The Book of Air and Shadows

mentioned Bulstrode, his eyes clouded. And was that moisture? It was hard to tell in the friendly gloom of the restaurant.
    “Well,” he resumed, “not anymore, obviously. I would have given a lot to take a look at those papers though. God knows what happened to them.”
    Here I thought he looked at me in a somewhat disingenuous fashion. All decent lawyers are close-mouthed about their clients’ affairs, nor does mere death spring open their lips, but they are casual gossips compared to us IP lawyers. So I did not rise to the bait, if bait there was, but asked, “Is there something wrong?”
    He said, “You mean besides Bulstrode getting killed? Isn’t that enough?”
    “You look like you’re carrying more than that, pal,” I said. “I’ve been noticing it the last couple of times too. You’re not sick or anything?”
    “No, aside from the fact that I’m fat as a hog and get no exercise, I’m a horse. Arteries like shotguns according to my doc. No, what you’re observing is the physical stigmata of the current market.”
    Here I should mention that Mickey and I have different attitudes toward investment. My pile is with a mutual fund started in 1927 that has never paid much more or much less than 7 percent per annum. Mickey calls this irresponsible conservatism, or did when the market was roaring some years ago. He is a hedge fund guy, and he used to regale me with tales of his fantastic returns; no longer. I said, “Well, you still have the industrial fasteners,” at which he barked a laugh.
    “Yeah, if I didn’t have to share them with the two dozen cousins. My family suffers from an excess of heirs.”
    I sensed he wished not to pursue this subject so I said, “Speaking of which, do you know if the late professor had any heirs? I take it there were no children.”
    “There’s a niece: Madeleine or something like that. Picture on his desk. His late sister’s kid, and he doted on her. I expect she’ll inherit whatever he had. Or the longtime companion.”
    “Has she been notified?”
    “Yeah. She’s coming down this week.”
    “From England?”
    “No, from Toronto. The sister emigrated years ago, married a Canadian, had the one kid. Ah, here’s our gnocchi. You know, I think I’m getting my appetite back.”
    As we dug into the meltingly tender dumplings, I said, “So the manuscript doesn’t actually lead any further-it’s not a clue to something even bigger?”
    Through gnocchi Mickey responded, “Bigger than a contemporary reference to Shakespeare? I can’t imagine what that would be. Did he tell you that?”
    “He suggested that his manuscript mentioned another manuscript actually by Shakespeare.”
    “Oh, right! Pure fantasy would be my guess. As I said, Andrew was utterly desperate to get back in the game. With good reason. When the will is cleared up and what’s-her-name has possession, we’ll take a look at it and see if it’s anything. Although, given the man’s desperation to recoup his career, I rather think it’ll be nothing much.”
    We spoke no more of Bulstrode during this meal (in which Mickey actually did get his appetite back and joked about the garbage they had to eat in Texas) or his mysterious manuscript, or even more mysterious demise.
    As far as I recall, that is, since the above is a complete fabrication. I have eaten those dishes and drunk such wine at Sorrentino’s, perhaps with Mickey Haas in attendance, and there is a Marco and a Paul, but I am in no position to attest that we ate those things on that day, many months ago. I can hardly recall what I had for lunch last Tuesday, nor can anyone else. I did garner some facts about Shakespeare, but whether on that occasion or later, I could not say. I recall that he was upset, and I recall that it was the first occasion at which I learned of the existence of that young woman. Miranda, not Madeleine, as it happens. Aside from that it is fiction, but even as I wrote it, it became the truth, because in point of fact we have virtually no real memories. We make it all up. Proust made it up, Boswell made it up, Pepys…I have actually a great deal of sympathy for the increasingly common sort of person, often one with a high position, who is caught fabricating. You mean I
didn’t
go to Harvard Med School? I did not have sex with that woman… It’s not the collapse of morality (for I think there has never been truth based on memory) but rather the triumph of intellectual property, that blizzard of