The Book of Knowing (F)

The Book of Knowing was the only item left behind at the Gunderson place when it was put on the market. Well, that and the tabby that eked out an existence in the barn and in the meadow beyond the pond. Professor Harold Borowitz bought the place for cash after a friend of his at the local college had driven out to physically confirm the property’s existence and the details as listed.

More accurately, retired Professor Borowitz, for he decided after 35 years in the SUNY system that enough was enough, and so southward he came. Fifteen years earlier he taught a semester on Chaucer when his Charleston friend took a sabbatical at Oxford. He spent three times as long on Troilus and Criseyde as was called for in the syllabus, but that is another story.* Professor Borowitz was quite taken in by the charms of the city and the surrounding countryside, and so he believed someday he would return and there live out his days.

He closed the deal at the office of the attorney for the seller and left within an hour with a map, an aerial photo, the closing papers, and an almost giddy sense of relief that his former life was behind him and set before him was a veritable brave new world to be taken in hand. Soon, he was in his 12-year-old Forester and headed up the Interstate to 17A—there would be plenty of time to drive along the east side of the river some other day.

At the Stop-n-Shop just before the river, Professor Borowitz pulled in to top off his tank. He noted with a chuckle that the pumps were not automated, surely, he thought, the visit inside would be at least charming if not entertaining. True to form the clerk recognized him as someone who was not from around there, and Borowitz quickly volunteered that he was the new owner of the Gunderson property. The clerk expressed some surprise that no one local was willing to buy the place, but as she said, “Folks here have always known the Gundersons to be special people. Don’t know where that Evie took off to.”

Yes, charming, Borowitz thought to himself as he hurried back to his car. A thing of mystery is a beauty to consider. The place was easily found, the huge For Sale sign still in place next to the entrance. Although more than a few bumps and dips marred the dusty lane, Borowitz enjoyed the notion of being on an unpaved drive and so very far from all that he had ever known.

When he parked in front of the house, he grabbed his cellphone and the door keys and was in such a rush to look the place over that he left the car door open. He paused for a moment and looked back down the drive and surveyed the field of pink Delphinium. Lovely, he thought, lovely in every way. Up the steps then he headed and was pleased that the door seemed to spring open as he turned the key.

Two thoughts nearly collided in his brain as he stepped into the large sitting room. The lack of dust and the amount of light in the room. Gloriously lighted, and when he walked into the kitchen—well, spotless to be sure, and the light was more than good, more than pleasing, energizing is what it was.

Borowitz did a quick mental inventory: refrigerator, dishwasher, huge pantry, stainless double sinks, and granite counters that must be new. The pine floors were flawless even as the patina of age showed them to be milled most likely a century before.

Then, he noticed it. One cabinet door was open, the one over the refrigerator. And something was left behind. He stretched his arm across, up on his toes, and could just get his hand on it. A book. He took his reading glasses from his front shirt pocket and studied the fat volume. The Book of Knowing the cover said. Hefty in his hand, covered by a deep red calfskin and light cloth, with gold spine title and decorations in six panels between bands. All edges gilt.

Carefully he opened the cover, marbled endpapers. The title page said simply The Book of Knowing. The reverse was blank as was the next page. The page after that was blank, too, and so the next one. No page numbers. He opened half-way through the volume. Blank. Blank, the next page. Closer to the end, blank.

Borowitz closed the book and leaned back against the counter. What in this world he wondered is the book all about, and he once more opened near the middle of the pages. There he read, To answer questions as answers are sought. He looked up from the page and stared out the window that looked out on the pond.

He shook his head. Could he be just a bit dotty from the trip. Again, he opened the book, this time only a few pages in. You are not dotty. Yes, he laughed, he must be. He took the book out to the front porch and sat on the top step. He looked out beyond his car to the field of white Delphinium. No, pink, weren’t they pink before? He opened the book deep into its pages. They were pink before.

Madness, divine perhaps, without method to be sure, but surely not his madness. Then, what of my dissertation Borowitz thought. His thumb separated the pages. Troilus and Criseyde: The Expedience of Love. He stared again out over the field. What did he want to know, what did scholars want to know?  What would he trump all of them with by knowing? Of course.

“Who truly was William Shakespeare?” He waited for a moment, and then with his eyes closed he let his right thumb run over the edges of the pages. Gently, he sort of let the book come open in both hands. He opened his eyes. “I knew it, I knew it!” He got to his feet and twirled about as if set spinning like a tornado. “I always knew it! Knew it! I! Knew! It!” Borowitz laughed, loud and deep. He took in a deep breath.

Sitting back down, he again put his glasses on. “I knew it.” The excitement caused by what he most certainly had not seen coming exhausted him as much as it thrilled him. He sighed. Of course, there was another question that would nearly always come to any person.

And so it did with Professor Harold Borowitz. As a mortal being, he too wanted to know—fearfully, to be sure, but still all the same. The time of his death. He took another deep, deep breath. The book fell open.  Ladson 2014

*A. N.: Should the tale ever be told, which remains to be seen.