Fugue States

by Pasha Malla

  Heads turned. He nodded generally and wedged himself in the corner. To his left sat a grinning woman whose OED, thesaurus, usage dictionary and coil-bound notebook were stacked neatly on the table; to his right loomed a man in Hemingway’s beard and a cableknit sweater.

  Ash took out Brij’s book—his transcription, freshly printed—and set it fatly on the table. The 40-point title seemed to echo through the room:

  THE PATRIMONIES

  It was a statement: a real writer was in their midst. But before the group could be sufficiently cowed, in trotted a character in a tweed blazer and goatee, waving like a game show host.

  ‘Well hello my literary colleagues!’ His accent was, exactly, Dracula’s.

  ‘Hi Milosz,’ chorused the class—save Ash.

  Milosz placed his valise on the table, remained standing. ‘I trust you’re all well?’

  ‘Fine as wine,’ growled Hemingway. ‘How were your holidays?’

  ‘Hardly ever a holiday for me, Grant!’ Here Milosz mimed either stenography or Rachmaninoff, fingers dancing in the air. ‘Always working,’ he whispered.

  ‘Done your play?’

  Milosz’s gaze swept over his acolytes, gauging their worthiness. With a shrug, he unclasped his valise and removed a ream of papers elastic-banded together. ‘The manuscript!’ he cried.

  Amid the subsequent applause, Ash flipped his dad’s novel facedown.

  Milosz chuckled. ‘Only the first draft. About which we know what?’

  ‘The first draft is a skeleton,’ sing-songed his disciples.

  ‘If you’re feeling left out,’ said Milosz, eyeing Ash. ‘I’m sure by the end of the workshop you’ll be sick to death of me and all my slogans.’

  Ash glanced at the door. Still no sign of Sherene.

  ‘Well! Enough about me.’ Milosz entombed the skeleton and peered around the room. ‘So who’s here…Grant? How’s the collection coming?’

  ‘Edits.’

  ‘Which…’

  ‘Are the life’s blood of a book,’ recited Grant.

  ‘Lifeblood.’ Milosz beamed at the woman with the reference books. ‘Donna?’

  ‘Oh you know. Some pieces here and there.’

  ‘So modest! I happen to know that a poem of Donna’s, which those of you who took Poetry with Panache might remember—the one about, what was it? Butter?’

  ‘Ice cream. “On First Tasting of Chapman’s Vanilla.” ’

  ‘Yes, your Keats parody. A delight.’

  ‘Yeah, it got an honourable mention…’

  But he had already moved on: ‘Bertrand? Priscilla? How is your screenplay?’

  A fortyish couple with the same paper plate of a face exchanged nervous looks.

  ‘We’ve had some creative differences,’ said the husband.

  ‘Thought this’d be a good place to work them out,’ said the wife.

  ‘Ah,’ said Milosz, with a trace of fear. ‘And last, you cowering in the back. You are?’

  ‘My name?’ said Ash.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘My name is…Brijnath.’

  ‘Brijnath.’ Milosz sounded skeptical. ‘And you’re here because?’

  ‘Because my mom’s boyfriend signed me up for this class.’

  He felt everyone’s eyes on him—the interloper, the impostor. Also he probably sounded like some unruly teen, dumped here for remedial discipline.

  ‘Have you done much writing previously?’

  Ash stared. Then: ‘Not for a while, no.’

  ‘And? Your area of interest is what? The novel?’

  ‘I like novels, sure.’

  ‘Is that it? On the table?’

  Ash pulled his father’s book closer. ‘The start of one, yeah.’

  ‘We’ll look forward to it this afternoon. Until then…’ Handouts appeared from the valise and were passed briskly around the room. ‘Those who’ve taken my courses know the drill. In the morning we free-write. After lunch, we share WIPS.’

  There was a murmur of acquiescence. Ash raised his hand.

  ‘Works in progress,’ whispered Donna.

  The hand retracted.

  ‘Indeed, Brijnath,’ said Milosz. ‘You shan’t miss your chance to regale us with your novel. But first, we create.’

  Ash, irate, slid The Patrimonies into his bag. He was one of the nation’s literary gatekeepers! And a published author with a major press, not whatever print-on-demand swindle produced Milosz’s silly scripts. One email could ruin this Balkan bloodsucker’s career. Or could have until lately, he supposed. Where the hell was Sherene?

  ‘We shall begin with a warm-up exercise.’ Milosz cracked his knuckles, cracked his neck. ‘Everyone? Please…Close your eyes…And relax…’

  Obediently the class descended into a vegetative trance while Milosz murmured about clouds and light and Ash entertained murder fantasies and their related headlines: Transylvanian playwright beaten to death with valise! Drama community rejoices…

  The door opened and Ash nearly jumped to his feet.

  Sherene met his eyes, nodded in a covert way. ‘Hi,’ she said, waving to the room.

  ‘Everyone, ignore the disruption,’ cried Milosz, marshalling her in with a frantic wave of his hand—so fragile, the spell of his teaching! ‘Quickly, before you lose the moment, move straight from your subconscious to the page. Listen well and follow my prompts. Writing is a journey and we embark upon it, now, together!’

  —

  AT NOON EXACTLY Milosz called for lunch. There was a sense of rebirth, maybe, as the class paraded out into the blazing lights of the library and beyond. Sherene and Ash met up in the stacks. After a quick glance around, they hugged.

  ‘I’m so happy to see you,’ she said.

  ‘Before I forget: my name is Brijnath,’ said Ash.

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Oh, be quiet. Let’s go eat.’

  In the food court they ordered combos and sat. All around them shoppers were refuelling between bouts of bargaineering. Their distant conversations reminded Ash of guttering candles.

  ‘You ever heard of this teacher?’ Sherene asked. ‘Or his work?’

  ‘Never,’ said Ash. ‘He’s really got a system, though. You’d think we were in there with Stanislavski or something.’

  ‘Oh, hush. The students seem to like him.’

  ‘God, and now we’re going to have to sit through their awful stories.’

  ‘You’re such a grump! It could be fun. Or funny.’

  ‘Are you kidding? You know what these people write about? Themselves. Plotless stories transcribed from plotless lives. It will be terrible. Mark me, woman!’

  She stole one of his onion rings.

  ‘And you know the lyrical hogwash these types think makes for good writing. Description to the point of assault. As if meaning might be bullied loose with words.’

  ‘So I’m assuming, Brijnath, that you did end up bringing your dad’s book?’

  ‘As if literature were just an accumulation of similes,’ he continued. ‘That’s an indirect comparison using like or as, in case you’d forgotten.’

  ‘Answer me.’

  Ash sighed. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Wow,’ she said, stealing another onion ring. ‘Bold.’

  ‘As if I had time to write something of my own!’

  ‘Why not? I did.’

  ‘What?’ Ash’s burger was oozing; he leaned in and slurped. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Well, don’t get too excited. It’s not like it’s any good.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘You inspired me, old friend.’

  ‘What do you mean? It’s not about me, is it?’ Ash’s thoughts fled to himself staggering around the streets of Montreal—Matt’s supposed video, if it existed.

  ‘No, no. I was just reading about where you’re from and came across something cool.’

  ‘Where I’m from? London?’

  ‘No, sweetie. Kashmir.’

  Ash mopped his face with
a napkin. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I got a book…I don’t know, it was meant to be some way to…It sounds so stupid when I say it. How long have we known each other? Eight years? And I don’t know, I’ve just felt so far away from you these past couple months, since…Your dad…And I never met him and wanted to be a good friend, but I didn’t—’

  ‘Spit it out, for god’s sakes. What are you on about?’

  ‘—know what you needed. I thought this might be one way to understand you. Your culture. Who you are.’

  ‘Sherene, seriously. You want to understand who I am you’d do better to spend the day walking around this mall. Story of my early years. Shoplifting and’—he held up his ruined burger—‘eating literal garbage.’

  ‘Anyway, you want to hear this story?’

  ‘You memorized it?’

  ‘I can give you the gist.’

  ‘Sure. As long as you don’t think you’ve unlocked some key to my soul or anything.’

  ‘Just listen. The original is from the eighth century, but the version I found was written by this poet, Kalhana, in the eleven hundreds. A Kashmiri. Heard of him?’

  Ash tipped the last few onion rings onto his tray and shrugged: of course; never.

  ‘Except I read a modern translation, which makes mine an adaptation of an adaptation of a nine-hundred-year-old document of something that happened four hundred years before that.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There’s this poet, Matrigupta, whose king offers the best poets residencies in his palace. As such, most poetry is written to please the king. “The king is good, the king is great,” that sort of thing. So this is what Matrigupta writes too, because he and his wife are poor, and palace artists get nice salaries and apartments.’

  ‘Give me some of your fries.’

  ‘Matrigupta’s wife is a weaver. Kalhana doesn’t give her a name, but in my version I call her—guess?’ She placed a single french fry on his tray. ‘No guesses? Fine: Sherene.’

  ‘I should have known.’

  ‘Sherene the Weaver sells rugs and shawls at the local market. She’s happy in her work, while Matrigupta isn’t exactly overjoyed to be reciting poems about how benevolent and glorious the king is. Privately, of course, he writes different poems. Odes to Sherene, mainly, because she’s so beautiful and brilliant and great.’

  Ash laughed. Not just at the joke. The story was exactly the sort of thing Sherene loved, with its looming moral of artistic integrity. It was a laugh of comfort, familiarity.

  ‘So eventually Matrigupta reads a poem about how terrific the king is and it goes over really well and he’s invited to the palace for a residency.’ She rationed out another lone fry, but moved her ketchup away when Ash went to dip. ‘Note that there are no residencies for weavers. Though, you know, there ought to be.’

  ‘Should there be?’

  ‘Hush. A few days later Matrigupta starts reciting poetry for the king. Pretty soon that’s all he’s doing so he doesn’t have time to write poems for Sherene, and it deflates him a bit. But a month or two later she gets pregnant and he’s energized again, enough to write a poem about their child and what their life will be like as parents. It’s a great poem, maybe his best work, and he decides to read it to the king instead of his regular stuff. Except the king hates it. He’s told to write an ode like he’s supposed to, “or else.” Matrigupta worries that he’s cost his family everything. Even so, all he can think about is the baby and Sherene, so when he doesn’t have a new poem ready, the palace guards escort his family out the gates. Within days Sherene gives birth, way too early. There are complications and she dies in labour and so does the baby. Matrigupta falls apart. He swears off poetry forever and takes a job as the palace lamplighter: every day at dusk he circles the palace, lighting each lamp, save the one by the king’s bedroom window. One night the king has had enough. He’s waiting on the balcony and catches Matrigupta going past. “Hey!” he calls. “You there! Light my lamp.” Matrigupta ignores him. The king is so enraged that he doesn’t even summon one of his guards. He just rushes out of his room, down the stairs, through the courtyard and out the gates, where he finds Matrigupta hiding in the shadows. Oh, I like this part—he has chapped lips.’

  ‘Chapped lips?’

  ‘Matrigupta, yeah. For real. That detail has survived through all the translations. I didn’t even add it: for nine-hundred years Matrigupta has had chapped lips.’

  ‘Wow. Why do you think—’

  ‘Hold on, let me finish. ‘ “I know you,” says the king. “You were one of my best poets. What happened?” Matrigupta struggles to his feet, and from somewhere finds the words to speak. He tells his entire story, from his beginnings as a poet, writing poems for his wife, to his move inside the palace, to his expulsion, to the deaths of his wife and child. He tells it all, right up to that very moment, telling the king his story.’

  ‘So what happens?’

  ‘Well that’s as far as my version goes,’ said Sherene. ‘In the real story, the king gives Matrigupta a kingdom of his own, Kashmir, where Matrigupta rules for years, before turning ascetic and forgoing all worldly possessions and all that Hindu claptrap.’

  ‘But you don’t include that in your version?’

  ‘Well here’s the thing. Think about this story: the “woman behind the man” is sacrificed, sending him into an emotional spiral, from which he emerges triumphant, wife replaced with land. Those themes—inspiration, dominion, property—are such typical manifestations of male power. And yet I wrote it, Ash. I mean, I didn’t make it up, but I felt inspired enough to type it out. Which is maybe worse? Anyway, when I got to the ending I sat back and was just like, “What am I doing?” Me—even me, with all my feminist thinking, fell into the trap of this lame narrative. I think it’s partly because I’ve never written fiction before, so I defaulted to a certain type of story. So I got to thinking: how do you subvert that? Maybe there can’t be an ending. Because these sorts of stories are these weirdly deterministic things. There’s this teleology that justifies its parts with the sum, which is usually a man achieving success—getting the girl, or the glory, or regaining his sense of self, whatever. Even if he rejects it, like Matrigupta—which, really, only elevates that success to some transcendentally higher plane. So either there can’t be an ending, or I’d like to go back and redo the whole thing, retell it in some new way. Bring Sherene back from the dead to kill everyone, maybe.’

  ‘But why is that the alternative? Why does the feminist version have to end with the woman laying slaughter to all the men? Can’t there be some middle ground?’

  ‘Oh, sweetie, I wasn’t being serious.’ Sherene checked her phone. ‘We should probably get going.’

  ‘Wait, though, I don’t understand. What drew you to this story in the first place? I mean, other than an essential glimpse into my Kashmiri soul.’

  Sherene seemed to be searching Ash’s face for the answer. Her eyes settled on his mouth. ‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘I think it was the chapped lips. Nine hundred years of Matrigupta’s chapped lips. I liked that, that human touch. That fallibility. Seems to me the only true thing in the whole story.’

  —

  MILOSZ STOOD AT THE FRONT of the classroom with his arms raised like a preacher. ‘I trust we are all ready to workshop our WIPS?’

  Nods and smiles and murmurs of artistic camaraderie rippled around the table. Ash nodded too: of course! Fiction—what a lark!

  ‘Good,’ continued Milosz. ‘Such confidence and courage. For? What?’

  ‘The enemy of creation,’ intoned his minions, ‘is fear and self-doubt.’

  Milosz clucked his approval. ‘Who will share first?’

  Grant’s hand shot up and, as if he were a brave soldier selflessly flinging himself upon the grenade of Milosz’s intellect, he offered, ‘I suppose I can go.’

  ‘Grant! Fine.’

  ‘It’s called “Looking Back,” ’ said Grant. ‘It’s about…the past.’

  ‘O
ne of the richest sources of creative material,’ Milosz explained, ‘is memory.’

  Ash watched Sherene watch four adults write this down.

  Grant gathered the pages in his hands. ‘Here goes nothing,’ he said, cleared his throat, and proceeded with the monotone of a train conductor announcing station stops.

  Ash retrieved The Patrimonies from his bag. What harm would it be to share a few pages? A chance to honour Brij’s memory, maybe, even with this cult of shopping-mall literati and their madman of a master. Ash scanned the manuscript while Grant droned on and on about ‘Greg,’ his fictional proxy, thinking about things and putting on pants.

  At last it was over. An ovation followed. Fourteen minutes had passed.

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Milosz. ‘You know the character so well.’

  ‘Well, it’s just me,’ said Grant.

  Milosz held up a closed fist: a directive for Grant’s mouth. ‘This is a fiction class, remember. This story is not about you. It’s about Greg.’

  ‘Yeah, but Greg is me, Milosz. I mean, everything that happens to Greg is stuff that happened to me. I worked as a notary public for twenty-two years, I sail, I have a boxer-rotty cross named Stu. I just changed my name, because…I figured that’s what writers are supposed to do. It’s not like I made anything up.’

  ‘And yet!’ said Milosz.

  Everyone leaned in—even Ash.

  Milosz’s eyes flashed wildly around the room, his thumbs drummed the table, his forehead crinkled. He looked like a robot pushed to the brink, about to short-circuit.

  ‘Who’s next?’ he said, finally.

  ‘Wait,’ said Donna, ‘don’t we get to comment on Grant’s story?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Milosz. ‘Who has a critique for Grant?’

  ‘I thought it was also wonderful,’ said Priscilla.

  ‘Very honest,’ agreed her husband, whose name Ash had forgotten.

  Donna reached at Grant across the table. ‘I really liked the part where you—’

  ‘Where Greg,’ warned Milosz.

  ‘Where Greg, sorry,’ said Donna. ‘Where Greg looked in the mirror and finally saw himself for what he was. That felt really true to me.’