in anthropology. If he remembers the map correctly, he’s just north of his bed chamber. He should have brought the map. A compass would be useful. Terrance could swear he entered this way with Nuwan, lime green paint, but the narrow tunnels are unfamiliar. He finds a broader bore, heading in the direction he wants, but it immediately forks into two wrong directions, both of which narrow into crawlways choked by books.
He crosses the frontier into algebra, then starts choosing tunnels in no specific direction. When his feet start to blister he takes off his shoes. The pebbles bite so he puts them back on. Finally he returns to poetry, and hopefully, from here, Terrance can take the route he originally intended. But no, he does no better on the second attempt. He’s very thirsty, lips lined, eyes dry. It’s dumb luck when the library spits him out.
From his room, the exit is clearly signed. Upstairs, Nuwan is at the register attending a young woman with an interest in astrophysics. Terrance queues until she’s gone, then sets the slim book on the counter like an accusation. Nuwan twists his neck to read the title upside-down. “A melancholy collection,” he says.
“Melancholy? Deceitful. Exploitative, manipulative, invasive, scammy as fuck, a gross violation of my privacy. Controversial, Nuwan. Highly controversial.”
“Will you join me for breakfast?”
“We just had breakfast.”
“Keep close track of time, Terrance. It is your enemy, and it is cunning.”
“How long have you been spying on me?”
“The company’s records span eighteen years.” Nuwan sets out kappa puttu, coconut dosas and tea. “You’ve placed many orders, Terrance. On occasion, you’ve demanded impossibilities. You speak openly of your desires with company employees. Frankly, you’ve acquired a reputation. Your notoriety, coupled with the company’s influence, made it possible to locate, for instance, this collection. The only extant copies were in the poet’s mother’s attic. I was not involved in the translation effort, so I cannot speak to its fidelity. Perhaps certain liberties have been taken with the audience in mind, but I would not classify any such indiscretions as scammy, per se. I see your feet are blistered. Wait one moment.”
He returns with leather slippers. “Now, Terrance, it is natural that you are overwhelmed. That is why I am here. Please, continue your reading. We will speak soon.”
The slippers fit.
*
Nuwan arrives with supplies, claiming Terrance has been underground for a month. It’s been a week at most. Nuwan inspects the cabinets, Terrance following, telling the librarian about his latest discoveries, Chinese philosopher who should have been translated centuries ago, the diary of a Herero shepherd-general, an anthropologist’s notes on a tribe of book-worshippers for a book never written due to the author’s honorific dismemberment.
“You aren’t eating,” Nuwan says. The cabinets are still full. There are drawers Terrance never even noticed. He doesn’t know how to cook. “Reference section,” says Nuhan. “Third floor, northwest quadrant, vault sixty-seven, cookbooks.” He clicks his tongue, wags his head. “Your death would reflect poorly on me,” he says.
While Nuwan cooks, he insists on Terrance smelling cinnamon sticks, cardamom seeds, sprigs of curry, stars of anise, pickles, chutnies, soy and fish sauce. Lecturing, Nuwan moves with negligent grace, hands assembling the meal of their own accord. Terrance finds his hands fascinating. Slim, prominent veins, subtle manicure. Over dinner Nuwan recounts library lore, ancient tales of readers lured into these caves by the company. Terrance is the hundred and eighty-third such reader. The hundred and eighty-second was Nuwan himself.
“I became unwell in my fifth year. When I recovered, I was selected to prepare the library for you because of the overlap in our collections. We are thirty-four percent kindred spirits, you and I. Now, it is my bedtime. I advise you to set alarms for both sleeping and waking. An exercise regime is recommendable. Pay attention to the radon detectors. And please, eat. Do not become unwell.”
*
It’s six months before Nuwan pronounces Terrance’s cooking non-toxic. After the meal they play a few games of chess and conversation turns to their first loves. For Terrance it was a small but well-curated county library housed in a barn. For Nuwan it was the family collection, inherited by his mother, expanded by his father, also housed in a barn.
“When the war came we abandoned our library,” Nuwan says. “I visited it after we moved to the city. Later it became dangerous, because I was older and could not move so freely. I took refuge in Germany, in academia, and whatever money I made, I spent trying to recreate that library. That was how I came to the company’s attention.”
Terrance realizes he’s heard Nuwan’s name before: a philosophy student at Heidelberg in the time of Jaspers, Gadamer and Habermas, wrote a thesis on wildlife ethics, reputedly brilliant but never published because the student disappeared, presumed a suicide. He thought Nuwan would be older, seventy at least, but his eyes are unlined, his skin radiant.
That night Terrance starts taking notes for a possible biography of the librarian. Over succeeding months he questions Nuwan, insisting on more and greater detail. Nuwan must suspect he’s being interviewed, but seems happy spinning stories, though the stories are unhappy. He describes insurgents camped like locust, leaving nothing on the farm but books; the move to the city and his father’s failure to find work, paired with his roaring success at alcoholism; and Nuwan’s various attempts, at ages nine, ten and twelve to move the family library by donkey, being shot in the shoulder on his fourth attempt, the books confiscated and the donkey, Bucephalus, executed for treason.
As his writing expands and coheres, Terrance feels his reading stagnating. He’s becoming repetitive, predictable. On the subject of neuropsychology, Nuwan has declared him a pedant and a bore. In biology he’s progressed from viruses to fungi to plants, finally reaching invertebrates only to find he hates invertebrates. Modern history has him embroiled in another pointless war. His tables and chairs have long since been overwhelmed by books, the floor space ever-receding, reshelving a task too daunting to consider.
So he decides to adopt a semi-nomadic reading style, browsing, skimming, perusing, searching out fertile terrain, carrying food and water, sleeping in the stacks as often as not. He’s reached a new stage, having realized that more information won’t lead to better understanding. He will spend a few years reading purely for pleasure, then say goodbye to this paradise, and return to chaos.
*
Nuwan has baked him a millirahmstrudel. “How old am I today?” Terrance asks, but it’s not his birthday. He has been underground for five years, eight months and two days – one day longer than Nuwan himself.
Terrance pinches the wick of the single candle. He finish writing Nuwan’s biography weeks ago and has been waiting for an occasion to present it. Thirty-six notebooks for Nuwan’s sixty-seven years. The librarian glances at the topmost. “No table of contents,” he says. He slides the last notebook from under the stack. “No index.” He flips a few pages. “No pagination. Your handwriting is peculiar. A work of this magnitude.” He cuts off, wringing his hands, looking uncomfortable for the first time Terrance can recall.
“Some conjecture is inevitable. You must have suspicions.”
“I know there’s no company. I’ve known for years.”
“Go on.”
“You are the author of the blue canvas books. You wrote them about me, or for me. When you think I’m sleeping you sneak around shelving updated drafts based on things I’ve told you. Your timeline is vague through your thirties. I assume that’s when you began stalking me. We’ve lived in all the same cities, but based on what you’ve told me, never at the same time. I’ve found nearly a hundred of those blue books. Poetry, fiction, history, psychology, all about me. I can see how you might have done it, but I confess I don’t understand why.”
Nuwan turns up his palms, a conciliatory smile. “You and I met one day in Milan. You were leaving Pregliasco’s. You ran right into me, apologized and held the door for me, but you never saw me. You were so fascinated by your acquisition. Umberto told me you believed it to be the Voynich Manuscript, and kindly gave me your name. In many cities, when I mentioned that name, antiquarians would regale me with tales of a mad collector seeking a book that would cure him of knowledge. Some claim you’re a myth, a composite of fetishes. Others believe you were behind the Feltham burglary. I was once accused of being you. Soon after that, I began to believe that we might understand one another. That there could be someone else like me. I tried to write you, to hold you in my words, but the attempt only inflamed my desire. I began to follow you, but you kept slipping away, so I devised this trap. I caught you and kept you by giving you what you wanted. Is this not love?”
David Serafino holds an MFA from the University of Virginia and has fiction appearing in the Los Angeles Review, Dulcet, Radon, Page Gallery, and Fiction on the Web, and stories forthcoming in AGNI, Oyster River Pages, and Chaotic Merge. He has been nominated for the O. Henry and Pushcart prizes, as well as the WSFA Small Press Award, and has been shortlisted for the Zoetrope AllStory Prize, the Big Moose Prize, he Henfield Prize and the Master’s Review Novel Excerpt contest.