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4. Rules of the Genre

[Great Britain, London, City of London]

“Of course not! What kind of a detective story doesn’t have a dead body!” Alexandra laughed, leaning on the tall table next to the street view window. “There’s always a crime, there’s always a criminal.”

It was crowded in Rosslyn Coffee at Queen Victoria, the scent of freshly made Colombian Arabica filled the space, Richard was already done with the breakfast – coffee and a striped crunchy croissant – and was trying not to miss a second.

He texted her on one of her social medias, from a cover account of an actor Richard North – with very believable photos from his theatrical work, made-up past relationships and buddies – though she didn’t reply right away, only in the evening.

She said that the morning is the most productive time of the day, and therefore it’s better to meet for breakfast. Ante meridiem London was lively on weekdays, life was bubbling over, on City of London’s narrow streets cars lined up in rows in front of streetlights, pedestrians rushed to work, picking up coffee to-go on the run.

“The point of a detective is in narrating the sequence of solving a mystery, murder here is both the crime and the disruption of balance between good and evil,” continued Alexandra. “It’s the rule of the genre. The structural elements of the system define it. There’s always a conflict and a task, and the more developed the detective story is, the more believable it is – because it is more stable.”

Richard nodded, licked his lips. Alexandra had barely gotten through half of her breakfast – busy with the conversation, with a habit of not rushing her meals.

“Well, you understand it all yourself, it’s the same thing in acting. The more you understand the character, his motivation and his essence, the more indistinguishable from reality he will be.”

He did understand. All of his life was spent under false names, in foreign countries, all his life was spent on edge, parting lies from truth wrapped in tapestries of lines of mystification and artificially made set-dressings.

She created plots the verisimilitude of which was hard to doubt.

“When you have to learn a new occupation to act in a single minute-long scene,” Richard smirked.

“When you have to pry into archives of the National Library in Paris and translate the periodics of the entire summer of a specific year of the 19th century – to write a single episode in a historical novel,” Alexandra joined in. “Exactly so. Man underestimates his imaginative abilities – and gives little thought to the fact that the objective reality is no different from a fictional one.”

“It would be good if everyone only did evil in their own head.”

“Yes,” she agreed easily. “Ideally – yes. But no one listens – even though everything is so simple.”

Truly, simple … But both of them are now sitting in a café in reality, not in imagination, and the world around them is real and corporeal – just as the unfinished cup of cappuccino and the half of a bagel on the plate.

He felt that it got hotter – like in a Hot and Cold game. She was smart and perceptive, she was still looking at him closely – to see something that he hid behind the mask of sympathy and bashfulness. He wasn’t acting out the part of a ladykiller, he wasn’t portraying a head-over-heels fan – he chose something in the middle, he wanted to show that he was different from the rest – though unsuccessfully for now.

He talked little about himself – and listened more instead. Richard, for some reason unknown to himself, did not try to hang noodles on her ears, playing the role of someone who wants to present himself in the best light – in front of her.

She’s gotten used to being used – she’s gotten used to being wanted. She hid under the guise of openness and disinhibition, but behind the acceptance of the world as it is – with the ignorance and the cruelty – she hid disappointed resignation.

Everything’s simple.

“You speak as if you know everything there is to know, and you’re bored because of it.”

She paused to think, her dark eyes were looking not at Richard but at the window, at the shop signs on the opposite side of the street, at the passers-by and the passing cabs.

“Maybe,” she said after some time. “Sometimes that’s how it is, no kidding. Moreover, I share it, I tell a lot and translate a lot into an accessible language – of metaphors, archetypes, role models and digestible plots – but it still only reaches those who want to see and hear.”

Richard hid his excitement, he merely shifted his legs on the bar of the counter-height stool.

“Alchemy?”

“The very one,” Alexandra replied with a smile. “The wine of the blood of kings, the becoming and the purpose, the Great Work … Who needs all that – if everyone saw cats and vineyards, medieval catacombs and a dog-loving autistic being rescued from prison by his visionary wife?”

Riddles again … She explained the meaning of every metaphor in her books, they came together into a certain algorithm of success of any work – but there was always something missing. Like in encryption: she made one key public, the other kept to herself – because only those among the Poets had that key.

“I need it,” Richard raised his eyebrows slightly, he looked at Alexandra closely until she looked back at him. “I seemingly understood everything – and still understood nothing.”

She sighed and smiled. Softly, forgivingly. She had assumed they would talk about the objective reality – London, Moscow, parties and masquerades, the sphere of work they had in common – according to his cover story … And he’s expecting a revelation from her – as if she could, here and now, show him the secrets of existence.

“And why do you need that?”

Good question. To complete the mission.

“To become myself.”

He himself didn’t understand why he said it like that – his mouth spoke it on its own. Odd – but it was as if he began to hear her better, speak her language – without coercion, without constant interpretation of every outputted sentence.

“You already have everything you need to do that, Richard North. Don’t look for answers on the outside – they’re inside us. As soon as you learn who you are, everything will happen on its own – because there will simply be no other option.”

“That’s complicated.”

“Complexity is a habit. We build a pile of terms and concepts all our lives, trying to describe the world around us, we use the visible to describe the visible – and we deny what we don’t understand or can’t describe. If I tell you that there’s someone behind your back, and you won’t turn – will you be able to describe what’s behind you?”

Laymen get migraines from such conversations. MI6 agents mustn’t have migraines – because they’re ineffective.

“I will,” he said, moving his shoulders involuntarily as if he had goosebumps. “Intuition, imagination, juxtaposition of indirect indicators – the reflection in the glass, breathing, noise, the direction of your gaze—”

She liked the answer.

Alexandra beamed, “So you know everything even without me – and understanding will come when the right time comes. Alchemy is, foremost, not transformation of the external, but transformation of the internal.”

The only thing he’s managed to understand so far was, the more he opens up to her, the more she trusts him. She asked the imaginary intelligence agent to undress not out of lust, but so he would bare his soul.

Richard ran his palm across his face, his cheeks reddened – from a genuine feeling of absurdity. He’ll have to pull real bashfulness out of himself – not the sly, feigned one – with the quickened pulse and cold sweat on his temples.

“It’s easier to discuss dead bodies,” he chuckled.

“Because everything’s clear with them, going back to the rules of the genre. In our own soul we do the same investigation, we get the system of symbols, the castle of imagination in order. We give every phenomenon a name – that gives its essence a clear-cut definition, but ad libitum, not as the world of the objectively existing things teaches us.” Alexandra grew silent and then added, “Because the objective existence is a myth, just a landmark of the rule of the genre.”

His genre is espionage. Richard suddenly became curious about what she’ll say if he dumps the whole truth at her, as it is: that he’s been tailing her for a month already, that MI6 had prepared him to win her trust the best way he can, that he knew her biography, the toothpaste that she brushes her teeth with and the beauty shop in Moscow where she gets her enormous long nails done once every three weeks – regardless of her travel arrangements …

That he must become her lover, make it so she brings him into the circle of Poets – for him to find out why this alchemical publicity was initiated.

He could offer her to work together, could recruit her, threaten her – but she was the kind of cat to walk alone, unable to be scared even by threat of torture and death.

She’s more cunning than he thought – more cunning than his superiors expected. She wouldn’t have looked at him like that if she hadn’t realized that an agent might be sent to her.

Alexandra may be giving him the go-around … In any way, he’s both the prime contractor and the expendable supply. To feel anything personal – from hurt to disappointment – was beyond the bounds of his professional skills. He really does have everything he needs to avoid being fooled.

He doesn’t understand what he’s looking for – even if he was given clear instructions. It’s never easy with people, that’s a fact – but when the players get too far ahead of him, the playing becomes torturous and strenuous.

With her, it was as if Richard was reaching for the moon, but wishing for distant stars that had long died, and the light years distance only brought to eyesight memories of their life.

“Oh my God, I didn’t mean to work you up!” Alexandra exclaimed.

Richard jumped.

The rules of the genre … Even she recognizes them.

“Everything’s fine, I just got lost in thought. Shall we take a walk?”

5. Nigredo

[Great Britain, London, Soho]

At the headquarters of MI6 on Cambridge Circus, known as ‘the Circus’ in the agency’s parlance, a real circus was unfolding. Richard was presenting his monthly report, recounting everything he managed to gather during the observation period, detailing recent events – his encounter with Stella Fracta, their Domodedovo-Heathrow flight, and their morning breakfast.

He was trying to explain that she was anything but an international spy, not an evil genius – but a genius.

What she told him was a refrain in each of her texts, as if she left her mark on everything she touched. He didn’t forget to mention the red notebook, either.

“The system of symbols is the terminology with which a person describes reality – both existing and imaginary,” Richard said. “It’s a tool for organizing space—”

His colleagues stared at him with vacant, uncomprehending eyes. Some had taken the course on alchemy with him, others were there as lecturers, but judging by their reaction, they all understood nothing. Richard felt like they were mocking him.

“The Great Work is not a recipe for transforming metals into gold, it’s not a recipe for creating the philosopher’s stone, and the philosopher’s stone is not a stone, but an artistic representation of that which fulfills one’s innermost desire. The philosopher’s stone is red because the color red symbolizes becoming, unity, quintessence.”

Primitive zombie flicks came to Richard’s mind: the collective intelligence, the lack of conscious thought … To the creatures who glared at him standing next to the projector screen, it didn’t matter what he was saying – they wanted to eat his brain. He paced back and forth at the end of the oval glass table in the center of the conference room, explaining to them that it was all simple – yet they were seeing something of their own.

“Mercury and sulfur in the alchemist’s parlance represent the two natures of matter, feminine and masculine, creation and destruction, and their union yields salt, but not the salt kind of salt, not even mercury sulfide, but rather uncertainty – like entropy in information theory.”

The formula, common sense, a consistent picture painted. Incredible!

“The Great Work is an algorithm for constructing oneself from scratch, as one was designed by the creator – to become. It’s an algorithm for refining one’s environment, because only the natural flow of things creates stable, resilient systems. Becoming is to fulfill the mission, it’s not money or triumph or world domination—”

Who was he talking to? Strange, frightening, foolish. They were looking through him, they didn’t hear a word he said – however much he paced in front of the whiteboard, waved his hands, pointed his fingers: one, two, three, four.

“The four stages of the Great Work are represented by colors, and each stage and color is a step of evolution. Alchemy is internal transformation—”

They’ll say they heard this all before – and that everything he was repeating is clear – and, at the same time, unclear. Why did he understand – and they didn’t?!

“Nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, rubedo – black, white, gold, and red – are represented by processes of decay and purification, construction and creation, gaining wisdom from the advice of the wise and the final becoming in the name of service.”

Richard was having a nightmare – him, speaking into nothingness. What stage is he on? The ground is slipping out from under his feet, the familiar world is crumbling, it’s as if he begins to doubt everything.

A devilish science, this alchemy! No wonder people flee from it – from its destructive power, from the shock of its revelations!

Richard tossed and turned in sweat-soaked sheets, visions blended with reality. Dreaming or awake, is he trying to explain something to someone, dreaming or awake, does he suddenly understand, grasping awareness by the tail, like an elusive chimera, the damn Ouroboros – the serpent biting its own tail?

He wanted to scream and cry for help, he wanted to shriek with joy as loud as he could, to share this sudden realization with the entire world.

He understood.

All kinds of things went on in the Circus headquarters, in rooms designed to resemble apartments or comfortable hotel rooms – meant for both permanent and temporary residence. Richard was the type to never make noise, he never even tossed in his sleep – because self-control is a skill that’s impossible to lose or forget.

He sat up sharply on the bed, air escaping from his lungs with a wheeze, burning his throat – as if he had been screaming in his sleep, like under torture.

He couldn’t remember what he had understood. What kind of devilry was this – a theatrical stage, a conference room table, trying to explain alchemy to MI6 agents in front of a crowd clad in medieval garb – he had no idea. Normally, his work-related nightmares were different … They were rare – because he never remembered his dreams – and specific, understandable, frightening only because he failed and let everyone down.

If alchemy, nevertheless, was true, then he was still at the very beginning of the journey – in the black void of nigredo, in the burnt up, broken, bitter, and frightening nothingness.

He wrapped himself in damp blankets, wiped nervous sweat from his forehead, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

If need be, he will offer himself up for experiments on the alchemical slab – but for now, he remains in his own genre.

This better turn out to be a cold-induced fever, he thought, sinking into viscous sleep. Perks of government service – good insurance. Both for the living and the dead.

6. Liars

[Great Britain, London, City of Westminster]

“They told me once that all poets are liars … I thought about it.”

The voice reverberated across the ribbed ceilings of the crypt beneath the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, the decorations of medieval dungeons – wine cellars from the novel about the murder on vineyards – echoed the mystical mood of the meeting with the author.

Artificial lamps simulating candles lined the space, the columns dividing the hall into sectors disappeared above, supporting the arches of the ceiling. This place, both eerie and sacred, kept its own atmosphere even with the sounds of working photography equipment, three hundred pairs of eyes were fixed upon the stage.

“Why write about things that don’t exist, why craft perfect worlds that will console nobody but the desperate? Heroes, villains, knights, beauties, beasts – abstract symbols echoed across every culture – but removed from objective reality. We live in a world with no black and white, on occasion we can’t choose what to wear, what wine to pair with our dinner – Barolo or Barbaresco,” Alexandra – Stella Fracta – raised her ruby drink, smiling ironically. “What is there to say about choice, then: between one’s own interests and the common good, instruction and justice, chaos and order – if one cannot be imagined without the other?”

Richard found himself getting confused. Sophistry – manipulating concepts that are valid separately and paradoxical together, deception through employing cognitive distortions and the imperfections of formal logic.

There are rules for resolving contradictions – preconceived instructions. For choosing between equivalent options, there’s chance and improvisation. For making decisions within a limited number of steps, there are real-time operating systems.

“I could say it in my own words, but this question was already answered by Vadim Rublev, doctor of philosophy, my teacher and the very Grandmaster whose encrypted poems my classmates and I translated into different languages ten years ago to practice the art of conveying meaning. I’ll quote – read from the sheet – because it, well, matters.”

She was smiling, she emphasized the last phrase with an ironic tone. She waved her free hand – still holding the wine glass in the other – like a magician. A piece of paper appeared in her fingers, and the audience gasped – from surprise and apt relief – while Alexandra continued.

“The world, peculiar and unfamiliar, made of metaphors and images, the one legends and songs are composed about, really did exist once. It is the poet’s task to salvage this fickle mist, the fragile gift, the memory and faith, to save it while wandering in the darkness, to carry it through generations so that, when the age of light comes again, love and goodness can be gifted to the rising scarlet sun.”

Hope and goodness – for them to simply be. Simply so they are passed on … The same instinct, embedded in our genes.

For some reason, Richard wanted to leave.

“The poet is chosen to be the one to, against all odds, continue to speak about the utopia. He’s chosen to pass on what must be saved – because that is our reality, it demands a coordinate system, the rules of the genre.”

He felt like he understood – but at the same time, he was unsettled. When the inner beast senses danger, when his arm hairs stand on ends beneath his shirt, when a shiver runs down his spine … She speaks about alchemy, because that’s how it must be – because it must be passed on and heard.

This is her legacy – humanity’s legacy. Poets lie to cocoon the core of truth in lies, to let lies wear down with time, but help the truth survive – and endure until the moment when neither masks nor weapons nor espionage nor the skill of puzzle-solving will be necessary.

Richard was never a poet in any sense of the word, yet now he realized that his coordinate system, his utopia – the struggle between order and chaos, friends and foes – were just the rules of the genre.

Just that.

Suddenly, he felt an unbearable need to approach Alexandra and ask her what he should do when the boundaries of the rule of the genre, seen clearer than ever before, begin to resemble cage bars.

He also wanted to ask why this was the image that came to his mind.

7. Blood of Kings

[Great Britain, London, City of Westminster]

Sir Leigh McKellen was a silver-haired old man, tall but hunched over crutches due to arthritis. His young driver, Remy Adan, was always close by, laughing at his jokes – just as strange as Alexandra Stern’s – and occasionally handing his master a new glass.

The wine of the blood of kings – another metaphor, a wordplay – and Richard sincerely hoped it had nothing to do with the British royal family.

“I often say she has good taste – in both women and men,” Sir McKellen winked at Richard slyly. “Are you a model?”

“No, I’m an actor.”

“A bit old for a model,” Remy chuckled, half under his breath, but still audible amidst the cacophony of background noise – music and voices.

“Rude, Remy!” exclaimed Alexandra. “I’m the rude one around here – don’t take after me.”

“No, it’s not rude at all,” replied Richard, taking a sip of Barolo. “It’s true.”

They had already been interrupted twice for group and couple photos, as expected – and advantageous. McKellen and Adan were old friends of Alexandra’s; the knight of the Order of the British Empire was a consultant for several of her early novels, and his driver – and assistant – treated her as if they had known each other since childhood, even though that was far from the truth.

In a couple of hours, rumors will circulate that the writer Stella Fracta had made a public appearance with her new paramour, a relatively unknown British actor, and confirming this would be the photos where Richard North leaned in to whisper something in her ear. Richard, of course, did this intentionally, whispering warnings about guests that approached them with a new round of praise.

Alexandra seemed to be fine with Richard sticking close to her every move and pretending that he departs for drinks or snacks only when she engages in conversation with the guests.

She was wearing a suit – black wide-legged pants and a top with open shoulders and back, her skin shimmered with glitter applied over tattoos – intricate monochromatic geometric patterns. She held her glass by the stem, Richard held his by the bowl, deliberately incorrect, and he spent the whole evening waiting for her to comment on it, but she said nothing; she explained the wines being served at the event, as they were the same varieties grown in the fictional commune, one of the wineries in Barolo from ‘Cats Don’t Drink Wine’.

This was the height of the afterparty in the crypt beneath the Church of St-Martin-in-the-Fields – when the guests were already drunk and relaxed, yet had no intention of leaving. Richard drank sparingly – because, despite his ability to always stay focused, being sober, he felt uncharacteristically excited.

He was too old for a model – but he was still young. He was only thirty-five, fourteen years of which he spent working in intelligence. He knew so much and had experienced so much – and yet suddenly felt foolish, helpless, lost.

It was too late for doubts.

“Funny,” Alexandra mused, picking up another glass from the waiter’s tray. “When I first saw you, I thought you were a damn narcissist.”

“Is that so?” Richard replied, never taking his eyes off her.

“But you’re not a narcissist. Or even if you are, you’re very good at pretending.”

He wanted to smile, but he couldn’t. He watched her twirl the wine in her hand, but she never brought it to her lips.

There are goosebumps on her shoulders – but not from the cold, her eyelashes tremble slightly when she looks at the glass.

“I’m not a narcissist.”

“Yes, you’re just a good actor.”

“Do you think I’m pretending?”

He did feel drunk – a special kind of drunk. She had to have noticed his pupils dilate. That was impossible to fake.

Alexandra chuckled, shrugged. Glitter sparkled on her bare skin.

“No, tell me, do you think I’m pretending?”

He pulled her wrist down, her glass untouched. Richard’s hold on her wrist was gentle. She wasn’t exaggerating – her hands were always cold.

Blue eyes met brown again. Her eyes were dark, they appeared large and bottomless thanks to her long lashes and perfect eyeliner and shimmering brown eyeshadow. On her smiling lips was long-lasting lipstick – and burgundy traces of the red wine of the blood of kings.

“Alright, you don’t have to answer,” Richard interjected with a smile. “Shall we dance?”

Before she could resist or object, he took her glass – placing it in a niche near the column extending into the vaulted ceiling, the one they were standing next to, in a visible spot – where they could find it later. He then pulled Alexandra onto the dance floor, barely touching her glittering back, shortly taking her hand again, confidently this time.

Where had he gone wrong, why did she still not trust him?

One – he placed his hand on her back, felt her fingers on his shoulder, two – they closed the distance between their bodies, discordant with the music that seemed to be playing from another era, three – they took a step in unison, merging with the haphazard movements of the cheerful guests, four – the sound of shattering glass, a scream, a gasp, a dull thud – like that of a falling body …

They turned around, Alexandra instinctively rushed forward to the woman on the floor, foaming at the mouth – but Richard grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back.

He struggled with himself, solving an internal dilemma: should he act the hero or prevent Alexandra from getting involved, shield her from everything, stay by her side? The security had already called an ambulance – and it would most likely come too late.

The niche where Richard had placed the glass was empty. On the floor were glass shards and a bright pool of wine. The body of the fan, who had obviously grabbed the glass of her favorite writer, was quiet, no longer convulsing – and he was not looking at it.

Richard opened his mouth to address the security guard who had entered the room, but Alexandra reacted faster.

“Lock all the doors and call the police.”

Her voice was loud and clear, as if it had a physical presence beneath the arched ceiling. The resonance reverberated through Richard’s body, he immediately pulled Alexandra close, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

The sounds of scream and panic are terrifying in a basic, primal way, often more than their cause … Alexandra’s body relaxed only after several seconds of his strong embrace.

Richard’s heartbeat was oddly fast, as if he himself was frightened. His hands and suit were covered in glitter after he had to let her go – because by then, police officers had entered the crypt.