The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Usually people avoided mentioning Abel's name, as if he'd done something unforgiveable. Which I guess he had: He reminded people of the cruel unfairness of life, and the closeness of death.

Most friends had fallen away over the years. Either they'd started avoiding me, as if my grief and bad luck were contagious, or I'd started to avoid them, unwilling to give them the chance to disappoint me. Besides, too much time around normal people made me feel like an alien, unwanted and ugly, fluent in a different language.

I don't believe in answers. I don't believe in big sweeping philosophies. All the great men of history tried to make these absolute laws, answer all the big questions, and they were always wrong. There's no big answers out there, not that we can understand. I think the thing is just to somehow accept that life doesn't always make sense. Terrible things can happen. It's ridiculous to try to spin it. I mean, maybe in the grand sense, you know, when we all come out to take our bows at the end, it'll all seem logical and wonderful. But in the meantime, life can fucking hurt. We need to be there for each other. That's the real magical act--making someone a sandwich, cleaning the flat.

Like with so many people, even doctors (maybe especially doctors), there was the constant implication that I'd done something wrong, as if the situation Abel and I were in was the result of bad decisions we'd made, a chain of selfish and foolish mistakes that had dropped us here. If this had happened to them, well, surely they would have found a way out. They'd find a cure, have better insurance, have a real family, and, most of all, never be so stupid as to get sick to begin with. Or marry a sick person.

I wasn't only sad--I was angry. I still felt lost in a dark, terrifying maze. And I was furious at the world for leaving me here.

People thought money would make them happy. But money was the consolation prize in life. Money was what you had left to dream for when all the other dreams died. Money was what would keep you going when nothing else could delight you again.

Sometimes doing things was easier than talking about things. Doing revealed less; talking exposed more, including the parts that could get hurt.

This was starting to be fun--strange and wealthy men barking instructions at me, and me ignoring those instructions. Not a bad hobby.

With a little sadness, I now saw I'd come to dread and resent books, every last one. It was a loss. Opening a book had always been like opening a window into a new and mysterious world. When I was a child my books were my best friends. ... Books had been the most lasting, profound relationship in my life. I'd long bought and sold a few books for extra money. But once I'd started selling them out of desperation, not luck or love, I'd come to wordlessly feel like even my love of books--like everything else I'd loved--had turned on me and become ugly.

We weren't monogamous out of obligation. We were monogamous because we wanted each other more than anyone else. We were monogamous because no one else could compare.

Much of my life was a dreary grind in which I was responsible for everything, always. For someone else to take that responsibility, even for a few minutes, was pure pleasure.

It works. But the tricky thing is, it never works exactly how you expect. People think they're smart enough to summon up some entity or make someone fall in love with them and have it all turn out for the best. But they aren't smart enough. Whatever it is that usually decides our fates--Gods, luck, random chance--it's smarter than us. It's always smarter. Magic works, but it's an exercise in irony, sometimes a dangerous one. Be careful.

Well," he said, "I'm guessing your client is either a magician or a pervert. And I mean both of those terms with the highest respect.

But now I believe the book had its own story, a story it was writing the whole time. We were only characters in it, with no more choice than characters in a novel.

I had thousands of books in my house and never found anything I wanted to read. I would stare at the shelves of books like a hungry person staring into an open refrigerator and wait for something to speak to me. But nothing ever spoke.

Books were a dirty job, one of the black arts, along with witchcraft and printing.

People had let us down. People had broken our hearts. We liked books and animals and messy rooms full of things that weren't people.

Besides, too much time around normal people made me feel like an alien, unwanted and ugly, fluent in a different language.

I’d developed a kind of resentment of people who were attractive and looked like they had sex and maybe even enjoyed life.

The answer is different for everyone. But you need to somehow begin again. The old you, the old life--it's over. Gone forever. And it's very sad, because you lose the person who your wife--your husband--loved. It's another loss. After I met Madame, I found out how I was now. Who is this new person, this person who has lost so much, been so scarred?" The other women at the table nodded knowingly.....I could see each had some understanding of what Kat and I knew: a loss so dark it changed who you were, changed the planet you lived on, changed what words meant.

Like most book people, there was a shadow in his face, a hollow echo in his laugh, that let you know he'd rather be around books than people. Who could blame him? It was why so many of us were in this business. People had let us down. People had broken our hearts. We liked books and animals and messy rooms full of things that weren't people.

I wasn't just wrong. I was wrong in such a vast and specific way that I felt like the punchline of a cruel joke.

I'd been so alone that I'd thought it was just the feeling of life when it went on too long.

Once you had rent and food covered, all the money in the world couldn't bring you what mattered. But it sure as hell could make life without it easier.

It was this idea that books contained secrets. Important information that would be lost if someone didn't preserve it. And then I studied history and got really into that and I realized that was true not just about sex but lots of things. If someone doesn't care about books, shit gets lost. And then I became a librarian. And archivist.

Books are heavy and dirty and messy and have strong smells and leave your skin dry and dusty.

Abel wanted to know all about flesh and how it responded to skin, tongue, velvet, fur, lips. His enthusiasm was contagious. I'd been a good-enough lover before, but Abel inspired my curiosity and my lust. Sex wasn't just better than I'd ever known it could be; it was more interesting. There were tools to explore, sensations to try, tastes and textures to experiment with, states of consciousness to achieve or discard.

I was someone who questioned. I was someone who probed. I was someone who looked under rocks and peeked into medicine cabinets.

We both expected to become less passionate, to fight more, to take each other for granted as time went on. But we never did. We developed routines and schedules, but we continued to astound each other, and to amaze ourselves with our own ability to love. Neither of us had believed we had it in us, this capacity for rapturous, uncomplicated, unconditional love. As it turned out, we had everything we needed.

Everything that was his was now no one's; everything he'd seen and felt and knew was now gone.