The Infinite Library (75 page)

“What you say puts me in mind of steganography,” I said. “Porta had published a book on the subject in 1606, but the practice is much older... Demaratus used to inscribe important dispatches on wooden tablets and cover them with wax so that the receiver need only remove the waxy layer to obtain the message. Porta himself recommended various methods such as using gum-arabic on glass, and of course those methods of invisible ink that only come into view with the aid of fluid or fire.”

“You might say this is somewhat similar, but it is still misdirected. I speak of the unconscious writing that appears between what we consciously inscribe. Once one comes to realize what the unconscious writes, one can take the reins upon it, one may even read the great canonical works fresh since the act of writing is always effectively double. There are always two books to every book, and what we see are but the shades of what is written...The letters we come to visibly recognize our but the cast shadow of a truer writing.”

“A truly remarkable idea, to read between the lines, or, rather, between the letters themselves. How did you become acquainted with this fashion of reading?”

“That in itself is a long story, a story I know to have its own double should it be written in the conventional manner. I belong to a cadre of those who have mastered this art of reading and writing space, and it is by means of the spaces I leave between my written words that I will choose to be remembered. That is the only method to efface myself and, in turn, glorify myself by the only writing that matters.”

“How does one train to read in this way, especially given that we are so accustomed to shape of letters and the way they interconnect?”

“One must learn to understand an entirely different alphabet. Of course, everyone already knows it for it is the alphabet of the unconscious. So, one must learn how to tap into one's own unconscious, for it is always at work, always writing in its own hand as our conscious writes with the other. It is similar to those visual puzzles where we may focus on a picture of a vase in black or see its invert, two facial profiles in white.”

“And what of this cadre of readers you mention?”

“Our principles are partially derived from the learned Galen in that we spurn the accidents of fortune and pay no heed to noble birth, for both are not earned by merit.”

Tariq and I would continue along in this way, me with my curiousity and he with his philosophical generalities. We traded pleasantries often, not merely keeping to the topic of an invisible writing. We grew close in the way two men who frequent the same cafe under a pendulous sun can become. That spring we spent much of our spare and idle hours talking until the evening instead of writing, and by summer he had invited me to stay with him for a month at his summer home in Spain. Again, pleasantries and occasionally deep conversations on poetics and philosophy dominated the humid hours, and it would not be until that following autumn that Tariq would take me into a more personal circle of confidence.

In retrospect, I ought to have been more alert to the way our conversations were designed to prepare me for initiation into that reading rite. I had merely taken our exchanges as something of an innocuous series of novelties, merely being happy as a youth to engage a limber and seasoned mind on topics most others tired of easily. By autumn, however, I would soon regret being taken into Tariq's confidence.

By this time, my family had fallen on hard times after father had made some very rash and poor speculations. It was decided that I would stay on in Lisbon while my parents, younger brother and older sister would return to Munich. I was able to eke by on a small salary acting as a secretarial member of the Lisbon society of letters, much to my shame
and humiliation. Most often, my duties would prevent me from attending the soirees in the Chamber, and when the season drew to a close I found myself out of work. Tariq and I continued to spend time when we could at the local cafe, but my once ebullient talk had been occulted by the dark grey of my financial predicament. Sensing my distress, Tariq inquired on my affairs, and I was only too willing to unfurl my flag of difficulties. It was in late October that Tariq offered to take me to see the head of that other group he belonged to. In no mean terms, he assured me that my financial predicament would find its proper resolution. So would begin my tutelage among the group named, with some cheek, Sanscript.

Tariq took the proper pains in priming me for my initial meeting. I was to be dressed in sombre attire and stay silent unless spoken to. He also gave me his facsimile copy of Emanuelle Swedenborg's
Summaria Expositio Doctrinae Novae Ecclesiae
, the same copy – he said – that he had been initiated with. He would act as my sponsor.

I cannot remember the exact location of their meeting house, but I knew it was tucked deeply in some poor urban pocket amidst buildings with no names and of uniform appearance. It was night when we arrived, and I had my borrowed copy of Swedenborg held nervously in my right hand. We left the cab we had hired and we would enter through a white door set inside a drab tenement. Tariq issued a complicated rhythmic knock, and the door opened a crack so that the inhabitant could safely confirm identity. Once the door was opened, I was met by dimness and an overwhelming scent of burning incense. There were a few candles at the front of a large room, and chairs lined up against the walls. Tariq instructed me wordlessly to take a seat next to him.

“Why,” I whispered, “would a reading club conduct its affairs in such poor light?”

The whites of Tariq's eyes, made more animalistic by the candlelight, nearly bade me to swallow my question, but he said, “It is easier to see the hidden alphabet under these conditions. For now, stay quiet, and all will be revealed.”

The members were already beginning to file in and take their seats on either side of the room, on the same folding chairs lined up against the walls. The centre was covered with an elaborate carpet, but the lighting was too dim to make out the precise pattern. The front of the room had a raised and ornate lectern, and behind were a few guttering candles. The room was deathly quiet, and I had not noticed the head of the group until I heard him shuffling dry sheets at the lectern.

“Lux e tenebris,” the shadowed speaker uttered, followed a chorus of echoing mutters.

“That is our hierophant,” Tariq whispered in explanation.

“I will read from our book of the spaces,” the hierophant announced. “I will read from the first chapter so that we may never forget our chief purpose. 'The eye cannot see until the heart understands. He who sees only in black reads with Ahriman, while those whose hearts the eye gifts unto shall read with Yazdan. We who read in the light know the rites of the consecrated fire. We who read in the light do not share the emblem of ignorance given solely to the blind, those who read with Ahriman. All who now read the in the light with Yazdan have followed the Rite of the Fifty Days, as was instructed by Yazdan for all aspirants. Thereafter, each member enters into apprenticeship to the Sanscriptorium for a period of three lunar months by three lunar months by three lunar months. After the apprentice has mastered the light of the demotic, and then the light of the hieratic, and finally the light of the hieroglyphic, may he come to be fully embraced as a member. Afterward, he is accorded with the esteem and privilege of his brothers.' Let us now stand and recite the pledge.”

All the members stood. Tariq gently urged me to stand as well. I heard the strangest kind of glottal burbling issuing in unison from the throats of all in attendance, a language sounding more guttural than mystical. I could not, of course, take part. I would come to realize that this pledge was spoken in their language, the language of the visible yet hidden alphabet. The seemingly Masonic overtones of the meeting were not to my taste, but I would learn that there had been no real converse between this order and that of the Freemasons despite the appearance of some shared phrases.

After a half hour or so of further recitals and spoken hymns, the meeting disbanded from its formality and the members were then allowed to mingle freely. However, each of them spoke that bizarre guttural dialect, so I could not ascertain what was being said. Tariq, in making his proper social rounds, led me to the hierophant and, presumably (they were speaking in that language), my case was discussed.

Tariq turned to me and asked, “Would you consider joining our order? You need not answer immediately, for this is a serious commitment.

“I'm sorry, Tariq, but I do not know enough about this order to commit myself to joining.”

“What I have told you is all that any of us who elect to join know before being admitted to the Mysteries.”

“The eye cannot see until the heart understands,” said the hierophant. “And the heart can only understand if it is open and free. You are under no compulsion to join. Brother Tariq has told me about you, and it is my belief that you would make a good aspirant, that you are ready.”

What I was, was broke. What I was, was young and listless.

“Tariq, I am genuinely intrigued by all of this, really, but I feel that I must pledge my time to finding gainful employment,” I said.

“Your plight is known to me,” the hierophant spoke. “You are young, and the young can be feverish, and worry about matters that should not be of such concern. All aspirants are well tended, and afterward have the knowledge to fear no more. This heart of yours trembles, and is enchained by fear, and so is not yet open.”

“He will be open and ready,” Tariq defended.

It seemed as though I were being rejected even before I made a decision either way.

“Look,” said Tariq. “As an aspirant, you will have fifty money-free days. You will be properly boarded. Do you not wish to read what the many cannot read? See here this Swedenborg...We all begin with this text, yet I do not know why...Every chapter has its preferred initiation text.”

“What will my initiation entail?” I asked the hierophant.

“The initiation will teach you how to truly see. As you are now, you cannot see. You are among the blind.”

After a few more unrevealing and somewhat cryptic allusions, I was beginning to consider the possibility...although I did not know then what I was getting myself into. I felt dizzy and flush with the dimness of that place and that incense which was now beginning to make me feel nauseous. I felt drugged, but not in any elated. I consented to join.

With my consent, I was led by the hierophant up a flight of stairs in darkness. Tariq issued his parting words that I would not see him for fifty days. I had no idea then what this meant. The hierophant opened a large door and led me into a cell that seemed even darker than the stairwell.

“Here,” he said, “will be your home for fifty days. Each of us has spent his time here. You must be plunged in complete darkness so that you may see the light.”

I was about to protest, change my mind, but it was too late: the hierophant had already closed the cell door and had left, leaving me in complete darkness.

By the first morning, I heard the cell door. It was a slot just big enough for a tray with what smelled like food. By touch and smell, I could tell that the fare was modest, but hearty: stew, bread, and fruit. The slot opened three times a day, but never did light come in with the food, everything being conducted in the dark. By the third meal, a voice spoke to me from beyond the cell door.

“You will find your garments at the far end of the wall, furthest from this door. You will also find that we have equipped you with a stall for showering, which you may do at your leisure. Please place your soiled garments on the dinner tray once you are finished eating, and they will be laundered. You have been allowed to keep the book by Swedenborg, and are allowed to read it.”

I had known about the stall, but did not dare risk using it in the dark. I had already paced the dimensions of my cell which was not too small nor too large. I wanted to voice my protest, to be let out, but some inexplicable urge within me bade me to stay. I found it laughable that I was permitted to read given that there was absolutely no light in my cell.

By about the 14
^th
day, boredom had overtaken me. I had given up cursing Tariq for ever bringing me here, and stopped accusing myself of so weakly consenting to this cultish imprisonment. Instead, I became resigned to my predicament. On a lark, I decided to try – and presumably fail – reading. Whether my eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, or some other change was taking place within me, I was able to discern letters, but they were not the letters of the alphabet I could recognize. However, certain flashes of recognition were beginning to stitch patterns of meaning in what I saw. The more often I attempted reading in this impenetrable shadow, the more I came to understand what I was reading. It was not the Swedenborg I had ever read before, but I knew it was him, a different him, a him writing something from a source unseen despite his knowledge. In my reading, from what I was able to glean since it was rather patchy, he was far more prophetic in his work than what he had written on the page. There was a daring kind of theorizing in those pages, and I would come to understand that subconsciously he was aware of certain histories that do not go recorded, but that influence our lives regardless.