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Even now, of course, he was working on a novel: "something outstanding," he always said to those who asked him about it. Obviously, with insomnia and nightmares, it was not easy at all.
The time had come to get some fresh air. Robert dressed without too much haste, still dazed by the startling awakening.
He put a cap on his head, closed the door of the apartment with so little care as not to correctly remember if he had done so, and went down the stairs. As soon as he stopped in the street for a moment, slightly dazzled by the light of the day, since he had not lifted the blinds when he got out of bed, to preserve the shade, which gave him the impression of being able to rest a bit more somehow.
The vision of a woman holding her son by the hand paralyzed him for a moment because it reminded him of the dream, the sunken orbits, and that black shadow instead of eyes. But luckily, this time, he wasn't in a nightmare. The woman stared at him in passing: she had a typical look. The boy didn't even notice him.
Robert didn't particularly like wandering, going from one shop to another just to look at the goods on display. But he tried to do it for at least an hour so that the metallic taste sensation he had in his mouth would be driven away by all the smells of the city.
Then it occurred to him that he could call Tricia, the person he was in contact with, and who was in charge of correcting and reviewing the material he sent for the publishing house.
It was only the first three chapters, but when Robert sent the first one, he was told by the selection manager, "Hey, this stuff is good! Really!" The man certainly was not Ken Follet in finding the words to express his thoughts, but, damn, that precisely was what Robert wanted to hear.
However, what could he have said in the phone call?
"Yes, good morning Miss Thompson, Tricia. I am Robert Red; I just wanted to inform you that I am a little ... well ...stuck. You know. Health problems. Insomnia. I can't work without a clear mind".
No, it would have been a very pathetic call.
"Yes, of course, I know you have a schedule. Don't worry, I'm doing a restorative therapy, and I'll be in shape shortly. You'll see!"
Even more pathetic.
He decided not to dial Tricia Thompson's number, even though he was already holding his mobile phone. He realized that it would be a phone call made solely to occupy those minutes, which he was letting go by like the first piss of the morning and, weighing on him like the bags of the food shopping, he never wanted to do.
He put the phone back in his pocket.
"Of course, I'm just wasting time like a drunkard on the sidewalks," thought Robert with a particular hatred towards himself. Now stop.
He had cooled his mind enough. He had had enough of wandering. He needed some more coffee; yes, that was for sure. Maybe a cigarette, and then, back home, once he turned on the computer, he would surely find some inspiration. Perhaps that idea he had the other day to continue the chapter ... Or maybe he could have double-checked something he had just written: there was always some detail to refine. And, how much he liked to move a comma or change an adjective! He felt like a real creative genius.
At that moment, he was passing by a literary cafe's window, those newly designed cafes that combine the consumption of drinks with a library and reading areas.
He had the desire and the need for a coffee, and he was always eager to take a look at the latest publications.
So why not go in?
Robert greeted the girl at the counter politely and gave her more attention than he ever used to. He ordered his coffee, which was served to him in an instant, and then went to the display shelf.
It was all stuff of the big publishing houses, the titles that are picked up by readers on huge pyramids where many copies are displayed. The effect is very similar to that of tons of sweets in a candy store at Christmas: if one enters it, even if he does not intend to buy anything, he is overwhelmed by that mountain of stuff, and he cannot leave the shop without having in your pocket at least a small piece. Well, the mechanism for the great titles of mass literature was identical: they managed to place the title they wanted by confronting the poor reader with an avalanche of books put under his nose.
Maybe, someday this would happen to one of his books, thought Robert.
Since he already knew what was displayed in plain sight, he glanced at the table not far from the shelves. There seemed to be good edition books but with less famous titles and less glamorous authors.
It was only for the time of a coffee. That time wasted lingering on something that Robert Red wasn't interested in doing.
He ran his eyes over the books on the coffee table.
He took one, but did nothing but turn it on the back cover, without even reading what was in it.
He moved another book with his finger, quickly reading the author and title.
Of the third book, instead, he limited himself to observing the drawing on the front.
Finally, he grabbed the last book, the one on the edge of the table, slightly apart from all the others.
And his mind registered something.
It was something undefined, impossible to be rationalized. But perfectly perceptible.
Perhaps Robert's mind was unable to make a precise hypothesis as to what had triggered him to gaze at that book.
It remained an indistinct perception.
He noticed a detail that he would indeed rethink later.
What Robert felt was a kind of deeper contact than what his fingers would feel against the glossy layer of coated paper.
It was as if Robert "felt" that book as if the pages vibrated as if his gesture hadn't just been holding a book. It happened as when we touch a part of our body, massaging it, trying to perceive it from the outside, to give it importance.
It was a sensation that could not rationalize, but something physical, easy to feel.
Perhaps it had been the cover image, evidently skillfully chosen by the editor, sober yet almost magnetic.
Perhaps it had been the author's name, absolutely unknown in the scene of recent publications, at least for Robert.
Perhaps still, it was the title, which is the most captivating thing about a book: in that case, a dry, direct, easy to remember the title.
All of these things together could justify the attention Robert paid to observe that book, even if he only did it for a few seconds.
And what was the feeling that had gone through his body? What had his mind noted?
Robert, unable to give himself an answer, and not even want to look for one, shook himself off.
He went to the counter, paid for the coffee, and warmly greeted the waitress.
Then he headed home.
Instinctively, as soon as he was on the street, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked up Tricia Thompson's number in the phone book.
If he stopped to think about it, he would have realized he didn't know why intended to do it.
But before his brain could process that thought, the phone was already ringing.
One ring, two rings; on the third started the usual persuasive recorded voice surrounded by music that invited you not to hang up.
A few moments later, the secretary answered: "Mug & Ball, good morning, how can I help you?"
"Ah ... yes, good morning. This is Robert Red, I wanted to speak to Miss Tricia, Tricia Thompson. "
"What is this regarding, sir?"
"Here, you see, she is editing my book, so ..."
Before Robert could say anything plausible, or implausible, the secretary went on: "Yes, sure, I understand. I see if I she is available. Would you kindly repeat your name? "
Robert did so and waited. At least he had gained a few moments to think about a reason why he had called and what he could say to the woman once she answered.
At least a couple of minutes passed. Then the voice on the other side of the line returned to replace the music: "I'm sorry, Mister ... Red, Miss Thompson is busy right now. If you can be kind enough to try again later ..."
Robert said something vaguely condescending, mumbling a little and, then ended the call. Better that way, it was just an intuitive gesture dictated by who knows what.
He would not have felt so relaxed about it if he had known that, at the publishing house, Tricia Thompson, was busy reading some drafts written so badly that she was racking her brains. So at the message that a certain Robert Red was looking for her, to talk about his book, she simply said she had never heard of him and, and not to break her balls.
Robert returned to his studio flat with a sense of inexplicable euphoria. If walking had that effect, he could consider doing it more often.
He sat at the kitchen table, after roughly having cleared it. He turned on the notebook, waited for the operating system to load, already foretasting the sound of his fingers on the keys.
He felt ready to write quite a few pages. The ideas would come to him; he was sure of it.
The literary café and the thought of one of his books showing off on shelves like them. The strange sensation he felt in there, which he could only interpret it as a kind of warning sign. The music of the Mug & Ball. The air of the city that had woken up.
Everything helped to give him the fibrillation he felt at the time.
The operating system had loaded; the background of his desktop, a Caribbean beach God knows where which winked at him like a beautiful girl just to make fun of him, was staring back at him with the usual monotony.
The pages written already were in files that Robert, for convenience, had not included in any particular folder and, therefore, dotted the sea and, the palm trees of the Caribbean with white documents.
He opened the most recent one.
... illusory as the last of his dreams, the metal sky above him. He was so small compared to so much immensity: how could he think he was worth something, that he was part of a larger design, the gear that made the mechanism work at its best, a mechanism so complex that escaped even his highest understanding?
Robert reread the last words he had written down the previous evening, before going to bed. They did not satisfy him: they had a severity that did not suit the drier style he had used pages before.
He had to fix it.
The syntax ...
Or maybe it was the choice of words that could be improved?
Maybe it was more appropriate to rewrite everything.
He reread again
so complex that escaped even his highest understanding?
The words sounded strange to him.
The rhythm of the phrase, which Robert spelled several times, moved him inside.
And what he felt was very similar to the feeling he had in literary coffee.
Now he could have called it by the name all too abused of déja-vu: he did not like to follow the words of everyone, but he could not find any other name for it than that.
He reread those words yet another time and, they changed in front of him: they twisted, pulsed, detached themselves from the page as if wanting to jump on him, and then they fell again. The syllables and letters spanned again, swirling like a spiral. Robert, initially confused by that hallucination, tried to rub his eyes; then, he kept them closed for a few moments. When he opened them again, the words seemed more stable, but now they were cloudy, fuzzy, they got bigger and bigger, looking scary as if they were black bubbles about to explode.
Then it all ended, and the letters went back to being impalpable and monotonous signs on the computer screen.
THERE AND BACK FOR JOHNATHAN ABBLEPOT
2.
Vestavia Hills, 1858
Mrs. Evelyn Archer had just opened the door of her antique shop. She never arrived early in the morning: the hustle and bustle of people in Vestavia Hills only started around 9.30.
An elegant maple door carved no less than by her Bob, the husband who had left her a few years earlier, had been double locked. Ms. Archer put the key in and played with the lock a bit, as she only knew how to do it. The humidity probably swelled the wood so much that the lock no longer slid as easy as it did before.
And then she is in.
Just under the entrance porch, she put Rose on the ground, the cat that had kept her company for several years. Rose patiently waited for her owner to tinker with the door and then preceded her inside. It only meowed a little bit, but once inside the shop, it always made a noise, as if greeting the various knick-knacks present, its companions in the endless sleepy afternoons shut in there.
The interior of that shop seemed to be made especially for cats, and Rose might have thought: countless corners to explore, many shelves or objects to sleep on, such a mass of stuff that you could lose yourself in it without the fear of being disturbed.
Evelyn Archer had accumulated all those things in almost forty years of activity. In the beginning, it was Bob who had traveled to nearby or larger towns in Alabama to retrieve old or recent items, to be repaired or still working, which they then resold in their shop.
After some time, she, too, had acquired the skill that was needed to find what was possible to sell by separating it from what no one would ever buy.
Over the years, as the objects in the shop had grown, so had and the arguments between them.
Sometimes Evelyn just couldn't stand Bob, and she was happy when some errands kept him away for a while. She couldn't stand the person Bob had become over the years. And that's certainly a big deal in a wedding. Then one day, just like that, he was dead.
A heart attack had taken him away.
As for Evelyn, she cried, of course. But her newfound freedom didn't take long to calm her sadness.
"Mrs. Archer! Good morning!"
An older man just entered the shop. He stood in the doorway for a moment, as if waiting for the owner's greeting as permission to enter.
Evelyn Archer had already figured out who he was and thought, "Stingy Bastard! Yet again today, you will come in and buy nothing. You have been walking by here for months without spending a penny. You could just stay outside then!"
Then, with a smile that seemed sincere, he said, "Mr. Gardner. Cheerful as always! "
The man replied: "Eh, at our age, it is better to be happy, right? You never know when the time to cry will come!" To end his sentence, Mr. Gardner let out a laugh that turned into in a phlegmy cough fit. "Yeah, you are right," Evelyn said, expecting to see the man do what he always did.
As she predicted, Mr. Gardner looked around, as if he did not know, after all his weekly visits, where all the objects in the shop were.
