The Limits of the World by Andrew Raymond

Author:Andrew Raymond [Raymond, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hunterhill Books
Published: 2022-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

21

The Secret Reader

Chollima Street

Han pulled the cello case out from under his bed, getting the same rush of excitement he had felt when he first opened it in Mae's apartment. He wondered if the previous owners of Nineteen Eighty-four could have ever imagined that copy finding its way into North Korea, where its presence would be an on-going matter of life and death. The book had found a way to come alive, to prove itself.

He sat on the end of his bed and read the first line quietly, as if someone else were in the room whom he couldn’t disturb: ‘“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”’ He held the book in a tight grip – the blood draining from the tops of his fingernails – scared that if he let go for even a second, the spell he was caught in would break.

As the pages passed, he listened out for some sound of Mae coming home, but he found himself lost in the figure of Winston and his silent suffering in his lonely Ministry of Truth office. The pitiless way Winston looked at his fellow citizens, helpless to do anything for them except grieve the sad passing of time. Han dragged A Great Mind across the bedspread, now realising how long he had been sitting in what he thought would be a temporary position at the end of his bed, and took the pencil out of the notebook’s centre pages. He lit a Commie Marlboro, letting his thoughts crystallise in the pause required to drag on it.

‘I have discovered the tourists and they have discovered me. There is nowhere left to hide now and we are getting to know each other.

‘There is still no sign of Mae downstairs, and now I understand how Werther felt. There are limits to how long you should go without love, or at least desiring someone. Humans’ longing for connection requires a target, otherwise you’re throwing darts in the ocean as a means of fishing. You are just slowly decaying, by yourself, the sky’s invisible cage descending on you. I don’t know what kind of love would be good enough for me. How much love could I take? Is it possible to want someone too much? If I was with Mae, would I not be like a young man having a whole bottle of whisky for his first drink? I’m not sure I could take it. Maybe my body isn’t built to withstand such love. Listen to me: I don’t even know her, yet I talk of loving her. How can I miss someone I don’t even know? Because when love appears inside you, you realise it’s what you’ve been waiting on all those other times you’ve been suffering. The Inmin Boanseong might take Mae away from me. They might even take me away. But locking someone up for what’s inside them, for what they think and feel, is so futile. As long as we have bodies, we’re already prisoners.

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