The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books (3 page)

‘Yarnspinner chokes to death on a croissant!’

‘Zamonia’s greatest writer carried off by puff pastry!’

‘Obese Golden Quill Prizewinner found dead in a pool of cream!’

‘Heavyweight among Zamonian writers succumbs to a featherweight specimen of the baker’s art.’

I could picture the headlines as easily as I could the critic Laptantidel Laptuda’s spiteful obituary in the
Grailsundian Gazette
. They would have engraved a croissant on my tombstone!

It wasn’t until I went to mop my perspiring brow that I realised I was still clutching the letter in my paw, claws buried deep in the paper. Curse the thing! Into the fire with it! I got up to hurl it into the fire, then stopped short. Just a moment! What were the words that had disconcerted me so? Sheer agitation had driven them from my mind. I took another look.

This is where the story begins
.

I had to sit down again. I knew that sentence and so, my faithful friends and companions, do you! You also know what it meant to me, my life and my work to date. Who had written this letter? No, I couldn’t afford simply to burn it, even though it had nearly killed me. I read on.

I read the letter from beginning to end, every last word of its ten closely written pages. What was in it apart from that riveting opening sentence? Well, my friends, that can easily be summarised in two words: almost nothing. Those ten pages contained almost nothing significant, important or profound.

Almost
nothing, mark you.

For there was one other short sentence of note: the one that formed a postscript to the whole rigmarole. Only four words, but they were destined to turn my life completely upside down.

First things first, though. The letter dealt with a writer confronted by a blank sheet of paper and suffering from
horror vacui
. An unknown author paralysed by writer’s block? What a cliché! How many letters on this subject had I received? Too many, for sure, but I had never read one that handled the basic idea with such a lack of originality and inspiration or was so plaintive and self-pitying, depressing and disconsolate. Even bleak pieces of writing can attain artistic greatness, but this one resembled the twaddle talked by a self-centred patient who happens to sit next to you in a doctor’s waiting room and bores you with his trivial aches and pains. The writer’s remarks revolved exclusively around himself and his physical and mental condition, his absurd problems and stupid phobias. As if they were incurable and terminal diseases, he complained of matters such as raw gums, of cutting his finger on a piece of paper, of hiccups, callouses and feelings of repletion. He railed against critical reviews of his writings, even when well-intentioned, and whinged about the weather and migraines. The letter contained not a single sentence of value, just banalities unworthy of being committed to paper. While reading it I grunted and groaned like someone toiling up a steep mountain path on a sultry midsummer’s day with a rucksack full of paving stones on his back. I had never before burdened myself with – or felt so annoyed by – such reading matter. It was as if the author were clinging to my leg and being dragged across a barren, lifeless, stony desert. Words like desiccated cacti, sentences like dried-up ponds. This writer wasn’t suffering from writer’s block! On the contrary, he couldn’t hold his pen in check although he truly had nothing whatever to say. In short, it was the worst piece of writing I’d ever read.

And then something struck me like a kick from a skittish horse: I had written this myself! I smote my brow. Of course! These were
my
style
and
my
choice of words. These long, convoluted, tapewormlike sentences were
mine
. No one other than myself had written like this since I’d scaled the pinnacle of success. Here, a sentence containing seventeen commas: my syntactical trademark! There, a self-indulgent Yarnspinnerish digression on ‘The Perfect Breaded Escalope of Veal’! Here, a vituperative attack on literary critics in general and their doyen, Laptantidel Laptuda, in particular! There it was, the unmistakable song of my noble pen. At that moment I realised that it was years since I’d read my texts after writing them down. Indeed, I often gave them to the printer with the ink still wet, so uninhibited was I by self-criticism. It was a long time since I’d tolerated any editing beyond underlines beneath particular sentences and marginal notes such as ‘Brilliant!’ or ‘Inimitable!’.

And yet … This wasn’t my handwriting. I’d never actually written anything of the kind, I felt sure. Puzzled, I read on. No, dear friends, this letter certainly wasn’t my handiwork, but it could well have been,
stylistically
speaking. It clearly exemplified all my weaknesses. It even embodied the characteristic flights of hypochondriacal fancy in which I imagined myself to be suffering from diseases I alone could have devised: cerebral whooping cough and pulmonary migraine, fistulisation of the liver and cyrrhosis of the middle ear, et cetera. By the Orm, its authenticity extended even to meticulous records of body temperature and pulse rate! If it was intended to be a parody of my style, I had to concede that it was embarrassingly successful. The letter maintained its mixture of megalomania and petulance to the very end, where it abruptly broke off as if the writer had simply lost interest. And indeed, in recent times I myself had more and more often taken to ending my works in this slipshod manner.

I looked up from the letter with a groan. As a reader I felt betrayed and robbed of precious time; as a victim of parody, thoroughly seen through and humiliated. Reading the missive had taken me perhaps fifteen minutes, but it felt like a week. Did I really write such frightful, Ormless stuff? When I finally saw the signature at the end I felt like
someone
who, after years of imprisonment, looks in a mirror for the first time and sees his face disfigured by old age. It read:

Optimus Yarnspinner

Even my signature had been perfectly forged. I had to check several times to convince myself how well it had been imitated down to the last detail, the last flourish.

I was shocked. Could I have I written the letter after all, in a disguised hand but with a genuine signature, and sent it to myself in a fit of mental derangement? Had my authorial self detached itself and become autonomous? Had I become a victim of schizophrenia, a psychosis triggered by inordinate creativity? The possible side effects of the Orm had never been researched. Perla la Gadeon, whom the Orm had inspired more often than any other writer, had died in a delirium. Dölerich Hirnfiedler, too, was carried off by dementia and expired in his ivory tower. Eiderich Fischnertz was said to have conversed with a horse shortly before dying insane.

Was that the tribute I had to pay to my fame? Had I not shown symptoms of a split personality in my youth? I’d written a whole volume of letters entitled
To Myself
, but I’d never gone so far as to actually send them off. Heavens, my hypochondriacal fantasies were running away with me again! I definitely needed to calm down. To distract myself, I cast a final glance at the letter. Only then did I catch sight of a postscript written in microscopically small letters at the foot of the last page. It read:

PS The Shadow King has returned
.

I stared at the words as if they were a ghostly apparition.

PS The Shadow King has returned
.

Cold sweat beaded my brow and the letter in my paw started to
tremble
. Five words, twenty-four tiny characters on paper, were enough to disconcert me utterly.

PS The Shadow King has returned
.

Was it a practical joke? What cruel prankster had sent me this rubbish? One of my innumerable envious rivals? A resentful colleague? One of the many spurned publishers who bombarded me with offers? A demented admirer? With trembling claws I reached for the envelope so as to read the sender’s name and address. I raised the torn paper cover, turned it over, and spelt out the words like a schoolchild:

Optimus Yarnspinner
The Leather Grotto
Central Catacombs
Bookholm, Zamonia

Then I burst into sobs, and those tears at last brought me the solace my agitated mind so badly needed.

1
Clavichorgan
: primitive keyboard instrument manufactured exclusively for the inhabitants of Lindworm Castle. The clavichorgan’s keyboard has only twenty-four keys. Unusually wide and robust, the latter were specially designed for the Lindworm’s three-fingered paw. Music of true refinement cannot be played on the clavichorgan. (Tr.)

The Bloody Book

AT DAWN THE
next morning I stole out of Lindworm Castle like a thief. I saw no one, supplied no explanations, provoked no farewell scenes – among Lindworms that was considered a courtesy, not an act of cowardice. If I say that I thoroughly appreciate sentimental scenes in literature but firmly reject them in reality, that applies to all my kind. It may be because we Lindworms can for the most part express our emotions through our literary work. In society and in interpersonal relations we’re exceptionally cool, composed and courteous – indeed, almost formal. Saying goodbye, especially for a considerable period, is one of the least pleasant things a Lindworm can conceive of. I feel sure, therefore, that my friends and relations were subsequently grateful to me for sparing them the embarrassment of a farewell scene.

I walked unaccosted along the deserted, dew-damp main street that spirals down from the castle’s summit to its base, passing shuttered shops in which unsuspecting Lindworms lay peacefully snoring. Having composed a brief, hexametrical letter of farewell during the night, I addressed it to the entire community by tossing it into the gutter. In so doing I was observing an ancient custom whereby departures from Lindworm Castle are poetically governed. The risk that the wind might blow my verses over the battlements of my place of birth unread, or that the ink might be obliterated by a shower of rain, was one aspect of this custom. We Lindworms may be an emotionally crippled species, but we don’t lack a sense of the dramatic.

It was getting light although the sun had not yet risen. When had I last seen a sunrise? No idea! I had slept away real life for far too long already. I felt almost as I had the first time I set off for Bookholm: overweight, worn out, world-weary, and in the worst mental and physical condition imaginable, but almost childishly excited about the events and adventures ahead. Isn’t that the definition of a fresh start?

Having left Lindworm Castle behind me, I traversed the barren, stony desert that surrounds it on all sides. I made my way through dense swaths of mist that looked like rain clouds fallen to earth. The sun had risen now, but it didn’t warm me. Again and again I had to resist the cowardly impulse to retrace my steps and return to the safety of my native mountain, which radiated an agreeable warmth because of its volcanic innards, even in winter, and exerted the same attraction on a Lindworm as a warm stove does on a cat.

Why on earth was I going to Bookholm? The city had almost killed me once already. I was a trifle overweight, true, but I could have remedied that by dieting. I was no longer a young, twenty-seven-yearold Lindworm capable of overcoming all his existential fears with juvenile optimism. I was far too sensible for such a venture. Or should I have said, far too
old
? Over two hundred years had elapsed since my first visit to Bookholm. Two whole centuries! The very thought made me shiver even more violently.

Is there a word for the kind of mixed feelings that overcome you when you’re on the verge of a long expedition but could still abandon it? Your mind seems to be split into two halves: a daring, youthful, inquisitive half, eager to break out of its wonted environment; and a mature, comfortable, risk-averse half, anxious to cling timidly to its accustomed surroundings. Shortly after I had resolved to christen this cross between excitement and loss of itchy feet
excitrepidation
, it evaporated into the fresh air with every step I took, almost like a mild headache. Had the spell of Lindworm Castle lost its hold over me at last?

But … Had I brought the indispensable earplugs without which I couldn’t get to sleep, least of all in a strange environment pervaded by unfamiliar noises? My tablets against the acidity that assailed me whenever I drank too much coffee? Enough money? A notebook? A map, a thermometer, an address book, some throat pastilles? My monocle, some pencils, a clasp-knife, eye drops, attar of roses, burn ointment, dental floss, flavoured whiting powder for oral hygiene? When I rummaged in the numerous pockets of my cloak and my travelling bag, I found some matches, three candles, a pipe and tobacco, migraine powder, needle and thread, a tin of skin cream, some bicarbonate of soda and charcoal tablets. Ah, there were my earplugs! I also unearthed
Ringdudler’s Miniature Encyclopaedia of Ancient Zamonian Literature
, some powdered ink, claw clippers, sealing wax, two erasers, postage stamps, cough drops, valerian pills, corn plasters and bandages, a pair of tweezers … Heavens, why would I need a pair of tweezers on a trip to Bookholm? Oh yes, at the last minute I’d fantasised about being afflicted with tiny splinters or bee stings that only a precision instrument could remove before they caused fatal blood poisoning. While rummaging I also came across a ball of crumpled paper: the letter that had prompted me to undertake this journey.