It was also in the newspapers, the following year, 1923, that I learned of the death of that same monster. He too was buried in the Baudelaire Society crypt, although this time there was no question of my attending the burial. I knew he would not have died without crossing, so when, soon after, I learned that Gabrielle Chanel was the new president of the Society, I naturally assumed he’d crossed with her. Still I had to wait a decade for definitive confirmation. It came when the body of a Belgian industrialist was found, eyeless, in the Bois de Vincennes. A book collector, he’d come to Paris to buy the same previously unknown manuscript by Baudelaire. The soul of Joubert lived in that woman, I knew, and was mocking me still.
Nowadays, locked in my stalemate, I lead a quiet life. I prefer the dark to the light, night to day, underground to above ground. I shun society and have only one friend, the singer you met at the Shéhérazade. I work as a waitress there. Never in my previous lives have I been as alone as I am now. Sometimes I watch people passing by, yearning to live as they do, in the certainty of their mortality.
Since my last crossing, I am beset as never before by a surfeit of memory. Every place I go reminds me of another place, or of the same place at another time, or of several places at once. Every scent reminds me of other scents, every melody of other songs. I take a bite or a sip of something and I am instantly transported to another time and place. A word, a face, a birdcall, a cloud, and I am plunged into other worlds. Perhaps there is a natural limit to remembering, beyond which it is simply impossible to bear the weight of all that remembrance.
Sometimes, I wish I was more like you, Koahu. I wish I, too, could forget. This is my seventh body. I hope it will be my last. Every crossing adds a lifetime of memories to the hoard. As Chanel, Joubert is in his sixth lifetime, and you are in your fifth – but he has his rage and you have your forgetting. I only have my guilt to sustain me. I have lost all desire for making another crossing. All of my lifetimes, combined with the hundreds, perhaps thousands of crossings I undertook as Balthazar, seem to have taken a toll. I find myself living in a constant state of exhaustion. Perhaps there is something in Madeleine that contributed to it too – the fatalism I noted before our crossing.
Time and again I ask myself why I am still alive. I’m not proud of myself. I’ve been a thief. I’ve made a mess of things. I’ve tried to undo something that cannot be undone. I only seem to have made things worse. The world we came from is gone forever and nothing can bring it back. There can be no crossing without a return crossing. I think about that often. It torments me day and night. Perhaps the world doesn’t end all at once, but slowly, imperceptibly, as a chain of seemingly innocuous events measured across generations.
If it wasn’t for Joubert, I would already be dead – and once I no longer have to worry about him and what he might do, I look forward to my ultimate release. I have yearned for death long enough. Chanel is getting closer, I know it – sometimes I imagine I can feel her hot breath on my neck. She has a network of informants looking out for me, I’m sure of it. Perhaps Massu, your friend at the Quai des Orfèvres, is one of them.
Whenever a murdered corpse is found with its eyes missing, like Vennet the bookseller, it is him playing on my guilt, taunting me, luring me, daring me. One day I will do just that. One day I will finish this story once and for all. You may be my beloved, but he is my destiny. I hold myself responsible for him and all his acts of cruelty. Now that I have seen you, now that you know all you need to know, now that you’ve written it down, perhaps my story is finally approaching its end. Perhaps you can take on the legacy of our sin, all those lifetimes ago. Chanel doesn’t know about you. She doesn’t know for sure if you are even still alive. But if she finds out, she will want to destroy you just as surely as she wishes to destroy me.
You have the manuscript now, but it alone is not enough. You must write down your own story – the story of our meeting at the cemetery and everything that has happened since. You must write down my story too, the story of my seven lives. Add to it the story you wrote as Charles Baudelaire. The true tale of the albatross is all of these stories, together. They unite us. Keep them close to you so that, next time you cross, they will be the first thing you see. It is the only way to ensure you won’t have to piece together your true self over a lifetime of nightmares. Let the stories be your guide.
Perhaps you still don’t entirely believe me. Perhaps you never will. I’ve become accustomed to your scepticism. But when we met your nightmares stopped. And when we crossed you saw yourself staring back at you. When the opportunity to make a crossing comes, I know you will take it. You always have. Choose your inheritor wisely. Choose someone who wishes to die, and if you cannot, choose someone who deserves to. A crossing is no small thing. Every crossing is a theft of a life, and all that goes with it.
When this war is over, we’ll meet again. I’ll be waiting in my usual place: in the cemetery, standing by Baudelaire’s grave, in the late afternoon, smoking a cigarette just before closing time. Until then, all that is left for me to say is farewell, my beloved. Farewell, good luck and bon voyage.
{141}
Acknowledgements
THE AUTHOR WISHES to thank the following for their assistance in the publication of this novel: Mathilda Imlah and staff at Picador Australia, Geordie Williamson, Chris Womersley, Susan Golomb and Mariah Stovall. For support given during the writing of the novel: Anna Landragin, Marie Landragin, Armen Landragin, Odin Ozdil, Maxime Kurkdjian, Jane Rawson, Andy Maurer, John Ryan, Stuart McDonald, Jeremy Dole and Gwenola Naudin. I am indebted to all my readers, especially the encouragement and feedback of the following: Bruce Melendy, Rachael Antony, Lucie Thorne, Simon Bailey, Rose Mulready, Josiane Behmoiras-Smith, Patrick Witton, Rachel Blake, Hilary Ericksen, Emily Aspland, the Bro Book Club, Sally O’Brien, Piers Kelly, Luke Savage, Leon Terrill, David Carroll, Laurence Billiet, Julia Lehmann and Katrina Gill. Apologies to anyone I’ve left off the list. Thanks to all the librarians who helped me along the way. Special thanks to Melissa Cranenburgh. This novel was inspired by a story told to me long ago by Chris Wallace-Crabbe. In memory of Naomi.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, institutions and organisations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.
First published 2019 in Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © Alex Landragin 2019
The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
EPUB format: 9781760786649
Typeset by Midland Typesetters
Cover design: Nathan Burton
The quotation on page 260 is taken from page 34 of The Hours by Michael Cunningham (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998).
The image of the eye on pages vii and 67 is from Shutterstock.
The author and the publisher have made every effort to contact copyright holders for material used in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked should contact the publisher.
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Crossings Page 33