Work Text:
Karen keeps the case for her typewriter on the highest shelf in the remotest closet in her apartment. On one side of the case, she keeps one to four bottles of scotch and a small jade Madonna. On the other, she keeps a hatbox filled with her grandfather’s pipe, her mother’s rosary, the rejections she was sent for her first novel, and the letters she’s received from Jules Hilbert.
The day she decides not to kill Harold Crick, she takes the hatbox down from the shelf and reads through every one of them, the publisher’s rejections and the professor’s letters alike.
When she’s done, she lights what she’s decided will be her last cigarette, sits down in front of her typewriter, and starts to imagine something altogether brand new: a life.
++
The first letter Jules receives isn’t a letter, it’s a packet, couriered over from West Madison Avenue. When he upends the envelope, a thin manuscript falls onto his desk, a typed note stuck carefully to the first page.
am attempting to un-fuck my first chapter, so far with middling success. if able, pls send notes. if unable, pls send scotch. - k
Jules turns the pages over in his hands and starts to read.
++
In response to her first chapter, Karen receives a letter and the marked up pages of her manuscript. The notes she sets aside. The letter she reads twice in quick succession. She touches a fingertip to the strict swoop of Jules’ writing, the angles of his t’s, the curled tails of his g’s. He’d been shorter than she’d pictured, more open, more direct. A buzzing energy tucked around him, a steady warmth.
Karen takes the last page of the letter and tapes it to the window pane nearest her desk.
and then there’s always Roland Barthes. But maybe in your case the author’s not so dead after all.
I’m more inclined to agree with Rilke, for what it’s worth.
Wonders happen if we can succeed
in passing through the harshest danger;
but only in a bright and purely granted
achievement can we realize the wonder.Sincerely,
Prof. Jules Hilbert
Karen presses her hand against the glass and re-reads the poem, dark letters on paper gone translucent against the skyline, and goes back to her desk and starts to write.
++
Karen doesn’t send back a letter so much as a sheaf of free verse, the ink from her typewriter smudged in places and the lines not entirely straight on the page. Jules’ hair is wet from guard duty and his bare feet are cold where they’re propped up on his coffee table, but he hardly notices the chill.
Harold’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, his voice carrying out over the street and to every passerby. Heedless of their stares, he leaned back and shouted, "No, I’m not, I’m cursing you, you stupid voice, so shut up and leave me alone!"
.
..
...Karen sat at her typewriter, the same typewriter on which she’d written eight novels, dozens of short stories, an unfinished biography of Alice Munro, and a handful of fake suicide notes designed to irritate and confound Penny, her previously unwelcome assistant/spy. Karen’s fingers hovered fruitlessly over the keys while in her mind, Harold Crick stood on the sidewalk, defiantly refusing to move forward in anything resembling an engaging plot.
Instead of writing about Harold, Karen narrated her own afternoon, a writing exercise foisted upon her by the less overtly useless, while rather more infuriating Penny. Karen stretched her legs. Karen stretched her fingers. Karen thought this exercise quite pointless. Despite an overwhelming desire to do so, Karen did not ransack her desk drawers for the lone pack of Marlboro Lights that had escaped Penny’s intrusive efforts to “help” her quit smoking. Instead, she chewed joylessly on her third stick of nicotine gum and stared out her office window.
Taped to the middle pane of the middle row of glass was a piece of paper and on it, a letter sent her by one Professor Jules Hilbert. Professor Hilbert had written Karen many letters over the years, though she had only officially made his acquaintance earlier that summer when she’d discovered a disturbing and god-like power of narration for which she’d eventually need extensive therapy and psychoanalyzation. Penny had assured her any psychiatric attention was necessarily trumped by her new deadline. For today, Karen agreed.
The paper taped to the window was thick cardstock, proper stationary. To the best of her memory, all the letters she’d received from Professor Hilbert were of similar quality, almost outdated in their formality, but the formality had become charming to Karen over the years. She found herself wondering if Professor Hilbert frequented a stationary store to purchase it, if he browsed through different weights and styles and colors of paper, if he selected his purchase after careful consideration or caved impulsively to aesthetic appeal. It only increased the charm, she thought, to imagine him wandering the aisles of a half-dusted store, different types of cardstock in his hands. At her typewriter, Karen smiled.
The paper at the window was orange tinted with September sunset. It reminded Karen of the light in Professor Hilbert’s office the day they’d finally met. Similarly hued, the light that day had filled the cluttered room with a gentleness she’d not expected, like an outstretched hand or an open palm. But perhaps that had been the man inside, Karen thought. He’d been not unlike the letters he’d written her: challenging and direct, warm and strangely familiar. Like a man who would shop at a stationary store and still send proper correspondence. Like a man who would take a stranger’s hand and -- despite all rational evidence -- do his best to help him.
Karen found herself staring at the letter, thinking of the man who wrote it, and thinking also of Harold Crick, the real Harold Crick. He was somewhere out in the world right now, no longer trapped in her head or in her story. No longer frustrated on a sidewalk, no longer void of plot or purpose. She was glad Harold had had someone like Jules to help him. Though he might not know it, Jules had helped her too, through letters not unlike the one taped to her office window. She thought she ought to thank him someday, though she was entirely uncertain how.
A shadow fell over Karen’s desk, her view of the window suddenly obstructed by a towering, demanding, infuriating woman.
“Is that for your book?” Penny asked. The timbre of her voice might’ve been pleasant once, but it had been stretched thin by what Karen could only imagine to be years of constant and unrepentant nagging.
Penny regarded Karen flatly. Karen did not reply.
Penny circled Karen’s desk, peering inquisitively over her shoulder. “This is not helping you finish this chapter. Stop typing everything I’m saying. The point of this exercise isn’t to goad me into letting you quit.”
Again, Karen did not reply.
Penny’s hands reached out toward the typewriter and
Beneath her typing is a note, scrawled hastily at the bottom of the page.
penny says back to work. an absolutely unforgiving master. may yet fire her. - k
Jules laughs to himself, a low rumble in his chest. The thing he’d so often loved about Karen’s novels was the sense of her he found there, the sharpness and wit of the narrator a constant in every one of them. It’s strange to see himself there, to see himself the way she’d seen him. She’d also felt familiar that day in his office, an old friend or a half-forgotten acquaintance. He flips her letter back to the beginning and reads again.
++
Jules sends back two packets of stationery. One has a typewriter embossed at the corner in a deep, dark blue. The other has geometric shapes in gaudy colors stenciled up one side. Karen loves it.
There’s a note tucked into the packet with both sets of paper.
From the dusted half of my preferred store.
Prof. Jules Hilbert
Karen runs her fingers over the paper and smiles.
++
Karen sends back a note on the colored stationery. She’s traced over some of the shapes with her pen, added lines behind so they’re 3D, sketched in shading at their corners.
Wish I'd had this stationery when I was writing suicide notes to Penny, it would've underscored the comedic bent of the letters perfectly. Have taken to leaving her lists of unnecessarily complicated (but thoroughly amusing) tasks instead. Will let you know her opinion of the stationery at next opportunity. Will remind her to keep her opinion of me to herself for foreseeable future.
Also, a belated thanks for your remarks on the chapter I sent in August. Despite the fact that your paper last year on contemporary first person narration completely misunderstood the point of Phillip Trudeau’s unreliable narrators, I’m still rather inclined to trust your opinion.
Prof. Karen Eiffel, M.D., Ph.D., D.D.S.
Jules tapes it to his office window.
++
The day before Thanksgiving Karen receives a delivery from Atlas Stationers on West Lake. She’s been out with Harold, doing research. The psychological evaluation is still on hold; for now there is just Harold, and what he’s able to tell her about his experience, and what she’s able to put into the book. It’s not proper analysis, exactly, but it’s helpful. She hasn’t imagined a death in months.
The letter stock Jules has sent -- of course it’s from him, though there’s no accompanying card saying so -- is thick, off-white with blue lettering. There’s a line drawing of a wristwatch in the bottom right corner and at the top, her name.
Prof. Karen Eiffel, M.D., Ph.D, D.D.S
Her smile starts at her core, past the still constant craving for just one more cigarette, and by the time she opens her mouth, her laugh is high and ringing and new.
++
The week before Christmas, Jules receives another messengered packet, this one much thicker than the first. There’s no note, no letter, just the thick stack of typed pages in an accordion folder wrapped with string. He knows as soon as he opens it that it’s the completed novel, every word rewritten to suit Karen’s new ending. He pours himself a glass of scotch and reads it in one sitting.
++
The day after she sends it, Karen receives back her manuscript, unmarked, and a letter from Jules.
Prof. Eiffel,
Though initially doubtful that a reworking of your novel could match the masterfulness of the original draft, I’m pleased to say that I’ve not only been proved wrong, but am embarrassed to have doubted it at all. The narration and character work are less cleanly structured than prior novels, but I think this only adds to the emotional resonance of Harold’s journey. The insertion of the narrator directly into the narrative is both fantastical and maybe not as unlike your previous works as first thought. You’ve always been just visible in the text, in my opinion. Don’t be afraid to allow yourself more visibility here. Don’t be afraid to allow yourself to be seen.
The book is lovely, Karen. The book is better. My only point of contention: Harold is not a full foot taller than I am.
You were right the day we met. The advice I gave Harold to follow through with your original ending is harshly drawn here, but rightfully so. It was my own foolishness that day, in thinking that his life could be worth objectively less than your ending. Perhaps that speaks to what I’d imagined of his life. Perhaps that speaks to what I know of mine.
Perhaps it’s time to re-evalute the quality of the pancakes, as it were.
Jules
++
On New Year’s Eve Karen receives, not a letter, but a bike messenger and a rush of cold air at her front door. He thrusts a thin envelope at her and when she opens it, it’s not Jules’ fine stationery but a hastily torn bit of legal paper, creased firmly down one side.
Karen,
I’ll be ringing in the new year at home with a bottle of scotch and a copy of Faulkner. If you’re not otherwise engaged, I thought you might join me.
1414 W. Fulton Ave., Apt. 2B
Karen sets the paper on her desk and runs a hand along her jaw. Jules’ letter is still taped to the window, threads of frost climbing up the corners of the glass. The weather outside is frigid, the odds of getting a cab at this hour dismal, and her hair rather unfit for company.
But.
She presses her palm to her finished manuscript, next to the box of baked goods Ana has sent her for Christmas and the typewriter ribbon Penny brought over. Karen presses her palm to the life she gave Harold, and the things she imagined that were worth living for. Her bright and purely granted achievement. She pats the paper once, twice, and heads for the door.
As Karen finds out New Year’s Day, Jules happens to make excellent pancakes.
++
The day Karen's book comes out, Jules walks six blocks in the rain to buy one. There have been copies floating around Karen's apartment for weeks, but it's a sort of tradition, he tells her. "The man buys stationery and real live books," she'd said as he'd grabbed her umbrella on the way out the door.
Her novel is set up on a display at the front of the store, sharing space with a handful of other new releases, and Jules cracks it open before he heads to the register. He scans the dust jacket, Karen's picture at the back flap, and then -- the dedication page. One short line at the top and the sketch of the wristwatch from her stationery at the bottom.
To H., for obvious reasons. To P., for less obvious ones. And to J., for helping me learn to keep time.
It must still be raining on the walk back to her apartment, Jules knows, but he doesn't notice. He doesn't mind.