Peaces, Helen Oyeyemi [best life changing books TXT] 📗

fire in Dulwich. The day Přem destroyed his artworks … what was going through his mind? Apart from generating some pyrotechnic drama, I mean. That was years and years of effort; some of it remarkable. I was talking about it with Laura (De Souza) the other day, and she said, “Maybe it was a kind of donation, just like his kidney was?”

I just looked at her, like, OK, continue. But that was it. She looked so happy … “There you go, all solved!”

About Karel: I don’t think it’ll bother you that in my opinion it was a one-sided love there, with all the love on your side. You’re your father’s daughter that way. Enjoying people no matter what. But it bothered me that Karel was so two-faced, all affectionate and full of praise when you were around and then organizing behind your back. And now I’m catching myself saying one thing and meaning something else. I’m speaking ill of the man who mentored me because even though he put so much time and energy into helping me find my own way, he thought more highly of you, your opinions, your perceptions or whatever. That hurts. But you should still believe me when I tell you that when it came to testing you, Karel went to greater lengths than you realise. He was pulling stunts he wouldn’t even have bothered thinking about if I or one of his other young satellites had announced his very much existent son was in fact nonexistent.

I’ve mentioned the gatherings the three of us were at, but I’ve heard there were other gatherings where Přem was present but everyone had to act as if he wasn’t, and gatherings without Přem, where the rule was to behave as if he was there. The lunch Karel held for your birthday, for instance: Přem wasn’t there. You’re probably going, How would I know that when I wasn’t there either? (more about that in a sec), but Přem told me so himself. Karel invited him, but Přem saw no point in another awkward couple of hours in which he tried to befriend you and got nowhere. Přem asked that his paintings be given to you as a birthday present and bowed out. But Karel said to him: “Great, I’ll just have everyone act as if you’re there and see what she does.”

I asked Karel if that was really the plan. He said it was, and I said I wasn’t going to join in. He told me it was just a prank, but I said I still wasn’t going to join in and I’d be surprised if any of the others did. Then Karel said I was better off not showing up at all, that if I did, I’d get the sack and he’d employ another assistant immediately. I drafted the job advertisement for his next assistant that same afternoon, and when I gave it to him, he looked surprised—in a good way, which surprised me in turn, so we were both standing there with these “Huh!” expressions. Then he said: “So what now?”

I told him I was going to drive trains. That was the year we worked on the Lucky Day until it started to look like more than a freight train. I was down in Crewe every other weekend, sometimes with you and your dad, sometimes with Přem and a couple of others, lugging tools and paint pots and wheelbarrows stacked with all sorts of sheets and rolls down to the stabling yard. Somewhere in the middle of all that I’d applied for an apprenticeship with Arriva, expecting them to turn me down. But as you know, they didn’t … and the interview was on the same day as your birthday lunch …

Stop cursing me for not warning you about Karel’s prank. And stop cursing our friends. Two of them had books under contract to Karel’s publishing house and felt like they had to dance to his tune. The others … I asked about it, and it looks as if Karel gave different people different reasons for what he wanted them to do. People thought they were helping you, giving you a lighthearted way to admit that you’d been uncharacteristically cruel towards Přem, stuff like that. They thought it could be a conversation starter for the next time the two of you saw each other. But some of our friends didn’t buy any of the reasons Karel was trying to feed them. They only saw malice. Sonia told me Karel said to her: “Either Ava’s crazy, or we are. Don’t you think we’ve got to teach her a lesson?” Feuzi still says Karel decided to drive you mad, plain and simple, and the will is the final test of whether it worked.

Přem asked me how I can trust you, and Karel mistrusted you outright. They both get a special hypocrisy award for going on like that at the same time as they depended on you and what you played for Přem at night.

I trust you, Ava. When I show you what I’ve done, you greet it as whole. No concerning yourself with what’s absent, or parallels you wish to hear. You listen for what is already there. You were the first person I’d met who did that for my songs. This isn’t to say that I feel safe with you. Safety is something else.

That’s all I know about you and me and Přem and Karel.

13.

LAURA DE SOUZA

Ms. Kapoor,

You have asked me to write down my recollections regarding Přemysl Stojaspal. In case we need to review some details, you say, without specifying what events might make this necessary. You will recall that I initially refused, but I am now complying because you’ve promised that if I do, you’ll stop the racket you’re making and let us sleep in peace.

I believe that I’ve seen Přemysl Stojaspal—or, at least, a man resembling the one whose portrait hangs in the gallery car of the Lucky Day—once.

I