The Tenth Gate
~ Part Four
Yet again, he woke early. But today, he
didn’t care. This was the day when he would get to see what
Ella
was certain was the tenth picture. His mind buzzed. He didn’t
even
care that again, he’d slept alone.
Apart from the
fragmented encounters in the bath and in the kitchen, they
hadn’t
even touched. He was sorry about the close isolation he found himself
in, but when he considered the material basis of their strange
relationship he didn’t mind. In fact, he thought, it was
safer the
way it was. He knew from the experience of a man lost in a world of
predatory women that love and lust were not necessarily easy
partners. Something else was needed to make them coexist, but it was
something he hadn’t experienced, couldn’t define.
Paradoxically,
he wanted the former yet craved for, was addicted to, the dirtiness
of the latter. He usually liked the unexpected viciousness of sex
that came out of nowhere, the walk away without the exchange of
numbers or the slippery unmeant promises to call. He didn’t
want to
sacrifice that for love. He’d stick with what he knew.
Usually.
He frowned to himself. Usually. This time he knew that his godless
soul was lying to itself. He ran his hands through his greying hair
and wondered how this sentiment had crept up on him. He did his best
to block out the feelings that had wormed their way through his
emotional hard covers, pulled on his crumpled clothes and went
downstairs to search out the day’s first nicotine.
He was
still looking for his last few cigarettes when she came in. He looked
up from the table covered in papers and actually blinked, did a
double take at the woman who entered the room. Ella looked different,
amazing. It was the first time he’d seen her in anything
other than
casual clothes. Her closely fitting shirt was buttoned, her narrow
skirt was dark and neat, and her high heels clicked. Her hair was
severely scraped back emphasising the extra layer of mascara and
glowing lipstick. She was like a child dressing up. She smiled and
giggled, posing and turning, wiggling her rear in a clichéd
pastiche of what she aimed to be, enjoying the dressing up.
“What
do you think? Do I look like your so-called secretary? Is this how
you like your research assistants to dress, Dr Corso? Shall I wear
glasses, carry a clipboard? Do these heels and lipstick attract you
attention?” She posed and pouted some more.
He found
himself laughing back at her. “No, you look absurd. Much too
straight-laced. You look like the worst sort of hotel receptionist.
Undo a button, loosen your hair. And no fake glasses, please. But
yes, you’ve certainly got my attention.”
She leaned
forward, still laughing, and pressed her hand against his swelling
crotch. “That’s plain for all to see. And you
don’t even know
what I’m wearing underneath yet.”
He was about to explore
the likelihood of finding out, but she laughed and stepped back and
picked up her bag of papers. “No time like the present for
academic
research. Don’t forget your letters of introduction, This is
no
open access library.” She rattled her car keys, and, still
giggling, turned to leave.
Subsiding, and only a little
disappointed, he followed her out to the car.
As they made
their way along the straight roads that led to the city they were
quiet. The scene out of the window rushed past, flat and fertile
fields, crops cut and waiting for the plough. The same landscape for
miles, reaching to the hazy horizon. No hedges, no woodland. Rivers
banked up against the winter floods. .In a landscape of horizontals,
you were forced to look up. The sky gave the place its possibilities;
it alternately sheltered and threatened, and forced you to consider
your position beneath the heavens.
He though some more about
the problem of love and lust. Were they the only two possibilities?
Were they the two sides of the same coin that they appeared to be?
There had to be more to it, but his desiccated heart couldn’t
find
the key. The laughter they had shared in the kitchen a few minutes
ago had lifted his spirits, and that had been neither love nor lust.
It was as if the laughter had momentarily created an easiness, a
lightness of spirit that went through his tense mind like a gasp of
air.
But as they drove into the old city, though the
Victorian suburbs, his obsession drove these thoughts away, and he
focused on the problem of obtaining the etching. It had to be the
original, he knew that from his experience with Balkan at the castle.
But a picture or a photocopy would be worth having as well, at least
to let them work on the riddle it held. However, problems existed.
They were not heading for a library that leant out books. The archive
of The Fitzwilliam was well known in academic circles, holding rare
volumes from the days when the Civil War battered the marshes around
the city. Books from that time were fragile and precious.
They’d
have to wear gloves to even touch some crumbling papers, and would
have to beg and plead to be allowed to photograph or to even hope to
photocopy. He suspected that it would come down to theft or bribery.
And of those, theft was preferable, producing less traces.
He’d
done it before, for obsessive collectors who could pay the price.
He’d just never imagined that the obsessive would one day be
himself.
And once they’d got it- and they would find this
picture, his obsession made him sure of that-then what? Would he tell
her of what he knew about laying out the pictures in sequence, as
Balkan had done? Did she know the sequence already? And what would
emerge when it was all done? Something that could be shared? Or
something that demanded solitary ownership?
The faded greens
of the fields were being replaced by prosperous suburbs as he
continued his musings. Nearly there, get your script ready, he
thought. This was one thing at least he could excel at. For years
he’d talked himself into deals, flattered and oiled his way
into
sales that made his living. He knew exactly how to look a seller in
the eye and make them believe, through a downward glance, a half
smile and a shrug of the shoulders, that he was doing them a favour
when he offered less that real value. It was the one way he could
always succeed with women, he thought, lips narrowing at the irony.
Men and women, in fact. There was little to choose between the sexes
in their desire for approval and self aggrandisement. People see what
they want to see, not what is real. More irony, he thought, as he
stole a glance at Ella.
*********
As they walked up
the white marble steps to the ornate columned portico of the museum
he slipped back into his work persona. Once again he was the book
detective, dressed as if his mind was on higher matters and carrying
too many poorly filed papers. His assistant walked a little behind
him, smartly dressed, businesslike, better organised. They spoke
together in whispers as they paused for a moment, appearing to look
at the hideous modern sculptures that blighted the grassy lawns
around the cool and classical building. A nodded agreement and they
walked in.
The cool reception hall was almost silent, and
smelled of the dust of glass cases and polish on wooden frames.
Uniformed staff, the usual security check, bags searched in a
desultory fashion by a poorly paid and bored guard. The walk to the
reception desk.
“Look ahead, don’t drop your gaze,”
he’d told her. “You have to look like what
you’re doing is
honest, legitimate.” Easier said than done, he thought as his
letters were examined. He hoped that these dealers in documents
wouldn’t spot the fact that his recommendation was a forgery
that
had admitted him under an assumed name to many of the
country’s
greatest closed libraries. He had counted on them being checked by a
receptionist who was less than familiar with the names he had chosen
to invoke in his recommendation. An academic may have chosen to
check. She, however, seemed to be reading them too carefully,
glancing up to look at him. How many seconds would he wait before he
made Ella turn and run? As the receptionist lifted the phone, he felt
himself starting to sweat. A sideways look at Ella showed she was
playing her part well, better than him: bored, tetchy but unruffled,
just what she should be.
Seconds ticked past in slow motion.
The woman put the phone down. “Thank you. That’s
fine. The local
collection you’ll need is downstairs. Go the corridor and
take the
lift two floors down. I hope you find your visit
interesting.”
He
had to be careful not to run, or laugh, or sigh with relief as they
walked to the lift.
“Level C” He told her which stack
they needed to find. “Local documents from the seventeenth
century.” The lift moved smoothly, down into the
place’s history.
Ella ran her tongue over her dry lips. “This
shouldn’t
take long. The location is easy, the sections are referenced by
century in the floor plan they gave us. A couple of shelves to search
through, that’s all. But we still have to get the picture out
with
us.”
True, he thought. And it was pretty plain that there
was going to be no photocopy. He’d brought a small camera,
but the
library had strict regulations about flash photography, so any photo
would be poor quality. Again, theft seemed the only choice. Not the
whole book, which could have been, probably was, tagged to set off
alarms if it went past the desk, but the page. Guiltily, he felt deep
in his pocket for the sliver of scalpel blade he kept for such
occasions.
The lift doors opened and they stepped out into
the silent and musty vault that was level C. Deep underground, the
air conditioning could not hide the smell of the sweet potential of
decay. Papers lined the walls, classified by date. Brown cracked
leather covers, peeling gold tooled spines. The sickly smell of oiled
bindings, old animal glues. The carbon taste of print hung in the
air. He loved it all, wanted to stand still and absorb it. This was a
kind of heaven. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the value
of what
was stacked around him. The thrill he felt was almost sexual. Magic
dripped from these books.
Ella walked ahead of him, drawn to
the location, hardly glancing at the plan, seemingly guided by some
sort of unconscious sense. Turning into a quiet alcove, books on
three sides of her, she looked up, smiled, turned to him.
“It’s
there. I want you to touch it first. See if it’s the one we
need.
See if it feels like the other nine. Something about it will speak to
you if it is.”
He moved closer, reaching up and above her
to the higher shelf. Although she leant back, his body pressed into
her. As his arm reached for the book, he could smell her perfume,
light, flowers and the musky scent of sex. He looked down towards
her, and found her looking straight back at him with eyes that sucked
all thoughts of research from his mind.
He was horrified at
what he thought she wanted to do, but more horrified at the idea that
she’d read the idea that had welled up for a split second
from the
most secret corners of his mind.
“Is that what you want?
Here and now? I know what’s in your mind.” He felt
himself blush,
and he looked down to avoid her eye. Could anyone hear them, did
anyone know what she had read in him? Did her words take his guilt
and echo it around the silent galleries? Were they really alone in
the cool depths of these stacks? Was there someone, a curator with
muffled shoes, a solitary student returned early, around the back of
the dusty shelves? He started to sweat. But he knew that what had
crossed his mind had long been something that he’d fantasised
about, clandestine images spilling from his worst subconscious when,
frustrated and needy, long evenings alone in his apartment lay
emptily before him. But fantasy and reality were different beasts.
For a start, in fantasies no-one got caught and thrown out of
libraries with no further chance of getting the documents they
needed. The idea of stepping back, pretending he hadn’t
heard, came
into his mind. But her fingers were too quick for him, and he felt
her hand run over the fabric of his clothes. He caught his breath and
looked up.
Her eyes took away the past and the future, the
guilt and the fear.
And when only the present exists, it’s
easy to have courage. He felt himself push forward and kiss her
hungrily. The thought that others may be there disappeared like dust
in the heavy air. What had happened to him? How was he acting like
this? The fear had gone. He was turning into another, bolder, person.
He kissed her again, and pulled back to see her smile. She was
beautiful, but the smile was one which sucked the life from him, the
smile of one who took and absorbed. Someone who gave what was asked
as part of a harder bargain. And he realised that there is a horror
in fantasy becoming reality. What you dream is perfection, what you
live is grubby. Fantasies were not truths; they did not translate
into beauty. He was somehow disgusted with his mind, but he was
trapped by his body.
He realised that he held the book in his
hand. She reached up to take it, and flicked through the thick and
musty pages to open it at a picture that immediately looked familiar.
Handing it to him, she whispered “Cut out the page. And let
me hide
it.”
He did what he was told, nausea growing in his stomach
as the realisation of being used grew in his mind.
The marble
floors soon echoed with their retreating footsteps, and the metal
doors of the lift closed to begin their escape.