Death by Publication

by J. J. Fiechter

  No sooner had I finished with the composition than I began actually printing, page by page, recto/ verso, the twelve copies that my supply of paper permitted.

  However, the final element—the binding—I could not do by myself. I had decided that I would go to Egypt and have it done there. I was sure I would find a craftsman to put the final touches on my masterpiece. Egypt had the immense advantage of being far away. Employing the services of a binder closer to hand could be dangerous.

  Besides, I needed to get away. The work and the secrecy had taken rather a heavy toll, and it was not a good idea to return to the office looking like a corpse, particularly after two weeks of rustic life, which should have done me a world of good. A trip abroad would help me gather the strength I needed for the final offensive, and so abroad I went.

  Chapter 9

  I could probably have found a craftsman binder in Spain or elsewhere, but I thought Egypt’s dry heat would help me to unwind. I felt no particular urge to go home again and made no plans to visit Alexandria. I had been back once since the death of my mother and found the experience deeply disappointing. I hadn’t recognized the city that I had loved so much. A miserable populace groveled in dark, grimy corners, where in past days a cosmopolitan crowd paraded through the streets. Our old house had been torn down, and a grotesquely somber apartment building constructed in its place. Even the Pastrodis was gone, another victim to time and the bulldozer.

  Instead I flew to Cairo with suitcases rather too heavy for a one-week tourist visit, stuffed with everything necessary for the fabrication of a dozen volumes of The Need to Love. The rest was hidden in a shed at my country house.

  I hired a car at Cairo airport to get around more freely, and early the next morning, with addresses furnished by the telephone directory, I set out to visit some dozen binderies. Those that looked too filthy to do a careful enough job or too large to be discreet I instantly eliminated, without even bothering to check whether they had the right machinery. After a full day of crisscrossing the city, I finally found an elderly Arab binder who spoke neither English nor French. His shop was located near the souk, on Sidi-Metwalli street. Modest but well maintained, it seemed an oasis of order in the heart of the old city. More to the point, he had all the old machines necessary to do the kind of semi-mechanical binding common in the prewar period in Europe. Yet another stroke of fate.

  I still spoke Arabic effortlessly, and at first the old boy was a bit taken aback by a European who could speak in the Egyptian dialect, and fluently at that. I explained I had spent most of my youth in Egypt, then got directly to the point. He acceded to my demands and didn’t seem at all surprised that I would provide all the materials—the backing, the paper, the canvas, threads, even the glue. It is part of the established wisdom of the Orient that Westerners, and in particular the British, are eccentric to the point of derangement. Naturally, that is no reason to turn away their business.

  After repeating all my requests many more times than was necessary, I left him to his work, telling him that I would return in three days to pick the books up. To ensure his goodwill and show my good faith I paid him a portion of what I would owe him. I could see that he was fully capable, and, my spirit lightened, I flew that same evening to Aswan.

  The dry heat of the Upper Nile offered a respite from the oppressive humidity of Cairo. I spent hours on end sitting on the balcony of my room at the Old Cataract Hotel, watching the iridescent river wash over the rocks of Elephantine Island. The ruins of Alexander II’s Ptolemaic temple stood in majestic profile against the embracing sky, while the giant sails of the felouks glided silently by, their wake lapping quietly against the blocks of rose granite. In the freshness of the evening I let myself be seduced by the perfumes that ascended to me and by the subtle alliance of odors of rosebushes and orange trees. This magnificent and serene country, reconquered by my grandfather at the side of the great Kitchener himself, relaxed and replenished me. I even think that during the three days I spent there, Nicolas Fabry did not once cross my mind. After so many gray, solitary years, I was feeling reborn into the world.

  I awoke at dawn and hired a felouk to take me up the Nile to the dam. By means of both oars and sails, two Nubian boatmen maneuvered the vessel through the rapids with great agility, pushing off against the glistening and dangerous rocks with their long poles and chanting to help their efforts. I watched sunlight revealing the bas-reliefs and hieroglyphics carved into the corridors of granite through which we were passing. In the distance I could hear the roar of the great falls, and from the edges of the river, the creaking wheels of the sakkiehs being turned by slow-moving water buffalo in harness. That morning light, with its bluish transparency, was not new to me, but the sights it illuminated had changed. Several of the monuments had been removed from the banks to prevent them from being submerged when Nasser raised the height of the dam. One could no longer enter by boat into the flooded gates of the temple of Isis on the island of Philae, where the effigies of the gods greeted the visitor at eye level. Everything was different. Rather than the lapping of tiny ripples, one heard a distant rumble.

  I returned to the hotel dazzled and nostalgic. The unbearable tension of the past few months was dissolving. The air-conditioning in the lobby made me shiver. The elevator operator’s smile, however, was very warm.

  “Does sir want a whiskey in his room?” he inquired in uncertain English.

  He had the fine features and elongated elegance of a Nubian. His long white galabia, fastened around his slim waist by a large garnet-colored belt, made his skin seem darker, so dark that you would almost have said it was violet. We were alone in the elevator, and I had just spent several weeks living in ascetic isolation from the world. I asked him what time he got off work.

  “Right away, sir,” he replied with a second, even grander smile.

  “In that case, I should be very pleased if you would bring me a bottle of Scotch, some ice, and two glasses,” I said as I was getting off the elevator.

  Several minutes later he knocked at my door, balancing a tray on the delicate fingertips of his left hand. Clearly this was not the first time he had spent a few off-duty hours with a client passing through. But his manner combined natural dignity with a sincere desire to please, and our little time together never fell into the vulgarity of a paid embrace. The following evening he again knocked on my door, with the same smile devoid of either arrogance or false solicitude.

  Dappled walks in the gardens along the banks of the Nile, under the sycamores and flame trees. Tender nights of passion. The three days I spent in Aswan floated in a different time, and I deeply regretted it was only three. I needed to return to Cairo to pick up my books and plunge back into my hellish plot.

  The binder had ample reason to be proud of his work: the twelve volumes conformed to my instructions down to the last detail.

  I flipped through the pages, immediately absorbed by the need to hold between my own two hands the means of my revenge, to gauge the authenticity of its deadliness. My hand trembled; it was perfect. Everything was there to create an unimpeachable illusion—the cover, the paper, the type, even the feel of the pages turning between my thumb and index finger. The forgery had all the earmarks (should I say bookmarks ?) of legitimacy.

  Having paid the old binder the remainder of what he was due and showered him with baksheesh to ensure his silence, I flew back that same evening to London. I got through customs, found my car in the airport, and headed straight for my country house. My books needed their finishing touches.

  I stacked eight copies together, then bound them with twine, putting the ones that had small defects on the top and bottom. Then, with the disagreeable feeling that I was committing auto-da-fé, I built a large fire in the fireplace, feeding it with the paper and cardboard that was left over.

  All this was done with the solemnity of a religious ritual. I was purifying by fire the work of my life and by so doing commending Nicolas to it.

  A glass of Scotch i
n one hand, I waited for the fire to die down. When it had become a tapestry of glowing coals, I threw in the parcel of books and then, for two interminable minutes, I waited. When the trial by fire was over I dumped a bucket of water on the coals and retrieved the books. The two volumes at either end were in ruins, half burned, blackened, and soggy. But the six in the middle were only singed and slightly soiled by soot and water. Carefully, I removed them and placed them to dry on a radiator.

  A little dust, lovingly collected from my basement, was rubbed on the six copies, which were subjected to a prolonged session under ultraviolet light to give them their patina.

  At last I held in my hands the six remaining copies of The Need to Love, a novel by C. Irving Brown, published in 1939 by the Marble Arch Press.

  My work was finished. The next day I would return to the Turner Press, where everyone would compliment me on how wonderfully rested I looked. Several days after that I would go to three bookstores I had selected and quietly slip a copy onto the shelves, like so many messages in a bottle. The other three would be securely stowed in my safe to await their moment.

  As I had predicted, nearly the minute his book was published Nicolas had become the toast of Paris. Il faut aimers success was immediate and total, critical as well as commercial, and like a strong spirit drunk too fast, it had intoxicated Nicolas. He had, however, taken the trouble to write from the South of France and tell me that my original estimation had once again proven correct.

  Weather in Cannes is beautiful. Sun and glorious sea. I have never had such incredible reviews. My god, Edward! Curiosity, passion, hyperbole, and furor all commingled at the launching of my book. My oldest enemies are following suit, even if they are also taking advantage of their newfound enthusiasm to excoriate one more time all my old work. Everyone is praising to the skies the originality of style and tone, stunned that after such a long and mediocre career I might be capable of such talent—

  I can breathe!

  Overnight I have become a writer newborn. I have been waiting for this for twenty years, waiting to erase forever the image that hounded me after my first bestseller. I am delivered of my arrogance, and I understand, deeply and truly, the meaning of artistic humility. I am at peace with myself, happy, and, for the first time in my life, satisfied—

  This simple, unaffected letter should have touched me, perhaps, but all I could read between the lines was false sincerity. Nicolas’s hold over me had been irrevocably weakened the moment I had begun my revenge. Day after day, as my design took shape and form, a process of exorcism was occurring, a weaning process that little by little was liberating me from this perversely brilliant man.

  No, it was too late. I would not be taken in. I had closed the book on that part of my life forever.

  Chapter 10

  Rain drenched Heathrow Airport, and taxis were impossible to find. I was exhilarated.

  Black skies were good signs.

  I believed in portents then. I shivered at crossed silverware and read into the flight patterns of swallows. Knocking over the salt shaker was cause for panic. I fretted over the Ides of March and umbrellas opened indoors and the idea of walking under a ladder.

  The fate of Caius Flaminius came often to mind. At Lake Trasimene he had foolishly engaged his enemy in battle despite a formal warning from his oracles that the signs were not auspicious; he was defeated and then executed by Hannibal.

  Doris had put flowers on my desk. I opened the door, and she looked as if she might throw herself into my arms. Thankfully, this did not happen. She greeted me effusively, then blushed and told me, with the look of a naughty child, that there was a bottle of champagne in my office refrigerator.

  “Well, you see, to celebrate the success of—and, well, because Mr. Fabry’s success is in part because of you and me, I thought. . .”

  Sweet Doris. She thought of everything. There she was, loyal as ever, ready to share in my joy. I couldn’t bear to cause her any pain.

  “Indeed, Doris! Indeed! What do you say we just open it up then?” I replied in my jauntiest voice. She beamed with pleasure.

  We toasted the success of Nicolas Fabry, and we toasted the happy fact that the Turner Press owned English-language rights to his book (part of a multibook deal I had signed with him ages back), and that that would mean yet another resounding success for us. I told her about my trip to Paris, the cocktails at Millagard’s, the evening at Castel’s, Nicolas’s ecstasies, Nora’s beauty. . . . But I said nothing about my little adventure with the chubby Margot. She shuddered when I told her about the return flight and turned pale, and I saw how it touched her. How different life would have been had I simply been in love with Doris.’

  Then she hinted that I must have quite a few things to catch up on, and that perhaps she should leave me for a while. She withdrew, discreet as ever.

  Dear Marianne Evans:

  My admiration for your critical acuity and my respect for your professional honesty lead me to conclude that you are the only person with whom I would share the very deep distress I felt reading the acclaimed new French novel entitled Il faut aimer by the French writer Nicolas Fabry. . . .

  My hand was steady as I composed the letter, using a typewriter I had bought especially for the purpose. On a single sheet of paper, without letterhead, I explained my shock at the “extraordinary and surely not coincidental similarities between Nicolas Fabry’s novel and C. Irving Brown’s 1939 work, The Need to Love, a copy of which I enclose.” They were more than happenstance could explain, I wrote, adding that I was positive she would find Brown’s novel truly edifying.

  I ended by explaining that I was an elderly and retired professor of French, who preferred his identity to remain unknown.

  I sealed the thick brown envelope.

  The time bomb was set. Now it was up to Ms. Evans to detonate it. I was sure she would do so with pleasure. Few people on earth despised Nicolas Fabry more heartily than Marianne Evans.

  I had introduced them three years earlier at a cocktail party in London. Never would I have thought her the type to fall for Nicolas. A career journalist, she was committed to her ambitions, to money and glory. Moreover, at the time she was having a no doubt very useful fling with the editor-in-chief of the newspaper in which her intelligently written though sharply barbed book reviews appeared with regularity. I would have thought her capable of anything except allowing herself to be devoured by a paper tiger like Nicolas. Yet that same evening Evans met Nicolas at his hotel room, and the next morning, rather publicly, she ended her affair with the editor.

  It was a very stupid thing to do. Why get caught up in an affair of the heart in which within a matter of days one participant would be incapable of providing any emotional satisfaction? Nicolas dumped Marianne five days later and went home to his mistress in Paris.

  She never quite recovered from it. You could tease her about anything except her vanity. From that day onward she systematically decimated any work of Fabry’s the day it appeared.

  I was giving her a wonderful occasion for revenge.

  I stayed late at the office, then went and dropped the envelope in Marianne’s mailbox on the other side of London.

  It was something of a miracle that I managed to get home without an accident. I drove mindlessly, not sure of where I was going, nor even who I was.

  That first night I slept very little, drifting in and out of a twilight dreamland peopled by moving shadows. Several times I became absolutely convinced that someone was in the room with me, whispering. Apparitions of my anxiety, I knew. Finally I lulled myself to sleep by reminding myself over and over that the man I had condemned was guilty a thousand times over, that my revenge was poetic justice. And how bad could it be, really? All I was doing was throwing a spanner in the works—hoping to spook Nicolas just a bit, instill in him a fear of some nameless foe. Good God, the man deserved at least that.

  The three days that followed seemed interminable. I barricaded myself in my office, waiting for a reaction
, unable to concentrate, asking that no one interrupt me for any reason. The one thing that I did manage to accomplish, with a very clear mind, was research (done very discreetly, of course) into the rights to the Marble Arch Press book. Having invented an author, a publisher, and a book, if I also wanted to publish The Need to Love at some point later on, I would still have to acquire the rights. I traced the descendants of Philip Ramsay. One relative was still alive. He worked in a bank. I noted down his exact whereabouts, promising myself that when the moment came I would move more quickly than my competitors and obtain the rights—to the work of which I was the creator.

  When I think back, aspects of my plot can still make me feel dizzy.

  Finally, it happened. And it went exactly as I had hoped. Marianne Evans published a piece in the Times entitled “The Prize of Plagiarism.” In it she loudly denounced Nicolas Fabry’s astounding duplicity for having recopied in extenso a pre-war English novel, doubtless counting on the idea that its true author, C. Irving Brown, would be nearly unknown even in his native land. What irony it was that the work of an unknown British writer had won its French plagiarist the most prestigious award his country could bestow, the Goncourt!

  Evans noted that it was only by the most incredible stroke of luck that she had been able to get her hands on a copy of the original The Need to Love. Otherwise a true masterpiece might have remained forever unknown, and the outrageous perfidy of its imitator gone undiscovered.

  The case of the “Fabry Fabrication” took wing. I was sitting at my desk, reading and rereading Evans’s article, when a quiet knock at my door drew me out of my reverie. Doris informed me that Millagard was on the line and that he absolutely insisted on being put through.

  “He sounds extremely upset,” she said.

  Trying very hard not to smile, I picked up the phone. Millagard was indeed in a full panic. He had just been told about the article in the Times. What was all this nonsense? He said I must write a letter to the Times, that very moment, summarily denouncing Evans’s libelous charges. I replied, coolly, that it would be better to find out everything we could before acting.