by Joël Dicker
I thought about it: He could easily have stolen these letters when Harry was away from Somerset. But why had Harry never told me that those letters had disappeared? I asked to borrow the box, and Stern let me. I was suddenly overcome by doubt.
As he looked out at the skyline and listened to my story, Harry wept silently.
“When I saw those letters, something shifted in my mind,” I told him. “I thought again about your book, the one you left in the gym locker: The Seagulls of Somerset. And I realized something I had somehow completely missed up to that point: There are no seagulls in The Origin of Evil. How did I not see that before? Not a single seagull! And you had sworn to her that you would put seagulls in your book! That was when I understood that you didn’t write The Origin of Evil. The book you wrote in the summer of 1975 was The Seagulls of Somerset. That was the book you wrote and that Nola typed up for you. This was confirmed for me when I asked Gahalowood to make a comparison between the handwriting in the letters that Nola received and the message on the manuscript found with Nola’s body. When he told me it was the same handwriting, I realized how you had used me when you asked me to burn your handwritten manuscript. Because it wasn’t your writing. You didn’t write the book that made you famous! You stole it from Luther!”
“That’s enough, Marcus!”
“Am I wrong? You stole a book! What greater crime could a writer commit? The Origin of Evil—that’s why you gave the book that title. And I couldn’t understand why such a beautiful book should have such a dark title. But the title has nothing to do with the book; it has to do with you. You always told me that a book is not a relationship between words; it’s a relationship between people. That book is the origin of evil that has gnawed at you ever since: the evil of remorse and imposture.”
“Stop, Marcus! Shut up now!”
He continued to cry.
“One day,” I went on, “Nola left an envelope in the front door of your house. It was July 5, 1975. An envelope containing photographs of seagulls and a letter written on her favorite paper, in which she mentions Rockland and says she will never forget you. It was during that time when you were forcing yourself not to see her anymore. But that letter never reached you because Luther, who was spying on you, took it as soon as Nola went away. That was how, from that day on, he began writing to Nola. He replied to that letter, pretending to be you. She replied, thinking she was writing to you, but he intercepted all her letters in your mailbox before you ever saw them. And he replied again and again, always pretending to be you. That was why he hung around outside your house. Nola thought she was corresponding with you, and that correspondence became The Origin of Evil. But, Harry, how could you? How could you do such a thing?”
“I panicked, Marcus. That summer I was struggling so badly to write. I didn’t think I would ever manage it. I wrote The Seagulls of Somerset, but I thought it was terrible. Nola told me she loved it, but nothing could convince me. I went into fits of rage. She typed up my handwritten pages; I reread them, and I tore up everything. She begged me to stop. She said, ‘Don’t do that. You’re such a brilliant writer. Please, finish the book. Darling Harry, I won’t be able to bear it if you don’t finish it!’ But I didn’t believe in it. I thought I would never become a writer. And then one day Luther Caleb rang my doorbell. He said he didn’t know whom to ask, so he had come to me: He had written a book, and he wondered if it was worth sending to a publisher. You see, Marcus, he thought I was a famous New York writer and that I could help him.”
August 20, 1975
Harry did not conceal his surprise when he opened the door.
“Luther?”
“Hel . . . Hello vere, Harry.”
There was an embarrassed silence.
“What can I do for you, Luther?”
“I’ve come to fee you for a perfonal reavon. I need fome advife.”
“Advice? All right. Do you want to come in?”
“Fank you.”
The two men sat in the living room. Luther was nervous. He had brought a package with him, and he held it close to his body.
“So, Luther, what’s the matter?”
“I . . . I’ve written a book. It’f a love ftory.”
“Really?”
“Yef. I don’t know if it’f any good, vough. I mean, how do you know if a book iv good enough to be published?”
“I don’t know. But if you think you’ve done your best . . . do you have it with you?”
“Yef, but it’f a handwritten manufcript,” Luther said apologetically. “I juft realived. I have a typewritten version, but I picked up ve wrong package when I left ve houfe. Should I go and get it and come by later?”
“No, show it to me anyway.”
“It’f juft vat . . .”
“Come on, don’t be shy. I’m sure it’s readable.”
Luther handed him the package. Harry took out the pages and read a few of them, staggered by the quality of the writing.
“Is this your writing?”
“Yef.”
“It’s unbelievable. It’s like you . . . I mean . . . It’s beautifully written. How do you do it?”
“I don’t know. Vat’f juft how my writing iv.”
“Would you let me keep this, so I can read it? I’ll give you my honest opinion.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
Luther readily agreed, and he left. But he did not leave Goose Cove. Instead he hid in the bushes and waited for Nola, as he always did. She arrived soon afterward, happy in the knowledge that she and Harry would soon be going away together. She did not notice the crouching figure in the bushes. She entered the house through the front door, without ringing the doorbell, as she always did now.
“Harry, darling!” she called out.
There was no reply. The house seemed empty. She called out again. Silence. She checked the dining room and the living room but couldn’t find him. He wasn’t in his office or on the deck. She went down the stairs to the beach and called his name. Maybe he’d gone swimming? He did that sometimes when he’d been working too hard. But there was no one on the beach. She began to panic: Where could he be? She went back to the house, called his name again. Nothing. She checked all the rooms on the first floor again, then went upstairs. Opening the door to his bedroom, she found him sitting on his bed, reading a stack of papers.
“Harry? Were you here all along? I’ve spent the last ten minutes looking all over for you.”
Her voice had startled him.
“Sorry, Nola, I was reading. I didn’t hear you.”
He got up, shuffled the papers in his hands, and put them in his bureau.
She smiled. “So what was so fascinating to read that you didn’t hear me yelling your name all over the house?”
“Nothing important.”
“Is it the next part of your novel? Show me!”
“No, it’s nothing important. I’ll show you some other time.”
She looked at him curiously. “Are you sure everything’s okay, Harry?”
He laughed. “Everything’s fine, Nola.”
They went out to the beach. She wanted to see the seagulls. She opened her arms wide as if they were wings, and ran in wide circles on the sand.
“I’d love to be able to fly, Harry! Only ten days! In ten days we’ll fly away together! We’ll leave this miserable town forever!”
Neither Harry nor Nola had any idea that Luther Caleb was watching them from the trees above the rocks. He waited until they had gone back into the house before emerging from his hiding place. Then he ran along the path from Goose Cove until he reached his Mustang. He drove to Somerset and left his car in front of Clark’s. He rushed inside; he needed to speak to Jenny. Someone had to know. He had a bad feeling about this. But Jenny didn’t want to see him.
“Luther? You shouldn’t be here,”
she said when he appeared at the counter.
“Jenny . . . I’m forry for ve over morning. I wav wrong to grab your arm ve way I did.”
“I have a bruise . . .”
“I’m forry.”
“You have to leave now.”
“No, wait . . .”
“I’ve filed a complaint against you, Luther. Travis says that if you come back to town, I should call him—and you’ll have to deal with the police. You really ought to leave before he sees you here.”
He looked upset. “You filed a complaint againft me?”
“Yes. You really scared me the other day . . .”
“But I have to fpeak to you about fomefing important.”
“Nothing is important, Luther. Please go away . . .”
“It’f about Harry Quebert.”
“Harry?”
“Yef. Tell me what you fink about Harry Quebert.”
“Why are you asking me about him?”
“Do you truft him?”
“Trust him? Yes, of course. Why are you asking me that?”
“I have to tell you fomefing . . .”
“Tell me something? What?”
Just as Luther was about to reply, a police car appeared outside Clark’s.
“It’s Travis!” Jenny said. “Run, Luther, run! I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“It’s very simple,” Harry told me. “It was the most beautiful book I had ever read. And I didn’t even know it had been written for Nola! Her name didn’t appear in it. It was an extraordinary love story. I never saw Caleb again. I never got the chance to give him back his manuscript. Because so many things happened, as you know. A month later I found out that he had been killed in a car accident. And I still had the original manuscript of what I knew was a masterpiece. I made the decision to claim it as my own. So my whole career is based on a lie. But how could I imagine how successful that book would be? That success gnawed at me my whole life. My whole life! And then, thirty-three years later, the police find Nola and the typewritten version of that manuscript in my yard. In my yard! And at that moment I was so afraid of losing everything I had, that I told them I had written that book for her.”
“Because you were afraid of losing everything? You chose to be accused of murder rather than reveal the truth about the manuscript?”
“Yes! Yes! Because my whole life is a lie, Marcus!”
“So Nola never took that copy from you. You said that to ensure that no one would suspect you weren’t the author.”
“Yes. But I’ve always wondered where she got the copy she had with her.”
“Luther had left it in her mailbox,” I said.
“In her mailbox?”
“Luther knew you were going to elope with Nola; he’d heard you talking on the beach. He knew that Nola was going without him, so that was how he ended his book: with the heroine’s departure. He wrote her a final letter, a letter in which he wishes her a good life. And that letter was in the handwritten manuscript that he gave you. Luther knew everything. But then on the day of your departure, probably during the night of August 29 or early in the morning of August 30, he felt the need to tie up loose ends: He wanted to conclude his story with Nola the same way his book concluded. So he left a final letter in the Kellergans’ mailbox. Or, rather, a final package. The good-bye letter and the typescript of his book, so that she would know how much he loved her. And since he knew he would never see her again, he wrote on the cover: ‘Good-bye, darling Nola.’ He undoubtedly stayed there until morning, as he always did, to make sure she was the one who took the package from the mailbox. But when she found the letter and the typescript, Nola thought they were from you. She thought you weren’t coming. She lost her mind.”
Harry put his hands to his chest, and collapsed.
“Tell me, Marcus! Tell me, in your own words. I want to hear it from you. Your words are always so well chosen. Tell me what happened on August 30, 1975!”
August 30, 1975
One day in late August, a fifteen-year-old girl was murdered in Somerset. Her name was Nola Kellergan. Every account of her you hear will describe her as being full of life and dreams.
It is difficult to pin down the causes of her death that day. Perhaps, ultimately, everything began years before. During the 1960s, when her parents failed to notice the sickness that had taken hold of their child. One night in 1964, perhaps, when a young man was permanently disfigured by a gang of drunken thugs. Or in the years that followed, when one of those thugs attempted to assuage his guilt by secretly getting close to his victim. That night in 1969, when a father decided to keep quiet about his daughter’s secret. Or perhaps everything began one afternoon in June 1975, when a writer named Harry Quebert met her and they fell in love.
This is the story of parents who did not wish to see the truth about their child.
This is the story of a rich young man who, acting thuggishly in his youth, destroyed the dreams of another young man, and was forever haunted by what he had done.
This is the story of a man who dreamed of becoming a great writer, and who was slowly consumed by his ambition.
At dawn on August 30, 1975, a car pulled up in front of 245 Terrace Avenue. Luther Caleb wanted to say good-bye to Nola Kellergan. His head was all over the place. He no longer knew whether they had really loved each other or whether he had merely dreamed it; he no longer knew whether they had really written all those letters. But he knew that Harry Quebert and Nola were planning to elope that day. Luther wanted to leave New Hampshire too, and go far, far away from Elijah Stern. His thoughts were all mixed up: The man who had given him back his will to live was the same man who had taken it from him in the first place. It was a nightmare. The only thing that mattered to him at that moment was the end of his love affair. He had to give Nola the last letter. He had written it ten days ago: the day he heard Harry and Nola talk about leaving Somerset on August 30. He had rushed to finish his book, and had even given the handwritten version to Harry; he wanted to know if it was worth publishing. But nothing was worth anything right now. He had even decided not to bother getting his manuscript back. He had kept a typewritten copy, and he’d had it nicely bound, for Nola. That Saturday, August 30, he would leave it in the Kellergans’ mailbox, so that Nola would have something to remember him by, along with the final letter that would bring an end to their affair. What title should he give the book? He didn’t know. There would never be a published book, so why bother with a title? Instead he wrote a dedication on the cover, as a way of wishing Nola good luck for the future: Good-bye, darling Nola.
He sat in his car and waited for the sun to rise. Then he waited for Nola to come out. He just wanted to make sure she was the one who found the book. Ever since they had started writing to each other, she was always the one who came out to check the mailbox. He waited, hiding himself as best he could: No one must see him here, particularly that brute Travis Dawn, because if he did he would beat him up. And Luther had taken more than his fair share of beatings already.
At 11 a.m. she finally came out. As always she looked around before walking to the mailbox. She was gorgeous. She was wearing a beautiful red dress. She hurried to the mailbox and smiled when she saw the envelope and the package. She quickly read the letter, and then staggered as if she had been punched. Sobbing, she ran back to the house. They would not be leaving together, after all; Harry would not be waiting for her at the motel. His last letter was a letter of farewell.
She shut herself in her room and collapsed on the bed. Why was he rejecting her? Why had he made her believe they would love each other forever? She skimmed the manuscript. What was this book? He had never mentioned it to her. Her tears ran down onto the pages. Their letters were here, all of them, including the one she had gotten today. So he had lied to her from the beginning. He had never intended to elope with her. She was crying so hard that her head
hurt. It hurt so much that she wanted to die.
The door to her room opened softly. Her father had heard her crying.
“What’s wrong, Nola?”
“Nothing, Dad.”
“Don’t lie to me. I can see something is wrong . . .”
“Oh, Dad, I’m so sad. So sad!”
She hugged her father tightly.
“Let go of her!” yelled Louisa Kellergan suddenly. “She doesn’t deserve love! Let go of her, David!”
“Stop, Nola. Don’t start with this again . . .”
“Shut your mouth, David! You’re pathetic. You’re incapable of doing what needs to be done. Now I’m obligated to do it myself.”
“Nola, for God’s sake! Calm down, calm down! I’m not going to let you hurt yourself again.”
“Leave us alone, David!” Louisa screamed, shoving her husband away.
He stepped back into the hallway, feeling powerless.
“Come here, Nola!” her mother yelled. “Come here! Come and get what’s coming to you.”
The door slammed shut. David Kellergan, paralyzed by shock, could only listen to what was happening through the bedroom wall.
“No, Mom, please! Stop! Stop!”
“Take that! This is what happens to girls who kill their mother!”
David Kellergan ran to the garage, where he turned on his stereo, the volume cranked up as high as it would go.
• • •
All day long the music blasted from the house. Neighbors glared out their windows. Some of them looked at one another knowingly: They knew what happened at the Kellergans’ house whenever the loud music came on.
Luther had not moved. Still sitting at the wheel of his Chevrolet, hidden among the line of parked cars, he never took his eyes off the house. Why had she started crying? Didn’t she like his letter? He had put so much care into what he wrote. He had written her a love story; love should not make you cry.
He waited there until 6 p.m. He no longer knew whether he should wait for her to reappear or whether he should ring the doorbell. He wanted to see her, to tell her she shouldn’t cry. That was when he noticed her in the yard: She had climbed out of her bedroom window. She looked down the street to make sure she wasn’t seen and then began walking along the sidewalk. She was carrying a leather shoulder bag. Soon she began to run. Luther started the engine.