REVERSE PRİNT

A lead letter in my left palm. A reversed "e." My fingers turn it. One. Two. Three. Cold metal, the first texture of morning. Every morning the same. Every morning different. Every morning a page missing.

The smell of ink on the walls of the room. Dried, aged, seeped into the pocket of my coat. I breathe it in. Eyes closed. One breath. Two. They open.

A page on the desk. I wrote it this morning. I don't know what I wrote. Handwriting. Rhythm. Letters side by side, no meaning, no meaning needed. Only the hand. Only the ink. Only the page. I set the pen down. Ink on my fingers. Not yet dry. Never will be.

I turn to the window. The sidewalk across. Empty. No little girl. No printer. No nameless woman. Only stone, only morning, only September light—a thin line on the glass.

A light day. Perhaps.

I keep turning the lead letter. Four. Five. Six. I'll put it in my left pocket. Not yet. One more turn. The edge of the reversed "e" beneath my fingertips. Not sharp. Years have softened it. But it's still there. Still reversed. Still beyond correcting.

My lips move. No sound. A line of verse. Which line. I don't know. It passes before it's finished.

The door.

One knock. I wait. Two. Three. On the third, a voice:

"Mr. Vane? Bow Street."

Young. Trochaic. Irregular. The creak of boots at the threshold. Haste. Out of breath. Twenty-four, twenty-five.

The rustle of a uniform. Cold metal of the door handle beneath my fingers. I open it. My eyes over his shoulder. Not his face. Never the face. Face = page. I don't want to read. Not yet.

"Mr. Vane. A—something—a printer. Chandos Street. Dead. They'd like you—as a consultant—"

Printer.

The word hangs in the air. Two seconds. Three, maybe. The body stops. My left palm closes. No letter here, it's in my coat pocket. But the palm closes. Closes and tightens. Nothing to grip. Still it tightens.

Printer. Page. Letter. Ink. Ty—

No.

Not today. Today I'm only reading. Only. Reading.

My lips move. No sound. Kell doesn't notice. His boots creak. Trochaic. Irregular. Young.

I take my coat. From the hanger. Dried ink in the pocket. Fielding's ink. Years ago. Dried but it won't come out. It never will. The weight of the coat on my shoulders. Familiar. Like an old page. Folded, unfolded, folded again.

The second chair.

I don't look.

Crossing the room, I don't look. Beside the desk. Empty. Always empty. There. Waiting. I won't say who it's waiting for. I won't. It's simply there. Simply empty. Simply—

I turn to the door. Kell at the threshold. Waiting. An expression on his face. Bored. Puzzled. The "harmless old poet" expression. I know it. The same in everyone. The same page in everyone. The same print. The same error.

My boots at the threshold. Outside, September. Chandos Street is far. Near. Doesn't matter. A step will be taken.

A step is taken.

I don't look at Kell. Past his shoulder. To the end of the street. Nowhere.

"Let us read."

One word. Kell is about to say something. He doesn't. Boots creaking. Trochaic. Irregular. On the stairs.

I follow behind him. In my coat pocket, the lead letter. A reversed "e." Cold. Always cold.

The door closes. The room is empty. Desk. Page. Pen.

The second chair.

Empty.

Chandos Street. Narrow. Brick on both sides, the sky above no wider than a finger. September light doesn't filter through the windows; the glass is filthy, the light fractures, falls in broken shards onto the pavement. Kell ahead. Boots. Trochaic. Irregular. I follow. In my coat pocket, the lead letter. A reversed "e." Cold.

The door. Fitch's Print Shop. The letters on the sign have faded. Thirty years. Thirty years of ink seeped into the signboard, scrape it and it won't come off. You won't scrape it.

Kell pushes the door. A creak. Metal hinge, ungreased. Inside—

Ink.

I stop. At the threshold. Eyes close. One breath. Two. Something inside me—no. Not something. Only the smell. Only ink. Thirty years old. Dried, fresh, fresh over dried, dust over fresh. Layers. Like a page. Each layer a year. Each year a print run.

Eyes open.

I step inside. The first place I look—habit, the body faster than the mind—searching for a bookshelf. None. No bookshelf here. Type cases. Wall to wall. Wood. A to Z. Each compartment a letter. Each letter a life. I scan their spines. My fingers don't touch. My eyes do. That's enough.

Then I see him.

Samuel Fitch. On the floor. Beside the press. Face down. Right hand on his chest. Fingers clutching the fabric. Tight. A final gesture. Left hand open. Palm up. He was holding something. No longer is.

The palm is empty. The creases are empty. Ink has seeped into the palm over the years, it won't come out.

I don't look.

I don't look at the face. I don't look at the body. My eyes drift. Over the body. To the press.

To the press. A half-set page. Letters in lead. One line. The last line. Incomplete.

I approach. My steps slow. Iambic. Left. Right. Left. Right. I stand at the edge of the press. The page is there. Lead letters. Set. Not yet printed. No ink on them. Only metal. Only shape. Only—

A gap.

In the last line. A gap. Wide. A fissure among the other letters. A missing tooth. A—

My finger rises. In the air. Above the gap. A millimeter. I don't touch. I won't touch. I read in the air. The width of the gap. Its shape. Its edges. Its distance from the other letters.

"For thirty years this house has printed by the hand of Samuel Fitch. Letter by letter, line by line. And this page, the final page, is the master's gift to his apprentice: May his name live in lead, may his name be W___REN."

A gap. Three strokes. Wide.

"The man is dead, Mr. Vane. Are you looking at the page?"

Kell. Behind me. His voice trochaic. Impatient. Young.

I don't answer. My finger in the air. A millimeter. The gap. Then:

"Milton wrote it. 'They also serve who only stand and wait.' This man waited. The letter never came."

Kell's breath. A pause. "…What?"

"I'm reading."

A lie. But not a lie. I'm reading. I'm writing. The two are the same. The two are different. I won't say how. I won't.

I turn to the room. Like a page. Left to right. Top to bottom.

The type cases. A to Z. But the W case—

My steps carry me to W. The case. The compartments. W's compartment. Open. One slot empty. One letter missing. A wide slot. A wide letter. The gap on the page is wide too. The same width. The same shape. The same—

On.

The press. The lever. The ink roller. Dry. Nothing printed today. Today only set. The final letter is waiting. The man was placing the last letter when—

No.

The man was placing the last letter before. Before placing it. He flinched. Something happened. A noise. The letter fell. The man too.

I look at the floor. Beside Fitch's body. A mark. Rectangular. Edges inked. A tray mark. A tray fell. Letters scattered. Three, four letters on the floor. Scattered. Pieces of lead. A noise. Metal on metal. Noise.

Old man. Heart. Flinch. Fall. Silence.

My eyes drift. Marginalia. The main text is what everyone sees. Marginalia is what no one does. On the rack, a cloak. Marta Fitch's. Buttons. One. Two. Three. Fastened wrong. The third button in the fourth hole. Haste. Dressed quickly. Went somewhere. Came back. Haste.

An apron on a chair. Josiah Crane's. Cloth. Dry. No ink. Didn't work today. Or left early. Dry apron = blank page. Unwritten.

The third hook. Empty. Elias's apron is gone. Not on the floor. Not on the hook. Nowhere. He isn't wearing it. Didn't put it on today. Or—

Behind the shelf—

I stop.

Beside the W case. Between the type cases. A narrow passage. Wooden backs. And there. Behind the shelf. A little girl. Seven. Muddy shoes. The mud is dry. She's looking. Simply looking. Her eyes—

My lips move. No sound.

No. On. The page. The W case. The empty slot. On.

Two seconds. Three. The girl is gone. Was never there. Behind the shelf, wood. Dust. Only dust.

Kell didn't notice. Kell is elsewhere. Looking at the body. Taking notes. Pen on paper. Trochaic. Irregular. Young.

On.

The three. I see all three. I don't speak. I watch.

Marta Fitch. Hands in her lap. Fingers interlaced. Eyes red. She's been crying. But dry now. No tears. Only red. Only swollen. I listen to her meter. Her breath. Iambic. Heavy. Even. One. Two. One. Two. The meter of grief. No disruption. The caesura in place. The breath in place.

This text is suffering. But the meter is even. No lie. Only pain. Readable. One passes over it.

"Go home."

A command. Rare. But here—something else. Marta looks up. Red eyes. She nods. Rises. Leaves. The buttons on her cloak still wrong. I don't correct them. I won't.

Josiah Crane. Arms crossed. Jaw tight. Thirty-four. Muscled. Ink on his fingers. Fresh. But his apron is dry. A contradiction. Marginalia. I listen to his meter. Even. Iambic. But—somewhere. Somewhere the caesura is too long. One breath too many. One pause. He's hiding. He's not breathing, he's hiding.

You didn't work today.

I don't say it. Not yet. Note. Marginalia. Not the main text. But noted.

Elias Wren.

In the corner. Back to the wall. Hands in his pockets. Shoulders slumped. Nineteen. Eyes on the floor. He doesn't look at me. Doesn't look at anything.

I watch. Not his face. His hands. In his pockets. Closed. Hidden.

This boy is not a text. This boy is a—

I stop. I swallow the word.

This boy is a printer.

I swallow it. On.

Elias speaks. "I-I-I didn't d-d-do anything."

A stutter. Every syllable a pause. Every word a caesura. No meter. No rhythm. Not iambic. Not trochaic. Nothing. Every sentence a fissure. Every sentence a gap. Like the gap on the page. Like W's empty slot.

A word that breaks the meter is a lie.

But this boy has no meter. It isn't broken. It's absent. Every sentence of his reads like a lie. But it isn't. The theory doesn't work. The theory—

Not a misprint. A different alphabet. I can't read this boy. For the first time. I can't read him.

My left palm closes. No letter. It's in my pocket. But the palm closes. Habit. The body faster than the mind.

"What exactly do you do?"

Kell. Behind me. His voice flat. Impatient. Trochaic.

"I read."

"You're not reading." Kell's voice changes. He saw something. Understood something. Or thinks he did. "Right now you're writing this man's story. You're looking at these three people and assigning them roles. Author. Character. Marginalia."

I stop.

I don't look at Kell. I look at my coat pocket. Dried ink. Fielding's ink. A stain. A stain of years.

Silence. Three seconds. Four. Kell's breath. Trochaic. Irregular.

"Donne wrote it." My voice flat. Short. "No man is an island. No text is read alone either. A reader is required."

A wall. A wall of quotation. The subject closes. Kell falls silent. About to say something. Doesn't. Boots creaking. Moving away. Back to the body. To his pen. His paper. Trochaic. Irregular. Young.

But he saw. The reader saw. Kell saw. A moment. A crack. Something stirred behind the wall of quotation.

I continue.

I turn back to the page. To the gap. To W's place. My finger in the air. A millimeter.

I don't touch.