Marx, Damien and Barnaby Rutledge

Our class meeting for War and Imperialism that day was a lot of preliminary discussions the need of empires to expand, the nature of Capitalism and a great deal of Marxist, proto-Marxist, neo-Marxist and pseudo-Marxist theory that made me want to grind my teeth right out of my head. I respect the man’s ideas enormously, don’t get me wrong; but I hate the way he reduces all the humans in his philosophies to bees in a hive. Unfeeling, unthinking entities that exist, perform their role and die. There is no room for human greed (outside of the greed for money), lust, love, generosity—no room for all those quirky, irrational and spontaneous emotions and actions that make humans….well, human. And don’t even get me started on how many times people felt thing in the course of this discussion.

The two most overused words in the English language in this current age of individual expression are “I feel”. It is not simply enough anymore to “think” something, to “know” something, or to “doubt” something. According to Lydia, “I feel that Marx’s theories about slave labor do not take into account the dual dependencies of the slave and the master adequately.” Similarly, according to Caroline, “I feel that the concept of Capitalism as a finite entity is,” here she stopped, moved her hands around in large circles and never properly finished her thought. Or feeling, as the case may be.

“I know what you mean.” Sam jumped into the gap left in the conversation. “I feel that the progression from Capitalism to Communism isn’t thoroughly explored in any of the writings we were assigned.”

I jammed the nib of my fountain pen into the paper of my notebook so hard that the tip split and ink began to dribble out of the pen and down the page, a line of aqua-green blood that dried presently into a comet-shaped stain on the margin of my notes.

“Well,” said a low, measured voice from across the small room, “I think we might be missing the fact that this is a guideline—a hypothesis, if you will—more than it is a blueprint for the way of the future.”

I looked up and caught Ned staring directly at me, a small smile lifting the corner of his mouth. And I felt a great sense of relief knowing that there was someone else in the room with a suitable grasp of the English language. And I thought about his invitation for coffee after class and then I felt an enormous wave of trepidation hit me squarely in the solar plexus.

I don’t do coffee. I don’t do pleasant conversation. And dear God, I don’t flirt. I don’t understand the complex dance of body language and spoken words, or the rules of who calls whom and when and how one folds ones hand to express interest, or the way a blink can alert someone to another’s intentions…the whole thing is just some kind of over-elaborate mating dance that makes little, if any sense to me, and I wish fervently that we could all just evolve past it and move on. If he wanted to talk about tank formations at the Battle of Cambrai, or the proper method for removing oil stains from cloth-bound books, I’d be fine. But looking at that smile. I knew this wasn’t going to be a business meeting. And I knew that this couldn’t end well.

All too soon, our post-modern meeting about Marx, which by now had the air of a self-help group with the amount of feelings being thrown around, ended. I slid my notebook back into my bag, tucked by still-weeping pen into the side pocket and grabbed the shoulder strap, swinging the bag over my head as I stood up. And nearly collided with Ned who was standing next to my chair.

“Oh—hi!” I said, breathless for no good reason.

“Hello.” He did the grinning thing again. “You still up for that coffee?”

“Definitely. I have work at 2pm, but I’m free ‘til then.” I replied, wondering what rabbit had gained control of my speech and motor functions as we walked down the seven flights of stairs to the ground level and negotiated our way out of the building.

“Do you have a preference?” Ned slid his hands into his pockets and looked over to me.

“Not especially.” I figured shorter sentences were probably best for now.

“There’s a nice quiet place just behind the National…fancy a bit of a walk?’

“Sounds great.” I smiled genuinely. The view from Waterloo Bridge is one of my favorites in the whole city. From one side, you can see St. Paul’s, the lazy curves of 30 St. Mary’s Axe (more familiarly known as the Gherkin after some reporters squinted too hard and decided it looked more like a pickle than a massive lipstick, or, more accurately, a disturbingly-large Freudian slip plunked down in the middle of the City), and a scattering of cranes along the horizon, rising up like ghostly question marks over the city. On the other side, you have Parliament, the London Eye (which gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies just to watch) and the MI-6 Building, which frankly looks like an enormous Lego-creation squatting in front of the Thames. It’s beautiful view of all those lovely, odd things that make you realize quite definitely where you are, and how fiendishly small you are in comparison.

It’s also one of the most perversely windy parts of the City, a fact that escaped me until we were actually on and bridge and a blast of air grabbed all my hair and shoved it in my face. When I tried to sweep it back, it merely whipped back around my head, tangling and snarling together in a knot behind my right ear. I glanced surreptitiously at Ned, who was scanning the horizon over St. Paul’s. The fringes of his already unruly mob of hair fluttered and fell, framing his face and those sharp, dark eyes. The world is full of injustice.

By the time we reached the opposite bank, I was groping for the elastic band around my wrist and trying to rake my hair into some kind of knot at the back of my head to obscure the fact that it now looked like a bale of tumbleweed had somehow managed to fix itself to my scalp. Catching a quite half-reflection of the two of us in a bus-stop shed, I saw with grateful relief that I had managed to look human one again, and noticed Ned put a hand to his hair, ruffle it a few times and watched it settle perfectly. I don’t get it.

“So what did you think of class?” He asked as we descended the bridge to the South Bank.

“Umm…I’m sure it will be interesting soon.” I said diplomatically.

“Marx not really your thing? Just up here…”

We walked past the entrance to the National Theatre and crossed the road to a little coffee shop set into an overpass.

“Not so much. I respect him and all, but…I don’t know. It’s just too—clinical? Does that make sense?”

He tilted his head and squinted at me. “Maybe—tell me more. After you tell me what you’re having.”

“Oh…coffee’s fine. Black, please.” Two textured cardboard cups were soon pushed across the counter in our direction and Ned scooped them up with practiced ease and carried them to a table outside.

“So—Marx?”

“Oh, right.” I sat, and wrapped my hands around the cup to keep them from doing anything stupid, and took a deep breath of the caffeinated steam billowing up around my face. “I don’t know. It’s just…I have a hard time with people who think they can define human behavior. I think you were completely right to say that his stuff is just a hypothesis, but…it’s still so—formulaic….I don’t know.”

“You don’t think humans are predictable and definable?”

I grinned at the table. “I think individuals are ridiculously predictable. Or at least under most circumstances.” It had taken years to figure out, but everyone has something that makes them tick, and if you can find it, you can figure them out, at least on a basic level. It did, however, require a massive amount of energy to remember each person’s individual quirks and tailor my behavior around them. Which is one of the main reasons I hate crowds and am so terrible about meeting new people. I needed to get him to do some more talking if this little exchange had any hopes of survival.

“But….” He tilted his head again, “but more than irrational, people are selfish. They’re not going to consider their place in the Proletariat if they are starving. Don’t get me wrong, there are those who will. But there’s a reason that they get into history books. They’re few and far between.”

“Very high opinion of your species there, Miss Philby.” He grinned.

I shrugged. “I don’t think it makes any sense to put the essential element of historic study on a pedestal. If you’re going to study humans, you need to accept the fact that they are lazy and selfish and messy and generally do a lot of ugly and unpredictable things, or you’re going to get very jaded very quickly.”

I looked up. He was still smiling, but he had this look of confused amusement in his eyes, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of me yet. But he seemed to be enjoying himself, I thought, with a renewed sense of belief.

“So what is it that you study, specifically?” He asked before I could frame a question to force him to talk.

“Me? First World War.”

He snickered into his cup. “Doesn’t get much messier or uglier than that.”

“But it’s a prime example of my point. People under pressure don’t always react the way you assume they will. And very often, it’s those people who determine the way the story ends, not the people who toed the line.” I bit my lip, knowing I was tottering on the precipice. If the conversation wanders anywhere close to the First World War, and I become very seriously verbally incontinent. “But what about you?”

“Hmmm?”

“What are you studying?” It was an awkward transition, but my jaw was starting to hurt.

“History of literature.”

“You already said that.” Stellar, Philby. “Anything more specific?”

He gave me that look again. “I think I’m going to be working on the history of writing about battle-stress….if that makes any sense.”

“Tell me more.”

“Well,” set his cup down and leaned forward, settling his elbows on his knees and looking over at me through his eyelashes. “I was thinking of looking at the way people with battle-stress—shell-shock, post-traumatic stress disorder, whatever you want to call it—the way they write about their experience and how their mental state affects their writing.”

I unabashedly gaped. “That…sounds incredible.”

He blinked. “Really?”

“My undergraduate work was on shell-shock, actually, so—yeah.” He beamed. “What books are you looking at?” I put my hands back around the cup and told myself to sit still.

“Well, I was thinking of Tim O’Brien’s stuff, like The Things They Carried, and maybe Catch-22 or some of the Russian stuff from World War Two, and for the First World War,” he looked up at me to gauge my reactions, “I was thinking of doing Barnaby Rutledge.”

My heart flipped over. “Who?”

He burst out laughing. Even though I knew it was at me, it was a pretty nice sound. “Don’t worry—nobody’s ever heard of him.”

“So who was he?”

“He wrote these really, really messed up stories that were supposedly autobiographical, but I doubt that. They were published either privately or in really small numbers, but he had quite a devoted following up until the Second World War.” He took a final sip of coffee and set the cup down beside him. “So far as I know, there’s only been one article written about him since, like, the ‘60’s, but a few of his stories are still being printed in anthologies, so I figured it was time someone looked at him again.”

“That’s—that’s amazing.” I said, equally fascinated and annoyed that I hadn’t heard of this guy.

“I can bring one of his stories with me to class next week, if you like.”

“Really? “ My voice did some kind of squeaky thing that was far from pleasant in my ears. “I’d love it.” I tried, a little more sedately.

Ned chuckled. “Alright then. As long as you promise to tell me what you think.”

I risked a smile back. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”

“Excellent.” He rubbed his hands together and looked at his watch. “Not that I’m not enjoying your company, but did you say you needed to be at work at two?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s ten to now.”

“Oh. Oh!” I stood up and slid my bag over my head. “Thanks for that.”

He stood up as well. Awkward, awkward, awkward…. “This was really nice.” I said, surprised at how genuine I sounded.

“It was,” he quirked a little grin. “We’ll have to do it again. Soon.”

“I’d like that.”

And I realized that I would.

The Devil's Trill

The building which Mitch and I mutually inhabit was built before the Second World War, and, not surprisingly, sustained a fair amount of structural damage during the Blitz. According to the man in the poorly-fitting suit who came to assess the property before the actual owners left said that the building was ‘bowed’, basically meaning that the two halves are slumped together and holding each other up. It’s a fairly common condition, especially in Stoke Newington, part of which got blasted out of existence one autumn evening. It will be a bitch if anyone ever decides to knock down any of the houses on the street, as the general opinion is that when one goes, quite literally, so goes the neighborhood, and if one house is removed, the whole thing will cave in like massive mortar dominoes.

The less-dramatic meaning of all of this is that there are places in our building where the walls are very thin. Not so much so that you can hear the other person making a cup of tea, but with a little effort, your neighbor can hear you. So it was probably a good thing that Mitch and I were both single, I guess. But it also explains why he felt the need to call when he was practicing. The first time he started tuning his violin when I’d first moved in, I thought the walls had mice and was ready to turn around and move back out.

That morning, however, I wish mice were the worst of my problems. I was up, had managed to open the window, run to the other side of the bedroom to turn on the lights, and was halfway down the first flight of stairs before I realized that I was awake and that Mitch was at it again (for the record, I have no idea why I thought opening the window would help. Very little that I do when startles awake makes any long-term rational sense). Since I was halfway there already, I clumped down to the kitchen, grabbed the phone off the wall and pounded Mitch’s number with a great display of excessive force.

I could hear the phone chirping on the other side of the wall, and its echo in my ear six times before he picked up.

“Umm…hello?”

“What the fuck are you playing?”

“Oh! Do you like it?”

“It sound like you are dueling with imps from the deepest pits of hell. What is it?”

“It’s a new Kreisler piece,” he said, sounding a little deflated.

“You do know that it’s not even seven, right?”

“Umm…”

“Mitch, in the name of Stephen King and all that is holy, I beg you to never, ever play that in the morning ever, ever again. Ok?”

“Umm….ok. Are you awake?”

“I am now, you evil man!”

“Oh. Good. Well, put on the kettle.”

And he hung up.

And it’s impossible to be angry with Mitchell for long. He’s just doesn’t have the kind of intellect that could be intentionally cruel or hurtful. If I can fault him for anything, it’s simply of not thinking all that frequently, but if that’s the worst I have to put up with, I think I’ve got it pretty good.

I heard the bang of the broomstick while I was pouring water over two teabags and presently, the cellar door opened, wafting the smell of toast through the house. Mitch’s hair led the rest of him into the kitchen. I don’t know what he had or hadn’t done with it in the past two days, but it looked like a lazy cartoonist had taken a black marker and scribbled it into place. He had stubble on his milky-pale skin and Panic at the Disco shirt on over his sweatpants.

“Is that mine?” I asked, nodding at the shirt.

“Maybe. It was in the dryer.”

“Fair enough.” He clattered the plate down on the table and wrapped both hands around the mug of tea, breathing in the caffeinated steam with near-religious zeal.

“So what the hell was that thing?”

“What—the piece?”

“Unless you really were torturing demons over there.”

He grinned and sucked a toast crumb off his thumb. “I found it at the British Library the other day. You know they have music manuscripts there?”

I nodded.

“Oh. So anyways, there’s this piece called “The Devil’s Trill”, and what he did was—“

“It’s called the what?”

“’The Devil’s Trill’,” he sighed and ran a hand through the riot of hair near his forehead. “Ok, so it was originally written by this chap Tartini in seventeen-whenever. He had this dream that the Devil came to him and asked him to be his servant. And in order to test him, Tartini hands the Devil his violin and he goes to town. And when he wakes up, Tartini tries to write down what he heard and, of course, fails utterly. Though the piece is an absolute monster to even try to play.” He leaned across the table and wiggled his eyebrows. “It’s said that whoever plays owes Satan their soul ever afterwards.”

“Charming.”

“Anyways, so it’s a nifty little thing. And time goes on, la la la. And then Kreisler joins the army during the First World War—you know this part, don’t you?”

“I knew he was in the Army for—what, like two months or something? I have his book about it around here somewhere…”

“Yes, yes, well, I found this letter by him that talked about this utter nut-job he met during his army career. The guy was British and they met at a hospital or who-knows-what. The point is, according to Kreisler, this British chap was the greatest musician he’d ever met. Ever. Said he’d never believed in diabolical talent ‘til he met this guy. So he arranges the Tartini piece for this chappie, and adds a movement. That’s what that was,” he flipped his head back, as if the sound were still resonating through the walls.” And sends it to this chappie’s address in London, but never heard word one from him ever again.”

“So how did it end up at the British Library?”

“Damned if I know. But you haven’t heard the best part yet.” He dropped his crust back onto the plate and it made a little ceramic ping. “This chappie’s name? Was Lucifer.”

“What?”

“Honest to God, I swear it. That’s why Kreisler went on and on about devils and demons—and that’s why he picked that piece to arrange for this British guy.”

“That’s…that’s just weird.”

“I know! Isn’t it great?”

“I don’t know about that…who names their kid Lucifer?”

Mitch shrugged. “I didn’t copy the letter. I was too busy trying to get all the notes down. But he said that he’s never seen elegant hands or such dark eyes in a human head.”

“Weird.”

Mitch grinned. “It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever seen.” He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a battered photocopy of some sheet music. The thing was, indeed, a riot of notes. Looking at it, I could follow the part I had heard Mitch play. Judging by the amount of ‘vibrato’ signs above the notes, the whole thing must sound like someone sobbing—or screaming.

“How can you play this with one violin? There are...these are four-note chords.”

I looked up and he was giving me the most manic grin I’d ever seen. “I have absolutely no idea. But I’m sure the Prince of Darkness will give me the aid I require.”

“Oh please, spare me.” I said, and swiped the last piece of toast. “With your luck, you’d get the ghost of some off-kilter First World War soldier with black eyes and skeletally beautiful hands menacing you in your sleep.”

“You are absolutely sick, you know that?”

I grinned back. “I have class this morning and work tonight. You off all day?”

He nodded and stretched in the chair, tilting it back until the headrest met the edge of the sink. “I love Mondays.”

“Bite me.” And I started sweeping the dishes and mugs into the dishwasher.

Exerpts

(Reproduced with the permission of Jeremy Bannerman and Susan T. Lynch)

[Postmarked Newington Green, addressed to L. Nathaniel Thomas, St. Dennis' School, East Sussex]
4 March 1903
Dear Nathaniel,
How strange to write that name now!
How are you? Miss Thorne has kindly given us thirty minutes to write to you so that you won’t think that, though you are gone from our schoolroom you have gone from our thought. So I am writing to you in the school room, and through the window, I can see the first of the robins searching from branch to branch of the thicket by the fence, looking for a good place to build his nest. I got a new pinafore yesterday. It is white and Mamma says I can help embroider it with primroses in the evening. Miss Thorne says that I am getting on in my penmanship beautifully. Alice’s new pinafore is blue. I think white looks better but Mamma says she can’t be trusted to keep it clean. She wants to embroider hers with water lilies, which is a charming little thought, but I think they look too much like callalilies at a funeral.
Are you enjoying school and learning a great deal? Are the other boys nice? Mrs. Chester’s son always brings his mates home from school for the holidays. You must be the one to come home, and bring lots of friends back to keep us all entertained.
Miss Thorne says I must get back to my sums. Until later, then,
I remain,
Your Loving Sister,
Tabitha

[Postmarked Newington Green, both in the same envelope, same address]
4 March 1903
Lucy,
Miss Thorne wants us to write to you. She says I can't call you Lucyfer anymore and we have to call you Nathanial. That is Poppa's name. No one calls me Cecilia.
Why do you get to go off to school and why did you leave me here? Are you coming home soon? Miss Thorne says you get a holiday in the summer.
Willie Chester pulled my hair yesterday after I told him he couldn’t walk with me to the park. So I hit him and he cried.
Alice
PS: Miss Thorne says this isn’t a nice letter and to write you one about cheerful things.

4 March 1903
Dear Nathaniel.
How are you? I am well. We had lemon tarts at tea and I had two.
Mr. Elliot The Gardener says I can help him prune the roses this weekend.
I like reading but not maths.
Yours truly,
Alice

[Postmarked East Sussex, addressed to Miss Tabitha Thomas, Newington Green, London]
7 March 1903
Dear Tabitha,
Thank you for your letter. I am well and enjoying school very much. I am afraid that I am still lagging behind in my mathematics, but the tutors are all very understanding. I have entered a competition to see which boy can remember best and deliver a passage from Virgil.
I am afraid I haven’t made too many close friends, so don’t pin your hopes on any company over the holidays, but I’m sure you won’t need too much help in filling your schedule. Good luck with the pinafore and tell Miss Thorne to stop talking like a pillow sampler.
Yours,
L.N. Thomas

[Postmarked East Sussex, same address to Miss Alice Thomas]
8 March 1903
Dear Alice,
I liked your first letter much better. Tell Willie Chester if he so much as looks at you, I’ll turn him inside out when I come home. The end of term here is 30 May, and I will be home two days later, on the first of June. Mark that on the calendar in the schoolroom so you will remember. I won’t forget you.
Until then,
Lucifer
PS: I hate maths, too.

[Postmarked Newington Green, addressed to St. Dennis' School]
10 March 1903
Dear Nathaniel,
Many thanks for your kind letter. It came just as we were sitting down to tea and was welcome indeed, as the Rector came to call on Miss Thorne and Alice was sulky. I hope your recitation goes well—I am sure that you will do brilliantly!
My pinafore is nearly finished. Mina Hatterly was over with her Mother the other day and Mrs. Hatterly says that it is some of the best work she has seen in someone of my years. Mina was jealous enough to spit. John Chester just called with his Mother and little brother. John is taller than me now, but I don’t think he is as yet as tall as you.
I should stop, as I am meant to be copying a passage of Mrs. Beeton before the end of lessons.
With affection,
Yours truly,
Tabitha
Later: Alice just came in covered in dirt and with thorns and twigs in her hair. Apparently she has been bothering the gardener all afternoon. Mamma is beside herself and Alice is perversely pleased with herself. Quite pandemonium.

[Postmarked Newington Green, same address]
12 March 1903
Dear Lucy,
Mr. Elliot says I am the best helper he has ever had and that I am welcome to come anytime and help with the roses. Mamma was mad when I came in muddy but Jacob The Footman laughed and Mamma sent him out of the room. Don’t worry about Willie. He won’t come near me since I hit him.
I put a big x on the calendar on 1 June. Come home.
Alice

[Postmarked East Sussex, addressed to Mrs. Nathaniel Thomas, Newington Green, London]
15 March 1903
Dear Mrs. Thomas,
I am sure you will forgive my writing to you directly, but we have had word of your husband's recent illness and, out of consideration for his recuperation, I thought it best to address my term assessment to you.
Nathaniel (I fully concur with your decision to use his second name in all public settings) seems to be settling in well here at St. Dennis'. He is a quiet young man with neat habits and very good manners both in his lessons and at table. I believe that Mr. Thomas has already noted that Nathaniel shows a natural talent for music, and we have arranged for him to continue his lessons here outside of schoolroom hours. According to Dr. Foster, our Latin Master, Nathaniel shows a unique proficiency for language which he is encouraging. Though not gifted in mathematics, I am proud to say that Nathaniel shows determination in his work, which will serve him well in the future.
I note one other memoranda in Nathaniel's file but, Mrs. Thomas, I worry about bringing it to your attention in such a cavalier fashion as through the post. If I had the ability to travel up to you, or Mr. Thomas was well enough to travel, I should say it could wait until such time as we can meet face to face, but since, regretfully, neither eventuality is likely in the near future, I must apologize in advance for what I am about to relate. Our school's physician, Dr. Francis, has noted that Lucifer suffers from a slight disruption of the heart. I believe the medical term is a 'heart murmur'. According to him, it means that the boy's heart does not carry on a regular rhythm, but skips a beat, or beats irregularly for a certain length of time. We are fortunate that he is otherwise perfectly healthy and strong, and thus it would seem that this condition does not pose a significant problem at the present time. However, it should be monitored, and, according to Dr. Francis, could be the cause of ill-health in later life. I am very sorry to trouble you with such news, my dear Mrs. Thomas, but I hope you know that I share it in good faith and in the hope that it will not add to your present worry.
If there is any other matter in which I can be of service, you have but to ask. As discussed, another letter will follow at the commencement of the summer term. Until then, Madam, I remain,
Yours Faithfully,
Deacon H Mather
Master of St. Dennis' School for Boys

[Postmarked East Sussex, addressed to Miss Alice Thomas, Newington Green, London]
22 May 1903
Dear Alice,
I haven't read that book yet but perhaps you can read it to me when I come home.  Tell Mrs. Bateman that I want treacle pudding for tea when I get there.  

Next week seems farther away than Mars today.
Soon, though I'll see you,
Lucifer

Words for Breakfast: In Which We Meet Another Supporting Character

Mitch scooped the last piece of toast, blew me a jam-sticky kiss and banged out the door about ten minutes later.  I took a few minutes to finish some unnecessary chores around the house, realizing there was plenty of time before I was actually due at work (I had managed to fall head-first into a freelance archival job at a museum in South London that needed First World War expertise, which was frankly far more fun than anyone deserved to have at their job). 

The day that waited for me on the other side of the door was warm and sunny, with a breeze that warned of colder days and shorter nights that were all too fast approaching.  Consequently, I resolved to walk at least to Angel Station before subjecting myself to the fetid air and inhumanely close quarters of the London underground and set off down the road with the slightly melancholy air that late summer mornings always bring.

Newington Green was full of children squawking and shrieking on the swings and tumbling across the grass as if determined to squeeze every instant of sunlight left in the sky and the earth.  I rounded the corner and was almost immediately collared by the smell of fresh-baked bread.  Suddenly, irrationally ravenous, I allowed myself to be led down the street to a aqua-fronted bakery by the smell that was strong enough to be like a physical force, pushing me to the door.  

The shop looked empty as I peered around the door frame, save for the paralyzingly delicious smells, now not only of bread, but of crumbly pastries and the snappy tinge of sugary frosting.

"Come in!  Come in!  How are you?"  The voice came from behind a cooling rack of small, crusty rolls and, heeding it, I saw a man--or, rather, his head, peering through the loaves at me.  He soon came around the racks to rest his elbows on the pale wooden counter before him, his floury fingers having left streaks up his arm when he rolled up his sleeves.

He wasn't exceptionally tall, but he had long limbs, and carried himself with enough grace that he seemed to be much taller.  He had dark hair that fell across his forehead and just brushed his eyebrows, which shaded some of the brightest eyes I'd ever seen.  He had a constant look of expectancy, as if the world was unfolding for his sole entertainment.  The skin around them was wrinkled with traces of past laughter and as I came into the shop, they folded up into a smile.  I had originally thought him around fifty, but the transformation that came over his face with that grin made me wonder if indeed I wasn't a little older than him.  You couldn't look at such an expression without feeling a reciprocal gladness from it, and I came up to the counter, eyeing the basket of croissants just behind him.

"You are new, yes?  Such a face I would remember."  My eyes jerked back onto his face, missing the compliment in my surprise.

"Govoritiye parussky?"  I said automatically.  His eyes widened and he snapped up to his full height, which was barely equal to my own.

"Of course I speak Russian!" He cried (in Russian), throwing his arms wide, "the surprise is that you do, as well!"

"I spent five years learning to read it, but I don't speak as well as I should." 

"Then your Russian is no better than my English.  We shall fumble together?"  He finished in English with a small wink.  "I am Sergey," he offered me a flour-dusted hand and squeezed my hand with a strength for which I wouldn't have previously given him credit.

"Kipling," I replied, smiling in spite of myself.

"Like the author?  Of the Phantom Rickshaw and the Jungle Books?"  

"The same," I said, relieved that there was one person who didn't need any further explanation.

"This is brilliant!  I have just finished the Just-So Stories, and they are for me quite wonderful."

He bent down as he spoke, pushing the release button on a battered microwave behind him.  The door sprang open and I saw that it was full of paperback novels, many with pastry-dribbles across the covers, and all dog-eared and well-loved.  He pulled out a volume from the far left, leaving a flour smudge across the spines of two nearby books, and set a 1960's Penguin edition of Kipling's Just So Stories on the counter between us.

"That is fantastic!"  I tried in Russian, "I need to start keeping books in my microwave!"  He laughed out loud at this, a sound of pure delight that made him look almost elfin.

"If my Sonya found me reading during working hours--well, there would be darkness and storms around here for days.  So I hide them away where she doesn't think to look and practice my English in between batches."  He winked conspiratorially, nodding sideways as if to indicate Sonya's relative position.  I could only smile back, marveling at the sheer energy of the person before me.  There ensued a few inevitable minutes of literary banter, mostly about my namesake, but it turned out that his microwave also held Sherlock Holmes, Dracula and, incongruously, a book of Wittgenstein's essays on mathematics.  

"Yes, yes.  My taste in books is...quixical?"

"Quixotic?"  I tried, unsure if his look of concern was over Wittgenstein or the word.

"Quixotic?"  he tried it slowly, as if trying it on for size, "Quixotic....this is it?"

"Yes, it's from Don Quixote, describing--"

"The windmill man!"  I jumped, but he didn't notice it, as he suddenly produced a notebook from his back pocket and began writing with the stub of a well-chewed golf pencil.  "I must..add...'Quixotic'...yes.  To my collection."  He smiled, sliding the notebook and pencil out of sight once again. 

"So, Miss Kipling,"  he began, clearly as comfortable in English as Russian, "if you don't mind me noticing, you are from far away, are you not?"  I nodded, not feeling the same sense of embarrassment that usually comes from being a transplant.  "Where is home for you, then, where they teach you to speak such good Russian?"  I laughed.

"Home is Boston,"  I said simply.

"No!  I have been to Boston!"  Sergey cried, slapping his side of the counter with an open hand, "it is where I first start learning English!" 

"Really?"  his excitement was infectious.

"Certainly.  My Sonya and I go to visit my niece and nephew in New York and our plane lands in Boston.  And it is while we are waiting for the train to New York that I buy my first English dictionary.  And I begin to learn English."  I smiled, already enchanted with this bizarre baker, but also feeling every mile between me and that train station he described.  He squinted ever so slightly at the expression he saw on my face and his eyes softened.

"You are a long way from home as well, aren't you?"  he said quietly.  I nodded, suddenly unable to speak.  This happened every once in a while.  I could talk about home for hours on end, or relish in my distance from the familiar for days, but every so often, something, often too subtle to even warrant mention, would inspire a melancholy homesickness to sneak up and sucker-punch me, causing my eyes to fill and my throat to contract before I had time to throw up my defenses.

"As am I."  Sergey said, still quiet, but with sunshine in his smile again.  "It's not easy, but think!  Think of the stories we have to tell!  No one believes me when I tell them the things I have seen!  And now," his linguistic shifts were making me dizzy, "I find this beautiful American who speaks Russian!  There are too many surprises left for me!"  I laughed in spite of myself, slightly confused by his real meaning but too charmed to let it bother me long.

"Come, come," he said, suddenly slightly flustered, "if Sonya sees tears here, she will never forgive me."  He passed a napkin over the counter to me and started staving off the mascara trails that were building in my lower lashes.  

"Thanks," I said, my voice steadier than I expected.  

"Not at all.  I am glad to have met someone with such--immaculate, yes?--taste in literature.  You are close by?"  I nodded.

"About twenty minutes that way," I pointed through the far wall.

"Excellent.  Then I expect to see you soon, yes?"   I nodded again, and he beamed.  "Brava!  Now, that I have taken up all this your time with talk of books, here,"  he slid one of the plump croissants into a thin paper bag and handed it over to me.  I took it eagerly and moved my hand to my sweater pocket for my wallet.  Before I could do any more than shift my weight, he had snatched the bag back and was glaring at me in mock severity.

"No, no!  Here is the bargain, my friend,"  he jerked his head to the microwave library, "I am in need of 'The Valley of Fear' still.  You have a copy of this?"

"Of course!"  

"Excellent!  You bring it for me tomorrow, then.  Words for breakfast, yes?"

"I think that sounds perfect."  I answered, wondering how I had made it through twenty-something years of existence without a croissant-dispensing bibliophile friend like this.

"Until then, my quixotic friend."

"A Day Once Dawned, And It Was Beautiful": North London, Present Day

As will become readily apparent quite quickly, I have a slightly imperfectly-wired brain. It functions quite well on the theoretical and anachronistic level, and it can achieve some pretty impressive things under pressure. However, in any given routine situation, it has a tendency to some rather bizarre reactions. Take the morning after that first class, for example. A normal person, on being awakened by a phone ringing in the dark of an autumn morning, would rise and answer said phone, with or without a due sense of impending catastrophe.

Not I. By the time I was actually aware of what had woken me, I was out of bed, across the room and furiously flipping away the light switch until the strobe-effect of the overhead light bulb finally forced me into consciousness. I turned off the light, stumbled back to the night table, and flipped open my mobile phone, which was blinking up at me indignantly.

"Hello?"

"Kipling? Are you alright?"

"Mitch?"

"Yes"

"Are you on fire?"

"Umm...no."

"Then why are you calling at 6:30 in the morning?"

"Oh. I, uh, I wanted to know if it would be alright if I practized for a bit. I didn't want to wake you."

I sat on the edge of the bed, resting my now pounding head in my free hand.

"You woke me up to make sure that playing the violin wouldn't wake me up."

"Right, I....oh. Sorry."

I couldn't help but chuckle, "It's ok. In the future, though, I can barely hear you anyway, so don't worry about it."

"Ok. When do you have to be in to work?"

"About 12:30. Why?"

"Good. I have to leave by 10, so get ready and put some coffee on and I'll be round with the toast at, say, 9?"

"Sounds good."

Mitch is my next-door neighbor, and fellow Economic Orphan. His aunt and uncle own the house, but are receiving a large stipend to move out of London for their work, and thus we are both squatters while our homes refuse to attract any attention on the market. He works as an usher some theater in the City and can usually be seen on dark days playing his violin either in tube stations or near Covent Garden. We had become friends about 6 weeks earlier, just after I moved in, when I had unwittingly let a pigeon into my kitchen and was too petrified to do anything outside of waiving a badminton net in its general direction and yell very loudly. It turns out that he has a passion for making toast (it might be the only thing he knows how to make, come to think of it, but at least he enjoys it), so we had most of our breakfasts together. This enterprise was rendered even easier by some sort of subterranean tunnel that connected our two basements, and if you had the courage to brave the clammy, spider-kingdom of my basement, and the labyrinth of discarded toys and gardening implements in his, it was actually incredibly convenient, especially as neither of us was very good with grocery shopping.

I took a shower and cobbled together an acceptable wardrobe out of the still-clean options in the drawers, and was just dumping coffee grounds into my inherited French press when I heard three sharp raps coming from under the floorboards at my feet.  Mitch and I both felt that the scraping and shuffling noises that accompanied our trans-domestic journeys were unnerving enough that we tied a broom to a hook in the ceiling between the to houses in order to alert the other of a friendly (and non-spectral) arrival.  Seconds later, there were shuffling footfalls on the stairs and the door creaked open, allowing the smell of warm toast to flood the kitchen, followed soon by Mitch and his tray.

The sight of Mitchell Berenson could inspire maternal instincts in a stone. He is small and impossibly thin--not rakish, not wiry--just about as lean as it would seem possible to be and still remain functioning.  In fact, he eats more than I do, but somehow it never seems to be enough to get him to cast a shadow.  He has wide blueish-gray eyes that always seem somewhere between giggling and weeping, a smile that makes him look positively angelic, and a head of blackish hair that has a personality unto itself and, at the current moment, was swarming over to the left side of his head in a damp, tangled mess.  He was wearing a pair of dark jeans that were held on by a belt with makeshift holes bored along its length and a bleu sweater that probably would have fit me well.  On him, it was engulfing.

"How did the practice go?"  I asked, snatching the topmost piece on the stack and going to work with the butter and jam.

"Amazing.  Well, I mean, I've still got ages to go, but the piece!  Aw Kip, it's incredible!"  He sat folded himself up at the table with a dancer's grace and began slathering.  "It was written for Kiesler's fiance and it--this sounds absurd, but--you can hear the love in it."  A shower of crumbs scattered on the table. 

"Sounds amazing," I said, putting the coffee pot in front of him and taking a stool opposite.

"It is.  I worked with a guy once--brilliant.  A total drunk, but brilliant all the same.  Anyway, he was convinced that love was like energy.  You know, in science, how, like, energy can never be decreased?  It's always there, just not always--in motion, like?"  I nodded, trying to keep up with the speed of his monologue.  "Anyways, he used to say that when a piece was written, the emotion that went into it, the love, the anger, the hate--well, you know what I mean.  Anyway, that whatever inspired the piece went into it and became part of it.  That it became the energy of the piece, like.  And when you play it, that energy is what drives it."

"That's beautiful."

"I know.  Unfortunately, he was completely out of his head on bourbon when he told me that, so I don't know how much stock to put in it, but it's a nice story all the same."

"I like it, bourbon or otherwise."

Possessions: North London, 1895

Emily--he always called her Emily, in his head, least ways.  If nothing else, they could both agree that she could never be 'Mother', but any other kind of formal title seemed equally ludicrous for someone so fundamentally weak, so frivolous and petty as to be already beneath his growing contempt.  Emily, then, was nestled in a rocking chair when he and Tabitha were ushered in by one of the housemaids.  She wore something shapeless and rosy-pink with frantic profusions of lace at her wrists and throat and was wrapped in the old quilt from Tabitha's linen cupboard, another crescendo of pink and rose and lace.  He looked sideways at Tabitha, herself an echo of her Mother--and here the title suited admirably--in her pink frock and frizzy halo of golden urls, her plump lips open in surprise and her gray-green eyes blinking rapidly.  She clasped her hands together under her pudgy little chin in a confused ecstasy of excitement.

"Oh Mamma!  Is this the new little baby for us?"  Emily looked up, her gaze warming at the sound of her child's voice.

"Yes, Darling.  A new little girl for you to play with and care for.  Would you like to see her?"

It was only then that he realized that the quilt was not for Emily, but was tucked around something in her arms.  The Baby.

Tabitha tripped lightly to her Mother's chair and peered over her arms into the swaddled thing that lay therein.

"Oh!  Mamma!"  There was a pause between the two words that made him look up quickly, "She's so--"   had he imagined it, or was there a flash of--what?  Panic?  In her cherubic face?  "--delicate!  She's lovely!  Just like a little doll!"  She looked up at her Mother, who smiled back in pleasure.  Tabitha flushed and smiled back, her eyes focused on nothing in particular.  Perhaps he was mistaken, but he was nearly certain that Tabitha had just told her first lie.

Emily raised her head, but did not turn.  "Would you like to see her--Lucifer?"  Her voice wasn't quite as harsh as usual.  More weary than resentful as she muttered through his name.  He stepped over to the other side of the chair, aware of Tabitha's wide-open eyes on his face, searching his expression for some kind of reaction, a clue as to what she should be doing next.  It really was a pity, he thought fleetingly, Tabitha wasn't as bad as the rest.  She had definite potential, but she also had that weakness, that blight she had contracted from her Mother that she would never escape.  He could see a kind of fear in her face that he couldn't understand, and knew that she needed him to tell her how to proceed, just as she needed him to hold her hand when they went for walks and guide her through all the situations that her natural beauty and grace couldn't confront for her.  Her gave her a little crooked grin and her face relaxed just a bit as she stepped back from the chair.

Careful not to touch Emily in the slightest way, he tilted his head over her elbow and peered down, right into the face of the new little human.

It was nothing of the slightest importance.  The baby might very well have been disturbed by the activity around her.  She might have been hungry.  She might have felt the breath nearer to her new skin.  Regardless, she chose that instant to open her eyes--already just a bit too large for her face.  They flitted about, unseeing, oblivious to the Mother's soft sigh and Tabitha's smothered gasp, before locking on the face above her.

He heard something snap.  Unable to look up for fear that Emily would whisk the little thing away to a place of safety or that Tabitha would cry, he couldn't understand how it was that no one moved, no one reacted at all, when his own ears were ringing with the echo of it and his breath was caught in his throat with fright.  Even the baby didn't react.  She stared up at him without blinking.  The room rang faintly, each surface vibrating softly with the still-tangible force that no one else had even noticed.  

After a time, his surprise over this universal deafness would wear off.  It would take years longer, however, before he would become accustomed to the shock of the sound in his own ears.

He was aware that Tabitha had said something, but his head hadn't yet cleared enough to make out what it was.  He didn't look up.  He didn't think he could bear to look at Tabitha just now, but he wasn't sure why.

"Alice," Emily's voice cut through, crashing against his already shaken nerves.

"It's lovely," Tabitha sighed.

"It was your father's mother's name," she said, as if by way of an apology.

"What do you think, Lucifer?"  Tabitha's voice carried a hint of hysteria, the same voice she used to ask if he was still awake after the lights had been put out.

"Yes, what do you--not so close!"  Emily tilted herself away from him, shielding the Baby from those eyes, and instantly felt ridiculous and humiliated for having done so.  Try as she would, though, she couldn't help feeling that The Child--she abhorred his name, one of Nathaniel's perverse jokes that she could never accept--would somehow contaminate her child.  Children, now.  He didn't move as she flinched back, keeping those horrid dark eyes fixed on little Alice--another of Nathaniel's abominable choices of names, but at least this one was merely mundane.  She sighed and tried again.

"What do you think of Tabitha's new little sister?"  She thought the point was subtle enough, but he suddenly looked directly at her, turning those eyes on her for the first time in as long as she could recall.  They were cold and composed and, in his eight-year-old face, were fierce enough to make her instinctively cling a little tighter to the seems of the quilt beneath her fingers.

"She's mine."  He said it in a chill whisper.  Emily opened her lips, but no reply came.

"Of course!"  chirped Tabitha, sensing something terrible, like a thunderstorm, suddenly in the air.  "Of course she's your sister, as well, Lucy!  She's our little baby sister--Alice."

"Of course."  Emily managed a small smile, which gave her the strength to meet his eyes.  But he had already turned his attention back to the Baby.  

"Take Tabitha downstairs and play 'til supper.  I need to rest."  

The Boy calmly walked over to Tabitha and took her hand--Emily shuddered at how eagerly her girl reached for this little stranger--and guided her from the room.  As he exited, he turned his head, fixing his eyes once again on the Mother with a look so fierce, so forceful, that Emily was left in no doubt what his bizarre statement had truly meant.

The Beginning: North London, Present Day

So, having decided that a stationary life of reasonable prosperity and routine was far too simple, I had recently left a job that afforded me not only mental stimulation and friendly interchange (as well as a few interesting little problems that may or may not have involved the Boston and Cambridge Police Departments), but also enough money to pay rent, sleep and buy books and take a stab at doing the job I had always wanted---becoming a professional student.  With my house and cats in good hands for the next year, I had managed to get accepted to a highly-accredited institution and took my leave of the western Atlantic shores. 

I had intended to rent some rooms from a family but, upon arrival, I learned that they had decided to move to the country "in order to raise the children in a proper environment".  I was willing to overlook their abandoning me in an apparently improper environment when I learned that I had full run of the house for the same rent--at least, until the property sold.  "Which could be weeks, dear, or it could be months, in this economy.  Heaven's knows we're stuck with it until we can shift it, so we'd be ever so happy to know that you're here, keeping the drunks away from the stoop."  And with these heart-warming wishes, I was left to my own devices.

A week after my arrival, I made the grand journey from Stoke Newington to school for the first time, and was directed to the History Department, which was on the top floor of the building.  "It's just been added on,"  said the woman at the information desk, batting her overly made-up lashes, "They've not got a lift up to there, yet, so take that lift up to the seventh floor, and then you'll have to walk up the last flight."  She neglected to mention that of the four elevators in the lobby, only on was working, and fitfully at that, so it was almost fifteen minutes before I arrived at the door to the History Department (luckily, in my first-day jitters, I'd arrived half an hour early).  

I sat down at one of the state-of-the-art portable plywood and cork desks and tried to appear invisible. There was an older man sitting a row away from me who was glowering at me over his shoulder, so I was fairly sure my plan wasn't working. Trying now for an air of intellectual indifference, I reached into my bag and pulled out my date planner, flipping to the date and trying to think of something worth writing. He man sighed and turned back to his book, while I rooted around for a pen. As I began doodling around the page of my next birthday, a small girl with curly dark hair and needlessly pointy-toed boots clattered into the room, the charms on her bag jingling in syncopation to her footfalls. The man gave her a similarly withering glare, and I couldn't help but smile, both at his mow comic anger and in relief that it was no longer directed at me. As he turned back, his eyes didn't even pick me out from the cork dividers around me. I had achieved invisibility. I turned the pages on my date book, looking for a day with enough significance to warrant a note. Alighting on my father's birthday, I bent over the page, only to find that there was no longer any ink flowing into the pen. Gritting my teeth in irritation, I gave the pen an overly-demonstrative shake that sent droplets of ink splattering across the page and the desk and the pen cap flying back over my head, where it hit the wall and skittered across the floor. Instinctively, I ducked from the gaze of the man, whose head was already turning back in my direction, trying at the same time to see where the damned cap had stopped.
"I think you dropped this." I turned, and found my eyes were on level with a hand, in which was resting my errant pen cap. I reached out, briefly noting that the hand was attached to an arm, which connected it to a torso, all of which was encased in a green sweater.
"Thanks," I mumbled, and looked at the head that was poking out of the top of the sweater. It had a mess of sunshine-brown hair that fell over a pale forehead, and deep brown eyes that were crinkled in a smile.
"Are you here for the imperialism and war seminar?" It was a nice face, with a disarmingly bright smile. As he straightened up, I realized he was fairly tall, almost lanky, wearing some kind of gray tweedy pants. He had a brown leather satchel that I immediately coveted and as he sat down at the desk beside me, I realized I had not yet answered.
"Umm, yeah. You?" I kept it short in order to keep from tripping over my own words.
"I am indeed. Are you in the history department?" He asked, as if to imply he wasn't. Which I could believe. Honestly, he was too good-looking to be an historian.
"I am as of today. Aren't you?" He shook his head, renewing the smile. I grinned back, more out of self-satisfaction than anything else.
"English Department, actually. This class is--well, useful for my dissertation."
"I see."
"I'm Ned, by the way."
"Nice to meet you. Is Ned short for Edward?" He ducked his head and grinned up at me through his lashes.
"Not quite. It's, uh...it's Damien, actually."
"Really? I like that."
"Most people think it's the strangest name they've ever heard."
"Oh, I don't know about that."
"Wait, are you here for the War and Imperialism course?" It was the small dark-haired girl, who was jingling and clacking back towards us. She had a thin voice and I could tell she was an up-talker, despite her question. Her face wrinkled up into a smile, but it wasn't wholly genuine, and therefore made me distinctly nervous.
"Apparently we are." He turned to smile at her as two more people, a man with graying hair and a girl about my age.
"Are you lot here for the War and Imperialism course?" the new girl asked. She was wide-eyed and slender with brown hair and wearing an enormous woolen hat despite the late September heat. She slumped into the chair on my other side and her book bag thumped to the floor. The older man let out an audible huff, rose to his feet and stomped out, letting the door slam behind him.
"Looks like we're already making friends here," the man with gray hair smiled with a slight air of smugness. As he spoke, the door to one of the offices opened and Professor Bryson, the course convener, in a green tweed suit and deafeningly loud green paisley shirt, ushered us inside. Once we had performed the awkward dance of assembling ourselves in the chairs that were crammed into what turned out to be Professor Bryson's office, we began to introduce ourselves. The wide-eyed girl was named Lydia, the man with the gray hair was named Sam, and he had just retired from a career in stock management. The up-talker was named Caroline, and then came Ned's turn. As each person mentioned their name, Professor Bryson ticked off their name on his list.
"Hi," said Ned, to no one in particular, "I'm Ned. I did my undergraduate work at Queen's College in Belfast, and I'm actually studying in the English department, working on the history of literature." Caroline had leaned forward while he spoke, her eyebrows traveling ever further skywards and her smile spreading eagerly across her face.
"Great, thanks, Ned." Said Prof. Bryson, adjusting his glasses and turning to me, "And you are..."
"Hi," I said, trying to find a place to look. "I'm Kip."
"Kim?" Bryson's forehead wrinkled and he squinted at the list in his lap.
"No--Kip. With a 'p'. My full name is Kipling." Why, after 25 years, I really still felt the need to blush over my name was utterly beyond me, but I felt my ears starting to burn.
"Ah yes..." Bryson made a tick on his list, and looked at me with mingled interest and..pity? I looked sideways and saw Ned's eyebrows arching. I made a stab at speech, figuring I had remarkably little to lose.
"I'm studying the First World War, actually. I've been working in archives back home in Boston for a few years and decided to come back to school."
"Well, thank you, Kipling."  Bryson smiled at me as if he had just performed some elaborate ritual in a foreign language and turned back to the group, launching into an explanation of the course.  

The meeting was mercifully brief, and after some brief chat over books and essays, we all began plodding down the endless flights of stairs down to the lobby.  I had started walking with Lydia and Caroline, but soon ended up trailing behind, as they began planning to go out to a club later that night.  

I heard an echo of footsteps behind me and leaned into the railing in the expectation of being passed.

"So, Kipling, eh?"  It was Ned, his satchel over his shoulder and an amused grin slung across his face.

"I told you you're name wasn't that strange."  I said, finding it impossible not to smile back.

"I guess not.  Where did, that is, how--"

"My dad has a killer sense of humor."

"Hmmm...there's a story there, I think."  We reached the lobby and crossed in front to hold the door to the street open for me.  "You free after class on Thursday?"

"Umm--yeah.  I don't see why not."

"Good.  Until then."  And with a final flashing grin, he waved and headed off to the tube station.  

I was still blushing when I got on the bus twenty minutes later.