Kerisham
July 1894

Julian, dear:

February the 9th, 1895. There, I have said it. I had long been certain it would be February – long, in fact, before anyone had thought of naming that angle of the year as ‘February’. But the detail of the year came late. I had hoped for another hundred. The news came from our Patron when I saw you in Paris last. You did remark that I seemed out of sorts at dinner after the recital. Yes, that was because of the news of the year. I think you had guessed as much.

But I think you had not guessed that the news came during the recital. I am sorry, Julian, I have always found Satie pointlessly languid, but I had no wish to upset you; and by my age one has learnt how to nap with one’s eyes open. So I dozed through the tinkle tinkle plonkle and I found myself in the Mansus, much quicker than I might have expected. I felt our Patron’s chill, and I began at once to fear the worst.

It didn’t come in person, of course – I didn’t even see its light – but its emissary was a full Name, a gratifying condescension indeed, and she left no doubt in my mind. The choice of February is an honour, if not a surprise. The choice of the year, well, I would have liked to know sooner. I hope you will excuse my irreverence if I wonder whether our Patron had forgotten the matter, or had at least not made up his mind. He is, as they say, not as he was.

‘I hope you will excuse my irreverence.’ Of course you will. Most raggies would have cast my letter into the fire when they saw me share my date – they would have found it in very poor taste – or even suspected some intrigue. But you have always been irreverent, dear Julian, and as my end grows nearer, I find that my own reverence wanes. Do not surrender yourself to excitement. I have no interest in your great project of cosmic abolition or celestial overthrow or whatever it is you are calling it now. But it is a relief to cast off the pieties.

I am going back East for the end. I don’t want to spend my final days alone. Dagmar wanted to accompany me, but I know she will get emotional and I’m afraid she will do something foolish. There is a young woman of good family – I will call her Gertrude because that is her name, but I shan’t tell you her surname because I don’t want her getting mixed up in your nasty schemes. Gertrude has recent knowledge of the region, as well as an unslakable enthusiasm for alpinism. I will find both very useful. She is quite well-connected and determined enough to want to travel alone, and I think a little suspicious of me, but I have won her with secrets.

Before I go, I will entrust a will to my lawyer here. You will find it aggravating when I tell you that I am going to name you in my will. You will find it more aggravating when I tell you why. I am doing it to win our argument. We have talked before about Solomon Husher, and his aesthetic ideals. You expressed a poor opinion of those ideals – very forcefully. The palest painting – you said – was an ambition for ghouls and not for raggies. You suggested Solomon was no true raggie. Very forcefully, Julian. I found it difficult to get a word in. And in any case I have always found it hard to explain in words what I find in Solomon’s work.

So instead I am going to paint it. And I am going to leave you the paintings. And although you have little time for his approach, you are going to examine them carefully, and you are going to see my point. You are going to do that firstly because I am your friend and I will be dead and you will feel so obliged. And secondly because I am going to put in them all that I have left of my secrets. Now I will tell you what I mean.

The first painting will be called ‘Abydos Uncrowned’. The second, ‘Nix Abolix’. The third, ‘Sunset Celia and the Unleashed Flame’. Do I perhaps now have your attention?

I will paint the first at Ortucchio. I have long wanted to stop in, and now I learn – did you already know? – I learn that Duffoure has a little girl. ‘The Line of Antaios’ – you wrote in your silly Letters – ‘the Line of Antaios ends not with the Wheel’. There are two things you might have meant there, I suppose, but indeed the Line still runs, and she its newest course. Perhaps I will bless her, like a wicked fairy. Back to Abydos. I’ll climb one mountain or another with Gertrude, and conceive the ruins of Abydos at its summit.

Husher wrote of the continuity of endings. You scoffed. So I will paint what happened at Abydos after the eight years of Chione’s silence – after the Shouts. Perhaps I will even paint what was woven from Chione’s hair.

The second I will paint in the hills outside Heraklion where the hawthorn blooms. Gertrude will not want to go to Crete, but I will promise her a hidden mountain in the Zagros and I think she will humour me. If I bring the proper offerings, the Horned-Axe might grant me audience in the Mansus. I doubt it. But if the subject matter opens any doors that I cannot close, the Axe will be on hand to close them. She will not be pleased with me, but at this late stage there is little she can do. And if I am going to paint the Cross’ fate, it is fitting for me to do so beneath her gaze. If they were not her children, they were certainly her servants. I’ll paint all the detail I can, Julian: how the Cross passed into Nowhere, and how they did not, and how they met with Worms, and how you may discern them now. Husher argued for the journey of colours. You disagreed. Perhaps I can still change your mind.

The third I will paint in the Shadowless Labyrinth. I don’t like the place, but it will be difficult to get the light right anywhere else. Gertrude will be the model for my Celia, if I can convince her. I will find a likely lad to stand in for the Sovereign of the Flame. I will paint the Sun as Celia’s shadow, and the Forge as the likely lad’s. I will paint myself as Winter, pining in the shadows or officiating at their union: Husher’s own paradox.

You fancy yourself an authority on the Sun’s Division, and I happen to agree with you. But I was there in every History when it occurred, and you were not. If you think you have nothing more to learn of the Division, then you need not look at my last painting.

In fact I will ensure all three are delivered to you veiled safely in black. If you’re afraid you might lose an argument with me, even after I am gone Nowhere, then you can leave them that way. Or you can be rid of them. The last three paintings of the Witch of Lagash – I can’t guess the price those might fetch at an Oriflamme’s auction. Although of course, no buyer is likely to understand the work as you might. Sell them, and my last secrets – which might have uplifted your anarchies – will go with me Nowhere.

Or not; there is one last vulgar alternative to Nowhere that I will investigate on my way East. But I suspect that bird has flown.

May the Patron’s ragged rays rest kindly on you, Julian. In all sincerity, when you have decided at last what it is that you want, I hope that you find it.

Nin