8. The source of Geneva Farewell

As you know from previous posts, Rudy Monteverdi makes portions of Samla Bishap's Geneva Farewell novel available to me when he can, and I pass them to you as I can since it is not available in your world. Rudy brings news today re Bishap's novel: He says it is 571 pages long, and Geneva Farewell's birth name in it is Virginia Werfel. One part of the novel is called "The Childhood of Virginia Werfel".

This news brings turbulence for the following reasons:

On page 101 of John Levesque's version of Geneva Farewell, Monteverdi says to Geneva: "What you don't understand, Ms Werfel, is that everything contributes to a deeper knowledge of your dharma."

On page 139 of Levesque's book, I am questioned by a police detective named Deacon:

"If you would like legal representation from now on, we could arrange that. ('Lord, you are my lawyer, plead my case!' Lamentations 3:58.)"

"You're so desperate you're threatening me now?"

"If you mean I'm cautioning you, no. I still have a few people to talk to before I can nail it down that tight. But it won't be long. In the meantime, perhaps the name Virginia Werfel rings a bell..."

"How many of these names do you plan to try on me?"

"Virginia Werfel, Mr. Chaff. Do you recognize that name?"

On page 195, Geneva says to Monteverdi: "Stop calling me Virginia, will you?"

On page 207, Ardyth and I are speaking:

Ardyth looks around. "Where's Virginia?"

"Geneva? She's in the kitchen most likely."

On page 230, in my final encounter with Rosamund St. George, MD, she says to me: "Her actual name was Virginia."

When I came across the above references in Levesque's book, I attributed them to some quirk in his imagination and left it at that. But now I see that he was being swayed without knowing it by elements of Bishap's conception. "Werfel" is not a name that occurs in my imaginary novel, but it sounds vaguely familiar...

Rudy steps in: "Parts of us atrophy to make way for other parts. These new parts adhere by suggestion, osmosis, indoctrination, inspiration, desperation. The process is relatively unnoticeable to us except when we encounter an Agent of Mass Reaction, which is a pure Catalyst amped up beyond all recognition. It's impossible not to notice the effect of an AMA."

The thought that out there among the reality strands are more than 100 pages on the childhood of Geneva Farewell is more than I can bear. She told me next to nothing about her past in the days that I knew her. If I could read those pages now...

"The reaction an AMA can produce depends almost entirely on the type and extent of collective will that "operates" the Catalyst. If you were half as astute as you claim to be, you would be looking to Samla Bishap for answers. She is the source material, Chaff. She is an AMA."

Geneva's childhood was something I hoped to explore with her in person, but we ran out of time.

Rudy: "Did you hear what I just said?"

You said that Samla Bishap is an Agent of Mass Reaction.

"I also said she is your source material. That means she is the inspiration for your own growth and development as a young hybrid Catalyst. Pekingese boy, you called yourself when you were a child. Look at page 14 of John Levesque's version."

I was instantly sucked back in time to a Pekingese boy's vision of someone I had loved in childhood, a little girl in a red dress to whom I was drawn in a way that trumped all other forms of attraction. I felt dizzy, looked down in a futile effort to compose myself and noticed she had a cast on her left index finger.

I reject your translation of that passage, Rudy. You forget that I am a Translator too, though it's recessive to the Catalyst in me. What happened in that passage is that I was gobsmacked by Genava's physical presence.

Rudy has withdrawn but his mise en scène lingers. This often happens after he withdraws. He wants me to imagine the little girl in the red dress the way Geneva invokes her on page 20 of Levesque's version as the memory of a dream:

"I'm standing in this old stone cellar, looking out a window, I don't know who's there or if I have any way of getting out. I can't see anything, I can't even see myself. I'm a belonging, but I don't know who or what I belong to."

"You belong to me," a tingle spreading up my back to my shoulders.

She laughed. "Don't flatter yourself, Chaff."

"I'm the one standing outside the window. It's my dream too. You're wearing a red dress. I dreamed that dream just the other night." Her face changed slightly. "How did you know about the red dress?"

Find me some of those Samla Bishap pages, Rudy. Prove to me that she is the source of Geneva Farewell and not just another flailing keyboard jockey looking for the metaphor of metaphors.