Prologue

 

The following morning Laura woke to find herself alone. And as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and details of the room emerged one by one – his corner of the sheets turned back, the impression of his head on the pillow, his pyjamas folded neatly on a chair beside the bed – they reignited the anger and frustration of the previous evening, fuelling it with a certainty that her husband had stolen away quietly, not out of guilt, nor as a reprisal, but in the belief that he was being considerate.

She eased herself upright, raising her knees under the bedclothes and wrapping her arms around them, and scanned the depths of the room that still receded from her into obscurity. It didn’t occur to her then to question why the room was so dark in the daytime. It just was. Nor did it occur to her that there was any connection between the darkness surrounding her and the gloom she felt within. But a stagnant stillness seeped from every pore of the apartment, giving her a feeling of being incarcerated in a reliquary of unfulfilled expectations. With a sigh, she lowered her chin till it rested on her knees, watching the dark veil slowly lift to reveal more of the room’s drab detail, her own inescapable realty. She had become a void within a void. A nothing within nothing. And these endless Thursdays were her loneliest days.

With her spirits still sinking in the undisturbed silence, she clutched herself tighter knowing that, even if she called out now, no one would hear her. And not until she felt a tear roll down her cheek did she become conscious of the rain outside, rattling against the windowpane, drumming insistently in the deep empty courtyard below.

Pulling a tissue from the box on top of her bedside table, she used it to dry her eyes. Alongside the tissues, unnoticed now and momentarily forgotten, the letter from her sister lay opened.

As she emerged still further from sleep she sensed a chill in the air and recognised the faint odour of mould that had settled in the apartment since winter. And feeling tainted now, she made her way to the bathroom, shed her clothes, stepped into the bathtub, turning the water on cautiously and standing under the showerhead, letting the spray play against her face, willing it to refresh her spirit as much as her body. But despite this act of cleansing, the futility that had built through the dark days continued to weigh on her now as though the force of gravity itself had increased and was crushing her under its weight. The water bounced mockingly off her head and shoulders, splashing on the floor of the bath and pooling round her feet before gurgling down the drain like a village parade dancing away merrily through the streets, oblivious to the drudgery it was leaving behind. But only when the water began to run cold did she reach forward and screw the faucets shut.

She watched the last of the water swirl away then stepped out of the bath and towelled herself dry before returning to the bedroom to dress. She used no make‑up. Her only jewellery was the tiny silver wedding band she always wore, and her watch that lay on the table beside her bed. With some irony, she glanced at the address on the envelope. Amid the mundane details of her sister’s letter – the eager questions and intimate disclosures – there had been the inevitable envy – the vicarious excitement of writing to someone in Paris, France.

In the semi‑darkness, she straightened the bedclothes, then stood by the window, furtively parting its net curtains with the edge of her hand and watching the rain lash the cobblestones below. From every room, the outlook was the same: a lifeless chasm, trapped in a maze of implacable tenements. ‘Gay Paree,’ she sighed, turning away. She had been there with Michael for almost a year now. Although today, somehow, it seemed longer.

Despite the rain, Laura felt a sense of relief when she opened the big door of the courtyard and stepped out onto the Rue du Cherche‑Midi. The air was cold, even for April, and dark clouds had turned mid‑day into a dusk frequently split by vivid lightning. Quickly, she made her way through the traffic to the Métro, anxious to distance herself from the apartment and its oppressive atmosphere. By the time she reached the Musée d’Art Moderne, the rain had eased to a drizzle; the lightning had abated.

With the same urgency, she crossed the foyer and entered a succession of galleries, searching for the work of one man: Modigliani. A chance remark in her sister’s letter had brought to mind her college days and an avalanche of associations. Aaron and his beloved Modigliani, the Peace Movement, the euphoria of belonging to something much bigger, more important than oneself. But now, those fond memories were fading into the past. Now there was Michael filling the present, redefining it. Michael. In almost a year, this was her first visit to the gallery.

–o0o–

In 1930, Henry Miller, would‑be writer and patriot of the 14th Ward, left his native Brooklyn, left behind the Atlas Portland Cement Company and the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company, turned his back on the home of the brave, land of the free, and set sail for Europe. During the ten years that followed, he lived mostly in Paris, mostly in poverty; but despite the conditions under which his struggle for individual freedom forced him to live – or perhaps because of them – he managed to write three books[i], three milestones in his spiritual development, three giant steps along the narrow, winding path that leads from the darkness of self‑delusion into the brilliant light of personal truth.

–o0o–

Peter sat awkwardly on the edge of his bed, staring at the blank pages of his notebook, pen in hand, poised to write; but the words wouldn’t come. Outwardly, nothing had changed. The same seedy garret in a run down hotel on the Left Bank of Paris – the same musty smell of damp and age – the same Scandinavian voice in an adjacent room, repeating French phrases in response to a cassette recording – the same garbled conversations drifting up from the street below – the same hunger on waking – the same breakfast of warm milk and yesterday’s bread – and the same blank pages waiting to be filled. And yet it was all different now, like a familiar landscape seen unexpectedly from a fresh point of view, a change that Peter hardly dared to admit – as if to admit it, thereby forcing himself to test its reality, might destroy it like some kind of mirage.

Twenty‑four hours ago, disillusioned and disappointed, he had been on the brink of forsaking his literary ambitions, for the bohemian lifestyle he had affected in Paris had not offered him the inspiration he had hoped for, only an emptiness more stark and implacable than the pages he’d been unable to fill. And now, ironically, it was the fullness of his mind and its compulsive recollection of those events responsible for the change that prevented him from setting his thoughts down on paper. The echoes persisted; a jumbled collage of random details, each vying for attention in arrogant defiance of his attempts to marshal them in proper sequence. And the more he strove to master these unbridled hopes with the reins of logic and reason and probability, the more his newly found optimism strained to break free and charge exuberantly towards a future he knew he was only imagining yet still hoped to realise somehow. And this struggle between hope and despair persisted until finally, succumbing to the anarchy of these new insistent promises, he lay down on his bed alongside the unspoiled notebook and stared blankly at the cracks and stains that scarred the ceiling of his shabby little room…

[i]        Tropic of Cancer (Obelisk Press, Paris, 1934); Black Spring (Obelisk Press, Paris, 1936); Tropic of Capricorn (Obelisk Press, Paris, 1939)