Lionel Shriver - The New Republic

Edgar’s topsy-turvy schedule gave the rest of the night the anarchic atmosphere of a school snow day, as the wind screamed wheeeee! like faraway kids on a sled. While the sun set through his own morning, Edgar discovered several bulbs out, maybe from having been left on when Barrington beat a hasty retreat. Vigorously finding spares and replacing the bulbs helped to offset the mesmerizing idleness that exuded from the plague of cushions. Unpacking took if anything too little time, though limping next to Saddler’s thick, satinate wardrobe Edgar’s wrinkled short-sleeves looked insipid.

Nicola’s warnings were warranted; the place was pretty disheveled. Everything was dusty, and the fridge hadn’t been cleaned for months. Inside, the smoked salmon was swimming, the caviar had hatched, and the liqueur-filled dark chocolates had turned fright-white. Numerous anonymous concoctions had grown branches of exotic molds the size of bonsais. Tautly cellophaned and lovingly garnished with desiccated sprigs, these rows of leftovers portrayed an unabating string of doting culinary benevolence.

Gagging, Edgar chucked the remnants of Saddler’s tête-à-têtes and washed the reeking bowls. As reward, he sank at the kitchen’s long middle table with a stiff shot of small-batch bourbon from his host’s ample cabinet. Where were Edgar’s adoring crumpets to scour the toilet bowls with their toothbrushes? The sensation might ebb, but for now he felt not only like a guest in what was presumably his own abode, but like the help. As if Barrington had suggested, be a good lad would you and do something about that dreadful ice box? Attaboy.

Edgar drained the shot resentfully and slammed down the glass, which rattled the lone cup of coffee and ashtray left at the far end. The black coffee had evaporated to leave a thin sediment of dried powder. The ashtray was a distinguished pewter affair, and offered up a single partially smoked cigarillo, which had burned half an inch of ash before extinguishing. Edgar reached for the butt, along with the classy brass lighter left graciously alongside. He tapped the ash, lit up, took a drag. The tobacco was stale, but underneath smoldered a more disturbing flavor—the tinge of a breath whose very foulness was arresting, like the unsettling allure of high French cheeses. The cigarillo was vile and Edgar didn’t even smoke fresh ones, yet after a second furtive drag Edgar had to force himself to stub it out.

By now it was five forty-five a.m. Disorientation set in, and loneliness. Angela would have found this place a hoot. She’d have extended naked on the cold marble parquet by the fountain, her keen ribs flickering in the flames of sconces, and Edgar might have figured out what that room and all its pillows were good for. As it was, the villa’s opulence mocked the paltriness of his imagination. Let loose in a palace, Edgar Kellogg dusted furniture and threw old salmon in the trash. This was a house you had to live not only in, but up to.

Scrounging for amusement worthy of his fanciful surroundings, Edgar returned to the study and stuck a SOB STORIES microfloppy into his laptop. Though the computer seemed to recognize the program code, the files were nonsensically titled:

2” Er;vp,r yp yjr

3” Nsttomhypm’d Gotdy Sytpvoyu

4” Dpm pg Nsttomhypm Od Nptm

5” Yrttptod,

6” Nstns :ppld S;obr

When Edgar loaded in 2” Er;vp,r yp yjr , what came up on the screen was no more coherent:

Vpmhtsyi;syopmd@ Nu mpe upi, idy jsbr dryy;rf om’ O fp jp[r upi gomf yjr svvp,,pfsyopmd dioysn;r/ Niy im;rdd upi gp;;pe fotrvyopmd vstrgi;;u. mp mi,nrt pg syytsvyobr;u vtpvjryrf [o;;ped eo;; [tpyrvy upi gtp, yjr [ortvomh nptrfp, pg yjod fidy npe;. s diovofs;;u frno;oysyomh rmmio yjsy [rmrytsyrd upit rbrtu [ptr ;olr yjr htoy om yjsy dpffomh eomf/ Es;;sdrl vjpdr er;;/ Ypp er;;/ Jsf jr hobrm, r sy ;rsdy s g;pert djpe pt yep yp vpbrt. O, ohjym

y jsbr nrrm gptvrf yp hrmrtsyr, u pem mred/

Yjod kpitms; esd nrhim gpt, u pem rmyrtysom,rmy. niy upi eo;; gomf, ptr yjsm rmpihj omgpt,syopm eoyjom oy yp vsttu pm, u hppf eptl/ Yjrm., pdy kpitms;odyd str yo,of vtrsyitrd. ejp etoyr dyptord sd s dindyoyiyr gpt ;obomh yjr,. smf og upi str pmr pg yjsy ;py. upi, su n;pe yjr ejody;r pm pit ;oyy;r drvtry og upi ;olr/ Ury s;trsfu O djpi;f estm upi” kidy ytu/

Was Saddler out of his tree? Edgar and his brother Jeff had produced similar drivel playing with their father’s typewriter as kids, but a grown man mashing mindlessly at keys for paragraphs on end was unnervingly reminiscent of The Shining . Edgar fiddled around a little more, testing to see if the computer was malfunctioning, and his own files loaded fine. Yet each floppy in the drawer was all ypys; hpnn;rfuhppl … The words didn’t read backward, they suggested no simple pig-Latinate cognates and contained no systematically inserted syllables. Though a few shorter clumps were acronyms for real words, most of the longer ones were short of vowels.

Edgar wandered to the last part of the villa still unexplored. The entrance to the turret was on the second floor at the back, and Edgar found the little wooden door locked and thumbtacked with a printed sign that read, ABRAB WAS I ERE I SAW BARBA. I don’t know, buddy, thought Edgar, those files looked pretty

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