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Sincerely,

R.F.

P.S.—Thanks for your anxious letter, but why the clucking Mother Goose? Yes, of course I’m fine—apart from the consequences of described contretemps with V.A. Am more than fine, to tell the truth. My mind is capable of any creative task it can conceive. Composing the best work of my life, of all lives. Have money in my pocketbook and more in the First Bank of Belgium. Reminds me. If Otto Jansch won’t budge from thirty guineas for the Munthe pair, tell him to skin his mother and roll her in salt. See what the Russian on Greek Street’ll cough up.

P.P.S.—One last serendipitous discovery. Back at Zedelghem, whilst packing my valise, checked nothing had rolled under the bed. Found half a ripped-in-two volume wedged under one of the legs by a long-since-departed guest to stop the bed wobbling. Prussian officer, maybe, or Debussy, who knows? Thought nothing of it until a minute later, when the title on the spine registered. Grimy job, but I lifted the bed up and extracted the bound pages. Sure enough:—“The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing.” From the interrupted page to the end of the first volume. Would you believe it? Slipped the half-book into my valise. Will finish gobbling it down v. soon. Happy, dying Ewing, who never saw the unspeakable forms waiting around history’s corner.

LE ROYAL HÔTEL, BRUGES

NEAR THE ENDTH—XI—1931

Sixsmith,

Working nights on Cloud Atlas Sextet until I drop, quite literally, no other way to get off to sleep. My head is a Roman candle of invention. Lifetime’s music, arriving all at once. Boundaries between noise and sound are conventions, I see now. All boundaries are conventions, national ones too. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so. Take this island, midstream between timbre and rhythm, not down in any book of theory, but it’s here! Hear the instruments in my head, perfect clarity, anything I wish for. When it’s finished, there’ll be nothing left in me, I know, but this king’s shilling in my sweaty palm is the philosopher’s stone! A man like Ayrs spends his allotted portion in dribs and drabs over a dragged-out lifetime. Not I. Heard nothing from V.A. or that adulterous, rubbery, melodramatic wife of his. Suppose they believe I ran home to England. Last night dreamt I fell from the Imperial Western, clutching my drainpipe. Violin note, misplayed, hideously—that’s my sextet’s final note.

Am perfectly well. So damnably well! Wish I could make you see this brightness. Prophets went blind if they saw Jehovah. Not deaf, but blind, you appreciate the significance. Could still hear him. Talk to myself all day long. Did it absently at first, the human voice soothes me so, but now it takes real effort to stop, so I let it run and run. Take walks when not composing. Could write a Michelin guide to Bruges now, had I but space enough, and time. Round the poorer quarters, not just the groves of the wealthy. Behind a grubby window a grandmother was arranging Saintpaulia in a bowl. Tapped on the pane and asked her to fall in love with me. Pursed her lips, don’t think she spoke French, but I tried again. Cannonball-headed fellow with absolutely no chin appeared at the window, spat out brimstone curses on me and my house.

Eva. Every day I’ve climbed up the belfry chanting a lucky chant at one syllable per beat, “To—day—to—day—let—her—be—here—to—day—to—day.” Not yet, though I wait until it’s dark. Golden days, bronze days, iron days, watery days, foggy days. Turkish delight sunsets. Nights drawing in, frosty nip in the air. Eva is guarded in a schoolroom down on Earth, chewing her pencil, dreaming of being with me, I know it, me, looking down from amongst exfoliating apostles, dreaming of being with her. Her damn parents must have found the note in her dressing table. Wish I’d gone about things more cunningly. Wish I’d shot the damn fraudster when I had the chance. Ayrs’ll never find a replacement for Frobisher—Eternal Recurrence’ll die with him. Those van de Veldes must have intercepted my second letter to Eva in Bruges. Tried to bluff my way into her school but got chased out by a pair of liveried pigs with whistles and sticks. Followed E. back from school, but the curtains of day are undrawn so briefly, cold and darkling when she leaves her school, cowled in her brown cape, orbited by v.d.V.s, chaperones, and classmates. Peered out between my cap and muffler, waiting for her heart to sense me. Not funny. Today I brushed Eva’s cape as I passed in drizzle, in crowd. E. didn’t notice me. As I near her a tonic pedal rises in volume, from groin, resounding in my chest cavity, up to somewhere behind my eyes. Why so nervous? Tomorrow maybe, yes, tomorrow, for certain. Nothing to be afraid of. She has told me she loves me. Soon, soon.

Sincerely,

R.F.

LE ROYAL HÔTEL 

25th—XI—1931

Sixsmith,

Streaming nose and bad cough since Sunday. Matches my cuts and bruises. Hardly stepped outside, nor do I wish to. Freezing fog crawls out of the canals, it stifles one’s lungs and chills one’s veins. Send me an india-rubber hot-water bottle, would you? Only earthenware ones here.

Hotel manager dropped by earlier. An earnest penguin with no bottom at all. One presumes it is his patent-leather shoes that squeak so as he walks, but one never knows in the Low Countries. His real reason for calling was to ensure I am a wealthy student of architecture, not some dubious Cad the Lad who’ll skip town without settling his account. Anyway, promised to show the color of my money at Reception tomorrow, so a bank visit is unavoidable. This cheered the fellow up, and he hoped my studies were proceeding well. Excellently, I assured him. I don’t say I’m a composer because I can no longer face the Moronic Inquisition: “What kind of music do you write?” “Oh, should I have heard of you?” “Where do you get your ideas from?”

Not in the mood for letter writing after all, not after my recent encounter with E. Lamplighter is making his rounds. If I could turn back the clock, Sixsmith. Would that I could.

Next day

Improved. Eva. Ah. I’d laugh, if it didn’t hurt quite so much. Can’t remember where I was when last I wrote to you. Time is an allegrissimo blur since my Night of Epiphany. Well, it had become pretty clear I wasn’t going to be able to catch E. on her own. She never appeared at the belfry at four P.M. That my communiqués were being intercepted was the only explanation that occurred to me. (Don’t know if V.A. kept his promise to poison my name back in England; maybe you’ve heard something? Don’t overly care, but one would like to know.) Half-hoped J. might track me down to this hotel—in my second letter I wrote my whereabouts. Would even sleep with her if it could open a channel to Eva. Reminded myself I’d not committed any crime—va bene, hare[sic]splitter, not a crime against the Crommelynck-Ayrses that they know of—and it seems that J. was once again playing under her husband’s baton. Probably always was. So I had no choice but to pay a call to the van de Veldes’ town house.

Crossed dear old Minnewater Park in twilit sleet. Cold as the Urals. Ayrs’s Luger had wanted to come along, so I’d buttoned my steel friend into my sheepskin’s cavernous pocket. Jowly prostitutes smoked in the bandstand. Was not tempted for a moment—only the desperate venture out in this weather. Ayrs’s ravages have put me off ’em, possibly for life. Outside the v.d.V. house cabriolets queued, horses snorted cold air, drivers huddled in long coats, smoking, stamping to keep warm. Windows were lit by vanilla lamps, fluttery debutantes, champagne flutes, fizzing chandeliers. A major social event was under way. Perfect, I thought. Camouflage, you see. A happy couple climbed the steps with care, the door opened—Sesame—a gavotte escaped into the frozen air. Followed ’em up the salt-strewn steps and rapped the golden knocker, trying to remain calm.