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Tales of Mystery and Truth

  Jeffrey K. Hill copyright 2013

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  Tales of Mystery and Truth

  In an incredible bookstore called The Beggars of Azure, a reader can find every book ever written—and a list of books that have never been written. But in The Beggars of Azure, what you find is less important than what finds you.

  The following tales of mystery and truth grew out of the novel The Beggars of Azure. Some of these tales feature characters or detail events from the novel. Some of these tales are tangential to the mood and themes in the novel. All of them testify to the fact that reality answers to no one.

  Table of Contents

  Antinomies of Time

  The Living Dead

  The Court of Love

  The Freedom of Pavko Krizova

  Landscape With the Fall of Icarus

  Petsuchoi

  The Book of Zambullo

  * * *

  Excerpt: The Beggars of Azure

  Colophon

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  About the Author

  Antinomies of Time

  The front door to The Beggars of Azure swung open, and Peter entered. Heading toward the section of Apocalyptic Vision, he caught a glimpse of a woman at the counter near the front of the store. He thought he recognized her from somewhere, but he could not remember. She struck him as classical in manner and dress, yet modern in assurance and confidence. She spoke to Callimachus, the proprietor, who in her presence seemed to be relieved of the burdens and memories of many years. Peter caught a glimpse of the gilt title on the book she was buying: Love Among the Maidens.

  For reasons Peter could not explain, he felt compelled to meet this woman. His heart pounded at a rate unmatched since he had first met Violine, his wife—perhaps even faster. He was happily married and had no desire to be unfaithful, not even when Violine was working away from home for months at a time. But something told him that if he did not go after this woman, he would be haunted for the rest of his life.

  She slipped between two corridors in Horologia, heading toward the back of the store with her book clutched against her chest. Peter watched from a hidden distance. He found he could see her better, more brightly, if he did not look directly at her. He wondered if she would settle into the quiet of the rear carrels and read, although he had never seen the carrels used by anyone other than one dusty monkish figure. So maybe she was searching for another book she had just now recalled, or browsing for one she had not yet remembered.

  Peter glanced back at Callimachus. The old man looked withered and aged again. Perhaps his momentary youthful appearance had been an optical illusion of the sun pouring through the upper shop windows. Perhaps, Peter thought, infected by a hint of romance, it had been his immersion in the pure white radiance that seemed to imbue this mysterious woman.

  When Peter looked for her again, he saw only one stockinged leg disappearing past the rear door of the bookstore. He panicked, not having expected her to leave any way other than through the front. He was not even sure where the rear door led. But he had no time to think, if he did not want to lose her.

  He slipped through the door just before it clicked shut and emerged on an unfamiliar street. The sun had set, rendering the scene in shades of pink and gray. Peter stood still, disoriented. Then, as he glanced around in confusion, he caught sight of the woman rounding the corner of the bookstore.

  His first urge was to approach her, but he suppressed it, unsure what he would do then, what he wanted from her. He followed at a safe distance as she walked. She waved to the old man at the corner newsstand. The same man greeted Peter as he passed, as if they were old friends.

  She kept walking, through the medieval wall, across the river. Darkness had fallen by the time she turned up a short street and then up the walk to a well-kept bungalow. Peter paused and watched her step inside. He looked around but was alone on the street. The world seemed to have gone to bed early, for complete silence surrounded him. He did not hear any cars, or music, or planes, or even whispered conversation. Just a gentle rustle of leaves overhead, the soundtrack of a night as quiet as a Christmas snowstorm.

  He took several cautious steps closer to her house. The shades were drawn, but he could see two or three shadows moving inside.

  He noted the address, sure that at some point in the future he would come back. He would have to talk to this woman. But now was not the time. A path must be made first. And before that, he must understand what compelled him, what he expected, why meeting her was so important to him.

  He turned, glancing at surroundings strange to him, as if he were in another city, in another time. And yet the setting felt comforting, like the quiet idyllic street that people fantasized about, the place where happy families lived. The houses were cozy, far from the sprawling mansion he called home, far from the wealth of fame. It would be a fine place, he thought, to raise a child.

  He was engulfed in the night now, a moment shared only with the stars. He stared at one or two floating there alone, then looked away and realized they were surrounded by millions of other smaller stars, like servants. He knew those stars were just as big as the ones that shone brighter, perhaps even bigger; they were simply farther away.

  Somewhere, far out across all that space, perhaps there was someone looking back at his star the same way. But they would not be seeing the same moment at the same time. He knew if that other person could see him looking up right now, that other person would be far in the distant future. Just as the light that Peter admired now came from stars that perhaps were already dead. He stared out, deep into the silent night, where all he could see had already happened.

  * * *

  The next day, Peter canceled a meeting with a client and slipped away from his history shop for an extended lunch.

  Reason told him that he could return to the bookstore every day for the rest of his life, waiting only to see the mysterious woman again, and he never would. She was but one in a city of many people; The Beggars of Azure was but one in a city of many bookstores. She had not met him or anyone else inside. She had simply purchased a book and left.

  He followed his foolish hopes to the bookstore and returned to the exact place where he had been standing when he had first seen her. He waited. Callimachus stooped at his counter, scratching in a dusty ledger. An hour passed, but the mysterious woman did not appear again.

  The bookstore was like a second home to Peter, a place to share a drink with friends, work on his writing, or have a game of chess. But, as if to underscore his disappointment, none of his friends were to be found in the café, and only a few strangers lurked among the stacks. He needed a distraction from his sudden and inexplicable fascination. Though his weekly dinner with his father was in three days, he decided not to wait.

  His father was surprised but pleased to see him. “This mean you can’t come on Saturday?”

  “Of course not.”

  His father ruminated. “Won’t leave us much to talk about then, I suppose.”

  “We’ll just have to find something. Maybe we can go into the city for a beer.”

  “Got beer in the fridge,” said his father.

  They sat at the family table, Peter in the chair his mother used to occupy. His father stared at Peter, who remained silent for several minutes, full of things he could talk about but unsure what to say.

  “
Dad,” he finally ventured, “where are the old photo albums?”

  “What do you want them for?”

  “I thought it would be nice to look through them.”

  “Just like that?” His father grumbled and waved a dismissive hand at Peter.

  Peter shrugged, knowing his father rarely indulged in memories.

  After a minute of silence, his father said, “They’re in the closet in your old bedroom.”

  Peter retrieved an armful and brought them to the table. He and his father sat beside one another and Peter opened the first one. As was his mother’s custom, they flipped backward through the albums, end to beginning. Pictures of forgotten holidays from his childhood gave way to highlights of Petey and Frannie growing younger with each page.

  “I miss your sister,” his father said.

  She had married and moved to Virginia, taking her mother’s laugh with her.

  “So do I.”

  “Said she might come out in October.”

  “We should go there,” suggested Peter.

  “Have you seen the fares?”

  “How about next month?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  They flipped through a second album, this filled with photographs of Peter’s father and mother as small children, one on the farm, the other in the newly built suburbs of some fair city. A third album was dominated by his younger sister, who always appeared cheerful and confident.

  “Do you mind if I take some of these?” Peter asked.

  “What are you going to do with them?”

  “I want to frame them.”

  His father stared at him as if he were still the child who could not be trusted. “Go ahead.”

  They opened the fourth album. His father looked happy in the old photographs. He had no need for glasses back then, but did need a comb. And Peter was surprised to see him posed in several shots with a cigarette, for he had never remembered his father smoking. In another, he ran beside Peter, who wobbled on a bicycle, while his mother waved from the background, hunched over to catch her breath.

  Peter glanced at his father who smiled, though with a shadow of loss.

  They turned further back into the past. Peter’s sister reverted into a wriggling infant. Then, as he turned the page, he felt his insides collapse into a black hole at the sight of his mother cuddling a tiny baby. He noted the familiar seductive droop of her right eyelid, but had never known if the mannerism was purposeful or uncontrolled.

  He stared for a moment, feeling closer to his mother than he ever remembered when she was alive. She looked different from the older woman of his recent memory, and yet he felt as if he knew her well, knew her golden voice, knew precisely how a summer dress would hang on her body. He had a disorienting sense that she was still alive.

  “Oh, the next picture is my favorite,” said his father, motioning with his hand.

  Peter glanced at him, shocked by the realization his father had often looked through these photographs on his own. He turned the next page of the album, the first page, and saw his father’s face light with joy.

  “I took that the day after we were married,” his father said with pride. “She was just so vivacious.”

  The confusion that had plagued Peter’s mind was seared away by a white-hot clarity. The face in the favored photograph of the newlywed woman who became his mother was the same as the face of the mysterious woman he had seen in the bookstore.

  * * *

  When he returned to The Beggars of Azure, Peter was not surprised to find none of his friends present. With Violine so often away from home, Peter spent more time in the café than did the others. But he had not wanted to come for them anyway.

  He waited for the reappearance of the mysterious woman by flipping through large tomes in Oeirocritica. Though several interested him, he could not allow himself to become distracted from his watch. He thought of his wife, of his mother, of the mysterious woman. As the day wore on, he searched his memories for clues or proof that the mysterious woman was his mother. But even if his father could provide more information, he knew his mother was dead, and the past could not be recaptured.

  Another patron emerged from the stacks and gave Peter a compassionate nod, as if they had shared the same experience, and he understood the lonely feeling.

  Peter decided to return to the house of the mysterious woman. He went out the back door of the bookstore, oblivious to his surroundings, and headed to the corner. He turned up the street where he thought he had followed her several nights earlier. But the farther he walked, the less it corresponded to his memory. He looked around in confusion and wondered if he had lost his way. A gasoline station, a strip mall, and rows of cheaply constructed apartments lined the street where he expected to find her quiet bungalow.

  His eyes wandered back and forth around the neighborhood. Everything looked different from what he remembered. He assumed it was merely a result of being so flushed with emotion when he had rushed after the mysterious woman. He guessed he could not have expected to remember with any certainty the details of the surrounding area, when his complete focus had been on her and the confusion she had created in him.

  He had no indication of the time that had passed, except for the descending chill and the fading light. With some reluctance, he decided to pack away his waiting until the next day. He trudged back to the rear of The Beggars of Azure, looked one last time up and down the street to make sure he was not lost again, then stepped inside.

  The dusty hermit in the carrel was still there, and still had not moved, as if time had turned him into a stone statue. Peter heard the roaring laughter of his friends from the café just beyond the shelves. He did not feel like facing them again; he also did not enjoy the prospect of returning to an empty house. Before he could decide his next course of action, the door bumped into his back. He stumbled forward, then turned around.

  “Oh, dear! I am so sorry.”

  He recognized her immediately, and all his senses tunneled into singular focus. This day she wore a light sweater over her dress, and had pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She smiled. Her eyelid slowly drooped shut and then opened again. The only person Peter had ever seen do that was his mother, and he stared at her as if she was a miracle of time.

  “It’s okay,” he said with wonder. “I shouldn’t have been standing there. I was—Peter,” he said, holding out his hand. “My name is Peter.”

  She took his hand. “Francine.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” he said.

  She chuckled and began moving toward the interior of the bookstore. “Well, again, please accept my apologies.”

  “You like Robert Deansleigh,” Peter said, following after her.

  She turned and looked at him brightly. “Yes.”

  He nodded. “I noticed you a few days ago buying Love Among the Maidens.”

  “You did?” Her fingers played with a button on her sweater. “Have you read it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I rather envy Evangeline Hull.”

  Peter smiled.

  She gazed at him. After a moment, her eyelid drooped, alluring, and she said, “What did you notice, Peter?”

  “In the book?” he asked.

  “In me,” she said, smiling. “You said you noticed me.”

  He thought better than to say that he knew her. She seemed like any woman he might befriend. But he was also convinced she was his mother, despite the impossibility.

  “I just noticed,” he said, “just how vivacious you were.”

  “I do not think I have ever heard anyone use that word before.” Her eyes sparkled. “And to describe me…”

  * * *

  Without a word of preamble, Peter drew Violine into their home, into his arms. He tried to entrust his heart to his wife by pressing his confession directly to her lips with his own. He made desperate love to her before she even had time to unpack, and then held her as if fearful of being swept overboard a ship buffeted by red-sky storms.

&
nbsp; The outpouring of emotion seemed, the next morning, a mere mask to hide the things he was not able to share with her. He knew better than to tell her what had happened. He could explain himself, he could give her all the details, and she would probably believe him. She might even say she understood. But no words could make her believe that time had somehow slipped gears, and he had met his mother, in his past or her future. What Violine would hear with her heart was that her husband had been smitten by another woman, and followed her.

  For the first time in his life he felt a tinge of sadness that Violine had come home.

  Thankfully, she had plenty to tell him about her three days of recording in New Amsterdam. There was the joy of working once again with Raul Bernardo; the obligatory pilgrimage to the Statue of Ecclesia; the delay of an afternoon when the conductor became ill after lunch. Peter asked lots of questions, probed her for details, but his attention soon wandered.

  “I don’t mind if you want to go to the bookstore for a while,” Violine told him.

  He wondered if she could perceive the secrets he was trying to hide. “Do you want to come along for a bit?”

  “No, go spend some time with your friends.”

  Outside The Beggars of Azure, Peter peered through the front window, looking for possible explanations, but seeing only reflections of a man unhinged. Inside, he passed the counter where Callimachus was installed and thought the old proprietor appeared shrunken and frail. Then he heard bold laughter spill from the café—and there sat his friends, papers and coffee cups strewn about as if they had been there for hours.

  “You look like you just came out of a reader’s trance.” James slid a glass of beer in front of Peter. “What happened?”

  Peter simply shook his head and drained his glass.

  “From the looks of you,” said Cara, “I’d guess Violine is back home again.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Peter.

  She shrugged. “You always seem a little distracted when she’s home. I think it’s sweet.”

  Peter sat with his friends, morose. He could not conceive that, though burdened with so many things to talk about, he could not find the words to do so.

  After another beer, he said, “I’ve told you how my father hates television. He takes his entertainment on the radio and his news from the papers. Well, the other day he told me he turned on the baseball game and sat out on his balcony to listen.”