The Infinite Library (18 page)

By the time I had stumbled through the narrator's cheap stunts of forcibly implanting mystery mixed with inaccessible references, I had guzzled two espressos and was feeling jittery, listless, and anxious. I did take note of the two colour-references underlined in the text (red clay lion and grey day). I had been distracted by one of those neighbouring conversations where it was not loud, but the timbre of the voices had a way of ensnaring one's attention despite oneself. My reading broke off just before I would have encountered something rather spectacular. No, it was not the narrator's jumbled prose that was suddenly going to right itself under the banner of modesty and good story-telling, but an invocation of sorts. The book was dangerous, but perhaps it would prepare me for the next in the series, that seventh meditation. I struggled to free myself from the din around me, the flow of strangers' conversations that were far too easy to sink one's ears into. I pondered the meaning of the title, and the more I thought about it, the more feverish my lateral thinking had become until my memory surprised me.

The people adjacent to my table had triggered a memory, a gift of the accidental and unexpected. I had just needed one name: Descartes. A general introductory course in philosophy I had taken long ago. Descartes'
Meditations
. Were there not six in number? Why only six? Cabalistic significance? Ran out of steam? Argument and proof established? Mathematical significance? Demand for succinctness? Pure accident?

The idea of the infinite Library began its vicious orbit around my dim yet gradually recovering memories of Descartes. But why? Would the infinite Library, as an idea, be rejected as an impossibility by Descartes? Certainly. What would be this seventh meditation, this completion of the possible and real by the impossible? What is impossible to think according to Descartes, and yet others may disagree?

I owned a copy of the
Meditations
. It was a venerably old volume in “bon etat” and would have fetched a few hundred dollars, but I had not yet secured a buyer willing to pay list price. I resolved to return home and reread the Cartesian argument, skipping the palaver on evil geniuses and the reality or non-reality of wax as he went about sniffing, prodding and nibbling it. I was looking for something in particular, something my memory was hiding from me, a seemingly innocuous phrase that although it had been recorded in my mind, had little value at the time. But now it was essential, a vitally wounded figure at the end of the long hallway of memory.

I suppose shock and horror made their felicitous arrangements when I returned home. There was no sign of forced entry, but someone had indeed been in my apartment. There were books strewn everywhere, and all my drawers had been turned out unto the floor. It was obvious that someone was not performing a random act of vandalism, but was actively searching for something quite desperately... Perhaps systematically at first until frustration mounted and time was running short. Or else, this was just another act of terror, and the intruder wanted me to know that he had been there. Alarmed and violated as I felt, I do not know why I did not think to notify the police. I wasn't in the mood to pick up the place just as yet since I had returned for a single purpose. I hunted around for my copy of Descartes, but to no avail. Had I been thwarted yet again? But then I did find it in an unlikely location. There my rather dearly priced copy of the
Meditations
sat – or, rather, semi-floated – in my kitchen sink in a pool of inky black-grey water. I removed it carefully so as not to tear the soggy pages. I would try to dry it, but I quickly came to realize that it would be pointless: the home invader took no chances, and had spent some considerable time in blacking out much of the text with a thick permanent marker, some kind of pointless act of extreme redaction. To my mind, it was most likely a symbolic gesture, a warning, for it would not prove difficult for me to acquire another copy of a text reprinted countless times. I was only smarting from the inconvenience and the loss of a few hundred dollars. My invader was trying to send me some kind of message, but I did not know which one it was: that I was to desist my search into Descartes to confirm a nascent suspicion about the book I had, or if it was to convey that
they
knew I had a book unlawfully in my possession and this was to signal that
they
knew which one it was. And then again, it may have been an act with a deeper significance... and that perhaps I was missing the symbolism of water, black ink, Descartes, and dishevelment.

I was gaining in courage and irritation; I would not be deterred from these acts designed to frighten me away from my search. I resurrected my computer from its mechanical nap and searched via the internet. Having found a full copy of the
Meditations
online, I read and read until I hit upon exactly what I was looking for in the fifth meditation: “... because I cannot conceive a mountain without a valley, it does not follow that there is any mountain or valley in existence, but simply that the mountain or valley, whether they do or do not exist, are inseparable from each other.” I immediately and in great haste scrawled down an analog to this argument:

What I know:

Libraries are finite (in this world).

I cannot conceive of an infinite library.

Libraries and finitude are inseparable.

It is the relation of one to another that is essential to both.

The flaw in this reasoning was that I was making a proper subject (library) and an attribute (finitude) equivalent. In Descartes' formulation, there are two proper subjects: mountains and valleys. These two subjects had to be codependent in some way, where they imply one another. It is called a biconditional. Expressed in logical form: (If x then y) + (if y then x). At least this is what my shabby recollection of my intro to logic course during my undergraduate furnished me.

Mountain and valley. Man and his shadow. Matter and vacuum. Each of these concepts seemed inseparable, and perhaps this very idea of a mountain without a corresponding valley was one of those fortune cookie thought-provokers or the starting line of a Buddhist meditation. One hand clapping. Trees falling in the woods with no listeners. I had to perhaps reason that either there was a serious Eastern bent to the formulation of mountains sans valleys, or that it was just a fanciful and cutesy jape.

I gave it a bit more thought. How would Descartes go about proving the existence of the Library, if given that task? I thought back to all the dilute Neo-Platonism I had been reading in the
Backstory
– it became clear to me, doubtful it would be to others. Descartes has set himself up with the task of hyperbolic doubt: he will place in suspension the existence of everything. He comes to the quick and circumspect proof that he must exist because he thinks, the old
cogito
. That isn't enough, he says... what if there is an evil demon deluding me? Well, says Descartes, if there was an evil demon doing that, then that is more proof of the existence of the self since the demon has to be deceiving
someone
. So what of the external world? How do we know it exists and we're not brains in vats? Descartes uses plenty of proofs from ironclad math. There are perfect ideas in the world, and perfection can only belong to the Good, and demons are not good, and so therefore it must be furnished by some entity – God – and that error is just our senses deceiving us and the cursed gift God gave humans in having free will.

Replacing God with Library, I retraced the argument. The Library, like God, is the guarantor of all Order, itself being ordered, perfect, and
complete
(possessing all possibilities). Readers cannot read everything, so the free will of the reader may lead to the reading of misleading texts, or the fabrication of erroneous interpretations. My reasoning was hollow, but it was compelling to me.

Another email:

Who were the mysterious figures who called on the telephone, hammered upon the door, and raided my apartment? I could only guess that Angelo had already been dispatched, but if that were the case, he would have already re-acquired the books I stole. Or perhaps there was principle attached to this – that Castellemare ordered Angelo not to pluck the books back as if they should be given back willingly. And, perhaps as well, to humiliate me as the books changed hands, being caught
in flagrante delicto
with the stolen goods. The problem was that I had no real sense of what they considered appropriate justice. The paranoia in me stated that it would not just be a simple matter of transferring the books and goodbye. What if Castellemare wanted his pound of flesh? It was not like he would give me adequate warning if he meant to acquire it.

The thought of escape seemed ridiculous, yet necessary. I had my suspicions that Angelo was already in the city, and was most likely staking me out. A sudden act of fleeing may have made matters worse. It was not yet the fateful “tomorrow” Castellemare underscored. There were a few dribbling hours left until midnight, perhaps enough time to hatch a plan. Definitely, I was spooked, and I knew someone as dubious in character and dubious in changing roles instantly like Angelo would stop at nothing to achieve his task... To fail meant to be fired. However, what was I spooked about? Certainly, Angelo could physically overpower me, and even if I gained a lucky hand, his cunning would defeat me. This I assumed, but knew with some fair degree of probability that his job occasionally entailed a bit of fisticuffs.