He needed to come at night, when his presence would pass unremarked; he needed secrecy. And I needed him any which way I might have him, if only to feel as though secrets might exist for the purpose of including as well as excluding me.
Always we drank a glass of wine or two at my small table, and never was the wine the reason for his presence. Always we lay and fell together to sleep, and never was there more or less to it than a deep, abiding togetherness. A sense that sleep might come now because trouble could not.
And yet that is not the entire truth. There was something more.
Some nights I would wake in the smallest hours to find him no longer beside me, candlelight falling from the table across the room. His heavy body eclipsing the candle before him, he would be stretched across the table top, head cradled on his left arm, sleeves open and dangling, his right hand moving slowly but tirelessly back and forth across the page. I would lie there and watch him as he watched the pen twitching in his own hand, puzzled over it himself like a mouse he’d surprised foraging in the dark.
I padded over to him one night and stood just behind him in my bare feet.
What are you writing, I asked, as softly as I could.
He started at the sound of my voice, then sat upright, turning to face me in his seat. He had no wig, and his hair was shorn very close to the scalp. Here and there were scars visible beneath the short fringe. A faint rumble sounded in his throat as he stretched, and righted himself, and considered the question. He looked exhausted.
It is a fable, he answered finally. A silly, small thing.
What is it called?
It is called nothing. I shan’t name it until I am certain it will survive its birth.
Read it to me, please, I asked.
But he shook his head without hesitation. It is far from complete. It is a nothing, nothing more than a trifle now.
Then I shall keep watch for it in the bookseller’s stall, and buy it as soon as ever it appears.
He cocked his head at me, finally gave an exhausted little laugh. You will never find it, then. This will never appear under my name. I intend another pen name entirely, for even a trifle may tell on one.
Tell it to me, then, I demanded. At least tell me some stray bit of it.
He seemed to consider the possibility, a finger outstretched to brush the final words he’d written, to test the ink there. He turned the finger over to reveal a small letter e inked with perfect legibility across the pad.
It seemed to decide him, somehow, and he told me the story in its entirety.
It is the story of a girl named Floretta, Johnson began. Floretta rescues a goldfinch from certain death, only to discover that the tiny bird is in reality a pisky queen, Lady Lilinet. This queen has wondrous magical powers. And she offers Floretta the use of two fountains, one sweet, to grant her wishes, and the other bitter, to rescind them when they prove unwise.
For what does she wish? I asked.
What you might imagine. For beauty, for love, for gold, even wit and imagination. Each is a curse, and each time Floretta must then drink the bitter water of the second fountain, to return her life to a semblance of its original form. Finally she asks the first fountain for eternal life. And that too is a curse, worse than the rest. She grows old, peevish and diseased in her body, and she lives in terrible fear of senility, of imbecility. But she cannot die.
Johnson had his eyes down on the paper, and it was clear to me that he had now gone far beyond what he’d managed to commit to the page. He was describing the thing as it existed in his mind alone, or rather the ache of it in his own breast.
What does she do then?
Again he looked dully down at the paper before him. She does all that she can do. Floretta drinks of the second fountain and asks that her immortality be taken from her. An act that renders her mortal once again. The pisky stands over her as the life ebbs from her body.
I waited, but there was no more. With the candle obscured behind him, his expression was hidden from view.
Is there no more to the story? I asked finally.
Only this, he said, and then slowly brought his lips to mine. Again, it was not like Gentleman’s kiss, not devouring, but warm, and human, and quick with life.
And when he had kissed me, Johnson drew back, his face again striped with shadow. I could see his lips move, but not his eyes. Lilinet kisses Floretta and then watches over her as she passes into death. Thus ends the tale, he said.
Something in his voice made my heart stumble.
That is the end of your fable? I asked finally. Is there no way for Floretta to be wakened, no charm to heal her? Even from the sovereign of these magic beings? It cannot be so.
He shook his head, then folded the page carefully. No, she must die. And once dead, she must remain so.
But you are the writer, I protested. You have only to wish it to make it so.
There was silence as he considered the accusation, and suddenly I could hear noise from the stable, horses being roused. Daylight was not far off.
You have heard not a word I have said, have you, John Boswell? he asked after a moment, then touched his fingers briefly to his tongue and pinched the candle out between them.
* * *
AT MY DIRECTION, Mrs. Parry has left a basin of warm water, a pat of soap, a nail brush, and a small clean towel on a table beside the fireplace. There is also a hank of lemon, which I crush over the water before dipping my fingers. I let them soak in the warmth for a moment, and then begin to use the brush on my palms, the backs of my hands, the knuckles, then the nails. When I’ve finished, I dry them on the towel and hang it on a nail above the fire to dry.
No doubt Mrs. Parry thinks me a fastidious host. But the truth is that the dags are short, snub-nosed weapons, the handles just half the span of my hand, and the gold of them polished to a sheen. Excellent in their way, but a poor sort of weapon to manipulate with greased hands.
Now, as I pull them out of my coat and lay them on the table before me, my clean fingers adhere nicely to the gold. The guns were cleaned themselves this morning, before first light, and loaded carefully. My only regret about these weapons is that I will never be able to show them to James Bruce, the overseer at the Auchinleck estate. Bruce was the man who taught me the finer, and then the finest, points of marksmanship.
Summers at the estate—when my brother James was off chasing actresses in Edinburgh, and my father locked up in his study— Bruce would teach me to swallow my breath, slit an eye, and hit a hummingbird sipping from a bud at twenty-five paces.
The only thing James Bruce loved more than his pointers and his newly planted trees were his guns. And he liked to say that in the most important ways, the guns were no different than the dogs. They want nothing more than to please, you see, he would say, burnishing a piece with his thumb, but a man mustn’t forget that they are animals, finally, and they’ve a muckle mouth full of teeth.
And I remember the teeth, as I re-prime and check the loading of each piece. Hammers uncocked, quiescent, the dags lie together now on the table, giving back the firelight in a deep ruddy glow. I check my coat pocket as well for my little cartouche box. Inside it lies an additional charge, a clever paper packet containing both powder and ball. The charges that came with these pistols were exceptionally well manufactured, the bullets themselves deftly wound up in a little twist at the end, to allow the user to bite them off cleanly and quickly should the need arise.
And beyond their unusual quality, these packets held another distinct charm: the lead balls at the tip of each had been dipped in gold as well. They gleam like tiny suns. The goldsmith who made these pieces was an artist, rather than a craftsman, and apparently he could not abide the thought of unpainted lead marring his twin golden dreams.
But then these dags were meant to down a king and a king’s consort. Or so the story goes.
Four charges came in the cartouche when I purchased the guns, and I can’t run my eye over the two loaded weapons and the spare
packet remaining without recalling the fourth, missing, golden bullet.
By now it must lie in the fob pocket of Gil Higgs, his index finger stroking it worriedly even now. Or perhaps it lies in a box hoarded away somewhere out of the reach of his drab wife. But it is safe, that much is sure. It can only be a treasure for Higgs, this strange gold-dusted sphere, though not the sort one cares to haul out and wonder over. Rather it is the sort of treasure that must be saved, but must also be regretted.
But I am confident that even if Higgs manages to hide the evidence for the rest of his days, he will never forget the moment when his Maggie opened her filthy little white hand to reveal the gilt secret.
Nor will he ever forget the little story she told: how a man in a red coat had given it her one day, in the street, and told her she might have another whenever her father said the word.
In the cheap mirror over the fire, I wipe my face with a damp napkin, untie and then retie my longish hair. There is a small scar running into the dark brow over my left eye, a tiny white hash mark there, the companion to a larger mark under the hair at the back of my head. Both are mementos of the fight at the water kiosk in Edinburgh years ago, and both, in that indirect way, gifts of my brother. I wet my finger and smooth the dark hair of the brow over the hairless notch, as I do when I would be presentable.
Thus satisfied, I put on my coat and return the pistols to their facing pockets beneath my arms. Then I seat my hat, cocking it forward a touch, to the left a touch. If ever a man should remember his military training and dignity, it is now.
Only then do I leave the room, walk directly down the short span of hallway, and rap twice quickly, loudly on the door to their chamber. There is a marked silence, and a pause: clearly this is no Mrs. Parry begging entrance.
And then, before either can answer, I simply open the door and walk in.
17
I HAVE SAID that this new memory of mine functions, when it will, like a Hogarth progress, giving up only a linked series of static remembrances, these punctuated by blackness, nothingness. And it is a genuinely puzzling thing, to realize that one’s mind contains something like an editor who—for reasons of his own—has taken suddenly to holding back bits of the past. It is an effect I chose not discuss with my Plymouth doctors, as I had in mind being discharged, and that as quickly as possible.
And it did not seem such a cross to bear, really. Still, if I dwell on it, it is unsettling and even frightening.
For it implies that one is simply a tool in the hands of a larger, more capacious version of oneself—a self with a more methodical understanding of events. And this overmastering self acts under a certain logic, or set of principles, which it will under no circumstances explain.
All of which leaves only one of two working hypotheses: that the disappearance of memory is designed to protect me, or to protect this hidden editor himself. Either I contain a powerful ally, that is, or something that cares nothing at all for me.
Still, as my mother is wont to remind both James and me, God is good and balances what He must take with what He is prepared to give. It is no less so with me. If I have lost reliability of recall, I have gained an intensity of perception that I cannot remember from earlier in my life. It is as though the present, passing, ephemeral moment is also a piece of art I may study somehow at my leisure.
And that is precisely what happens as I enter their room. The scene is spread out before me, and I experience it perhaps more profoundly than any other in my short life. The moment lingers even as it runs.
Like the empty room I have just quitted, the one I am entering is composed of dark paneled walls and faded though clean plank flooring. The fireplace here is significantly more elaborate, with an impressive mahogany mantel, but no fire burns within it. No doubt Johnson is easily overheated in the summer months, even with a cold rain raking the window. And their room seems if anything a bit warmer than my own. Their endless talk generates its own heat, apparently.
A tall, lacquered clock stretches nearly to the ceiling, and as my gaze sweeps across it I note that it is just fifteen minutes to nine.
Other than the clock, the only furniture is a massive oak table pushed into the corner of the room nearest the fireplace. And as I turn my attention there, I begin to see why James and Johnson prefer this back room to the room over the street.
It may well be, as Mrs. Parry says, that they don’t fancy dust and the sound of the occasional fish-crier, but clearly there is something more: built cunningly into the walls of that same far corner of the room is a cushioned semicircular bench, just large enough for two large men to lounge comfortably. With the heavy table drawn up snug, Mrs. Parry at his call, and the fireplace no more than a poker’s distance away, Johnson must see this wall-bench as the spindle around which the very London universe turns.
It is an intimate spot, placing his listener within very easy reach, and I suppose it is not just any companion Johnson would usher into it.
Seated there now are Johnson and James, perhaps all of two feet between them. James still wears the violet suit, his newest and current favorite, a measure of the importance he attaches to today’s excursion. He looks about to burst his matching violet buttons, so smug and well-fed does he seem. Johnson is characteristically in brown, coat, pants, and waistcoat.
And I am struck again: my twenty-two-year-old brother has known this man—this gruff, unapproachable literary lion—all of two months, and they are different in almost every conceivable way. Yet they club together like old school chums.
They have pushed themselves a bit more upright at my knock, but it is clear still from their posture that they have spent the last hour slouched against the wainscoting, arms thrown out along the rail, stomachs tight with good beef, making credible headway through the second bottle I’ve had them sent, generally luxuriating in the sense of a day well handled. Now there is this insistent knock, though, and they have been moved momentarily out of their indolence.
But not completely. Even now they project the air of men determined to deal with this disruption quickly and return to their talk of books and their new fantasies of travel.
That is, until I have taken a step or two into the room and James registers my face. His response is something of a gestural explosion: he sits bolt upright, and the placid, well-fed expression collapses; the eyes go wide, the mouth drops open, and he brings a hand out and up suddenly, as if to point, or wave, or shield himself. And then the hand simply drops back uselessly to the wine-stained cloth.
But he is not finished, at that. In his shock, James tries to rise, to take control of the situation, but the pitch of the bench and the bulk of the table before him make it difficult, and finally he can only squirm awkwardly in his seat. So much for the social mastery my brother claims to have cultivated this past year.
Had I no idea how desperately he has tried this year in London to prevent my penetrating his new circle, I might be disappointed to see him look so very distressed, so entirely unable to counterfeit pleasant surprise.
But I know it very well, of course.
Still, it is no pleasant thing to experience, this mixture of open alarm and anxiety on the face of one so recently a playmate and confidant. One so recently a true brother.
I have prepared a greeting, in the same way that I have prepared all else today, but there is no need, for James’s shock drives him to speak first. His manners have left him entirely. He simply blurts the words: “Good Lord! John, you are in London again. There must be—”
Again James pushes off the cushion with his hand, as though he would rise to his feet, but again settles back down. And then his eyes come to rest knowingly on mine, as though he has discerned the truth suddenly. “Is it Father, John? Has something happened to Father? Tell me quickly. Is there some illness at home?”
I come to a stop at the far side of their table, and I cannot help but laugh out loud at the question. It is so like James to construe the world according to his own deepest desires.
> “Father is very well, as always,” I tell him. But I cannot resist another chuckle and an old dig: “Calm yourself, Jemmie. You are not yet a Laird, I’m afraid.”
The laughter and the old farcing seem to relieve him. He settles back a bit against the wainscoting, and a sheepish smile touches his lips. Only then does James remember his manners, and he turns with some alacrity to his companion.
“Please, sir, do excuse my lack of civility. And permit me to introduce my younger brother, John Boswell. John is—well, he was recently in London, for several weeks, and returned then to Edinburgh. On business of his regiment.” With that deft little euphemism, James swings back to me, takes a breath and forces a full smile. That I am to second this empty little summary is amply clear.
“And now apparently he is back again,” James finishes.
“Apparently so,” I say.
“And this, John,” he informs me then, hand cocked nonchalantly to his left, “is the celebrated Mr. Samuel Johnson.”
It is true that James has spent a vast amount of effort concealing his London conquests from me. But it is also true that now, with no choice but to acknowledge his prize of prizes, he does so with barely restrained glee.
And with good reason, I must admit: it is our Dictionary Game taken to the highest imaginable level. He has taken possession not merely of the book, but of the Lexicographer himself. As far as he knows, James has won the game for all time.
I pull off my hat. And only then do I allow myself to do what I have wanted to do since entering the room: I pause and make a full bow before Johnson, the lowest the circumstances will permit, and the most sincere of which I am capable, bringing my hand even to my heart.
As I do so, I can feel the emotion rushing to my face, and I determine to down it, to let neither of them see my need written there. Yet I am reluctant to straighten and look into the man’s face, for then there will be no returning to the world that Was. The most pressing question will be answered: either he will own my friendship, my companionship—own my self, cracked and patched as it is—or he will not.
The Brothers Boswell Page 20
