IMPOSTOR

I’ve always known my place, haven’t I. I’m not the type of cinemagoer that buys an economy ticket, then scurries into the VIP row and fidgets there, expecting to be exposed any moment.

I know what I’m worth. A couple of centuries ago at a slave market I’d have been no asset to my owner: skinny, no stamina, ageing. These days people are examined, head to toe, just like dummies in shop windows, with price tags attached. You are always being watched. You go down the street and can sense the X-rays of their eyes and the razor blades of their tongues.

“That coat is really something.” “A waste of money, if you ask me.” “Ain’t she hot?”

“What a hunk!”

Well, maybe you are thought of that way, but not me. I’m an average Joe, neither a bright, nor a dark spot. I’m khaki, merging with the background. They look straight through me.

OK, people wouldn’t exactly call me a fool, but I’m no genius, that I know for sure. At least, I used to know. The thing is, I have become a writer. “Tapped into my creative potential”, as they say. It’s not that I had asked for a gift. I had never really given much thought to the muses. And I was much better off without them, I must say.

Sheets of clean paper have always had a power over me. They draw me like white winter snow: you can’t help it, you just have to roll in it, leave some footprints, mar this shining surface. Paper must not stay white, it’s unnatural. As a boy, I would scribble away for hours, covering dozens of pages with meaningless words – anything to fill the blank space. Later I learnt the offensive name “graphomaniac”, the diagnosis I silently acknowledged, and decided to become a librarian. My library is a dusty refuge from the world of empty pages, empty rooms, empty lives.

After work I come to my flat with books arranged in alphabetical order, drink a bottle of milk with a chocolate chip cookie (I always buy it at the baker’s round the corner), sit down at the desk, turn on my Anglepoise and start to copy. That’s what I do for pleasure, copy texts by hand, indulge in writing. I specialize in short prose, optimal length, as I manage to copy one story per evening. The pen has to be black – a black and white symphony; not gel ink, God forbid, I don’t want the lines to be smudged when my hand gets sweaty. Only ballpoint retractable, and I stick to it. I’m quite proud of my handwriting. I’ve even learnt the Spencerian style, and sometimes make the uppercase letters all sweeping and ornate, just like in the nineteenth century. That’s when they wrote for others to understand them, not in this ugly shorthand code, which says, “I’m in a rush and can’t be bothered to make an effort.”

Once, I was copying a story by Chekhov, and when I put the pen aside I realized that I had continued to write on after the story was over. One extra page of someone’s text. And it was not Chekhov’s. This impostor had wormed its way into my copybook, until then uncorrupted by amateur compositions. I had not created it, it had written itself, and was sitting there smugly, taking up space reserved for someone else.

TEXTS FOR READING English

41

April 2013

I could have torn that page out, thrown it away, burnt it. But I didn’t. Next time I sat down to write, it happened again, with me being perfectly unaware of what was going on until I reread the last part, which turned out to be the continuation of yesterday’s narrative. This text was determined to get out, and I was just a medium. It was beyond my control, but I took comfort in the thought that without me, it wouldn’t have taken its visible shape.

It went on for weeks, until I ejected the last part of the text and there was nothing left in me to remind me of its long secret life inside my head. But the pages covered in my handwriting lay in front of me, and I couldn’t dismiss them. This stack of paper testified that I had either lost my mind, or become a writer.

I found it was less troubling to convince myself of the latter, and after a few doubt-filled days, I set up a blog on the Internet (had this idea from a film I’d watched recently) and posted my story. It got read by thousands of people, who raved about it in their comments. One of the readers was an editor of a solid literary magazine. He suggested including my piece in the next issue and, surprisingly, kept his word. Calls from publishers followed, with offers to bring out my collected or selected works. Works?!

“Surely, it can’t be that easy,” you will frown in disbelief. Indeed, you’re right. I mean, until that moment it was pretty easy, but then…

Are you a genius, by any chance? You are? Well, good for you. I had no idea what a genius is supposed to feel or do. But I could no longer remain khaki.

Before my rise to fame, a fellow librarian and self-pro- claimed friend used to invite me to his house at weekends for lunch. He is a family man and pitied me, though looking at his wife, I was overcome with relief. Let this cup pass from me. She would eye me disapprovingly, as if I was to blame for her husband’s low income. Now he calls me and enquires apologetically if I am free at the weekend to come over to them, adding that his wife particularly insists on it. I refuse, saying that I have to work. And I do try to write, consciously, painstakingly. It’s no good, and I don’t need a critic to see it. It’s my own text, and therefore it’s mediocre.

My work has been subjected to analysis, and it has been discovered that I write like Chekhov. The story I produced turned out to be a development of an original draft that Chekhov had been working on shortly before his death.

“It is amazing!” cried out my fans.

“It is plagiarism,” sniffed my detractors.

A story has surfaced about a printer publishing the continuation of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”, which was ghostwritten by him channeling Dickens’ spirit. I am bombarded from all sides with questions about the sources of inspiration, future plans and work in progress. I would like to dissociate myself from the text, but they won’t let me.

I’m now sitting in a VIP seat, expecting any moment to be asked to vacate it.

By Yulia Klimenova, MSU