Ithaca

by David Davidar

  A couple of days later he is in Sydney where he has been invited to participate in a panel discussion on the editor’s changing role in publishing, and to give a talk on the life of Massimo Seppi and the five great Angels books.

  A week before he arrived in Australia, Storm of Angels had been published and predictably shot to the top of the bestseller lists on the day it was launched. The inconvenience of a volcanic eruption in Iceland had delayed the launch slightly from April to the second of May, but nothing could dim the euphoria over the publication of Litmus’s biggest book of the year, although the general feeling of well-being was soon tempered by everybody’s sadness over Gabrijela’s departure a day after the launch and their move to Globish’s London headquarters. As the senior surviving member of staff, Zach had done his best to lift people’s spirits. The main thing was that they were all still together, he’d said, and the four people who had quit notwithstanding, that was indeed the case. Mortimer had agreed to dedicate Litmus’s existing sales and marketing staff to Litmus’s books, and although three people in accounting and admin were absorbed into the Globish back office, by the end of the first week of the merger people had begun to relax and take an interest in their work again.

  He saw very little of Mortimer after the launch, as he visited London only once a quarter, and he found working with Hayley, his new boss, uncomplicated.

  We never know what it is about the world’s most iconic objects that make them real to us, helps us make them our own. He remembers that when he first saw the Taj Mahal it wasn’t its slender minarets outlined against the sky, or its perfect symmetry, that grabbed hold of him; its beauty made a real impact only when the guide who was taking them around shone a torch on the marble, and revealed the translucence of the stone and the delicacy of the gems embedded in it. From within the stone, the gorgeous workmanship spoke to him, and the Taj Mahal was no longer a clichéd abstraction, a commonplace image, but something that he would carry within him forever. In similar fashion, the soaring petals of the Sydney Opera House, resplendent under clear blue skies on a crisp winter’s day, would have remained just another picture-postcard image if it wasn’t for the opening ceremony of the festival that took place in the enormous main hall of the building.

  In an inspired move, the festival’s organizers had invited an Aborigine elder to give them permission to hold the festival on his people’s ancestral ground, and bless the activity that was about to take place. The man had cut a rather unimpressive figure as he approached the microphone, but as he launched into the welcome ceremony his whole aspect had changed. His ancestors had sung this land into existence and on this evening their whispering spirits filled the building for just a moment, hallowing it.

  The next day, at the editors’ session, the room is filled with aspiring writers who are hoping the panel will impart to them the magic formula that will make them famous published writers. They have no formula, magic or otherwise, to give the aspirants but they do their best, relaying whatever wisdom they have – about the craft of writing maybe, but not the art. He reminds one persistent woman about Saul Bellow’s observation that he didn’t probe too much into where his art sprang from, that he left it well alone. He tells her she should read, read, and then read some more, strategically and intelligently; there was no writer, alive or dead, who hadn’t benefited from a careful reading of the greatest writers in whichever genre they were working in. But it is in the nature of this particular aspirant to question and question, to seek concrete suggestions on how it is done. He has nothing to give her beyond standard tips on pacing, characterization, plotting, POV, and the like, stuff that can be got for nothing online or for a few dollars in any of the dozens of books and writing programs that claim to be able to teach writing, and she sits down frustrated and angry. The panellist next to him, who works for one of the big Australian independents, leans across and whispers in his ear, “We get her every year; she has been coming here for at least five years, with nothing to show for it. She seems to hold it against us that she hasn’t been able to publish anything.”

  The Q and A that ends the discussion is uneventful except towards the very end, when he finds himself defending the global publishing corporations because he is the only one on the panel who works for one. This is a novel experience for him but the defence is easy to mount. He points out that the Big Seven corporations between them publish more first novelists than most of the other houses put together, they keep the careers of thousands of midlist writers alive, and if it weren’t for them the book trade would be severely diminished. He accepts that the big players might not be as responsive to the needs of every writer as some of the indies but as demerits go that was a small one.

  He has a couple of hours to himself after the sessions end and decides to go for a walk, he would like to track down some opal earrings for Julia. It is her birthday next month and he has always liked giving her jewellery. Up a steep sloping street he finds a cluster of opal emporia, and selecting the one that looks the most promising he goes in. He often thinks he might easily qualify for the title of world’s worst shopper, but he has found that because his incompetence is so manifest sales people tend to take pity on him and help him out. A friendly middle-aged saleswoman, noticing the utterly helpless look on his face as he regards display case upon display case stacked with opals, takes him in hand, tells him how to choose opals, ascertains his budget, finds out who the gift is for, and then starts pulling out stones to show him. He finds one stone in particular completely spectacular, a gem-quality Lightning Ridge black opal with a harlequin pattern – reds, violets, purples, greens, and blues pocking a deep midnight-blue background – a stone that might have surfaced from the imagination of some demented disciple of Seurat who had decided to shoot bullets of colour into the night sky. It would look perfect on Julia, he thinks. But the stone is several thousand dollars over his budget so he settles for a pair of earrings that has green lightning flashes and bands against blue. After buying the opals he walks around downtown for a while, then goes back to the festival hotel for a quick nap before the evening program begins.

  He wakes up refreshed, and after a quick shower joins one of his fellow panellists in the bar downstairs. He finds the stories his drinking companion has to tell about his nation’s publishing environment fascinating. For a small country Australia has several world-class publishers, ranging from independents like Text Publishing and Allen & Unwin to the outposts of the Big Seven, but here, like everywhere else, things are getting tougher and the publishing community is nervous about what the future might hold.

  After a couple of the local beers, a clean-tasting golden yellow lager, they go across to a party hosted by a festival sponsor at one of the piers. He gets a drink, is introduced to a festival volunteer, and is entirely sincere when he tells her he is enjoying himself. They talk about the day’s sessions and his event tomorrow. Once that’s done he will be free to take in some of the other events, and he is looking forward to catching Christopher Hitchens and Peter Carey later in the week.

  As the evening progresses, he takes off his name tag – he has always had a problem with identifying himself publicly – gets himself a refill, and wanders off to look at a book display in a corner of the enclosure. A gang of publishing people or festival volunteers, he has no idea who they are, are chatting animatedly next to the display; one of the women, skeletally thin, bears a startling resemblance to the figure in Munch’s The Scream. He is beginning to move away to somewhere less noisy when a striking woman, almost as tall as he is, introduces herself as Betsy Molloy. He is nonplussed – how does she know who he is, he doesn’t have his name tag on – and he would have noticed if she had been at the morning’s session. The mystery is explained when she says she was working as a scout in London for an Australian publisher when the first Angels book was published and recommended it for publication. It’s the only book she has recommended that has enjoyed such a level of success, she says; he says that is true of him as well. There is
a lot he likes about her; she is easy to talk to, very attractive to look at, honey-blonde hair, blue-grey eyes, and a voice that suggests more than a nodding acquaintance with whisky and cigarettes. At any other time he would have hoped their encounter would lead to something else, but he can let nothing interfere with the delicate rebuilding of his relationship with Julia. At the point at which the conversation looks as though it might take a turn towards something more intimate he excuses himself, pleading work waiting for him back in his hotel room, now that the UK has woken up.

  He walks back along the waterfront; the piers, alive with readings, parties, and music, push long, illuminated fingers into the dark waters. It’s a glimpse of the future, he thinks; everywhere cultural festivals are proliferating, and there will come a time when the integration of music, drama, food, festivity, and literature will become commonplace, just as it was for hundreds of years – the wheel turns and turns and turns, and comes to where it once was and turns again. He is feeling good about himself, he will not deny it; the encounter with Betsy has heightened his sense of well-being, all he needs now is Julia’s voice whispering in his ear. He will sleep well; it is his third day in Australia and with his brief nap in the afternoon the jet lag is beginning to lose its potency.

  Later he will think about how some of the biggest events in his life have crept up on him unawares. This one begins in Hamilton, an unremarkable industrial town not far from Toronto. When he turns on his BlackBerry in his hotel room in Sydney he finds an e-mail from Rachel saying that while there is nothing to be concerned about, he should know that the Google Alert they have switched on for Storm of Angels has turned up an interesting observation about the book, posted by a Hamilton blogger called Night Owl. The blog, to which Rachel has provided a link, says that Night Owl has found a few similarities between the text of Storm of Angels and a 1930s fantasy series about angels by an Irish writer called Eileen Keane. “Watch this space,” the blogger writes, “I might be on to something big.” Zach isn’t too worried about the post, virtually every one of the world’s biggest writers, including J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer, has been accused by less successful writers of plagiarism and the charges have usually been thrown out of court. This will probably fizzle out in the same way.

  It does not. A day later Night Owl blogs that she has run Storm of Angels, and the books that she alleges it has been plagiarized from, God’s Messengers and two others by Eileen Keane, through a comparison software program, and claims that approximately a third of Seppi’s book is identical to the earlier works.

  On the morning of the same day, in Toronto, Simon Prescott walks into his office at Bibliomania after a week’s vacation at a friend’s cottage. As he switches on his laptop he is feeling a little resentful that he has had to work hard during his holiday, cleaning and cooking and running errands, but he supposes that is the reality at the lower end of cottage life, when you don’t have a staff and a cottage of your own. It could have been worse, he thinks. I could have been stuck in Toronto all summer long with all those other poor saps who haven’t yet discovered or, worse, disdain the pleasure of driving for three hours, one way, in bumper-to-bumper traffic for the dubious rewards of being eaten alive by black flies and mosquitoes and eating indifferent home cooking. Nothing much seems to have taken place during his absence, a few new deals to be reported, and a couple of personnel changes at a West Coast publisher. As he scrolls down the mail in his in-box his Google Alerts page points him to the blog about Seppi.

  Bibliomania’s coverage of the publication of Storm of Angels, the biggest event in Canadian publishing in 2010, has been non-stop, and Simon is determined to wring as much juice from the story as possible. He had even tried to elicit Megumi’s comments on the Seppi phenomenon by presenting her with a copy of Storm of Angels: she had declined the book, saying restaurant policy prevented her from accepting gifts from customers. He was crushed but not for long; he had decided that this was pretty much his last attempt to get her interested, and that if this gambit did not work he would stay away from her. He had thrown himself back into the magazine’s coverage of Storm of Angels. He had done phone interviews with Caryn and Giuseppe, done an e-mail interview with Zach, and provided daily updates in the online edition of Bibliomania. Gradually, though, there was not a whole lot left to say. Until now.

  He sends Night Owl an e-mail saying he would like to cover her story. She replies immediately and by that afternoon he is on a GO train to Hamilton. From the station he takes a bus to the address that Night Owl has given him. It turns out to be a housing development of identical two-storey, red-brick row houses with minuscule, unkempt front yards. Night Owl turns out to be a woman in her thirties with long, dishevelled black hair. She is dressed in a flowing purple caftan. She is vague about what she does for a living but he gathers she is some sort of freelance computer programmer. The air in her living room smells musty and he can see why: it appears as if the windows have not been opened for a long time.

  He clears a pile of books off the only sofa and sits down as she takes a seat at her desk, pops open her laptop, and begins a monologue in a high-pitched voice about the outrage being perpetrated on the fans of Eileen Keane and Massimo Seppi. She tells Simon that she has been visited by angels since she was three, glowing naked men with tremendously developed pectorals. Her face is flushed and she sprays him with spit as she talks about her obsession (sexual? he types into his laptop). At the age of thirteen she discovered a long out-of-print book by Eileen Keane at a neighbourhood garage sale and was overjoyed at having found a soul sister. Her greatest regret was that Miss Keane had been dead twenty-two years so there was no chance of meeting her. But she tracked down every one of the nine books (three on non-angelic themes) Keane had written, devoured every word, and communed with the object of her adoration through dreams.

  She takes him through the angels’ hierarchies, and he wishes he had brought a recording device along with him. He isn’t sure he is getting all these names down properly, who would have thought angels lived in such a complicated world! He makes a joke, and Night Owl, whose real name is Jennifer (she forbids him to use it, either while speaking to her or in his article) glares at him and says with the rage of the true jihadi that he must never ever make light of angels, that they are capable of wreaking the most horrific vengeance. He assumes a contrite expression and the interview goes on. She has read every book written about angels, fiction and non-fiction, and he records this fact dutifully in his laptop, although part of his mind wonders if that is even possible, given her description of the wide world of angels – a world that stretches across religions, races, time. Surely she couldn’t have read everything there is about angels in Arabic or Urdu.

  He snaps his wandering mind to heel. Night Owl is talking now about Seppi. When Angels Rising appeared she was overjoyed; here was the new master, the guru who would take her by the hand and help her negotiate the labyrinth of angels. Seppi’s reclusiveness was a problem; she had travelled to Toronto every time she learned of an author event, a reading, a bookstore signing, or a fantasy convocation that featured him, but the closest she had ever got was a brief hello when he signed her books after a reading. And then, as his fame grew, Angels events simply stopped featuring him, to her frustration. But as long as the books kept coming, at least that was some consolation. She was devastated when he died. But incredibly, there was talk of a new book, and finally she had experienced the thrill of holding Storm of Angels in her hands. One hundred and seventy pages into the novel, disillusionment began to set in. By page two hundred she was sure. After that it was simply a matter of feeding all the words of Seppi’s new novel and the novels of Keane into a comparison software program and her suspicions were confirmed. Of the 278,000 words of Storm of Angels 97,742 were identical to various passages in Eileen Keane’s angel books.

  As he read and compared the work of the two writers, Simon could see there was no mistake: entire paragraphs, in one case a chapter, had been lifted from the one an
d transposed into the work of the other with only the names and locales changed. His mind was beginning to seize up with excitement.

  For a moment he wondered if he should approach the Globe and Mail or Maclean’s with the story, perhaps even the New York Times, but out of loyalty to his own publication he decided to write the story for Bibliomania. He knew what people said about his paper – that it was read by all of six people including its staff of four, that its value if anyone ever wanted to buy it would barely max out the credit card of a grad student, that it got its facts wrong constantly. He would show them all what was what when he broke the literary story of the century. He would have to move fast, for all he knew the other papers were already on to the story; at least he had got to Night Owl first. He would phone Caryn Bianchi when he got back to the office, and also see if he could get a reaction from the publisher of Litmus.

  “You’ve done an astonishing thing, Night Owl,” he says sincerely. “I’m putting you on the front page of my magazine.” He does not tell her that Bibliomania does not exist anymore in print form but he does not think that would matter to a blogger.

  “Cool,” she says, “Eileen would be pleased.”

  “Do you know if she has any family?” he asks, wondering if he should fly to Dublin, interview surviving family members. Not enough time, he thinks, even if he could scrape together the money for the airfare. He gets Night Owl to e-mail the text comparisons to him and takes a taxi to the train station with his last remaining dollars. During the long ride back he prepares a rough draft of the story.

  It’s past seven when he gets into the office, and it’s in darkness. He gets settled at his desk, phones Caryn, and gets voice mail. Now what? he thinks, as he puts the phone down without leaving a message. She could be out of town on holiday or merely be away from home for a few hours, what should he do? He decides to write the article, leaving openings for quotes from Caryn if he is able to get hold of her before the midnight deadline he has imposed upon himself. As he writes the story he thinks that Caryn’s quotes aren’t necessary for it to hold up, unless she is prepared to be absolutely honest about the deception.