And then, gloriously, his marlin moment was upon him. The aft starboard line had begun to chatter out into the water. Instantly the engine note changed as the captain began to slow the boat down, bring it around, to impede the headlong flight of the fish. Zach had been tied into the fighting chair, the rod had been slotted in, and he had been told how to play the marlin (for the captain and his assistant were certain that that was what was on the end of his line): pull back the rod and reel in the slack whenever he could, pay out the line whenever it made a run for it, keep the line taut at all times but not so taut that it could break. Half an hour later his arms were aching from the strain of hanging on, his T-shirt and red baseball cap with the iconic image of Che were sodden with sweat, and they still hadn’t caught a glimpse of the fish. The line was far astern, his quarry had shown no signs of tiring, and he had begun to wonder if he had it in him to land his trophy. The first mate had offered to spell him but he had refused. This was his fish, he would either bring it in himself or it would get away, it was unthinkable that there could be another option.
And then, without warning, the marlin had smoked out of the water like an express train. Up, up, up, it had flown, its tremendous blue-black body arched like some godling’s bow against the sky, the coastline, and the wave-tossed sea. It was a sight he would never forget, his marlin moment, that instant in which enchantment had burst upon him when he had least expected it.
No question that he needs something like that now, he thinks, but he is not at all hopeful. Best to temper his and Gabrijela’s expectations; Caryn is not a magician, she cannot be expected to conjure up something for them just because they are desperate. He decides to go for a walk, there is no point being cooped up in his room alone with his unproductive thoughts. When he emerges from the air-conditioned lobby of the hotel onto the street he is surprised by how hot and humid it is, it could be Madras in the late spring. He wanders around aimlessly for a bit, then gets bored and ducks into a Second Cup coffee shop and gets himself a latte, flips through a day-old newspaper, then, still restless, decides to return to the hotel and catch the morning news on TV.
Showered and shaved he is about to leave the room for a meeting with Michael Levine, the city’s top literary agent, and one of the few people in the publishing community who isn’t already on vacation, when the phone rings. It’s Sally, the freelance publicist whom they have used for all the Seppi events in this country; she is calling to remind him about lunch with the editor of one of the city’s trade journals. Zach groans inwardly; he had forgotten he had agreed to the meeting. Chronically media-shy, the last thing he wants to do is be interviewed by the editor of Bibliomania, but Sally has been a rock throughout the Seppi years and she has made it clear in her gentle way that she is calling in a favour. She gives him the name of the restaurant, makes sure he writes it down, then rings off.
Several blocks away, Simon Prescott, the editor Zach is so reluctant to meet, gets on the streetcar he takes to work every day. Simon is a modest man, even his fantasies are homely. This past month he has dreamed off and on of being the driver of the streetcar; he thinks it would be cool to put on the uniform the Toronto Transit Commission provides, wedge himself into the driver’s seat of the vehicle, and let her rip at forty kilometres an hour. He has never possessed a driver’s licence, so he understands this fantasy is beyond his reach but it is pleasant to dream about sliding along the rails at a sedate pace.
This morning, however, as the streetcar rolls towards the tiny office of Bibliomania in Queen West he does not think about his fantasy, because he is excited by the prospect of conducting what could well be his biggest interview of the year. As editor-in-chief of Bibliomania, the country’s sixth most important magazine about books, Simon has long accepted that Canada’s leading publishers and writers will routinely rebuff him. In his first year as editor-in-chief, a position he had ascended to as the longest-serving member of the magazine’s staff of four, after his predecessor who had joined as an intern seven months earlier had resigned, he had tried hard to improve the quality of the magazine’s stories but had given up in the face of the indifference of the industry he was covering to his magazine’s place in the general scheme of things. Matters weren’t helped by the modest budget that the magazine was expected to survive on, despite the stream of applications made to the Canada Council begging for it to be increased. However, his survival as editor-in-chief was testament to the fact that he did possess certain qualities that made him perfect for the job from the point of view of the owners of Bibliomania. Among these were the ability to live on a salary slightly above minimum wage with no benefits, the knack of persuading publicists to keep sending him free copies of books that had just been published, arranging interviews with authors no one else wanted to cover, and getting college students and other would-be writers to write book reviews. Once or twice a year Simon got lucky and landed a story that was big by Bibliomania’s standards, usually an interview with a prominent visiting author, jet-lagged and bullied by his publisher into repeating the story of his genius yet another time.
Simon did not have an expense account, but this was usually not a problem because the publicists that his well-being depended upon would often pick up the tab. Today, however, he had miscalculated, for the man he was going to interview would not be accompanied by a publicist; Simon hadn’t thought of that when he had arranged to meet Zachariah Thomas for lunch at Yonge Izakaya, a Japanese restaurant near his office that he frequented because he had long been infatuated with the restaurant’s maître d’ or hostess or whatever the Japanese equivalent was. To be on the safe side, Simon had borrowed twenty dollars from his deputy, but hoped he would not have to use it – perhaps Thomas would pay.
Simon did not know much about Japanese food, and it was quite by chance that he had eaten at Yonge Izakaya for the first time – a publicist had asked if he would mind eating Japanese as her author was dying for good sushi. Simon did not mind, although his acquaintance with sushi was limited to the platters that were sometimes served at book launches. Any doubts that he might have had about the publicist’s choice of restaurant had disappeared when Sachiko (this wasn’t her real name but to Simon’s frustration none of the wait staff at Yonge Izakaya wore a name tag; he was too shy to ask her name so he had given her a name he had Googled – it meant bliss) greeted them and led them to their table. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen – tall, slender, her ivory-white complexion set off by the very dark lipstick she wore.
Since that first encounter he had eaten at the restaurant eleven times, spending exactly eight dollars and fifty cents each time on the Gold Dragon Sushi Special (cucumber and avocado with shrimp tempura topped with salmon). To his dismay, Sachiko who had a smile that heightened her remarkable looks had stopped using it on him after he had lunched at the restaurant a couple of times. Despite the setback, he had continued to visit the restaurant because he was hopeful that his persistence would be rewarded.
Zach arrives at the restaurant extremely frustrated. Neither agent he met this morning had anything that would work for him, and unless Caryn is about to spring a welcome surprise this evening the trip will be a bust. He hopes his lunch companion is well informed about the local publishing scene, maybe he will be good for a tip or two about the next great Canadian phenom. He doesn’t expect the interview itself to be much of a problem, Sally has briefed him well – all he will have to do is come up with a few anecdotes and quotes about Seppi and say a few nice things about Canadian writers, which he will be more than happy to do, he has read many with genuine pleasure: the great ones like Alice Munro, Alistair Macleod and Margaret Atwood of course, not to mention Robertson Davies, who was the first Canadian novelist he read with something approaching awe. And he also admires quite a few of the younger and more adventurous ones who seem to display an almost preternatural skill at getting into the skin of other cultures – indeed, he would publish some of them in a heartbeat if they ever came free of th
eir existing publishers.
Unfortunately, though, the meeting is turning out to be much worse than he had expected. It had started out all right, he had found Simon Prescott to be as pleasant and polite as every Canadian he had met on his three visits to the city (this was even true of the immigration officials at Pearson Airport, which filled him with something approaching wonder). But it had gone rapidly downhill from there.
“Nice restaurant,” he’d said on arriving.
“That it is, in no small part because of my girlfriend, Sachiko, who is the manager, I mean the maître d’.”
“Oh, excellent, was she the one who showed me to our table? She’s a stunner.” It was true. He is no expert on the Japanese ideal of feminine beauty, but the hostess who had greeted him and led him to his table was exquisite. Taller than the average Japanese woman. Heart-shaped face. Electrifying smile. Black lipstick.
“So where did you guys meet?” He thinks that he is spending too much time on Simon’s personal life, but his lunch companion’s face is lit with pride and he obviously wants to dwell on the subject.
“Here, I’m a regular.”
The subject of their conversation comes up, heels clicking on the wooden floor. She says brightly: “Hi, your server will be with you in a minute, meanwhile may I get you something to drink?”
“Sure, Sachiko. Simon has just been telling me about you.”
Her forehead creases for a minute in the tiniest frown and he almost expects her to say, What the fuck has this jackass been saying to you?
“My name is Megumi, and I’d be very pleased to get you gentlemen something to drink.”
There is silence at the table for a beat. Zach dares not look at Simon, but recovers first to mumble, “Just some green tea for me, please.”
Simon does not say anything. Megumi says pleasantly, “How about you, sir?”
Simon’s face has gone red; Zach thinks that one of the benefits of having a darker complexion is it helps you cover up embarrassment better. Simon shakes his head miserably.
“Your server will be here in a minute,” Megumi says with a smile as she turns and clicks away.
The server comes up – she looks Middle Eastern – takes their order, the Premium Sashimi plate for him, the Gold Dragon Sushi Special for Simon, and silence descends upon the table again. After the frustrations of the morning Zach is not exactly filled with fellow feeling, but he feels he must do his bit to help Simon out.
“So how many issues of Bibliomania do you publish every year?” he asks cheerfully.
Simon says in a voice that is barely audible, “We have an annual print edition, and the rest of our content is online. We’ll be completely online next year.”
“Tell me, what’s hot and happening on the Canadian publishing scene?”
“Not much,” Simon says, toying with his wooden chopsticks.
Come on, snap out of it, guy, he wants to say, there will be other women. Look for someone who is more in your league. He silently curses Sally for setting this meeting up.
“OK, what would you like to know from me?”
“You’re the editor of the Angels quartet – could you tell me how you discovered Seppi?”
“Sure –”
“But before we get to that, could you give me plot summaries of the books? Bibliomania’s readers would like to know what they are about.”
He has been feeling sorry for Simon, now he is seriously irritated by him. Although everyone he knows in the world of books has horror stories about mediocre literary journalists who don’t prepare for interviews or are too lazy to get their facts right, this guy is in a class by himself. Did he really want to be given a précis of each Seppi book? Even if he hadn’t read them – and he must have spent the last decade under a rock to have not done so – surely he could have looked up the book descriptions online?
“Why don’t you look them up on Amazon?” he says.
The muddy-green eyes look up from the pad over which his pencil is poised. “Don’t you have a press release?”
“Look, mate, I flew in last night from Delhi, specifically to meet with writers and agents, and I only made room in my schedule for you to accommodate Sally’s request. If you haven’t taken the trouble to research Seppi’s work, I’m sorry but I don’t think we’re going to be able to do an interview that’s worth anything.”
The clicking of heels, Megumi’s voice asking brightly, “I hope everything’s satisfactory, gentlemen.”
Fuck, how long has she been here? Has she heard him berating Simon? He looks up at her, smiles and nods, she moves on. Their food arrives and he forces himself to calm down. He rattles off one-line plot summaries of the four books between bites of his sashimi, which is excellent. Simon takes down everything he says laboriously, but the atmosphere throughout the rest of the meal is chilly, and he is relieved when the bill comes. As they are leaving, the staff of the restaurant bid farewell in a loud voice. Megumi joins in, favours him with a smile and ignores Simon. Despite his irritation, Zach feels for the man, I hope your romantic life gets better, he thinks, not that he’s anyone to talk!
Caryn Bianchi looks different from when he last saw her; he isn’t sure whether it has to do with the way she has styled her hair or whether the lines of her face have softened in some way, but the rather severe-looking woman he remembers somehow looks much more approachable. She hadn’t said much at their last meeting, and she doesn’t say very much this time either. Now, as then, Seppi is the third person at the meeting. It is very hot in her small office. The ticking of a clock with large numerals on its face fills the silence. Bookshelves line the walls but all they seem to contain are multiple editions of the quartet in all the languages it has been published in. The office is only big enough for a desk and two chairs for visitors, and he sits in one of them. From where he is sitting he is able to make direct eye contact with an enormous framed black and white picture of Seppi looking like the famous photograph of the young Kafka. The other walls have posters of the Angels movies.
Once they get past the social niceties, Zach comes to the point. Is there any unfinished work by Seppi that Litmus can acquire and publish, he asks? Work that belongs to the Angels line would be especially welcome, but he would be glad to consider anything publishable.
“You are the seventeenth international publisher to ask me the question. Every Canadian and Italian publisher has asked the question as well. My answer has always been no.”
His spirits deflate, although he had never really expected to find anything in this tiny office in North York. There is no more business to transact, it is time to go. But Caryn doesn’t seem anxious to conclude the meeting. They have had their differences in the past, but he knows how much he owes her, so he curbs his impatience to get going, waits for her cue to rise. As his gaze takes her in, the sensible haircut, the brown hair now flecked with grey, the grey business suit, the unexpectedly jaunty green T-shirt beneath the jacket, the giant face of Seppi over her shoulder, he thinks about what she must have had to live through. He knows what it is like to lose someone who is a part of you, and he empathizes with her. On the scale of human sorrowing he thinks the loss of someone on whose life and work your own was predicated could only compare to the loss of parents, a much-loved partner, or children. Sure, he had mourned Seppi’s passing, but he was one of several authors Zach had worked with. What Caryn had to deal with was the sundering of one of those exceedingly rare partnerships that was closer than most blood relationships in which the creative soul of the translator is bound up with that of the writer, the better to create the work anew in another language. He remembers speculating about the relationship between Seppi and this woman; it would have been in keeping with the rest of their relationship, he thinks, if they had been lovers: the quiet serious writer, with no life outside his work, who had somehow managed to pin the gargantuan, blaring lives of angels to the page, and the quiet, serious translator, with no life outside Seppi, who had devoted herself to absorbing his art befor
e recreating it again in a way that was true both to its creator and to the new voice with which it was expected to speak. The glory and gain were the author’s and her only reward was the work itself, before Seppi’s generosity had kicked in and he’d given her enough money to live the rest of her life in comfort. But he guessed that wouldn’t be enough to make up for her loss.
Her voice cuts into his reverie.
“I said no to all the others who enquired, and I said no to you when you wrote me because that was the way Massimo would have wanted it,” she says softly. It sounds strange to hear the author he has always thought of as Seppi called by his given name.
“There were only two people he trusted with his work besides me,” she continues. “His first publisher in Palermo, Vittorio, and you. Vittorio died three years ago. One of the last things Massimo said to me before he slipped into a coma was how grateful he was for the money you paid him for the quartet even though his first two novels had earned him just under eight thousand dollars. He knew just how hard you must have fought to keep publishing him.” She smiles for the first time since he has entered her office.
The best twenty thousand quid I ever spent, Zach thinks to himself. He has no idea whether he will ever come into such good fortune again – but you never know, publishing has its own mad logic and those who know the least about it are publishers themselves.
“Do you mind if I tell you a bit about myself, Mr. Thomas?”
“Zach, please. Sorry I should have asked earlier, are you free for supper?”
“Supper – I love the fact that you English still use that word. Language is turning flabby and inexact, don’t you think, soon we’ll call all the meals we eat dinner irrespective of when we actually take them.”
Ithaca Page 13