TCOTNK 2.8 The 15th letter part 4

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back to chapter 2.7

The 15th Letter part IV

I climbed inside into the cramped driver's seat of my race car and hoped I could find my way back through the city. She had written down the address. Just like that of her greengrocer, her baker, the university library, two of her friends and a clothing store with the name of someone who had to provide me with something that could pass for clothing. Then —in Thalia's words— what I was wearing could be sent to the mission or some enemy nation.

How did I spend the summer evening? I would like to tell you what useful progress I made, and how I started to systematically map out all that new information and possibilities. But I had a fast car, expensive sunglasses from the glove compartment, a stubble beard and just had some nasty good morning sex, so I drove to the coast, found a busy terrace with a sea view in a tourist town and drank beers. The people watching I did was almost thoughtless. It had been a long time since I had been among 'ordinary' people like this. And for a while it was pleasant. Until the feeling suddenly turned into enormous unrest. From then on, everything in that tourist spot was exasperating. Conversations I overheard were annoying. Seeing the whole thing of nice clothes, expensive cars, fake conversations and especially the ubiquitous telephones, screens, radio voices, billboards, the pounding from car speakers, the dissatisfied children, the grumbling or even downright hateful parents, and the absurdly high price tags on everything seemed to hang around me like a grotesque play that I could no longer imagine that anyone around me could take seriously. But they did. All those moving bodies focused on themselves.

I paid for my four beers and the fish dish and regretted overspending. I took a short walk, but still I was confronted by intrusive billboards and the completely fake environment. The weird emphasis on looks, the false surface. I hadn't had alcohol for a long time and clearly noticed how it was dragging me down. It did not make me happy, and I experienced a strong narrowing of the predominant clear feeling of the last few months. The protective layer around me had become paper thin. I felt every spike and bump through it. As if I was being sent barefoot over a rough dirt road. Suddenly a slave again to every fluctuation of my mind.

Me and my stupid impulse. Now I had to drive through an unknown city in a rambunctious vehicle in the middle of the night in search of Thalia's attic room. Would I call a taxi and spend even more money? Then I would come home without the risk of police checks or other misery, or would I just take a chance? It was already late and I really just wanted to go to bed. I climbed into the car, head first, I hope nobody saw. Drove off and almost immediately took a wrong turn. A residential area that was set up as a maze. I stopped because I realized that I had Thalia's cell phone and could use the navigation. Then discovered that I had left my glasses on the terrace. I had gotten cold, put the sweater over my head and knocked over the last almost empty beer glass. Then I took off the glasses, which I often do at the end of the day. So no navigation. Half an hour later I found the restaurant again. It seemed like the staff didn't even recognise me. Even though I had spent several hours at a prominent table. No glasses found.

Simply put, fucking awkward. I drove away angry. You shouldn't do that with a rally car and immediately caught the attention of two bicycle police officers. That was the very last thing I could afford. I gestured exaggeratedly sorry, but didn't stop and drove away as calmly as possible. I saw them hesitate. But because I changed my behaviour, they let it slip.

That shouldn't happen to me again. A few kilometers further I drove into a dark forest track, parked the car under a tree and took a nap first.

Maybe there was something fishy about the dish. The horrendous visions I experienced in the hours that followed were enough material to fill an entire cathedral, inside and out. In red and black. Torture and deformities of the most gruesome kind. An inferno of scorched hair and charred limbs in burning streets. Roaring firestorms in a city where the inhabitants in blind panic tried to escape something that was without mercy. I saw the fire monster sucking in the air, roaring. How the wind hordes danced madly and scorchingly through the alleys and streets, breaking windows, forcing down poisonous clouds and pushing over chimneys from high roofs so that the brick colossuses crushed the people that filled the streets.

It was another fire dream. Now mainly the smell of things that are better not burned remained in my imagination. With my head pounding with misery, I went outside to pee. One of those endless beer puddles. It was still completely dark outside. About three in the morning. Whether I opened or closed my eyes I saw firefly ashes in my periphery. Very upsetting.

The third day.

The next thought I got was so clear. You told me about home. That you left to find your own path. But now I think you've run away. You're only sixteen. Were you? Are you still? So you are wanted. Could Catherine be your sister? I remember you having sisters. Is your mother looking for her lost daughter? Or has she hired someone to do so? Where are you, Scarlotte? Have you moved on? You feel so far away.

I can ask you all that, but you won't answer. Maybe your dream voice can tell me?

In any case, I was now doubly motivated to both find your grandmother and catch up with Catherine, with Yeshe. To hear her out. And maybe join forces. Do you want to be found? Are you looking for your roots in a different way? So many questions.

I wanted to read the excerpts. Merging my material from the beach studio with what could be found in the books. Finally, I had access to the knowledge and resources that would help me move forward. 

I drove back through the quiet streets of a sleeping port town. Got some reading glasses at a night shop near the ferry terminal. From there I found the warehouse without difficulty and was full of energy. I cleared as much floor as possible. Inventoried and sorted the books. Found a full package of sticky notes in a desk drawer. Got more pink index cards ready. Brewed a full thermos of strong coffee.

I sat on a bean filled meditation cushion for at least an hour. Just thinking. Letting my thoughts wander. Trying to see threads. To this time not to follow the first impulse and go there but to imitate a bird of prey. Overview and observation. The suitable prey had to show itself while I quietly floated over the landscape. Why is there no word for not focusing?

I slowly started moving. Browsed through some books. I spread Sapi's handwritings on the floor. Could I see a logical sequence? Separate left and right pages? Could I refjoin broken sentences? Were any themes dominant? Was there a natural entrance? A starting point? Yes, knights. If there was a unifying element in the illustrations, it was the knights and the castles. Although it definitely didn't have the leading role, it was the setting, the era that seemed to dominate. Which era? Multiple. It was as if there was a line running through the story. I chuckled, yes, bright spot, the storyline. No, it was literally a line too. A river, a clothesline, a hanging rope, a path along a wall. Things were connected everywhere. I could follow each of those wires to expose a tissue. I longed for the book itself. My memory alone was not enough to absorb that shifting perspective. No matter how many times I looked at it and despite a good visual memory, there was so much I didn't know. I took notes. I wrote down thoughts. Slowly gaining a bit more speed. I looked things up. Came across things I recognized. A helmet. A piece of clothing. And then I knew what I had to do. The tactics to follow. I cut twenty-five pink cards into quarters. I would collect a hundred questions. First the questions. That was the tool for the excavation.

After a difficult, meagre start, the questions poured out.

Who was the child with the page haircut? Could I assume that despite the change in hairstyle, this girl was the same as the woman further down the road? Which castle was on the first page? Was that a real castle? That flag? What conclusions and data could I get from the written fragments? I couldn't keep up with my pen. Cut out another hundred cards. Drank more coffee. Started seeing groups of questions and shifted the order. Made sandwiches without stopping the penning down. Forgot my poured coffee. Sat on the toilet reading until my legs fell asleep. The journal was beautifully written. Part of a journey. A treatise on horses. Three magazines that were consecutively about women's issues. Notes about the fluctuations in her cycle. About when a woman is fertile and especially when she is not. It wasn't until the last page that something struck me like a hailstone from a blue sky.

It said:

The woman who has been following me for a few days came to see me this morning. She is even more unusual and remarkable up close as from a distance. Although she does her best not to stand out, there is something that sets her apart. It's not that I distrust her, but since I've been travelling alone, every person who pays attention to me is a potential threat. She didn't want anything special. I couldn't help but feel that she knew more about me than she let on. We had tea together at the station. It was pleasant. She asked simple questions and listened carefully to my answers. Very rare. I can't remember ever meeting a better listener. The last thing she said was, I can help with your invisibility. Then she walked away. Leaving me with a card. It is not a business card, but rather a kind of tarot card with a drawing and a cryptic text,'The widow's child survives millennial journeys.' Then I cried. Well, half an hour. It wouldn't budge because it…

And there the page stopped. That's all I had. But it's enough. That text is in The Castle, not literally, but cut into two parts;

“Live a thousand years and then stand at the beginning,” a woman says to the girl somewhere on the fifth page and then somewhere at the back of the book;

"so your father doesn't exist for you?"

"The king left the day after my arrival."

“Is he still alive?”

Then the woman who I think is the same girl as at the beginning seems to deny, smiling.

“Of course not,” it says on the next page. In a different setting.

While reading the picture book, I kept wondering whether that answer belonged to that question. The whole book is like that. Nothing naturally belongs to anything else. A new level of reading between the lines. As if background and foreground have been switched. Decoration and object. A vase that appears to be the contour of a person in the negative space. An arrow shot in the Scottish Middle Ages hits the target in the Art Nouveau style in Vienna. A word is a picture. Objects are symbols. Tombstones are letters. The context is fluid. Mirrors are doors, wardrobes gates, fallen apples are the end of an empire. It's history, but not the one in the books.

I came across some of the text from the card Sapi writes about while browsing the library books. Different wording. It took me a while to find it again. A son of a widow was mentioned in one of the chivalric books. An unnamed sculptor. That part was about the Knights Templar. The feeling that came over me was, this can’t be, right? Was I working on the next bestseller? Leonardo's key? I left the lodge and the order aside for the time being. Patterns are treacherous buggers. Not to be trusted at first glance.

Still, I worked feverishly. I read half chapters and entire tables of contents studied the conclusions of very heavy material. More and more books lay open on every possible surface. I found crumbs. Yes, a real trail of breadcrumbs like in the fairy tale of Hänsel and Gretel. For example, I found a picture. A small sculpture in a church. A figure holding a large closed book. Protective. The figure has wings. The same decoration appears in The Castle of the Naked Knights on the last page. Insignificant in the lower right corner. But in the reading direction it is the last word image of the narrative. A closed book protected by an angel? And there was a chance it was made by the same unnamed sculptor. The widow's son?

Now I searched like a bloodhound that had finally picked up the scent. It was clear to me that Sapi's notes were written in the period before the writing and drawing (or shall I say construction) of The Castle of the Naked Knights. They are probably the seeds for it, the start.

I could no longer distinguish the letters, stood up stiffly and waded my way through, the oceanic floor strewn with paper canyons towards the light switch. I stared confused at the semi-darkness through the open warehouse doors. Was it evening again already? My busy head suddenly fell silent. Thalia should have been back by now. If she had made it to the day boat. Apparently not.

A lonely alarming feeling cut through my stomach. Despite my mind telling me not to worry. I walked to the balcony gate. Stood in the large opening for a long time looking down at the square and the creeping shadows of traffic lights. The next ferry was the night boat. Thalia’s own team. Arrival very early in the morning. I decided to go there.

I pulled the heavy linen bag from the metal cage. Restrained my curiosity to loosen the tight knot, and hung the shopping lift back on its hook on the outside wall. I closed the glass front. Cobbled together some kind of dinner and tried to do some work. I gave up, grabbed the keys, turned off the light, had the distinct feeling of forgetting something, turned the light back on and looked around the large attic to see if I could figure out what. It was a mess. A wonderful edifice of possibilities that would lead me to Sapi and you. I was definitely on the right track. Lights off. Bouncing down the stairs and then I knew what I had forgotten. I bought a present for Thalia in the night shop. A pendant with a rune sign. Just as a thank you. Because I already had serious doubts about whether that was suitable, I left it alone.

Just after midnight I settled among the drivers on a terrace next to the harbour basin. There I would have a view of the outgoing passengers and I could also catch her when she came walking instead of driving. I spent the few hours reading, drinking coffee and making sketches of the drivers' heads.

It was a busy arrival. Had the summer holidays started? There was no end to the family cars, boat trailers, caravans, motorcyclists and packed bicycles. The number of trucks with trailers and parcel services was also high. The nose of the ferry disgorged hundreds of vehicles. My dark grey rolling rust box was not among them.

Was it too crowded for Thalia to schedule a crossing? Didn't she prefer the day boat anyway? I walked to the still yawning ship.

"Have you seen Thalia?" I asked the men who were chatting there. They had no idea who Thalia was. The hold was empty, they assured me, and if I was looking for someone, I had to ask at the office. The message was to get along. Sod off.

First she hadn’t returned with the day-ferry. Now she hadn’t come with the night shift. I was conflicted. My mind said, just wait patiently, continue working, go to the library, buy new clothes, make sure her room is liveable again, but a razor-sharp knife scraped along the tissue of my intestines.

There was no Thalia registered at the office, said the woman who helped me, and if there had been, she couldn't have told me, she said, looking worried. Her logic escaped me. Enough campers according to her, but the color was not noted, nor the brand, no, only the length and height, this morning the boat was full yes full, look, she said, there are twelve rows. Most of the boarding queues were indeed already full at the arrival square. Oh, you want to go to the other side? That's not possible sir, this office is already closed. But you're open, I said, aren't you? No, she replied, tomorrow I will be again, you can go there up to an hour before departure. Here, you mean here, I said, yes, she said, but tomorrow I won't be. Her mechanical smile and flashing lashes were tacky and fake. Thank God, I thought.

I could only buy a ticket on board, she assured me, in case of an emergency. I let my eyes do the answering, waved her adieu and walked towards the pedestrian bridge to maybe create some instant emergency and then changed my mind. The lines of waiting vehicles were mainly holidaymakers. The early summer morning was pleasantly cool. Almost sunrise. Many people were waiting on a cozy lit terrace with a view of the hustle and bustle of the harbour. There were three identical luxury caravans in the back of the third row. With the foil still on the windows. New copies yet to be delivered. They were just outside the flood of the stadium lights. I walked into the approach area. It was worth a try. The excuse already prepared in my head; Oh I was just curious about this new model, it's beautiful, that layout is a big improvement, or something along those lines.

As I expected, they were not locked. I brazenly crawled into the front one. The smell of glue and new carpet was intoxicating. They had been in the sun with all the windows closed for too many days. Wow, what ugly bitches these holi-homes. Under the plastic around the seats was a green-yellow brocade-like fabric from which Roos could cut a beautiful dress. There was nothing else worth looking at inside. You could use it as a sterile operating room in case of a sudden shortage of hospitals.

I crawled into the corner of the horseshoe-shaped couch and sat down to philosophize.

I was startled awake again by the bump of the ramp, I was being driven on board inside the mobile hospital. I locked myself in the bathroom. Just to be sure. As I listened, I followed the parking movements, the engine stopping, the hollow voices all around and the muffled fireworks of hundreds of car doors and boots slamming shut. I didn't want to wait until the loading area was completely vacated, but just follow the flow of arriving passengers. Spending ten hours in that smelly box was a bit too much for me. But if I got out too early, I was screwed.

Getting out was no problem. From the hold that smelled of exhaust fumes, I walked up the stairs with the nonchalant attitude of a bored grandfather. My inner self was in turmoil. I was a stowaway with no luggage and only a few bills and a handful of change in my pocket. And nothing else. No plan. Only anxiety and doubts.

Young women travelling alone may have trouble keeping their distance from panting candidates. As a companionless man without a clear label, especially during the second half of your existence, you quickly become a kind of leper and even more so when you do not comply with the dress code among suspicious offspring-protecting couples with holiday stress. Spending a whole day on that floating child crash was not a pleasant prospect.

I settled in the bar on the aft deck. There children were scarce. After two hours and too much coffee, the serving girl came and sat at my table. With a thud.

“Hey,” I said.

"Hey, hey," she said with a lazy wave and rested her head on her arms.

"You're that writer," she said without looking up.

I refrained from commenting.

After a long silence —I thought she had maybe fallen asleep— she lifted her head. Leaning her chin on both her thumbs up.

"I want adventure too," she whined, pouting.

My mind switched gears quickly. She knew Thalia and was at least aware of our meeting.

“Have you had any contact with your…girlfriend recently... um...?”

"Cynth," she said shortly, "I'm teaching," she added warningly.

'Hi, I'm Johann.'

Yeah right, said her look.

I started again, 'but did you...',

“Yuhhuhhh,” she uttered impatiently, half-climbing onto the table to pry a paper-thin cell phone from her bursting waitress skirt. With two elbows on the table, her nose almost against the screen, her thumbs dipped into the digital hold. She searched for a while, swiping and typing with two thumbs, while also updating the overdue message stream. She then said, “Nuh.” 

looking at me accusingly. I wasted her time. Big time. She put down her oracle and watched herself in the dark windshield behind the table.

"Nothing for a day," she said checking different lip shapes. Her face sequelled through several selfie modes.

"I'm curious what they…" I started.

"See for yourself...", with a single finger she turned the phone in my direction. She depicted her contact with Thalia upside down. I saw her avatar still had long hair. I read. Couldn't make sense of it. Secret language with icons, abbreviations and pictures. Cheerful nonsense it seems. Until the last message.

‘Fockin'hell, I can't go back like this!’

Eleven’o’three, yesterday. After that nothing, complete silence. Also no attempts from Cynth to make contact.

'Stupid right?' Cynth said, grabbing her possession from my hand again.

It suddenly dawned on me that Thalia's phone was still in the rally car and I didn't understand it.

"I have her cell phone," I said, "so how could she..."

"A new song..." Cynth said, incredulous that she had to explain, "and then log in to your profile."

"Can I call her on that number?"

'”Call?' she said scornfully, 'on that number?'

I nodded.

"For all I care."

She made no move.

“Could I do that on your phone? I'm concerned about...”

Her eyes widened.

"You don't have one?" she exclaimed, 'Faaaarout!'

She connected with one hand, turned on the speaker, and looked expectantly.

"Hey Cynthia, have you pinned down Ray yet?"

Cynth lifted both her lips against her nose and held them tightly shut.

"Hey Thalia, I…."

'Raphael! How the hell... oh wait, you're on the boat over here and you... oh, fuck, are you mad?'

I frowned. Why should I be angry?

"I was worried about…" I began.

"Yes, I would be too, but there was nothing I could do," she sounded desperate, "do you have any idea who could have done it?"

I had lost the thread.

'”Who has done what...?”

“Oh ratfuckers...., you don't know anything yet? That's why you kept not answering my texts. Oh dear, how terrible. I sent you twenty photos, and reported on my investigation, and the suspicious men….oh cunt…cunt-cunt....crucifucksakecuntsticks”

Cynth sat excitedly staring at the sound stream of her acquaintance.

'Are you pregnant?' said Cynth, solving the puzzle, "by that old bald writer guy?"

As if I wasn't there.

“Hold din kaeft!” Thalia shouted, “Jesus, child! And get me off speaker.”

She sat with her arms folded and looked outside, where there was nothing but blue sky.

I picked up the cell phone.

Now intimately, close to my ear, I could hear Thalia panting.

'What are you doing?' I asked for lack of anything better to say.

"Nothing," she said softly and flatly, "I stole a bicycle."

I sniffled. “Oh?”

"Yes, I'm going back to see if I can get to it now, in daylight."

“Get to what?” I asked as my heartbeat sensed that I would need the extra capacity. It throbbed at my temples.

She turned up her nose, made sobbing noises.

The apprehension pulled my heart out of my chest. Quivering and pulsating it lay on the worn table. A cavity in my ribcage. Waiting for what would be put back in.

She took a shaky breath and said;

"I'm trying to get to the charred remains of your camper."

The ship tilted. The wind noise from the phone crept into my head. She’d said it very softly and slowly. And the knife that slid through my torn out heart was sharp. It bled out. My mind shut down. The intestines of my existence pouring out of my emptied lungs. I saw all the objects, all my stuff, in front of me. Slowly shrinking, dissolving. Like I was already forgetting them. And I broke down there at that table. The boulder of loss was so heavy that I was in danger of being crushed. I could sink the ship right there and then. My diaries, my sketches, my handmade costumes and clothes. Ten years of collecting small treasures. The familiar interior space. The nonsensical decorations. Your stuff, Charlotte. My last home on earth. And the book! That squeezed out the last drops. The last bit of vision. The Castle of the Naked Knights also was no more.

“Are you okay?” Thalia asked softly, I couldn't respond. The open line with her was the only thing that held me in this form at that moment. Her breath, for now, was my breath.

“Don’t give up,” she said, “I will see if anything can be saved. I will fetch you when the ferry arrives. Write down my number.”

She sounded beyond sweet as she slowly spoke the numbers. No sound came from me and I’d forgotten how to write. 

"I'm here for you," she said before hanging up.

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