The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards: A Novel

by Kristopher Jansma

  The man smiles and swiftly begins his work. She watches out of the corner of her eye as, to his credit, his delicate fingers wield the tools of his trade with precision. As the watch man works away she wonders that there are still people in this world who learn a skill from their fathers and then apply it, day in and day out. If Mr. Haslett fires her, she decides, she’ll go back to Chicago and make her father teach her how to be an electrician. Wouldn’t there be something satisfying in that? Tearing open walls and tracing lines of copper and plastic from switch to bulb? People need lights. People always need light. She could bring light to the world. Plus she thought it might be nice to be in a union. Gripe about taxes, worry over pensions—that sort of thing.

  Then, suddenly—finally—the thumbing of pages stops. The uncapped pen falls from his paralyzed fingers and leaves a jagged squiggle on the title page. He has noticed her, at last. There, fifty yards away from him, is the woman he left in Africa many months ago. With the same luggage. Talking to the man at Ten-Minute Timepiece Repair—of all places to have stopped!—and they are examining his watch.

  The sheer coincidental madness of it all sends a primeval panic up his spine and he lurches back, looking for some way to escape. But wait! he tells himself. No more running away. We’ve put that all behind us now. We’ve changed our spots, haven’t we? He doesn’t even know why he’s referring to himself in the plural—the “royal” we—he doesn’t know it is because he’s speaking to the pages now, too.

  Just as the woman is about to apologize for having been so short with the watch man, she hears the rough vibrations of his chair being pushed backward against the linoleum. She squints toward the origin of the noise—the small round table beside W. W. Gould’s. Early morning sunlight blinds her, but through its golden shining she can just make out the man whom she has hated, and loved. A man whose real name she doesn’t even know. He looks once into her green eyes and then, with a smile so faint she nearly misses it, he glances down at the table. At the pages. Then, before she can even react, he rushes away. He has a slight limp, but he is quick as a jungle cat. As the man steps onto the escalators, he looks back over his shoulder—just for a moment, directly at her, and again at the pages—and then he is gone.

  She twists and takes a quick step, as if she might rush after him, but then she remembers the watch. She remembers the gin. And her flight.

  She tells herself that it is obviously just the jet lag, playing tricks. Must be his dopplegänger, she jokes to herself. Why would he leave all his papers behind like that?

  “. . . all rows, all rows . . . flight two thirty-seven . . . ”

  The slim repairman slips the watch onto her narrow, pale wrist. It fits perfectly and she smiles appreciatively. Then he hands her a small plastic bag containing the links that he’s removed. She fumbles in her purse to find dollars amid all the cedis she’d forgotten to exchange back in Terminal A. What on earth can I do with those now? she thinks. Then, as she turns to leave—as she begins to move toward the abandoned pages—the young man jabs his thin, pink fingertip at a small mark on the golden edge of the watch. “That’s our stamp right there.”

  “You stamped it?” she asks, studying the near-microscopic insignia.

  He shakes his head. “Was stamped already. You must have had work done on it here once before.”

  “I sincerely doubt it,” she says, thinking, I have just ten minutes.

  The man shrugs. “Bring it back anytime. If your wrist ever gets any bigger.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that,” she says. Then, at last, she tugs her broken suitcase behind her over to the bar at W. W. Gould’s. She is so close now.

  It takes only a minute to get the bartender’s attention, and another two for him to pour the drink. As she pays, she watches the line of passengers moving slowly through her gate. The watch feels heavy and good on her wrist. It says she has eight minutes left, so she sits down at the closest table and drains the glass in four long, slow gulps. She shuts her eyes and breathes out deeply. She thinks that now she will be able to sleep on the way back to the city, and that her impending execution in the Haslett & Grouse offices will not sting quite so badly. She thinks maybe she can run over to Emerson Books and find some sort of For Dummies Guide to Electrical Wiring. She’d at least like to have something to read—

  And then her eyes fall onto an untidy stack of papers at the next table. Now that she has a better view, she knows exactly what it is. She knows a manuscript when she sees one. Manuscripts are her roommates and best friends. They live on the floors of her apartment and the spare chairs of her office. Stacks and stacks of stories and words.

  She looks around but there is no one else sitting anywhere nearby.

  It sits patiently on the table. It is all it can do. She checks her watch again. Slowly she stands up and, still starting, checks the watch—her watch—again.

  This is where that man was sitting, she thinks. The one who just bolted out of here. The one who looked just like—

  Reaching over, she picks it up by one corner and looks around her. No one takes any notice of her at all. Tentatively she studies the title page. “The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards.” There is no author’s name—no address or phone number—no e-mail. But she knows that title. She’s seen it before.

  “. . . two thirty-seven to New York is now . . . ”

  She reaches into her bag and pulls out another stack of pages. These, she stole them from the luggage of the man who owned the watch. Before she left Africa the first time. She’s carried them around ever since, and has read them so often that she could recite them by heart. She sets the stolen pages down beside the ones she’s just found. They seem to be about the same height. The same consistency. She lifts away the title page and places it gently on the table beside her glass of ice. She begins to read the Author’s Note and as she does the world of Terminal B falls silently away around her: her flight, her gin glass, the watch repairman. The only noise she can hear is the faint ticking of the watch. She lifts each page up to the shortening light; her hand leaves faint red smudges on their margins. Steadily, she runs her finger beneath the opening line and begins reading: I’ve lost every book I’ve ever written. I lost the first one here in Terminal B, where I . . .

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not exist today if not for the generosity, time, and faith of practically everyone I know. Most especially I’d like to thank my wife, Leah Miller, who has been my secret weapon for twelve years and counting. Immense thanks to Chelsea Lindman, Maggie Riggs, Clare Ferraro, Timothy Lane, Hal Fessenden, Paul Buckley, Alison Forner, Alissa Amell, Elaine Broeder, Lindsay Prevette, Carolyn Coleburn, Nancy Sheppard, and everyone else at Viking/Penguin and the Nicholas Ellison Agency who believed that this novel could be turned into a book.

  Many thanks to my parents, Deborah and Dennis Jansma, who sent me to summer writing camps and at least two universities so I could learn how to do this. Thanks as well to Oma, Jonathan, Jennifer, Dennis Miller, Susan Braunhut, Theodore Fetter, and all the rest of my family.

  I’m lucky to have had many great readers along the way, including Elizabeth Perrella, Andy Dodds, Neil Bardhan, Robin Ganek, Rachel Panny, Kara Levy, John Proctor, and David Hellman. Thanks to Jordan Dollak for composing all the music in my podcasts out of the goodness of his heart, and to the brilliant photographer Michael Levy, who makes me look good. Thanks also to the many people who checked my facts and translations: Hanna Miller, Emily Ethridge, Natalya Minkovsky, Sadena Thevarajah, Kelly Johnston, Jennifer Breithoff, and Chantal Flammang at the Luxembourg City Tourist Office, and of course the tireless and thorough John Jusino. I’m grateful to Martin Marks and Ariel S. Winter for inspiring me since day one of freshman year and to The Doug for keeping me honest for just as long.

  This book is what it is today because of the generous people at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, the New York Public Library, and, especially, B Cup Café. Great thanks to my colleagues at Manhattanville College and SU
NY Purchase, including Andrew Bodenrader, Jeff Bens, Catherine Lewis, and Monica Ferrell.

  Absolutely none of this would have happened if not for Mrs. Inglis, my seventh grade writing teacher at Oak Hill Academy, who gave me my first C on a paper, because she knew I could do better if I tried.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Note

  Author’s Note

  What Was Lost

  1: The Debutante

  2: Pinkerton and McGann

  3: The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

  4: Anton and I

  5: Malice and Desperation in the Grand Canyon

  What Was Found

  6: A Plagiarist in Dubai

  7: Outis

  8: The Doppelgänger

  9: In the Writers’ Colony

  10: King Me

  Terminus

  Acknowledgments