The story was that Chaster, who never married, was constantly being approached or visited by women who were fervent, devoted admirers of his writing.
Some of them came shyly, almost furtively. They would arrive quietly on the island, find somewhere to live or stay, then wander around the town and the island, apparently trying to contrive accidental meetings with him. According to Hísar these women were easy to identify, since they were just about the only people who would ever talk about him. They asked after him in shops, they would plague our local librarian with questions about his novels, or they would simply sit or stand somewhere in the centre of the town, reading one of his books with the cover held up to be seen. Sometimes this method succeeded — Hísar told me that Chaster had been spotted several times walking around the town or the harbour with one or other of these people.
Some of the women were bolder. They would go straight to the house and ask for him at the door — most times, I gathered, he would not agree to meet them, but sometimes he would. What would happen then was no one’s business but Chaster’s, but presumably he had normal sexual appetites and many of these women were allegedly young and presentable.
All this would be a matter of tittle-tattle, were it not for the significant visit by one such woman.
Hísar and I knew nothing about this event until afterwards, by which time she had long departed from Piqay. Her arrival in the town had caused something of a stir, because she was easily recognized: it was the famous social reformer and writer called Caurer.
She arrived unannounced on the first scheduled ferry of the day, disembarking in the dawn light with the other foot passengers. No one from her staff appeared to be travelling with her. She was delayed on arrival and went through the dock formalities with everyone else, although by this time she had been noticed and recognized. The officials dealt with her transit papers quickly, while the other passengers kept a respectful distance.
On leaving the dock, Caurer walked straight across to the town’s taxi rank and climbed into the first available car. She acknowledged nobody, did not respond to the ripple of applause that had followed her across the harbour apron. As the car drove away and up the hill towards the interior of the island, people stood by the roadside to wave to her.
She went to my brother’s house and stayed there for a period of time, but I have never been able to establish exactly how long it was. It might have been for the rest of that day, she might have stayed for one or two nights, or even longer. The tongues that wagged disagreed on this, but the only thing that matters is that she was definitely there.
She left in the dark, boarding the usual overnight ferry towards Paneron.
Two weeks later Chaster came to my house. Hísar was conveniently out with the children, but they had only just left. It made me suspect Chaster had been waiting outside the house for them to leave. He and I greeted each other as if we had seen each other only recently, but almost at once he launched into what he had come to ask.
‘Woll, I need your help,’ he said. ‘I’m in a terrible state. I can’t sleep, I can’t work, I can hardly eat, I can’t settle down. I’ve got to do something.’
‘Are you ill?’
‘I think I’m in love.’ He looked as embarrassed as only one brother can to another. ‘Her name’s Esla. I’m obsessed with her. I think about her all the time, I imagine her face, I think I can hear her voice. She’s so beautiful! So intelligent and articulate! So sensitive and understanding! But I can’t contact her. She left me and I don’t know where she is or how I could ever find her again. I think I’m going mad.’
‘Do you mean Caurer?’
‘Esla, yes. I call her Esla.’
Until then I had not realized Caurer must once have had a given name.
Once he had started there was no stopping Chaster. He talked endlessly, obsessively, with little chance of my interrupting. Any question I managed to break in with only produced another outpouring of his love for this woman and the frustration she had left behind her.
‘You should go to her,’ I said, when at last a pause arose. ‘You must know where she lives, which island she’s from. She sometimes calls herself Caurer of Rawthersay. Is that still her island?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Then it must be a simple enough matter to find a shipping route to get there.’
He looked diffident. ‘I can’t do that. You know I can’t leave Piqay.’
‘Why not?’
‘Have you read any of the novels I’ve given you?’ I responded with what I intended should be seen as an ambiguous look, because although he had sent me a signed presentation copy of every new book as it appeared, I had yet to read any of them. He went on, ‘I’ve created a kind of . . . well, I call it a mythos. It’s in all my novels. I write about Piqay, describing it realistically, as it is. Sometimes only as it was, because two of the books are set in the past. But as well as being realistic, the Piqay I create in the novels has a mythology. I call Piqay “the island of traces”, a place that holds its inhabitants in a spell. No one can leave, no one wants to leave. Anyone born here is said to be forever trapped here. The island is covered with psychological spoors, traces of ancestors and ghosts and past lives.’
‘It’s not true.’
‘Of course it’s not true. It’s a mythos. I invented it. I use it as a metaphor, as symbolic language. I write novels, fiction! You don’t understand, do you?’
‘Not really.’
‘Well, in practical terms it means I can’t ever leave Piqay. Not now. All my books would become invalidated. And if the readers found out — well, it doesn’t matter about most of them, but it matters like hell about Esla. She above all people must never know the truth. I can’t go after her.’
He was indeed a man in love, deluded by his own passions. Now I knew him to be also a man trapped in his own fictional invention.
The afternoon went by. I let Chaster talk out his obsessive needs, partly because I genuinely wanted to help him, but also because I found it fascinating to see my own brother, about whom I had such mixed feelings, acting in a totally new and unprecedented way. He could barely keep still. He was always levering himself energetically from his chair, then prowling and pacing around my sitting room, waving his arms, grimacing, declaiming theatrically.
In the end I said, ‘What is it you want, Chas? You said you need my help.’
‘Would you go to find Esla Caurer for me? You are the only person I can trust. I’ll give you every detail I know about her. The island, the people she works with, some lecture dates she said she had coming up. She travels a lot, but her appearances are usually publicized in advance. I’ll pay for everything. All I want you to do is find her, tell her how much I love her, then plead with her, beg her, use any means you can think of to make her come back and see me again. If she won’t do that, then get her at least to contact me. Tell her it’s urgent, a matter of life and death, anything at all, anything you can think of. I’m desperate. I can’t go on like this. I have to be with her!’
And I was meanwhile thinking: I have a wife and children, and a home to keep and maintain, I have a job with serious responsibilities. Does he truly imagine I am going to abandon everything and rush off on this fool’s errand?