The Library of Shadows

by Mikkel Birkegaard

  'We have a lot to talk about.'

  Jon and Katherina sat down on the leather sofa while their host went to get the Morocco ottoman from the other room and placed it across from them. He kept his eyes fixed on Jon the whole time, with a little satisfied smile playing over his fleshy red lips.

  'You said that Luca left me a message?' Jon began.

  Tom nodded eagerly. 'You see, your father had a feeling that they were going to make a move soon, and in case something happened to him, and you turned up, I was supposed to give you this message.'

  'Which is?'

  Tom shook his head and broke out in a big smile. 'I'm so glad to see you again, Jon. You probably don't remember me, but I visited Libri di Luca many times when you were a boy.' His smile disappeared. 'I was very fond of your father. We were close friends, and he's the only one who ever visited me for all these years.'

  'He came here?' said Katherina with astonishment.

  'Once a month, I'd say. Usually on Sundays, when the bookshop was closed.'

  'He never mentioned anything about that,' said Katherina.

  'No, of course not,' replied Tom, a bit annoyed. 'That was all part of the plan.'

  Jon had so many questions that he didn't know where to start. Even though he hadn't seen his father in years, this place and this man didn't fit at all with the image he'd had of Luca. And it seemed even less plausible that Luca would have made plans with a banished member of the Bibliophile Society, of which he was such a faithful defender. And to top it all off, Jon's own arrival was supposed to have been predicted, like some sort of resurrection.

  'What's the message, Tom?' Jon insisted.

  Tom regarded him with his clear blue eyes as he made a tent with his bony fingers. He was no longer smiling.

  'Stay away,' he said finally.

  'What?' exclaimed Jon and Katherina in unison.

  'Forget what you think you know, sell the shop and get on with your own life,' said Tom, clasping his hands with his fingers interlaced. 'Turn around, get going and don't look back.'

  'But-' Jon began.

  'It's for your own good. Your father loved you more than anything on earth. He was so proud of you – your success in school, your travels, your career. He talked about you for hours, how smart you were, how you'd made a success of everything. Did you know that he went to a lot of your court appearances?' He shook his head. 'Probably not, but he did, and he was damn proud.'

  'Then he had a strange way of showing it,' said Jon, crossing his arms. 'Why didn't he ever say anything?'

  'Haven't you figured that out?' said Tom impatiently. 'He wanted to protect you. Luca preferred to be a terrible father than a childless one.'

  Jon got up from the sofa and paced around the room with his eyes on the floor and his hands on his hips. He felt nauseated, no doubt because of the stale air in the house. How could anyone stand to live like this? It was impossible to think. The questions he'd been burning to ask only moments ago had now disappeared to be replaced by others, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answers.

  'You mentioned a plan,' said Katherina as Jon kept pacing.

  'I'm sorry,' said Tom, 'but I can't tell you any more. I promised to convey Luca's advice to his son, but I don't think it would be appropriate to involve him any further.'

  Jon stopped and turned to face Tom. 'And what if I choose not to follow his advice?' he said angrily. 'I'm already involved. There are people who expect something of me, and other people who have tried to scare me off. So don't tell me I should just turn my back on everything and go on as if nothing ever happened, no matter how much I might want to.'

  'I can see that,' Tom admitted. 'But I think you should-'

  'I'm tired of being kept in the dark. Tell Katherina what she wants to know. What sort of plan was it?'

  'Okay, okay.' Tom turned to Katherina. 'The plan. Yes, all right,' he began, nodding to himself. 'The plan was that we'd make them show themselves, or at least we'd find proof of their existence.'

  'Who?' asked Katherina, casting a glance at Jon, who had resumed his pacing.

  'We called them the Shadow Organization,' said Tom with a smile.

  'Maybe you'd better start from the beginning,' Katherina suggested.

  Tom hesitated, glancing at Jon.

  'Go on,' Jon commanded.

  Tom sighed. 'It all started with an obsessive idea,' he said. 'It was almost a game we had, Luca and I. I don't remember which of us came up with it first, but one day it occurred to us that there might be another organization besides the Bibliophile Society, a group that operated in secret, in the shadows. An organization different from the Bibliophile Society in that the members consistently used their powers for criminal activities or at least for selfish purposes.' He cleared his throat. 'It was mostly for our own amusement, a sort of in-joke. Soon we started looking through the newspapers for events that might support our theory. We'd show them to each other with a glint in our eyes. "The Shadow Organization has struck again," Luca used to say when he triumphantly presented a newspaper clipping about a politician who had suddenly changed his opinion, or a businessman who had done something unexpected.' Tom smiled to himself. 'It was of course nothing but our wild imaginations. We were younger back then, and our imaginative powers weren't nearly as ossified.'

  Tom cleared his throat again, and Jon surmised he hadn't used his voice in a long time.

  'The examples of events and coincidences began to pile up,' Tom went on. 'And finally we could no longer ignore the fact that there was a strong possibility that what we had invented as a private joke might be a reality. For a long time we dismissed the idea, but our eyes had become trained to see possible connections in the stories, and we found more and more events that indicated the existence of such an organization.

  'What did the others say?' asked Katherina.

  'We kept it to ourselves,' said Tom with regret in his voice. 'I suppose we were seized by some sort of persecution complex. One of our assumptions was that if such an organization had been kept secret from the Society, that must mean only one thing: that we had spies among us.'

  'Who?' asked Katherina.

  Tom shook his head. 'There were several candidates, but we never found any concrete proof. That was why we devised "the plan" to flush them out.'

  Jon stopped pacing back and forth across the uneven floor and once again sat down on the sofa next to Katherina. Tom shifted his glance to Jon. There was sorrow in his blue eyes.

  'The plan was that if one of us was thrown out of the Society for sufficiently unpleasant reasons, that person would end up being recruited by the Shadow Organization shortly afterwards.' Tom sighed. 'Simple and straightforward.'

  He looked away from Jon and began surveying the room. His eyes scanned the ceiling, moved down the bookshelves and then across the worn floorboards. He seemed to be reorienting himself after a sudden awakening. He looked down at his hands.

  'The first part of the plan was a resounding success,' he went on with a little smile. 'My supposed crime was so repulsive that everyone distanced themselves from me, and I think they were privately grateful that Luca was the one who took responsibility for banishing me. No one questioned the authenticity of the cover story, because who would make up something like that?' He let the question hover in the air for a moment. 'Then it was just a matter of waiting,' he continued, throwing out his hands. 'So that's what we did. And something happened all right, but it wasn't anything that even in our wildest imagination we would have-'

  At that moment both Katherina and Tom got to their feet. They tilted their heads and looked up at the ceiling, as if they were listening for sounds on the roof.

  'What?' asked Jon, looking from one to the other. Tom closed his eyes, his forehead deeply furrowed.

  'No trespassing,' whispered Katherina, putting a finger to her lips. 'The first sign.'

  Jon discovered he was holding his breath. Even though he couldn't hear anything, he could tell how tense the other two were. Katherina
had closed her eyes, and very slowly she raised her hand towards Jon, to indicate he should stay seated. He didn't move.

  'They're gone,' said Tom after more than a minute. He opened his eyes at the same moment as Katherina did, nodding in agreement.

  'They?' said Jon.

  'There were at least two people who read the sign,' Katherina explained. 'After that, nothing.'

  'It happens often,' Tom reassured them. 'Folk get lost or try to take a short cut. Most of them turn round when they see the first sign.' He sat down again, and Katherina followed his example.

  'I don't know many who can receive from such a distance,' said Tom, giving Katherina an appreciative nod. 'Luca told me about your powers.'

  'He deserves all the credit,' said Katherina.

  'That's one thing we have in common,' said Tom with a smile. 'I was his pupil, just like you. But we all have a natural limit, beyond which we can't go, no matter how zealously we train. For some people the limit is set much lower than what you've just displayed.'

  'Can we get back to what we were talking about?' asked Jon impatiently.

  'Yes, of course,' said Tom, but then he stopped.

  'You were saying that something happened after you were banished,' said Katherina.

  Tom nodded solemnly. 'Several things happened. First of all, the number of events increased. They were now so obvious that others in the Bibliophile Society also realized that something was wrong. But instead of looking outside the Society, they turned their attention on their own ranks. The accusations became rampant, and distrust grew between the two divisions of transmitters and receivers.' He fixed his eyes on Jon. 'Luca tried to keep the whole thing together, and he succeeded for a long time, even though factions arose, wanting to split the Bibliophile Society in two.'

  'Kortmann?' Jon interjected.

  'He was the spokesman for the transmitters, yes,' Tom confirmed. 'Kortmann was an ambitious man, but as long as Luca was at the helm, the group stayed together, however tenuously.' He stopped again and looked down at his hands.

  'Then what?' asked Jon.

  'Then… then your mother was murdered,' said Tom quietly.

  In the back of his mind Jon had somehow known this would come. Ever since the reason behind Lee's suicide had been suggested, the possibility had been nagging at his subconscious. But he'd managed to suppress it. Now Tom's dry statement that the same thing had happened to Marianne struck Jon like a blow to the chest. He gasped for air and bowed his head as he concentrated on his breathing. Next to him Katherina shifted position. He nodded to indicate that he was okay.

  'Luca was devastated, of course,' Tom went on. 'He blamed himself for what happened, as if he were the one who had pushed her from the sixth-floor window. Of course he knew that in a purely physical sense he hadn't had anything to do with it, but he was convinced that it was our investigation of the Shadow Organization that had provoked the murder. He couldn't use the knowledge. He didn't have the resources to do anything with it. Instead he opted out. Out of the Bibliophile Society, out of his family, out of life beyond the walls of Libri di Luca. The bookshop became his refuge during all his waking hours.'

  'Yes, I know,' said Jon tersely. 'That part I remember very clearly.'

  'He sent you to a foster home to protect you,' said Tom earnestly. 'He knew they wouldn't go after him; they'd go after the ones he loved. Marianne and you. After losing your mother, he wanted to do everything he could to protect the family he had left, even if it meant never seeing you again.'

  Jon's feeling of nausea was getting worse. He heard what Tom Nшrreskov was saying, registered the words and attempted to assign some meaning to them. In the world that Luca found himself in back then, there was probably some degree of logic to what he'd done. But compared with Jon's own memories from that period, the whole thing made no sense. The leap was too great from believing that his father hadn't wanted anything to do with him to accepting that he had practically sacrificed himself for his son's sake.

  'Why didn't he ever say anything?'

  'Out of fear. He didn't dare say anything to anybody. The risk that the Society had been infiltrated kept him from seeking help from the group. For a long time after Marianne's death he didn't even come to visit me. Where was he supposed to turn?'

  'What about Iversen?' said Katherina. 'Couldn't he help?'

  'He certainly did,' replied Tom. 'More than he knows himself, but only by offering support, as a friend and assistant in the bookshop. He made sure that Luca remembered to eat, and he kept him updated on what went on in the Bibliophile Society. The break between transmitters and receivers quickly became a reality after Luca resigned, and apparently that helped. The events stopped, or at least they were no longer as blatant for those who didn't know what to look for. Kortmann became the head of the Society on the transmitter side, while Clara took charge of the receivers. There was an idyllic sense of peace for a while.'

  'So Iversen doesn't know about the Shadow Organization?'

  'No,' said Tom firmly. 'It's not that we didn't trust him, but in some ways he's like an open book, if you'll excuse the expression. He would have ended up giving away what we knew about the Shadow Organization, completely inadvertently, of course, if he had found out what we knew. That's why we decided very early on not to involve him. For his own good.'

  'What happened with the plan?' asked Katherina. 'Were you ever contacted by the Shadow Organization?'

  Tom shook his head. 'Never.' He clasped his hands in front of him. 'But they might have had a hard time finding me. During that time I was pretty paranoid. Truth be told, Marianne's suicide nearly scared the life out of me, and I tried to protect myself as best I could. After a while I left everything behind and moved out here.' He let his gaze slide over the room. 'Only Luca knew where I was, or at least so I thought.' His red lips opened in a big smile. 'Until today.'

  'Shh,' said Katherina suddenly, raising her hand.

  Tom tilted his head to the side and closed his eyes. As he sat there on the ottoman with his hands clasped, he looked like a meditating monk. Jon turned to face Katherina, sitting beside him.

  'No trespassing,' she whispered.

  Jon nodded that he understood and leaned back against the sofa. Right now he wished he could hear what they heard so that he could at least participate.

  'Private property,' said Katherina.

  'The second sign,' Tom interjected.

  Jon looked from one to the other. They both had their eyes closed and were sitting in the same position as when it started, concentrating and not daring to move.

  'Trespassers will be reported to the police,' growled Tom. 'They're in the woods.'

  'Three people,' Katherina added.

  If he hadn't been afraid of breaking their concentration, Jon would have jumped up and run outside to see who was approaching. But he didn't dare do anything except sit motionless on the sofa. Jon let his eyes scan the room. The mosaic of book spines made the room seem less empty than it actually was, maybe because the books were apparently so randomly placed. He leaned forward towards the nearest bookshelf.

  'No, Jon,' exclaimed Katherina loudly.

  19

  'MichelFoucaultGьnterGrassWordsAndThingsLullabyThomasPynchonMason &DixonRichardFordSusanSontagFinnCollinTheAnatomyOfHatredTheLastValkyrieSonOfTheWindArturoPйrez ReverteMarcelProustSnowFalling…'

  The flow of titles and author names that Jon was reading drowned out the reception of the individuals who were on their way to the farm.

  'Stop it,' Katherin commanded.

  Jon glanced at her in surprise, but his expression quickly changed to remorse. He fixed his eyes on the floor.

  Katherina closed her eyes and again focused on receiving, but she couldn't pick up anything more. What did that mean? Had they stopped, or were they in between two signs? Even though it was convenient to receive from a distance, it was also frustrating not to be able to see what was really happening.

  She jumped up from the sofa and ran through the ro
oms to the door. There she fumbled with the three bolts that were preventing her from exiting. When she finally flung the door open, the other two were right behind her.

  Outside all three of them ran towards the track. Jon was faster than the others, so he went on ahead until he reached the first turn. There he came to an abrupt halt. When Katherina and Tom caught up to him they saw a grey Land Rover backing down the track away from them. The shadows of the trees made it impossible to see who or how many people were in the vehicle. Katherina was about to run after it when Jon stopped her.

  'They picked somebody up,' he explained. 'A guy came out of the trees on the left. There might have been more.'

  Katherina peered through the tree trunks but the dense firs prevented her from seeing more than a couple of metres into the woods. The car had disappeared from sight but they could still hear the engine. It was driving away at a great speed.

  'Did you get the number?' asked Katherina.

  Jon shook his head. 'TX or something like that.'

  'I'll get my shotgun,' said Tom and ran back to the house before the others could react.

  'What did the man look like?' asked Katherina. 'Did you recognize him?'

  'No,' replied Jon. 'He was short and thin, wearing hunting gear, with a hat and all the rest.'

  'And a rifle?'

  'Maybe. But I didn't see it.'

  Jon took several steps forward, peering into the woods. They stood there for a couple of minutes and listened without hearing anything but the wind in the treetops.

  'I'm sorry I ruined things,' he said without taking his eyes off the trees. 'I'm still not used to the idea that reading can be so revealing. All my life I've thought that reading silently was a private matter, a sort of personal space I could enter and be in all alone. But in reality I've been broadcasting like a radio station.'