The Infinite Library (76 page)

It was the 33
^rd
day that I was finally able to read the text through without interruption by my intransigent eyes trying to read the black text rather than the spaces between them. All of my senses became keen and sharp in that darkness having inhabited that space for so long. I had become so accustomed to my way of life that, by day fifty, I was more than reluctant to leave the safe confines of my silent and solitary education. Upon my release after those long fifty days in isolation, I was able to see differently.

I will not record all that transpired afterward beyond a few gestural sketches. I was made an apprentice and continued learning how to read in the fashion of the Sanscript. I was admitted to them officially and as well into their inner mysteries that my oath prevents me from relating. I was not well-to-do, but I was not wanting either, having taken up a service in the order. These details mean very little to me, for all this education and this new-found ability to read what others could not merely multiplied my horror. I was incapable of reading any text without seeing the hidden text so visibly apparent before me, and all reading became a double reading. I discovered secrets and ideas unfit for consumption, the shrieks and torment of the buried madness of authors and thinkers. I became privy to a history entirely shadowed by that protective layer those who are not among the Sanscript will ever witness. I bear the burden of my reading, but cannot relate it to anyone without betraying the oath and confidence of my confreres. Tariq had all but disappeared shortly after my admission to the order, and when I did chance upon him, he greeted me with the formal cordiality he extended to the other brothers; gone was the warmth of our conversations. It became obvious to me that Tariq had engaged in a long courtship with my intellect, waiting for that fateful time when I would be in need, and then predating upon me to convert. Of our order, there are some who bear the burden of our way of reading with resignation, and others – like Tariq – whose hearts are malicious and would spread the misery they feel to the innocent. I, for one, could never subject anyone to it...I wish that I never had learned to read this way, to see this way, to know what I know. I am what can be called 'damaged goods', and the brunt I have borne from my reading has made me reclusive as I do all I can to stave off the madness that comes of this particular kind of sight. I hereby renounce my obligations.

Impossibilium nulla obligatio est
,

Heinrich Hermann

39

Twilight of the Devorants

N
ot everything is as it appears, as it is written, how it is expounded and propagated across a passive-receptive landscape that will not check the logic of your assertions. I know this only because I had accepted far too much on the faith of what I was told or what I had read. I had been perhaps far too complicit, willingly duped if only to carry on with this now greying mystery that ran simultaneously toward two unreachable horizons of the beginning and the end. I was no longer certain if Castellemare would be the one to write the colophon on this series of enigmatic narrative trains, or if what was being written would never come to a halt.

I had taken as well on too much faith that those laughable bibliophiles were the real Devorants. I was to be disabused of this assumption that did not augur well with the mechanics of this overdrawn drama. With Setzer effectively retired, Castellemare vanished, Angelo dead, Dr Warburg little more than an inconsequential squeak in the sinecure station of his crepuscular academic career, Leopold now turned hostile against what he may have perceived were my bad intentions, and my being barred from that infinite Library, there was little left of the former footholds and clues to keep me going on. The stage upon which I had been thrust was now mostly barren save for the confused fool expected by a grim and harsh audience to deliver an eloquent monologue but having forgotten his lines.

In order to overcome this feeling of terrible inertia, that all my pursuits had become fruitless and idling, I decided to investigate the one element in this mystery that I had so carelessly cast aside as insignificant. It is usually the case in mystery, as the formula goes, that what one considers a red herring, a mere segue, will provide the key to solution. So, I tapped what sources I could to learn more of that group, the Devorants.

Search engine results are not to be trusted if one desires to locate secrets. Secrets do not parade themselves in public for easy acquisition unless if in doing so they can be assured anonymity. The Devorants that I had met were listed there, a cheap looking website saturated in pretentious dogma and a few unflattering pictures of old men in ridiculous regalia attempting to look indispensably imperious. I recognized a few of them as the hapless thieves who made away with my books. There was no image of their noble carriage, their station wagon. Apart from this folly of a group, there was little more than the whisper of ghosts of what I presumed would be the real Devorants.

I suddenly heard a rustling sound coming from my bookshelf. A single leaf was wagging on its own between two other books, as if someone were on the other side waving it for my attention. I crept toward the shelf and snatched the leaf. The typesetting and ligatures suggested that it was from a book dated between 1700 and 1800. Upon it was a single inscription:

In other words:

Oddly enough, or perhaps far too apt as to be an embarrassment, the page number on this leaf corresponded to what would have been the final page in the
7
^th
Meditation
. This, however, did not correspond to the type of paper or typeset used in the book, but from what I knew about the Library, it perhaps held various reprints and incarnations of the same book repeated throughout history and perhaps into the future. It did seem to square with the notion of the “six works” that made up – or set up for – the seventh meditation which would be the synthesis itself.

And, again, more noise from the shelf, this time a hoarse whispering. A gloved hand displaced a few books and beckoned me. In fright, I fled.

Things did not return to normal although I took refuge in a used bookstore – which was perhaps a mistake. As I was trying to steady my nerves scanning the spines of what passed for the store's “classics of literature”, one by one the books were being replaced by books written by another me. I resisted any and all urge to pick one up, and instead made haste to the store's physical sciences section and, yet again, more books written by me. It was a clear sign that the Library, or someone within it, wanted my full attention. Again, the whispering came from the shelves, this time more audible that I could make out what was being said. “Around the corner.”

Feeling the numbing effects of fear, I complied, walking around the shelf to what was usually a cul-de-sac of shelves housing the store's “occult” section. Instead of a dead end, the shelf seemed to go on for quite a distance. The Library had once more opened itself up to me, but there was a problem with the lighting – it was too faint to make out the books let alone read them. A figure silhouetted against this dusk light was at the end of my journey.

“Come,” the figure said with no mean severity.

I was led through that dark corridor, the menacingly unreadable books rising high on either side of me, their spines bristling with the mystery of what contents they promised. I could hear the sound of dry pages being turned perhaps by dryer fingers as we neared a vast table where sat a collection of figures whose eyes were hooded, their countenances severe and serious. As if anticipating that I would break this suffocating silence, one of the figures turned to me and raised a single bony finger to his lips indicating that I should remain silent.

My guide ushered me to an empty seat before a pile of opulent quarto volumes and a few pulpit editions. With the ghost of a touch, he pressed me into my seat and subsequently made his way to one of his own. In that dimness I tried in vain to make out the features of these cloaked figures, their paucity of sound rendering them spectral. None would look at me, but were each absorbed in their meticulous act of reading, poring over text in patient search for I know not what. I was perhaps expected to do the same.

If this were the infinite Library, it was a section I was not familiar with, decorated as it was by a bay of large tables squatting conspicuously in open areas near monolithic shelves. In this readerly crypt, there was hardly enough light by which to read, but my eyes slowly adjusted to these crepuscular conditions. The hefty volume before me was in French, a general history of the “Compagnnonage”. My more pecuniary instincts when it came to antiquarian texts could not be repressed as I habitually examined the spine, the gilt edges, the type, the woodcut engravings of asphodels on the prefatory pages, running my fingers over the inside cover and imagining what sort of off-cuts may be pressed within. Although the affair was a quiet one, by comparison to my other reading companions, I was making enough of a commotion that some of them retrained their focus on me with chillingly unchanging expressions that said for me to desist. Cowed, I returned to the book, this time carefully examining what was written there. I quietly peered at the spines of the other books in my pile and could make out that each of them were on the same or similar subject: a history of the Compagnonnage.

In the top margin of the first page was a note written in Old French that I had difficulty translating, but the gist of it was this:

From what I could understand – albeit hard going since my French was not up to snuff – would be fascinating to a select few, a niche of people who made 17
^th
century French companion groups their obsession; it certainly wasn't mine.

There was much dry discussion on the ambiguous origins of the Devorants – who were only named explicitly fourteen pages in. This was followed by a detailed account of the proper ceremonial procedure involved in the taking of the oaths, what the oaths contained, and what they meant. I was partially distracted by the motives of these figures, if they were trying to teach me a lesson of some kind or revealing some pertinent information. The long section on oaths outlasted my interest by about thirty or so pages, and I was starting to read hastily, taking a pause between pages lest my reading rhythm and page-turning distracted these daunting readers who seemed to read at a regulated synchronized pace. Most of all, I did not want to be insulting or appear rudely uninterested in their task. The tension of the circumstances made this the most difficult of reading experiences.

The section on mysteries seemed to promise much more in the title than it delivered, and so was far less interesting than I had hoped. Much of it made esoteric references that were entirely lost on me. The dry and abstruse nature of the discussion, coupled with my trials in translation, was beginning to frustrate me. I must have made it to page 235 when the silence came to an end with a series of startling reports made by the closing of large books, made all the more so obstreperous by the tomblike quietude.

As quietly as I had been seated, I was gently herded from my seat and wordlessly summoned to accompany the group of twelve. We came to a small and ornate wooden door which the member in the lead opened and held open for all of us to enter. The fishbowl effect of the cramped and musty chamber, redolent with the smell of so many volumes standing as sentinels in square-shouldered formation – all of it made the already packed room feel that much smaller. Why these texts had been cached here from the regular Library circulation would eventually be revealed to me. In fact, the Library was filled with such cache rooms, alcoves, locked chambers, and small adjoining galleries accessible only by those who had the right keys.

“Do not be alarmed,” my guide finally spoke, a hoarse rasping emanating from barely moving lips. “We are the Devorants, companions of the book and itinerant researchers in the Library. As we spend all our time reading, there is little to no discussion. Among us, I am one of the few who still has the ability to speak. Many of us have not spoken in several years, and sparingly if we must.”

“Why have you led me here?” I asked. “Does this have anything to do with my possession of certain texts?”

“We are not interested in your books. We are interested in you.”

“Why is that?”

“Lineage. We subscribe to the belief of heredity, the traits of the father handed down to the son, his son, and so on. Our history records have frequently come up with your name. A traveler from Parma journeyed and met a member of our Order in Nantes. This Gimaldi, which we believe to be an ancestor of yours, spoke of secret plans and a secret passage, as well as a vast and unseen Library in Tuscany. In this Library, your ancestor said, was a sum of the Devorants' history far greater than what we knew or could possibly fashion. He told us that the Devorants were greater in number via the Library than the whole population of this world. This same Gimaldi invited a few of our elect to this Library, but he was killed en route in a skirmish before he could tell us in which section the books vital to our project were stored.”