Banipal Books

Chapter 0

Wednesday, 6 November 2019

The railway station; Lamkinssia housing compound – Salé:

 . . .  I am so tired I have no need for a mirror to be shocked by my pallor, the black bags under my eyes and my protruding cheek bones. I’ve barely slept over the weeks I’ve spent filling my small notebook with plot outlines, arrows, remarks and incomprehensible sentences and words. Anyone who took a peek at it would think it was a child’s scribbles. But despite all that I haven’t been able to find the missing piece of the puzzle and add a single line to the unfinished draft on my laptop.

The publisher (whom I met in Casablanca) did not buy my excuses. He was keen on the idea when I first told him at the end of 2018, and approved of my choice of 2002 as the starting point for the action. He tried to go over some of the details with me, perhaps in the hope of helping, but in the end he apologised and gave me the freedom to do what I want.

Afraid that my laptop and my blue notebook would get wet, I hugged the leather bag close. I quickly exited the station and hailed a taxi – the only one waiting to leave.  . . .

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Chapter 6

Friday, 27 September 2002

Denver – Colorado:

The book had around 200 pages and, like many older editions, it wasn’t especially well printed. But what really grabbed my attention was the square hollow cut out of the middle of the last hundred pages. Inside the space nestled four black-and-white photographs.

“How come your father ruined a valuable book to satisfy a narcissistic desire to hide personal photos?”

“The real question is why he chose this weird way of hiding them rather than simply putting them in the family album that I took with me to New York?”

“We can consider the answer to your question in two parts. The first concerns the method. Perhaps he was worried the photos might fall out or get lost if he just slipped them between the pages. The second concerns the reason. Here I have no doubt that the photos are highly personal and that your father preferred to keep them to himself and not have his wife and daughter see them because they’re to do with his past, from before what he called his real life with the pair of you.”

I nodded in support of his sensible theory and grabbed the photos to give them a thorough inspection.

* * *

Chapter 7’

Wednesday, 23 October 2002

The metro; the Dubrovka Theatre – Moscow:

The carriage leaving Trubetskaya Station wasn’t as crowded as I expected and we sat on facing seats. This enabled me to enjoy looking at the beautiful woman sitting opposite, although I pretended to do otherwise.

I did not know why she chose Wednesday, 23 October as the date for us to meet, although I reckoned she was giving me sufficient time to finish reading A Hero of Our Time before giving it back to her, which is what happened.

“No doubt Sergei has told you a lot about me. As everyone knows, Olga Kuznetsova is a stuck-up blonde who manipulates men, not one of whom has ever had his way with her. Right?”

My ears burned red hot with shame as I remembered my Russian friend and what might be deemed my betrayal of his feelings for the Russian girl, whom I had agreed to meet without his knowledge.

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A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov,

the great Russian Romantic poet, first published in 1839.

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