Chapter Text
“And so being young
and dipped in folly
I fell in love
With melancholy”
—Edgar Allan Poe
“It’s over, Ratio,” The woman pronounced the words mercilessly, each of them falling as if reading them directly from a death sentence over the rejected manuscript. “I wouldn’t wish to say it this way, but I will. You’re not going to go anywhere with this”
He stood on the other side of her office table, deadly still. There was something that felt oddly final about that moment, even though all around him the world went on as usual, even though all around him everything seemed to be perfectly alright. The office building was filled with the faint rustle of papers being turned, pens scribbling over various sorts of documents, the familiar clicking and whining of typewriters, the steps of the employees going and leaving around the ample space. There was the smell of coffee in the air, and someone was singing quietly under their breath. Such a mundane picture, painted at the very end of the world.
He didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say, really, and he wasn’t the kind of man who begged, or stammered, or crumbled down before the eyes of others. So he kept quiet, and accepted his defeat with the grace of a willing martyr before the gallows.
The way she handed him his manuscript was with poorly-concealed contempt, with little care or gentleness when it came to handling the loose pages, traced over with the patterns of words summoned by ink. Such indifferent carelessness, for nothing but his life’s work.
“Want my honest advice? Just stick with teaching, or even better, go back to medicine. It pays better”
The manuscript was barely in his hands when she dropped it, as if she wanted nothing else to do with it.
“Was it not good?” He finally spoke after a beat of silence.
The woman, the last editor that’d been willing to read his work, eyed him from over the stern rim of her glasses, perched dangerously on her nose. Her glare was unforgiving, a Parcae or a merciless god of judgment.
“It’s not really a matter of if it’s good or if it’s bad, Mr. Ratio. It’s too experimental, not to mention blatantly ambitious, unacceptable for a first impression as a writer without a reputation as one. People simply won’t read it. Either you write something people will understand, or you don’t write anything at all. That’s simply the way it is”
The manuscript was heavy, as he cradled it with his broad hands. He caressed the pages with his fingers, and even though gloved he could perfectly imagine the texture of the paper as if his touch was truly bare.
There are many things to human existence that are impossible to find an answer for. Questions, so many questions, that are left without a factual result, because it’s simply impossible to find the true meaning of everything ambiguous, which doesn’t mean that we can’t try. That is what ex-military doctor, brilliant yet unsuccessful professor Veritas Ratio had always believed, ever since his very youth when he yearned for knowledge and to find the way to the absolute Truth.
But then how can you, in the search for Truth, lose all meaning? That’s another question Veritas has left unanswered, yet it haunts him every waking day he spends with dreams that, despite his perseverance, remain just dreams.
Outside the publishing house’s building, a heavy curtain of rain had started to fall in droughts upon the city. Veritas stood at the threshold of the building, politely moving aside to let some of the employees pass, and he let out a deep, exhausted sigh from the bottom of his chest. The rain was cold and he was in no mood to enjoy it, yet the smell had always been quite comforting.
He hid his manuscript under his long trench coat, right underneath his arm, and he ran out into the rain, the cold pellets sliding down his face and hair, freezing fingers that caressed his skin and left him hollow. The faster he found a passing trolley, the less time he’d have to spend under the storm.
He found the street completely devoid of human presence; considering the weather, it was not rare but also not ideal. He huffed, irritated, gripping his manuscript a little bit tighter under the coat and looking at both ends of the street. In a single moment, the world seemed to have gone empty, and the rain went no softer. His breath drew elegant figures in the cold, and he’d be soon completely drenched if he was to stay under the rain any longer. He didn’t fancy a cold, precisely, not in his precarious circumstances.
“Are you lost?” A sudden voice spoke from somewhere behind him.
He turned. Walking down the side of the street, with an umbrella over his head, was a distinctly elegant man. Veritas could not completely discern his features in the heavy rain, but he managed to catch the glint of an expensive watch and a heavily ringed hand.
He wore a hat and quite fancy clothes, far fancier than his own. His eyes were hidden by tinted glasses, rimmed in glistening gold, and the hand that grabbed the umbrella with long fingers was covered in a black, leather glove that seemed quite expensive. From what he could see, the man had a lean complexion, elegant and sinuous. His voice was the one of a young man, and the lilt he used rather playful, charming to the point of suspicion.
“I can find my own way” He responded, unsure of himself; it was the first time he spoke aloud since the rejection. “The rain, though, was not within my calculations”
The rain sang its chant all around them, falling and crashing over the asphalt; it seemed to get heavier with each second gone by. It pattered over the umbrella, as crystalline, thin trickles of water dripped from the edges, further enveloping the stranger in an enigmatic veil of rainfall. Through the coverage, Veritas caught the edge of a smile.
“Oh, it’s no problem for me to accompany you to your destination. Is it far?”
“My apologies, but it was my plan to take a trolley. It’s too far for us to make the walk anyway”
“Ah. Well, what kind of gentleman would I be if I was to leave you here, all drenched like a stray little bird? I’ll help you to the next one, Mr…”
“Ratio. Doctor Veritas Ratio”
“Is that really your name or is it a fake one? Sounds like a fake one”
Veritas couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but the cold was seeping through the indigo cotton of his trench coat, and he feared the pages of his work getting wet, so he ducked to fit under the umbrella’s coverage. There was a… rather pronounced height difference between him and his benefactor, which wasn’t really to his advantage in this situation. He had to walk slightly bowed down, and still one of the thin, little trickles of water that slipped down the umbrella’s side brushed against his temple, down to his chin, slipping down his neck and into his back. A shiver went up his spine, yet he said nothing.
“I assure you, it is my real name”
Blond strands of hair fell around an elegant collar. Even when sharing the umbrella, Veritas could still not see his face; only the elegant hat, expensive-looking, the golden locks that fell over his face and that curled around his shoulders, caressing a handsome jaw. If that wasn’t enough, the glasses further hid his eyes from view. It didn’t bother him at all; it made for easier conversation, and he could focus on other details, like the turquoise earring that hung from his ear or the green and golden details strewn over his designer’s coat, elegant and overcomplicated.
Veritas heard the low rumble of thunder in the distance. He had to snuggle closer, as they walked through the cobbled streets. Their feet stepped over puddles, which made him notice his benefactor’s fancy shoes, provoking his leather second hands to look crude in comparison. Around them, the city was a collage of grays and blues under the moving painting of the rainfall.
“If I might be so rude, what are you holding under that coat of yours? I hope I’m not aiding a criminal of some sort, though I wouldn’t take back my offer if that was the case”
Veritas stared at the stranger’s side. So he’d noticed. With a thumb, he caressed the pages of the manuscript, so closely kept under his long coat. He exhaled, watching his own breath materialize before him as he bowed his head, eyeing the distant trickles.
“It worries me, that you wouldn’t. I’ll have to disappoint you though, as it’s just a manuscript that I fear might remain forever unpublished”
The stranger raised his chin, slightly.
“Are you a writer?”
Veritas huffed, bitterness seeping into his smile.
“A writer does not truly become a writer until someone has read and understood his words. Until then, he’s only human”
“What is it about?” The stranger asked.
Veritas noted that he had quite a beautiful voice. He hesitated for a moment.
“It’s a novel,” Nothing more shameless than confessing one’s art. “About a man looking for an answer”
“To what?”
“To everything”
The corner of the stranger’s lips lifted.
“That’s quite ambitious”
“It’s just fiction”
“Fiction can say a lot of true things” They stopped near a sidewalk.
“God, I hate the rain,” The stranger said, still holding that sideways smile. “It always ruins everything, doesn’t it? Be it clothes or fleeting moments”
“I don’t think so,” Veritas responded; a trolley was approaching, from the other side of the street. He’d have to run soon. “I really don’t think so”
The trolley stopped near them with a mechanical whine. Some other people ran out, covering their heads with whatever they could muster; the day’s paper, their suitcases, even their own hands, ducking under a rain that was nothing but unforgiving. In that moment though, as Veritas watched them through the drizzle, they were just specters, insinuations from an impressionist painting, moving in tandem with the song of the world. Distant.
When he turned to the stranger, he saw that he was facing back. The glasses had slipped a little forwards, but it was enough. Veritas found himself staring right into the stranger’s eyes. They were like a kaleidoscope, a soft ring of light magenta, then one blue, and they were so mesmerizing, bright and yet a part of them so dark, so impossibly sad.
The stranger smiled.
“I’d like to read it someday”
The rain was quiet, and they were two strangers under an umbrella. Veritas had the strange feeling that he had either met an angel or the devil, but in no way a creature of this world.
“What’s your name?” He asked.
The stranger smiled again. There was an amused lilt to it.
“You’re going to miss your way home”
By the time he finally reached the trolley, having ran as fast as he could until his hands closed around the metal pole to jump onto the back of the vehicle, his overgrown hair was sticking to his face in wet, dark strands. The back of his trench coat trailed behind him, dancing with the wind, and as he turned to look back, he saw the stranger still there, walking calmly through the downpour, under his black umbrella. There, alone under the storm, he seemed like the loneliest man in the world.
So much for ending up drenched anyways.
Veritas stared at the passing city for another stolen moment, inhaling the familiar smell of the rain, and exhaling into the cold. It was so different, the smell of rain in the city than the one in the countryside. Here, it seemed to carry much deeper sorrows.
Another moment, and he stepped into the warm interior of the trolley, taking a seat and leaning his chin over his hand to stare out the windows. Rain obscured the world outside, a fuzzy collage that hinted at a forgotten memory of one’s youth.
By the time he made it home, the city was dark. He walked the last steps to the entrance of the red-bricked building, the entrance faintly illuminated by the golden light of a sinuous streetlamp. A dog barked at him from the building next door, but he paid it no mind, hastily turning the key.
Once inside, he quickly walked up the stairs to his floor. He took a look at his wristwatch, the one fancy thing he owned. He wasn’t that late, or at least he hoped so as he stopped by his apartment door and turned the key, pushing it open.
Inside, the living room was faintly lit by the cozy lights flooding it from the kitchen. It was a quaint apartment, not too large yet not small, huddled in a side of the city that wasn’t too expensive yet didn’t lack anything too important. They had been able to afford it with their parents’ inheritance; God knew Veritas wouldn’t allow his sister, or himself, to live somewhere dangerous or hideous, so he paid for it in full.
He walked into the lobby and shed his long coat, the deep blue wool almost black as it was drenched. He hung it on the perch near the entrance, loosing his tie with one hand and adjusting the shoulders of his dress shirt so it sat more comfortably on his figure. The coat had kept most of the rain away, yet he was still a little cold. He left his manuscript on the living room’s table and walked towards the kitchen, where the light was coming from. A song was playing on the radio, a jazz song that filled the apartment in a comfortable, familiar atmosphere. The singer’s voice was especially beautiful.
Inside the kitchen, Pela was at the small wooden table in the center, scribbling something on her notebook. She had a focused expression on her face, as she seemed to find an answer to an unspoken question. Books were piled on the side, and her eraser had fallen at some point, not that she had noticed. She was still wearing her school uniform, and her long hair, the same color as Ratio’s, fell over her shoulders and down her back. The kitchen’s light was reflected in her glasses, and behind her, the city could be seen through their small window.
“I’m back,” He called, as he walked into the room. Pela raised her head, and a smile spread over her features.
“Your hair drenched,” She huffed, dropping her pencil for a moment. “You got caught in the rain?”
Veritas smiled back, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows and sorting through the kitchen’s cabinets. He took a grab of several ingredients, before carefully setting them on the counter and finding each utensil he knew he was going to need with expert hands. He always kept them in neat order, in a way it was easy to find them again when needed. He turned to Pela briefly, pointing with his chin towards her schoolwork.
“How’s that going?”
Pela shrugged, pushing up her round glasses before he turned back again towards his work, cutting down the vegetables in neat little circles, and pushing them aside.
“I’m almost finished with it. There was only one problem I was intending to ask you about,” He heard the sound of the chair being pushed back, and the steps of her prim shoes over the tiled floor as she headed towards him. When he noticed that she was about to turn on the stove he stopped her.
“I’ll take care of that. Grab me the pot, if you may”
“Are you making soup?” She asked after, reaching down into the cupboard. “I mean, I’m not complaining but—”
“I’m not only making soup, don’t get any concerns. I’ll help you with the problem after dinner,” After she’d put the pot over the designated spot, he started preparing the chicken broth. She settled next to him, taking care of the vegetables, and their elbows brushed silently as they worked.
The song was still playing, and Veritas sighed contently, basking in the ambiance.
“She’s good,” He commented, after a bit.
Neither he or Pela minded sharing the quiet, yet sometimes he believed that maybe she was one of the few people he didn’t mind having endless conversations with, even though they were never certainly never endless.
Pela smiled up at him, her work momentarily forgotten.
“Yes! She really is. Some are even calling her the best voice of the century”
“That’s quite the statement. What’s her name?”
“Robin Oak. Did you know she started out by singing in a church?”
“I had no idea”
Pela carefully moved her schoolwork to the side before they sat down to eat. Together they set up the small table, all the while the radio went on. The voice of this Miss Oak enveloped them in a comfortable ambiance. Outside, it was still raining, yet it had turned much softer, the drizzle trickling against the glass of their window in quiet pathways.
“How was your day?” He asked, taking a spoonful of soup. He’d added some spices and some bits of steak, besides a various assortment of condiments. Despite her earlier commentary, Pela seemed to be enjoying it dearly, as she was barely breathing between each spoonful and the next.
“The soup they serve us at school is so bland, yetc this isn’t close to it at all”
“It was mom’s recipe, with a few personal adjustments I’ve added over the years. I can teach it to you, if you want”
“No, I’ll just have to keep coming back,” Pela reached for a napkin. “My day was good! School was easy enough, and Lynx and I went to the park after. We found the fledgling we rescued some months back, by the way. It’s doing good”
“Are you sure it was the same? Was it flying fine?”
“Yes, I’m positive. It sported the same pattern under the wings,” She leaned forwards over her plate, a small smile on her face. “And your manuscript? Are they taking it? I hope you remember I called dibs on the first copy”
She saw it on his expression before he said anything. She fell back on her seat, her expression tainted by sadness.
“No way. How could they not take it?”
“It’s a very conceptual work, vanguardist in its own way. It would be a risk for their publishing house, you’re surely aware of that much,” He commented, stirring his soup absentmindedly, not taking another sip.
“It’s still not a valid reason. It has potential, you just need to finish it, maybe flesh it out a little bit more”
Veritas raised an eyebrow, half a smile on his lips as he finally raised his spoon.
“What would I do without my personal literary critic?”
Pela pursed her lips. The genuine sadness he saw in her eyes sparked a flick of concern inside of him.
“I’m serious, Veritas. You—” She bit her lip, looking down at the soup, and then to the drizzle hitting against the window. “It’s just you have not looked up to something so much in a while”
Veritas didn’t know what to say to that. They were silent for a moment.
His eyes flicked down. His gaze ran over the shapes of the vegetables in the broth, and the smell brought him back to a time where he and his mother used to cook dinner. He closes his eyes for a moment, and the smell is almost the same.
“I’ll see what I can do about it,” He said, finally. Pela’s smile looked so much like their mother’s, but it also held something that was uniquely hers, and hers alone. “I promise. Now, could you show me the problem you needed my assistance with?”
—
Only an absolute fool would claim to know everything. Veritas himself knew that there were plenty of things he did not know or understand. What he did know, however, was how much he despised using the public phone.
It was a busy day the next morning, as he walked Pela to school. Afterwards, he stood by the telephone booth right in front of the drugstore. It wasn’t the best place to have a quiet, private conversation, as the street right next to it was always jammed with cars that hour of the day, all of them trying to get somewhere faster than the others, and then the city was converted into a constant flux, alive and brimming with heat and never-ending movement. Nevertheless, it was the quickest route from Pela’s school to the university he taught in; it also conveniently had a telephone.
“Come on, you idiot,” He muttered under his breath, waiting for the call to connect.
It wouldn’t be the first time that self-destructive moron had the gall to leave him hanging, until he had no choice but to leave in the utmost hurry, as he couldn’t afford to be late to class, and he refused to waste his time on that senseless trip later when he might not even pick up even then.
The call connected.
“You’re calling Grove University. What can we do for you?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Anaxagoras”
“Oh, it’s you,” He did not sound surprised in the least because of course, this call wasn’t an isolated incident. Veritas procured to call every single Friday, exactly at the same hour, every single week. He would’ve done it even if Acheron’s will hadn’t instructed him to do so. Anaxa, on his part, had never seemed to believe it.
“Don’t you dare act as if you were not expecting me, brother”
“What should I say, Veritas? Maybe it wasn’t you. You never truly know, do you? Could’ve been anyone”
“Why else would you be wasting your time near a telephone?”
Anaxa laughed. His laugh never sounded happy really, boastful, would be a more precise word to describe it. It had an edge of bitterness and an all-knowing edge that had always irked Veritas when they were children, no matter how much old ladies would tell them how they were the most similar out of all their mother’s kids. It concerned him nevertheless, how increasingly hollow that same laugh became with the passing of the years.
How much, until it was no longer familiar? Until they were no longer the brothers that used to be so similar to each other? Old ladies did use to exacerbate everything, nevertheless. On principle they couldn’t be more different.
“Are you…” He collected himself, taking a deep breath. Anaxa had always been an expert at riling people up, and he’d always enjoyed annoying him specifically. “Are you alright?”
“Dearly beloved brother, don’t dare act like you care”
“For God’s sake, Anaxa—”
“Spare me of the pleasantries, and don’t call me Anaxa”
“You didn’t even let me finish you absolute…”
He exhaled a long breath, swiping some hair out of his face. His eyes got caught up on a small little bird on the sidewalk, jumping and chirping. It flew away when the next car passed, lost in the trees that lined the streets. He envied his brother at times, living in the countryside and doing whatever it was that he did with his life. He never really told him anything about his life anymore. Every time, Veritas found himself pushing away the persisting thought that it wouldn’t be the same way, if it was Acheron instead of him calling Anaxa on this side of the line.
But Acheron was not here. He was.
“I sent you this month’s share earlier this week. You should get it soon enough. Are you doing alright? Do you need any more?”
On the other end of the line, Anaxa scoffed quietly.
“You’d send more if I asked for it?”
“Of course. I’d see what I could do. You know that”
Anaxa clicked his tongue. How much time had passed since Veritas had last heard his voice undistorted by the connection of a telephone line, he was not entirely sure. He hadn’t shown up for two of Pela’s birthdays. Veritas didn’t make a habit of celebrating his anymore, but still, there was even a time when Anaxa just visited without a reason.
“Don’t worry that hard-head over it any more than you need to, dear brother. I’ve no need for it, and at the end of the day you’re not only responsible for yourself alone. I have my own salary, you do have that in mind?”
The way he said it was undeniably condescending, yet underneath the snark Veritas caught a whiff of something genuine. It would be hopeful to call it caring, yet it caused him to sigh once more.
“I do, and yet, you have always given me enough reasons to be concerned”
Silence befell them, after that. It wasn’t one of their comfortable silences, those they shared when they were kids and Anaxa enjoyed reading Veritas’s poetry, when they exchanged books every now and then to discuss them later. Now, everything was heavier, darker, unfamiliar. Sometimes, Veritas wondered if the blood they shared was the only thing he still knew about his younger brother.
“You should get out more, Veritas,” Anaxagoras said, eventually. “Are you still writing?”
“Yes, but it’s not bearing much success precisely”
“My only advice if for you to keep at it”
With that, he hung up. He always did.
For a few seconds, he was left listening to the echoes of the deadline. He then cursed under his breath, slamming the phone back in place and grabbing his suitcase before starting to walk down the street, leaving the telephone booth behind. He should just stop sending money, see if that fool would say please or thank you for a change.
—
“Smile for the photo, Veritas,”
His mother’s gramophone was on. She loved music, in a way that was simply hers. The piece that was playing he recognized it as one of Debussy’s. Sometimes. Soft, golden sunlight was streaming through the white curtains, embroidered with yellow flowers. They shook gently, with the breeze from outside.
The cameraman stood behind the complex piece of machinery that was the camera. They all sat very still. Acheron to his right, wearing a deep blue dress, whereas he and Anaxagoras stood in fancy, small suits with their chins lifted high, the three of them sitting by the longest sofa. None of the three siblings were smiling.
He heard his mother sigh. Behind the camera man, on the other side of the room, their father was reading the paper, sitting on his favorite sofa, the one that was of a deep green. His glasses were posed over his eyes, and his smiles were as rare as those of his children.
“Leave them be, love. That’s the way they are, " he said, not looking up from the paper.
“They’re so much like you,” She muttered. “Lord, please gift me a child that smiles”
“There is just no reason to do so,” Anaxagoras complained loudly, the way he always expressed his ideas, which he always believed to be correct. It bothered Veritas that oftentimes he agreed with what he had to say. “Why should we?”
“It’s for the memento, I suppose,” Acheron muttered from the other side.
It’s not that none of them ever smiled, Veritas did so regularly, but he couldn’t simply muster one just because he was told to do so. His mother knelt in front of him. She had his eyes, the color of the dawn, even though the slim, elegant shape of her face had been inherited by Anaxa. Her smile, unlike theirs, was natural and easy, warm, like the embroidery of the house’s curtains. She pinched Veritas’s cheeks, eliciting a frown out of him. She cooed.
“Come on, baby. You’ve got such a pretty smile”
“It’s stupid to smile just because,” he muttered, turning to Acheron for help, yet she was not looking at him, too focused on her small, purple shoes. “Why don’t you force Anaxa instead?”
His mother tutted, shaking her head. Her hand came to cup Anaxagoras’s cheek, who tried to escape her grasp, as if he was an irritated cat.
“Oh, I have long since given up on your brother”
“I can smile, mom”
“To mock others, Anaxagoras”
“Like Veritas doesn’t do the exact same thing!”
His mother’s laugh was always so warm. She turned to him, and cupped his cheek with her other hand, caressing the skin under his eye.
“Try to smile, boys. You too, Acheron. You, my girl, have the sweetest smile”
Acheron turned to her, surprised, before looking away again.
Later that day, by the time evening was falling, Veritas sat at the kitchen table, writing on the leather notebook his father had gifted him, as his mother hummed silently to the tune of the song rolling on the gramophone. She was preparing dinner. It was that time of year where the sun set late, and the colors of gold and orange filled the room in a composition of spilled light.
At some point, when words were no longer coming to him, he looked up from his notebook and watched her move around the space. Her long hands fished for utensils with long-practiced expertise, their gracefulness the one of an artist. He quietly stood up, shoving the chair aside, and walked to her side. Despite his youth, he was taller than most children his age.
“Mother,” He asked. “Can I help you with anything?”
He wondered why none of them had ever inherited his mother’s grin. She caressed his wavy locks, settling her hand on the top of his hair.
“That’s precisely why I wanted you to smile,” She murmured. “You, Veritas, are very kind. Come on. I’ll show you how to prepare anything, so one day you can make a beautiful lady very happy”
He huffed, irritated, but still followed along as she handed him some of the vegetables she needed him to cut. Be careful with your hands.
“Why would I want to?”
His mother laughed. Her skin was much tanner than their father’s, of a pretty, bronze color that reminded Veritas of a quiet sunset. He, himself, was proud of being the only one of his siblings to inherit the same flesh, as they looked more like their father, whose skin was more of an olive hue, from the mediterranean. In everything else, Veritas looked just like his father, so he enjoyed this one, small thing he owed her.
Her eyes crinkled when she smiled.
“You’ll understand when you’re older”
“Mother…”
“Yes, love?”
“Why did you hire that man to take a photo of us? Isn’t it expensive?”
“Oh that. Well” She caressed his hair again, undoing the knots. He didn’t shake her off. “It’s as your sister said, it’s a memento. It’s important to remember such things, for when you’re older, and you can look back on it and wonder why you and your siblings never managed to smile when they were told”
“Very funny”
They fell quiet, but it was the kind that was familiar, born out of shared trust. Outside, he could hear the murmur of the wind, threading through the tall, golden grass. He loved how quiet it always was, by the countryside. He could just close his eyes, and listen to the melodies of silence. Maybe that was what his mother meant, but he still could not grasp it completely, so he kept quiet.
—
From around the time he was still studying, he happened to cross paths with a very distinctive woman, one of those who ate up the men that dared and knew how to speak to delude and convince the self-proclaimed most intelligent. He had never truly trusted her, even when her charms had no effect on a man of his nature, but she understood of arts and philosophy, so oftentimes, back then, she was one of the few he could rely on for a decent conversation.
“So I heard the editorial you wanted to publish with rejected your manuscript, correct?” She said over the phone line, a few days later.
“Not to be impolite, miss Bonajade, but how did you come across such information?”
“You know better than to ask me questions that are unimportant, dear. Those people at Nous’s are never truly worth the effort, you’ve been trying to get them to read you for years and it’s been anything but successful. This isn’t your fault really, they are such stuck-ups… I wish to take a read, if you wouldn’t mind too much. I deeply loved the ones you showed me in previous years”
He sighed deeply. Business with Jade was always like making a deal with a snake. It could bite you, it could not. It was true that last time he’d come out unscathed, and she had helped him a couple of times in the past, nothing with a cost he couldn’t easily pay. Still, he was still waiting on the day she called for those favors back with something he wasn’t willing to give her, and had no other choice but to relent. He still had much to lose.
“Do tell, what is it that you have in mind?” He gave in, finally. Over the line, Jade sounded pleasantly thrilled, yet not in a way that made it obvious. She was never quite a cheery person.
“Come to my office, tomorrow, and we’ll share some coffee over it, if you’d be so kind. Are you alright with that arrangement?”
Which was how he found himself in front of an IPC office building the next day. It was a large building, wide rather than tall though it still was considerably towering, and with a constant flux of people entering and exiting the place, all of them fancily dressed and heading somewhere with assured confidence. That day, the multiple windows reflected the clear colored sky, the lazy white clouds. Veritas adjusted his long coat, making sure everything was in order, before he slid through the spinning doors into the wide lobby.
The assistant at the front desk smiled up at him once he made his way to her. He remained expressionless, but nodded politely in her direction.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“With miss Bonajade, if you’d be so kind”
“Go on. She’s been expecting you”
“Thank you for your time”
He walked up the stairs, his eyes straying over the employees at the IPC. He was aware that they were an important business organization, and that their work correlated somewhat to politics and economics, but he had always kept himself a step away, so he wasn’t quite sure.
All of them wore identical suits, with a red tie underneath. He, as he walked up the stairs to the higher floors, noticed himself a black sheep in the sea of near-identical people, with his elegant, long indigo trench coat with golden laurel embroidery, the black suit underneath over his usual white dress shirt. His manuscript was securely stored on a black, leather suitcase, as to not endanger it like last time.
As he climbed up the floors, to him came the common noises of a regular office, unintelligible conversations passing by like murmurs, the click and song of typewriters, the shuffling of fancy shoes. In the distance, someone was playing music somewhere, a slow, jazzy tune that Veritas did not recognize.
When he knocked on the door to Jade’s office, he heard the murmurs of a conversation behind the closed gate. Someone, a man, let out a laugh that sounded somewhat familiar. Another moment went by before he heard Jade’s voice.
“Come on in, dear”
He pushed the door open, hand still on the golden knob. It was not the first time he was here, and every time he was starkly hit by how wide Jade’s office was. The windows on the back invited in the light from the slow autumn afternoon, and the canal on the other side of Penacony could be spotted in the distance, as the room was on the second to last floor. The streets were far behind, and you could spot the passing of cars, listen to their distant cries. The curtains were made of silk, white and long, and the walls were covered with a myriad of different things; mementos from her many travels, various trinkets and quite strange souvenirs, such as the small skeleton of a small animal perched in front of a framed photo of someone he did not quite recognize.
There was more than one table in her office, besides the one she usually liked to do her work in. That day, on one of the tables covered in documents, books and the blueprints for something, was leaning a man Veritas surprisingly recognized. Kaleidoscopic eyes turned to him lazily, and the stranger gave him a sharp smile as welcome.
“Hello, Mr. Ratio,” He said, with that voice Veritas could so clearly remember.
There was something he wasn’t willing to admit. Ever since that day under the drizzle, he’d been dreaming with that stranger, with the face he’d only caught in the last instant, with the shape of his lean shoulders covered in the elegant coat embroidered in gold and emerald threads, with the shape of his form getting distant. He was always there in the strangest of places. He was there in his childhood home, looking out the window to the fields Veritas hadn’t seen in a long time, next to the curtains embroidered with yellow flowers. Sometimes he was in the living room of Veritas’s apartment, next to the radio, listening to Robin’s song as he stared into the fire with a deeply melancholic frown. At times he was in the back of a bookstore, his form just an insinuation in the back of a dream long forgotten.
Every time, Veritas would ask, what’s your name? So the man he’d met under the storm would cease being a stranger. And every time, he would never get an answer.
“My name is Aventurine of the Strategic Investment Department,” He said, offering him a hand covered in one black, leather glove, fingers adorned in all sorts of glistening rings. His smile was just the same, mocking, charming, and ever-so dishonest. “I believe we were not properly introduced last time”
Veritas didn’t grab the hand offered. He stared down at him, frowned, and turned to Jade, who was sitting on her usual, black leather seat. Her smile was just the same.
“Oh, don’t let him scare you. When I mentioned you to him a few days ago, he mentioned to me that you two had already been introduced” Jade said, leaning over her hand. “Hello to you too, Veritas”
He turned to Aventurine once more. The man was wearing a rather flamboyant coat, green and lined in thick, white fur. Under it, he wore a white dress shirt, the first buttons undone, with black suspenders and golden peacock feathers embroidered from the collar to the bottom in a style that was blatantly Art Deco. When he tilted his head to the side in a way his long, golden hair fell over his elegant neck, still holding his hand in offer, Veritas noticed that he still wore the same, green earring as last time. It sported the same colors as a peacock’s feather.
He took his hand, finally, and shook it. He had a surprisingly strong grip.
“I’ll leave you two to catch up now,” There was something different, in the way he spoke now than the time during their first meeting. The grin he sent in his direction was nothing less than captivating, but something underneath seemed a tad bit dangerous. Maybe not towards him, precisely. It simply was something that was there. “I still wish to read something of yours, eventually”
“I’ll consider it,” He said, at a lack of anything else to say. Aventurine sent one last look in his direction, before closing the door behind him with a click.
Veritas stood before Jade, then. She smiled.
“Take a seat, dear. You did bring it with you?”
“Yes. Here it is” He put the suitcase over the table and opened it, revealing the manuscript inside.
He noticed Jade observing him carefully as he took the pages in his hands and sat on one of the leather chairs, setting his work on the table, and pushing the suitcase aside. Once he was done, he quietly offered them to her. Each page, Jade took with a special kind of care she reserved for any form of art, and she started reading.
Veritas grabbed a book of his own, to read while she finished. An assistant of hers brought them coffee, of which he only took one sip. He had never been much of a fan, despite most assumptions that he was.
“It’s not finished,” Jade said, eventually.
Veritas set his book down. The coffee had gotten cold.
“Your observation skills remain as sharp as ever”
“Don’t. Why haven’t you given it a conclusion?”
“I have to admit that I lost motivation, after the last rejection. Before that, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something important was missing”
“You’re sometimes too rational, Veritas, I think that’s the problem with this one,” Jade took a sip of her own coffee, and wrinkled her nose at the temperature, setting it back down once more. “You've got the talent, and in the moment when you explore the deepest corners of yourself you uncover a deeply beautiful treasure. It is vanguardist. And yet, at times, especially at the end, I get the feeling that you were too… crammed inside your head. You are a rational man, Veritas, but you’re also deeply profound, you’ve always been, which is one of the reasons I like you. You are not a simple, rigid man, but a true philosopher. Where is that profundity?”
Veritas smiled, if only a bit bitterly.
“The muses seem to have abandoned me”
Jade sighed, setting the work down in front of her, on the table.
“I’ll tell you something, in honor of our long-standing friendship,”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Friendship?”
“Long standing business-association, whatever term is to your utmost liking,” Jade reached for something underneath her office table, and Veritas felt a spark of surprise as she casually set a bottle of whiskey, and two glasses with rich decorations over the glass.
She smiled. “Tell me, Ratio, what’s your stance on speakeasies?”
“I don’t frequent them,” He confessed, staring at the golden liquid she poured into the glasses. “I assume you didn’t acquire this bottle by any legal means”
“Oh please. You, dear, of all people, shouldn’t concern yourself over legality. What would that make of you?” She tutted.
“I—” He bristled, his hands balling into fists, before he silently scolded himself for his reaction, as he should’ve expected of Jade to win that one by no clean means.
She slid him a glass, and he stared at it as if it was poison.
“There’s this speakeasy the IPC is trying to own, downtown. Truly a beautiful place, if you ask me. It’s frequented by all sorts of people, especially artists, writers, intellectuals of all sorts. You might find some decent inspiration there. I suggest you try it”
She reached from inside her coat and handed him what looked like a poker card, except it had the illustration of a sinuous snake in the middle, surrounded by rose thorns. Whatever it was made with, it glistened as if it was gold when put under the light. On the other side, it was fully matte black, except for a small direction written in golden cursive.
He took it between two fingers. Something in the enigmatic card made him think of the stranger he’d met under the rain— Aventurine. Was this what it was like? To search for a muse, found and lost in what was only a singular instant.
“What’s this?”
“An invitation card. They don’t let in just anyone, you know?”
—
By the time he was leaving, with the card tucked in the pocket of his long coat and his manuscript safely kept inside his suitcase, he caught eye of Aventurine again.
His office was on the same floor as Jade’s, and the door slightly ajar. Veritas didn’t know what drove him to approach, softly grabbing the door knob and peeking inside.
Aventurine’s office was large, just as Jade’s. The large windows were on the right, and the walls were of a deep, rich golden brown, covered in geometric patterns in the shapes of one could call fans, or maybe peacock feathers.
What caught his attention, however, was how on the large wall opposite of the door was a frankly impressive mural of a peacock, painted in fine, golden lines, and in clear, distinctive Art Deco style. The bird spread over the whole wall, its feathers a mandala of golden, beautiful lines and stylized forms. Truly a beautiful work of le style moderne.
In the center of the room, there was a large, mahogany table, which was littered with a myriad of things, among them several poker cards, spread over in absolute disarray. Near the walls, there were elongated couches of black, expensive leather, and on the sides of the room there were hung posters and pictures, most of them advertisements, drawn in floaty, deco styles. Some paintings, Veritas recognized, and somehow he deeply doubted they were replicas.
Aventurine was giving his back to the door, his coat discarded over a chair, leaving him only in his dress shirt and suspenders underneath. With it, he was imposing; without it, his body seemed more slender, sinuous. He was hunched over something in front of him, obscured from view, with his hands leaning heavily on the table’s surface. Next to his fingers, besides the spilled cards, laid a half empty glass of whiskey and a revolver.
The smell of smoke threaded through the air, familiar from before Veritas decided to abandon it.
Aventurine didn’t turn at first, even though the door hadn’t managed to keep silent when he’d pushed it open. At first, Veritas thought he had not heard him, and he suddenly felt like an intruder. Here, in this sole picture, was painted the shape of a world that was foreign to him, dangerous and distant, yet something about the man in the middle of it intrigued him in a way he couldn’t understand. He contemplated taking a couple of steps backwards, never coming back, leaving before he was in too deep, but then he heard his voice.
“Ostentatious isn’t it?” Aventurine said, not turning around. One of his hands was deftly holding a lit cigarette between two fingers, his palm against the edge of the table. His other hand went to something in front of him, running over the surface of what seemed like a book. “But I like it, I’ll have to admit”
“It’s certainly flamboyant. Not unlike what I’ve seen of yourself”
“Hm” Aventurine turned, finally. Those kaleidoscopic eyes once again. They gazed at him, and there were so many things he could delve into, just staring at those eyes, and yet none. An enigma, giving enough to wonder but not enough to know. “I didn’t think you’d come looking for me”
“The door was slightly ajar and I was curious,” He said. A confession. His gaze slid over the half-drank glass of whiskey. What was the IPC, really? “I ponder, nevertheless, why didn’t you offer your name during our first meeting?”
Aventurine turned completely now, facing him, though still leaning on the table. His smile had an edge of taunting.
“Well, I didn’t think we’d meet again, my dear writer friend. What use would it have?”
They were quiet for a moment. They did not know each other enough to strike conversation, nor for the silence to be comfortable. Veritas thought himself a fool at that very moment.
“Well, I think it would be most convenient if I took my leave”
Aventurine, despite the silence, seemed deeply amused at his awkwardness. He grabbed one of the spilled cards, and walked until he was right in front of him.
“Back when we met you said that a writer does not really become a writer until someone reads his words,” He offered him the card, with a grin. “Why don’t you become a writer tonight and read something to me?”
The same card he’d now been offered twice, except that Aventurine’s had a golden spade in the middle, making it look like an actual poker card. At some angles, the gold looked almost black, and the flowers that surrounded it looked rather vicious. It didn’t seem like something that should belong with him, with Veritas. It seemed otherworldly, a key to a world he knew about yet had not yet dared trespass. Piece by piece, he felt himself walking further into a surrealist work of fiction. The irrationality of the dreamlike terrified him, yet maybe, that was the thing his words were missing.
“And some friends, if that’d be alright with you” Aventurine continued. “Come as fancy as you’d like. You simply have to show up”
“And carelessly humiliate myself in front of all of you, I assume”
Aventurine perked a blond eyebrow.
“It’s a bet, for you. Isn’t it fun?”
Veritas sighed, despite himself, and grabbed the card, without mentioning anything about the other he already had. Aventurine seemed pleased at this, smiling up at him contently, before turning on his heel again and returning to his table.
“Well, Ratio” Ratio had always been terrible when it came to reading people, but even he could recognize that the gesture he made with his hand was clearly a dismissal. “I hope you like jazz”
What, in the name of everything that is sacred, is the IPC?