The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books (12 page)

‘Believe me, Optimus, I’m not mad, nor am I one of those lazy-minded esotericists who believe in inexplicable phenomena, tea leaves, or the voice of their dead grandmother. I’m guided by a strictly scientific view of the world. I put all my faith in the measurability of Zamonian natural phenomena. I’m not a spiritualist. I believe in nothing that can only be grasped with the aid of blind faith. For
that
thing, the power we call the Orm, is more concrete than anything else in existence. It’s
real
, even though we can’t see it and few have experienced it.’

He let go of my arm and sat back. Then he adjusted his clothing and seemed to grow calmer.

‘But what am I saying?’ he added with a laugh. ‘No writer has ever been more thoroughly suffused with the Orm than you yourself!’

I slumped in my chair again. Fortunately, Ovidios went on at once.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘that was the cosmic prelude, the overture. Now comes the real story. I slowly recovered my senses. I now knew that if I succeeded in capturing and organising these fleeting symbols in my brain – if I wrote them down in the correct order – they would yield an Orm-inspired work. It was as simple as that. The problem was, I was still standing at the bottom of a muddy pit, soaked to the skin, and a catastrophic fire was raging outside. Night had fallen, and people were screaming and sobbing. Hardly ideal conditions in which to commit an important literary work to paper, were they?’

The gnome at the next table was now leaning so obtrusively in our direction, I feared he would fall off his chair at any moment. Ovidios produced a notebook and flourished it under my nose.

‘Paper!’ he cried. ‘I badly needed some paper. I found a pencil in my rags, but the paper in my pockets was completely sodden. I had to get out of that accursed pit, but the rain of recent days had rendered the steps leading down into it so soft that they gave way beneath my feet. It was like a nightmare! My brain was shaping a historic poem, a ballad about the Great Conflagration fit to endure for millennia, and the steps were giving way beneath my feet.’

Ovidios slammed his notebook down on the table and at that moment one of the gnomes really did fall off his chair. His companion rocked with unsympathetic laughter as he promptly scrambled to his feet.

‘Then, all at once, a rope was lowered into the pit,’ Ovidios went on, unmoved. ‘I grasped it at once with both paws and was hauled aloft. It was my friends and companions in misfortune, my neighbours in the
Graveyard of Forgotten Writers
! Submerged in their muddy holes, they had survived the conflagration like me. We fell into each other’s arms and exchanged mutual congratulations. But I hastened on. I had to find some paper! The poem, the great, immortal epic on the
burning
of Bookholm, was now clearly legible before my inner eye in twenty-four immaculate strophes suffused with the purest Orm! I had only to write them down. Paper, paper! I roamed the smoking ruins. Everything was burning and smouldering, and the ground was as hot as a hotplate. Having found paper in my pockets that was too wet to write on, all I found in the vicinity of the graveyard was some so charred or desiccated that it crumbled away between my claws. And the verses in my head were already beginning to fade. I was on the verge of despair. Of giving up. Of sinking to the ground and letting the poem die in my brain, unheard by anyone but me. But then something occurred to me. Do you like choral music?’

‘Eh?’ I said, puzzled by the sudden question. ‘Er, yes. No. Well, I don’t know. Er,
choral music
?’

‘It isn’t to everyone’s taste, I know,’ said Ovidios. ‘But I love chorales. And that was the solution to my predicament. I needed a choir.’

The two gnomes stared at him uncomprehendingly and I too felt that he’d somehow lost the thread.

‘I hurried back to my pit,’ Ovidios continued resolutely, ‘and gathered my fellow sufferers around me – all the residents of the
Graveyard of Forgotten Writers
. And then I delivered a speech.

‘“Listen!” I cried. “I’ve just been pervaded by the Orm!”

‘“Oh, sure,” someone said mockingly.

‘“Happens to me all the time!” cried another.

‘Laughter and giggles on all sides, then silence fell. Raising both arms, I began again from the beginning: “I know it sounds rather odd, my friends, especially under present circumstances. Believe it or not, though, the fact is that my inner eye has conceived a revolutionary epic poem which, unless it is recorded in some way, will soon be lost for ever because there’s no paper anywhere and it’s already fading from my memory. It came to me when the fire engulfed us and I’m convinced that it’s an Orm-given gift. I also know, however, that many of you don’t even believe in the Orm, so why should you
believe
such a fantastic story? For that reason, I simply want to ask you all for an act of friendship, whether or not you think I’ve lost my wits. Please just do as I say. It isn’t very difficult.’

‘“All right,” said someone. “What are we to do?”

‘“It’s quite simple. I shall now recite the poem aloud, strophe by strophe, and I’d like you to memorise one each. I shall station myself in front of you and very slowly declaim each strophe loud and clear. Please retain it in your memory until you get an opportunity to write it down. That’s all.”’

Ovidios’s gaze became transfigured as he recalled these events. He was positively looking through me now.

‘And that was the origin of
The Miracle of the Graveyard of Forgotten Writers
, as it later became known in Bookholm. It was anything but a miracle, of course; it was simply a form of choir practice, but of that we were just as unaware as we were of the fact that this was the moment when all our lives took a turn for the better. It would never have occurred to us in our current state, soaked to the skin and plastered with mud from head to toe.’

I sat back feeling thoroughly relieved, my friends. His story also seemed to be taking a favourable turn and I was feeling in a better, almost silly mood. I kept having to stifle an urge to laugh aloud, even though there was no real reason for it. The two gnomes lit another pipe.

‘The laughter and the stupid remarks died away after the first few lines I recited,’ Ovidios went on. ‘I saw looks of amazement being exchanged, for although we were all failed writers, we did know exceptionally fine literature when we heard it. Even those of us who didn’t really believe in the Orm grasped that they were sharing in something quite out of the ordinary. Tears started flowing after only a few strophes and on many faces I saw sheer rapture, undisguised envy or pure delight as their owners memorised the lines. Their eyes glowed with the fire of the Orm and it wouldn’t have surprised me to see sparks flying between us. I went from poet to poet, and when I’d
finally
recited every strophe I heard some of my listeners sob and saw many sink to the ground because their legs had given way. Others laughed aloud, but for joy. My poem had poured what all of us had experienced during the inferno into timeless verse. It had come from the heart. At once a paean to life and a hymn to death and resurrection, it left no one unmoved. I sank to the ground in exhaustion, like a balloon from which all the air has escaped. And that is just what I felt like: the poem had left me, all of it with the exception of one strophe, which I memorised myself. It now lived on in the collective memory of us all.’

Ovidios smiled. ‘Do you know what they christened us in Bookholm later on?’ he asked. ‘
The Forgotten Writers’ Choir
. We were a more united community than before, except that what united us was the will to live, not thoughts of suicide. We appeared in the streets of Bookholm and recited the poem together. Just like that, without special intent and exactly in the way we’d practised it, one strophe apiece. We had, of course, written it down in the interim, but it gave us the greatest satisfaction to recite it from memory like actors upon a stage. We performed in markets, at weddings and topping-out ceremonies, and we attracted steadily growing audiences. The choir became locally celebrated, an institution. By expressing what all of us had been through, my ballad brought consolation, so it helped the Bookholmers to rediscover their instinct for survival. Dramatic though this may sound, it’s true. It was the best thing I’d ever written. I didn’t know then that it would remain so, but I’ve come to terms with that.’

Ovidios sighed.

‘I don’t want to exaggerate the choir’s importance to the rebuilding of Bookholm, but it would be false modesty to deny it. We were a living symbol that a vibrant culture and a strong community can survive the worst of crises and catastrophes.’

‘Still,’ I ventured to put in, ‘that doesn’t explain why you’ve become so prosperous.’ I indicated his jewellery.

‘Not so fast! The story isn’t over yet. Now comes the commercial part.’ Ovidios grinned self-confidently. ‘Well, after a while the
Forgotten Writers
went their separate ways. A few of them married and moved away. A few died in the nature of things. When the first of us announced that he was leaving Bookholm, we resolved never to recite the poem in public again. That was to remain the privilege of our old closed community. I hadn’t until then thought of publishing it in book form, believe me, but when word got around that the
Forgotten Writers
would never perform again, a publisher convinced me that this piece of literature must definitely be preserved for posterity in print. Well, how could I quarrel with that? We made a contract under which all surviving members of the choir would share equally in the proceeds. We were reckoning on sales of a few hundred at most – I mean, who was going to buy a slim volume containing only one poem? That’s that, I thought. We had a good time and we’re alive, what more could anyone want? But then things really took off.’ Ovidios grinned again.

‘The book became a bestseller. Only within the narrow confines of Bookholm, admittedly, but with a vengeance! To begin with it was bought by every Bookholmer who had survived the fire. Then it became required reading in schools. Tourists started to take an interest in the book. It became a souvenir, the number-one souvenir from Bookholm. And today, two centuries later? If anyone buys a keepsake from this city, it’s my Orm poem. All new and second-hand bookshops display it right beside the till. There’s a children’s version complete with pop-up illustrations – blazing buildings and paper flames and all! Can you imagine what the royalties have amounted to over the years? It has guaranteed us all a life free from care. The editions are still mounting up from year to year. I’ve even been able to establish a home for destitute writers.’ Ovidios spread his paws wide, a contented and successful Lindworm expatriate.

I subsided in relief, tacitly congratulating myself on having joined his table. A long-standing weight had lifted from my shoulders.

Ovidios reached into his cloak, brought out a small booklet and slid it across the table to me.

‘A signed edition,’ he said. ‘I happened to have one on me.’ He grinned. ‘Perhaps you’ll run your eye over it some time.’

I picked up the little book.

‘Well,’ said Ovidios, who had clearly got the bit between his teeth and was filling another pipe. ‘That was only my little, personal story – just a footnote in the city’s development after the fire. Which, in turn, is a big story on its own. Would you care to hear a bit of it? Bookholmology for advanced students?’

‘I insist,’ I heard myself say. My voice seemed to come from a long way off, but I didn’t care. I wanted to hear more, much more! The two little gnomes beside us had dozed off with their heads on the table and were laughing softly in their sleep.

Biblio-this, biblio-that

THE FUMOIR HAD
filled up with smokers in the meantime. They were now sitting crowded together at the tables and some had even sat down at ours. Here and there wine bottles were circulating as well as pipes. As far as I could tell in the blue haze, most of the newcomers were a motley assortment of Bookholm residents. I could deduce this from their clothing, for many were in professional dress: the book dealers in their famous brown linen habits with patch pockets for holding books (and the knotted cords round their waists with which they measured a volume’s dimensions); the printers with their washable leather aprons and inky fingers; the editors with reading glasses round their necks; the blasé-looking Norselander notaries in their sleeve protectors; the Florinthian chefs in their stupid hats (why did you need a hat to cook in?); and, of course, the young poets whose attire conveyed their militant individualism: jaunty headgear and scarfs carelessly wound round their necks, shoulder bags containing notebooks and the inevitable volume of their own poems peeping casually out of a pocket.

The fumes and the babble of voices steadily intensified. Although we were being smoked like dried cod, I found the place more and more congenial. I felt fine without knowing why. I’d had no idea that the smoke of so many kinds of dried stimulants could be drawn into one’s lungs. Plain tobacco was probably the least of it! Herbs, coloured powders, dried fruit, dried roots – even colourful petals or ground-up nuts were being stuffed into pipes or rolled in cigarette paper. I caught
the
soapy perfume of lilac, the resinous aroma of hemp, the heavy scent of nutmeg, and mingled with them the pungent fumes of phogars. Many pipes emitted tall, thin flames as soon as they were lit. A Froglet was smoking a pipe with three bowls from which threads of different-coloured smoke were rising. Only hardened inhalers with lungs of cast iron could take that for any length of time. It struck me then that I still hadn’t produced my own pipe, I’d been too fascinated by Ovidios’s account of the Orm, so I felt in my pockets. Unlike me, the loquacious Lindworm had refilled and lit his own smoking utensil, and was resuming his narrative. If I wanted to smoke in here, I had only to breathe in and out.

‘From one day to the next, many Bookholmers were no better off than us residents of the
Graveyard of Forgotten Books
,’ he began, puffing away. ‘In actual fact, we were the lucky ones. Not having owned anything, we’d lost nothing. Half the city’s inhabitants were homeless. People were living in book crates and charred ruins, regardless of whether they wore gold chains and rings set with precious stones. Anyone who had survived was a winner.