by Tim Wirkus
First—the anthology’s publisher. Eagle’s Landing Press was the publishing arm of the Grandsons of American Liberty, a far-right-wing advocacy group that had something of a heyday during the Cold War. Their notable achievements include protesting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and the Civil Rights Movement generally), calling for the dissolution of the ideologically suspect American State Department, and generally making mainstream conservatives very uncomfortable.
Through Eagle’s Landing Press, they published a handful of books meant to further their ideological mission—nonfiction works, mostly, if nonfiction is the right word for those dogmatic, poorly researched screeds. They published a few works of overt fiction as well, Faint Constellations being one of them.
The anthology’s editor was Roger Ash, an ardent GAL member and the uncle of Karen Ash, a college roommate of mine. This was the early 1980s, and the Grandsons of American Liberty were experiencing a steep decline in popularity. Faint Constellations represented one of several desperate attempts to reach new audiences—in this case, readers of science fiction with underexplored far-right-wing sympathies.
When Karen contacted me about translating Faint Constellations, though, I had no idea the project was connected to the GAL (an organization I was all too aware of, thanks to a handful of enthusiastically affiliated relatives on my father’s side). I don’t think Karen knew either, actually—she told me her uncle was putting together a science-fiction anthology for a little publishing company he knew of and was looking for someone to translate a story from Portuguese.
It would be my first professional translating job, so of course I said yes, even though my Portuguese was fairly shaky at the time. I was majoring in Spanish (double-majoring, actually—Spanish and history), just finishing up my undergrad, but I’d taken a couple of Portuguese classes and I figured I could pull the job off. I told Karen I’d do it, and within a week or so her uncle sent me a copy of the story, mimeographed from the magazine it had originally appeared in. (You’d probably like to know how Roger Ash encountered this story in the first place, and come to think of it so would I. As far as I know, he’d never been to Brazil.) Included with the story was contact information for its author, along with a handwritten admonition from Ash not to contact the man unless absolutely necessary.
I got started right away. I’d taken a class or two on translation, so I’d done this kind of work before, although not professionally. I was familiar enough with the process, though, to notice that this was a strange story. I’m not talking about the content, although that was strange too, something to do with a murderous, futuristic house painter and a wandering rocket captain. I’m talking about the prose style itself, which rejected the long sentences so common, as you know, in Spanish and Portuguese for a more terse English approach. Much of the story, in fact, read as if it had already been translated, but from English to Portuguese.
Not wanting to produce an unnecessary back-translation, I called Ash and asked if he was sure the story’s original language was Portuguese. He said that of course it was, at least as far as he knew, and anyway I shouldn’t worry about it. He seemed very uninterested by the question, but this was my professional reputation at stake—if my first published translation was of a story originally written in English, I would be very embarrassed.
Despite Ash’s admonition, then, I decided to contact the author directly at his Idaho address, an address that had only added to my suspicions about the story’s source language. In my letter, I told Mr. Salgado-MacKenzie that Roger Ash had hired me to translate “All Quiet, All Dark,” an opportunity that I very much appreciated. I said that I admired the story’s inventiveness. I then noted the qualities I’d pointed out to Roger Ash on the phone and asked if, by chance, an English-language version of the story already existed.
Mr. Salgado-MacKenzie got back to me very quickly, within a week, if I remember right. His envelope was much fatter than I expected, containing a long, long letter—over ten double-sided, typewritten pages. His response began very formally, thanking me for my attention to detail and confirming that yes, Portuguese was the story’s original language, and no, no version existed in English, not yet at least, but he trusted that in my capable hands a fine translation would soon come forth.
So far, so good.
Then the letter took an abrupt philosophical turn. “I have a theory,” Salgado-MacKenzie wrote, “that when two human beings enter into a deliberate relationship with one another—be it professional, personal, or otherwise—they become connected by a long, invisible filament that can never be severed.”
He went on to explain that these filaments exist in a purely ideational realm whose intangibility did not diminish their significance in the least. To clarify: Just as the flow of electricity through a light bulb’s filament heats the metal, rendering it incandescent, the flow of energy through a relational filament produces an illumination of its own.
Relational Filamental Illumination is what he called his theory, and a prime example of the phenomenon, he said, was the long, combative friendship between “your countrymen Thomas Jefferson and John Adams,” as he called them. Copious energy flowed back and forth within their filament over the course of several decades as they wrestled a new nation into existence. The light produced from this filament, therefore, was stunning. Now I needed to remember, Salgado-MacKenzie wrote, that filaments illuminate what is close to but not directly connected with the two parties, so that the light produced by Jefferson’s and Adams’s filament did not illuminate the foundational principles of American democracy, as some might assume—Jefferson and Adams brought these ideas to light more directly—but instead illuminated something much, much bigger.
It is a well-known fact, he reminded me, that both men died not only on the same day, but on the Fourth of July, a date of recurring significance both to them and the country they’d invented, and it is by the light of this overly neat coincidence that a colossal hidden truth is (partially) revealed. The truth, he wrote, is this: that the forces of the universe have a woefully unsophisticated sense of narrative. How else to account for the triteness of the Jefferson / Adams / Independence Day death overlap? Such coincidence is the stuff of sentimental melodramas and shoddy adventure tales, of soap operas and ghost stories. The pat laziness of it practically turned one’s stomach.
He also wished to clarify—though to do so with proper thoroughness would require an entirely separate letter—what he meant when he referred to “the forces of the universe.” He did not mean God, at least not in the Judeo-Christian sense of the term. Instead, the Jefferson/Adams filament illuminated a governing intelligence (although that still wasn’t quite the right term for it—both governing and intelligence missed the mark somehow) far more powerful than any Judeo-Christian deity, and far more diffuse, if that made any sense.
There was a lot more to the theory, pages more, but I’ve regrettably forgotten what they said. I do remember, though, that the letter ended with a very genuine, heartfelt thank-you for sticking with him for so many pages. He said he’d been thinking through this concept a lot lately, and it’d been helpful to get it all down on paper, and more helpful still to know that somebody else might read it.
Up until that point I’d been ready to dismiss Salgado-MacKenzie’s ideas out of hand, but I found that sign-off so endearing that I sat down on my apartment’s faded blue couch and reread the whole letter, all ten typewritten pages of it.
A second read left me unsettled. Was this man off his rocker, or some kind of genius?
Just then, my roommate Karen got home from her shift at the sandwich shop down the street. She sat down at the other end of the couch, put her feet up on the coffee table, and asked me how my day had been.
“Take a look at this, would you?” I said, handing her the letter.
“What is it?” she said, flipping through the pages.
“Just read it,” I said.
“Pretty creepy,” she said. “I mean, the guy’s obviously nuts, right?”
A few minutes earlier, I’d wondered the same thing myself, but something in Karen’s tone triggered my inner contrarian, and I found myself disagreeing with her before I could quite say why.
“I actually think there might be something to it,” I told her.
Too tired to disagree, Karen said maybe I was right and then went to take a shower.
I wasn’t as sure about the letter’s merits as I’d pretended to be, so I decided a further test was in order. Back in my room, then, I sat down and wrote a ten-page letter of my own, pointing out a dozen or so weaknesses I’d spotted in Salgado-MacKenzie’s argument and asking for clarification on a dozen more points that had been unclear to me. The next morning I sent the letter off, and then I waited.
Here was the reasoning behind my strategy: The thing about crackpots is that they don’t respond well to rigorous questioning of their pet ideas, and so Salgado-MacKenzie’s response to my admittedly demanding letter would be a valuable indicator of his general mental soundness and rigor. And so I eagerly awaited his letter.
A few weeks later, I received his reply—fifteen typewritten pages filled with prose even more gracious and articulate than those of the previous letter. He thanked me for my questions and said he was thrilled to have someone engaging so enthusiastically with these ideas he’d been working through for so long in such stifling isolation. He then responded point by point to my questions, and while his answers were not quite as focused as I would have liked, they at least gestured toward compelling justifications for his claims.
The letter also included several meticulous hand-drawn diagrams, which for me almost sealed the deal. I wasn’t convinced that his theory was completely sound, but all in all his reply had won me over, so I wrote back again, asking him to clarify a few more points for me. He again responded generously to my questions and we wrote back and forth like that over the course of several months and a half-dozen letters covering various angles of his Filamental Theory of human relationships.
(I wish I could remember more about what the letters said. I just spent ten minutes sitting here at the keyboard trying to dredge something up from my memory, but it’s no good.)
Then, minor tragedy struck.
I’d long since finished my translation of Salgado-MacKenzie’s story, and had almost forgotten its role as the impetus for our ongoing correspondence. It was with no small surprise and dismay, then, that I received a published copy of Ash’s anthology in the mail one day. The first shock was the publishing house, Eagle’s Landing Press, which I recognized from the bookshelves of my politically vituperative Grandsons of American Liberty–loving relations. Even more upsetting, though, was Ash’s belligerently xenophobic introduction to the stories.
To have me translate Salgado-MacKenzie’s story without telling me it would only serve as an incidental prop for the Grandsons of American Liberty’s jingoistic claptrap—such underhandedness beggared belief. I was mortified and I was furious. I wrote one letter to Roger Ash requesting that my name be removed from all future editions of the anthology. I wrote another letter to Eduard Salgado-MacKenzie explaining the situation and apologizing for my unknowing part in it—I respected his story and if I had known what Ash was up to, I would not have participated.
I never heard back from either Ash or Salgado-MacKenzie.
I meant for this response to be short and to the point, but it’s ballooned into something unwieldy. To (finally) get to your question, then—yes, I was in contact with Eduard Salgado-MacKenzie. At one point I had his address—somewhere in Idaho, but where exactly I couldn’t tell you. Unfortunately I’ve since lost the letters he sent me. They disappeared along with my high school yearbooks and a set of much-loved china during an unpleasant period of transition in my life that I’d rather not get into here.
Eagle’s Landing Press no longer exists, and neither do the Grandsons of American Liberty. At least I don’t think they do. Roger Ash might still be around, though. I’m friends with his niece Karen online, so I could ask her. I’ll let you know what I find out.
Until then,
Dr. V. Harriet Kimball
I thanked Dr. Kimball profusely for the information and after five days of eager anticipation, I received this follow-up:
Sérgio,
Glad to hear this has been helpful.
I have more.
I got in touch with Karen, and apparently Roger Ash passed away just a few months ago. I offered my condolences and Karen said he’d been sick for quite a while so his death had not been unexpected. I said again that I was sorry to hear he was gone. Karen thanked me and asked why I was looking for her Uncle Roger. I explained briefly about your search for Eduard Salgado-MacKenzie, and his connection to Ash through Faint Constellations. I said I realized that this was a long shot, but had Ash saved any letters from the Eagle’s Landing Press days, and if so, had anyone hung on to them after he died?
Karen said we might be in luck. She said that Uncle Roger had become the unofficial historian of the GAL and had accumulated, over the years, boxes and boxes of photographs, pamphlets, meeting minutes, letters, and books from the society’s more active days. He’d meant to write a history of the GAL, but hadn’t gotten around to it before his health had declined. Karen said that as far as she knew, though, all of those boxes were still sitting in a storage unit in Orange County, California, not far from where Uncle Roger had lived. If I was interested, she said, she could get in touch with one of her cousins and they could give me the key to the unit—I’d be welcome to take a look.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this or not, but I live in Danesville, Utah (a ten-hour drive from Orange County), so it’s not the kind of thing where I could just pop over to the storage unit and take a look. Not normally anyway. As luck would have it, though, I’ll be presenting a paper at a conference in Claremont, CA (not far from Orange County), during the second week of October. Karen assures me that there are no imminent plans to clear out the storage unit and that her cousin would be happy to let me look through Ash’s papers while I’m in town for the conference.
I have to say that in the five days since I wrote that last email, I’ve been thinking about Eduard Salgado-MacKenzie a lot. I still feel strange about what happened between us—it was so intimate in its own way, and then it ended so abruptly. I still feel a need to clear the air.
What I’m trying to say is, I’ve realized that I’ve also become very interested in finding Eduard Salgado-MacKenzie. I don’t know what your schedule is like, but if you’d like to meet me in California at the end of that second week in October, I was thinking we could go through Roger Ash’s memorabilia together—two heads are better than one—and then follow the trail from there.
If I’m stepping on your toes here, let me know. I realize this is a project you’ve been very committed to for a very long time, and I know how that can be. If you’re amenable to my collaboration, though, I look forward to working together on this.
Sincerely,
Harriet
It would only be a slight exaggeration, Daniel, to say my bags were packed before I even finished reading the email. What luck, to find another Salgado-MacKenzie enthusiast! What a treasure trove of new information! What an opportunity!
For years now, I’ve maintained an emergency travel fund for this very purpose, and I’m pleased to report that the trip is a go. Your government has even deigned to grant me a travel visa—no easy thing, but I have connections. I fly into LAX this coming Monday and fly home out of Salt Lake the Sunday after that. It’s a narrow window—less than seven days in which to find Eduard Salgado-MacKenzie—but it will have to do.
&nbs
p; The reason I’m telling you this, Daniel, is not just to share the exciting news but to invite you to join the expedition. I trust you’ve been diligent in your translation work and would serve the investigation well.
Time is of the essence, my friend, so make your decision quickly and get back to me as soon as possible.
Regards,
Sérgio Antunes
Sublibrarian
Biblioteca Anita Garibaldi
IX
After reading Sérgio’s email, it took me all of twenty minutes to pack a bag and reserve a bus ticket to California with my already overburdened credit card. The collection notices from Wayne Fortescue had grown even more alarming, and everywhere I went in Provo, I caught imagined glimpses of Christine Voorhes crouching behind bushes, lurking in stairwells. For three nights running, I’d woken up in a panic at 2:00 a.m., convinced I’d felt her gloved hands at my throat, holding it tenderly for a moment before tightening her grip and squeezing the life out of me. Each time I’d woken up gasping, my apartment empty, heart racing.
In California, I’d still be broke—I’d be even more broke, actually—but at least Fortescue and Voorhes wouldn’t know where to find me. And so two days later, a fugitive from my creditors, I found myself standing at the locked door of Roger Ash’s storage unit. At my side, Sérgio—looking tired and thrilled—rocked from foot to foot with nervous excitement. In front of us, Dr. V. Harriet Kimball—a short, scrappy woman with the look of a distance runner, somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty years old—consulted a note card on which she’d written down the combination for the storage unit’s lock. After a moment, she turned around, gave Sérgio and me a here-goes-nothing shrug, and lifted the door’s heavy lock.
It would not be totally correct to say I’d gotten off on the wrong foot with Harriet, but I will say that our introduction a few minutes earlier had not gone especially well.
