Music, in a Foreign Language

by Andrew Crumey

  The girl wants to get on with some writing. The author describes how she reaches for her bag and rummages inside it – then cries out; her notebook is gone! She carries it with her wherever she goes, and now it’s been stolen. She couldn’t possibly have mislaid it – someone must have taken it. An admirer, or an autograph collector – perhaps another writer who is running short of ideas and has resorted to theft in lieu of inspiration.

  Night. Alone – the paper before him. His last letter. Your father’s last letter. The pallid light of the table lamp staining the wall. Cone of dismal yellow. How to find the words? The words – all those words he would like to leave behind.

  Her notebook has gone – the opening chapters of a novel, gone without trace. Tears course down her cheeks as she tells how she shall have to begin all over again, her great story (though can you ever rediscover a story once it has been lost?). It was to have been a kind of detective story, set in a country which is under dictatorship. Two men are following each other, watching each other – perhaps they are friends, perhaps enemies. Difficult to tell, sometimes, whether someone is your friend or your enemy. Only fragments of their lives; brief glimpses from which to infer who they are, and what purpose there might be behind their actions. We see them meeting in a cafe, having a conversation – though through the thick window, we cannot hear their words. Or we see one of them going to meet a girl – following her through the streets until she reaches a door. He waits while she enters – he looks around, then goes inside.

  Now it’s reminding you again of the other story – subtle links you still don’t understand. You look through the anthology again – a girl in a cafe, and a waiter who watches her while she writes. The stolen diary. Again, the idea of spying, of suspicion, of theft. You look at other pieces in the book – you skim through other tales; tales about letters which are surreptitiously removed from drawers, or about scraps of paper lost and found. Stories about a man pursuing a woman; or a woman, a man. About two men being followed by a third – the whole collection, though it seems to be a book of unrelated short stories, is really a single work; each piece is a fragment of something larger and perhaps unstated. A book about a theft, and a betrayal, and about secret observation.

  It’s like a revelation. You look up from the book, and you see those two women sitting opposite. You want to tell them how clever you are to have figured out what Galli is up to. But they’re both buried in their own books.

  A moment of silent self-congratulation – as if the author’s achievement were somehow your own. And now, impatient as ever, you turn to the final story in the book.

  28

  The pen, rubbing its tip across the paper. A trail of blue ink – a single line – urgent and painful, and twisted, curled, sometimes angled, sometimes pulled back on itself. Back on itself – and broken only for the making of a dot, or a brief horizontal stroke. Or for the opening of an empty space. A single line, like a wire, bent into letters – letters of blue ink which have abandoned neatness – which have gone past caring about their own appearance. Dishevelled letters, broken symbols, and the forming of words – words which branch into meaning, or into several meanings, or into meaninglessness. Words which suggest a crime, or the idea of a crime – words which seem at first warm, but then grow colder. Words dead, even before their ink has dried.

  Concerning the Library, we observe that its shelves extend in every direction beyond the limits of visibility. We suppose its contents to have been created by a single printing machine; each volume being of a uniform (and very great) length, and bound in brown leather. How many books does the Library contain? This is a simple calculation, involving only two pieces of data: the number of different symbols n (including the blank space) which the machine was capable of printing, and the maximum length l, in individual symbols, which a single book can contain. Then the extent of our Library is given by multiplying n by itself l-fold. The figure l, we have assessed from direct observation; a volume which is filled completely would take a lifetime to read in its entirety. Many tomes, however, contain a great number of blank pages. (The print is, of course, so fine as to require magnification, and the leaves are of extraordinary thinness and delicacy, so that great care is needed in turning them). As to the number n of possible symbols which can be printed, we assume this to be finite – in which case (if only one copy exists of each book) the Library itself must be of finite (though very great) extent. Some regard this as paradoxical, while for others, the notion that the shelves may continue without end is equally baffling. It is possible that there are other Libraries (that is to say, other Universes) consisting of works of greater length than can be housed in our own. However, if our Library is complete (in other words, if it consists of every possible permutation and combination of the allowed symbols within the allowed length), then we can be sure that it contains synopses, commentaries and abridged versions of everything which could not be included. (Many works in the Library will presumably take up several volumes – indeed, the entire Library could be regarded as a single huge opus).

  She would have told you that her name is Giovanna – that she is from Cremona, in Italy. And she would have gone home with you tonight. So much easier than finding a hotel. She would have met Charles and Joanna. Then slept on a mattress on your bedroom floor. And then, and then.

  Most of what we see is meaningless – page upon page of random symbols. (It is possible that the machine produced its text in some purely stochastic fashion; though a systematic procedure – such as working in strictly alphabetical order – would achieve the task in an equal length of time. In either case, the shelving seems to have been carried out without any method which we can discern). When, out of the incomprehensible jumble which fills most pages, a word or phrase suddenly emerges, then we know that this is simply a matter of chance, of good luck – a thought or observation, spewed out at random and then lost in the chaos of letters and symbols. Meaning is, after all, nothing more than a very special subset of something much greater – something without order or discipline.

  The pen moving across the paper. Your father’s last letter – his letter to Charles. The words placed together on the page – the erratic, uneven script as his hand moves nervously across the page.

  What we know, however, is that if we spend long enough, and journey far enough, then we shall find books in which whole sentences make sense – or an entire page. What might they tell us? And rarest of all, if we searched for a sufficient period of time, there would be books whose entire contents would be meaningful – if not in our own language, then at least in one which is decipherable.

  And next morning you would awaken, the two of you. Charles and Joanna already gone to work. The two of you alone.

  Every book which has ever been written, or ever could be written by mortal hand, must be present in this great Library. Even the text which I am writing now is there already, somewhere – my every thought anticipated long ago by the unthinking machine. (Some books will seek to refute this assertion with vigour, while others will leave the matter undecided.)

  You would already have shown her round the flat the previous evening – so interesting for her. Charles would have liked her. And she would have listened in awe while he tried to explain to her how light can be either a wave or a particle, depending on how you look at it. She would have told him that if only physics at school could have been so fascinating. Next morning, she would lie sleeping beside you. And you would leave her quietly, and go outside into the bright daylight.

  To write, it would seem, is futile. It is better instead to explore – our own journeys through the Library are slow, and yield little. But we can suppose that there are others somewhere – in a region of which we know nothing – who will by now have discovered how to build craft capable of transporting them more quickly along the light-years of shelves (they will have discovered a book telling them how to do this). And among these people there will no longer be any need for writers; instead there will only be book explo
rers – fearless individuals who will go out on hazardous voyages in search of the book which will make them famous.

  And what impulse would it be, when she awakens alone in the flat – morning sunshine streaming through the windows; what strange desire would lead her, while you went out briefly, to get up, and go into the little room which Charles King calls his study? And you would come back – you would open the front door quietly, and you would enter the flat once more, a pint of milk in your hand. And then you would see that the door of Charles’s study is open. What unknown motive might have led her inside, to stare uncomprehendingly at the desk, with its litter of papers – sheets covered with meaningless formulae and symbols? And what impulse might have led her to open the drawer – what perverse kind of admiration for the unknown could fuel such an intrusion? The drawer, in the privacy of his study. And if you should come into the flat and see the door ajar, and if you should go inside – go into the study – then what scene of horror would be revealed to you?

  And what is writing then, except a kind of theft? Theft from the library of ideas which the machine has provided us with. The Library which contains every possible book. Encyclopaedias of arcane knowledge, or of fallacy. Histories real and imagined, of lands which may never have existed, and not only tales of their past, but of all their futures also. Dictionaries and grammars of languages living, dead, or as yet un-coined.

  So that my story, concerning the figure (or were they figures?) whom I have pursued through this labyrinth of shelves – the story of my observations, my suspicions, my attempts to unravel the meaning behind their actions – this is a story which requires no further elucidation. It would be a redundant tale – a mere copying of that story which has already been bound, somewhere, between covers of brown leather. And if my story has (as I suspect is quite possible) merely been stolen from the work of some other writer, then I need not feel too guilty over this, since he in his turn must surely have been pre-empted by the infallible comprehensiveness of the Library; a collection which houses the story – with all its beginnings, middles and resolutions – in every conceivable form, style, manner and language.

  The tales I have written are no more than shadows – attempts to understand the vocabulary of events which my observations have revealed; events which I cannot understand, and which may perhaps have no meaning, and yet which seem to come together into some kind of pattern, or hierarchy of patterns; events which suggest the possibility of a crime, or the idea of another’s guilt. Events which indicate that not only do I observe, but I am myself observed.

  Pointless, though, to write any more. What I seek now is that volume (which, perhaps, they also seek – the ones whom I pursue) – the book which will contain all that I have seen, and written, and will suggest perhaps some answer, or at least explain the impossibility of such a fortunate conclusion.

  She would have found what you have never searched for, Duncan. She would be holding – like a sleepwalker, uncomprehending – the letter which your father wrote. The letter which Charles has never destroyed. The letter which has lain in his drawer for years, like a sleeping monster. And which lies there still.

  29

  Dear Charles,

  Already I am dead. If you are reading this, then it must be so. How strange it feels, to be writing to you as a dead man! My thoughts, feelings – my guilt – all of these seem so real to me, yet I know that as you read these words they are nothing more than abstractions for you to try and imagine; the thoughts of a man now dead, and his feelings, and his guilt.

  It’s so easy, when you’re alone, to let ideas run riot – when they’re your only companion, then you find they have a habit of taking on a life over which you have no control; you thought the ideas in your head were your slaves – your pets. But you find that they have a malicious will of their own, and a very special way of teasing and provoking you. Now, all of this must be over for me – thank God. Now at least, I must have found some kind of peace.

  This is my last confession, Charles. I’ve no right to ask any favours, but for the sake of Anne and Duncan I beg you not to say a word of this to anyone.

  I was the one who betrayed you. I planted the drugs in your flat. It was the time when I came round – the last time I saw you. What a terrible way to say goodbye! I went to the bathroom, and while I was out of your sight I put the packet under the carpet, just as they had told me to.

  They made me do it, Charles – please believe me, I had no choice. They said it was only to ‘warn’ you; that they wouldn’t take any more action – they only wanted to show you what they could do. But Anne told me on the phone what’s been happening. I’ve ruined you. My own friend – the dearest friend in the world. I can’t tell you how sick I feel – how much I loathe myself.

  I did have a second interview with Mays – it was just after the weekend when we went out with Anne and Jenny (I was so wrong to make you suspect her!). I already knew that Mays had found out about Flood – but I didn’t know how, or whether he had proof against either one of us. At first he was polite – almost friendly, but then he started asking about my family again and I knew he was threatening me – and toying with me. He asked me if I was interested in Greek poetry. You remember my translations in Flood? It was like when he asked me about Ganymede – as if he knew, but wasn’t saying. He changed the subject – asked all kinds of things which seemed irrelevant. But still it was always questions, questions. He asked me about you, how well I knew you. If I trusted you. He tried to insinuate things. And then he showed me a little strip of paper. He held it up for me to read – my own writing. Does this mean anything to you, he said to me. I bent forward to read what was on the piece of paper – no use denying it was in my own hand. It said ‘music, in a foreign language’. Part of the last line of one of the poems. The poems I signed ‘Ganymede’. Now I knew that everything was lost.

  He said they found it when they searched my office. Someone pulled a book off the shelf and the piece of paper was inside, like a bookmark. And then Mays turned the strip over for me to see – on the other side it said FLO 343592. Now it all made sense to me – it must have been the scrap which I tore from my notes when I took down your number. Almost the first time we played music together, and we talked about Flood. I took out a sheet I’d been using while working on a draft of the poem – I turned it over to the blank side, and wrote your number at the bottom. When I tore off the edge, I caught the last line on the other side. Later, I put it in a book and forgot about it. But it finally caught me.

  He had your phone number with FLO written beside it, and he had a line of poetry. It seemed obscure, but harmless. Mays was obviously very proud of the stroke of luck which he chose to regard as inspiration. Just as a check, he started looking through the files, to see if FLO could refer to anything. And he found a copy of Flood – nothing to do with Jenny; it had been there for five years. All he had to do was read through it until he saw that poem. Then he read the articles, and he realized he was on to something. All that stuff about Cecil Grieve, and legalizing homo-sexuality.

  He wanted to know what you had to do with it – I made up God knows how many excuses. There was nothing to implicate you except the number. But he still seemed to think that you were behind it all. He asked me if I was homosexual – I said no. Then he asked if you were. He said one of us had to have written that article – this was the thing he was getting so worked up about. Mays has got a very clear view on morality. That article – do you remember? The one I didn’t want you to write.

  The more I denied things, the worse it was making it for you. So I told him that I wrote it – that, and everything else. Flood was entirely my own idea, my own work. I had tried to get you to write something for it, but you refused. Of course, I could no longer deny my homosexuality. But by now I wasn’t ashamed of anything any more – I had crossed some kind of frontier; each admission made the next one easier – almost pleasurable. I was proud to be confessing even to things of which I was wholly innocent. I knew t
hat I was saving you – but also, in a way I can’t describe, I felt then as if I was saving myself. And then at last when I was finished, I told Mays he could do whatever the hell he liked with me.

  But he still wasn’t convinced. He told me that Section Five had approved me for the book commission, and they didn’t want the police to make waves. Mays said that for the moment he couldn’t touch me. He called me all sorts of things. And then he got a policeman to rough me up. I thought at the time that something might be broken, but they’re very expert at these things. Mays said that as far as he was concerned I was living on borrowed time – that once I’d finished the book he’d make sure I’d never work again. And he said that if I was to stand any chance then I’d have to return the favour they’d done me. They put me under a lot of pressure, Charles.

  They said that you needed to be taught a lesson – as a warning. They wanted me to plant drugs in your flat. I refused of course – told them they could send me to jail for as long as they liked, but to leave you alone since you’d done nothing wrong. Mays still suspected you, though. He wanted something he could incriminate you with, just so as to keep you in check. There’d be no charges, but you’d get the message. And if I didn’t do it? Mays thought a bit. ‘Lots of busy roads around here,’ he said. ‘It’d be a shame if little Duncan fell under a car.’

  Maybe it was all idle threats, Charles, I don’t know. But in the end I was weak. I gave in to them. I wish they’d killed me on the spot instead – but Duncan and Anne, I had to protect them. Wouldn’t you have done the same?