Chapter 51 bookkeeping

March 1900 London Chandrash.Christopher.Lefevre sat behind a huge mahogany table in the study, with an almost empty brandy bottle in front of him.There was supposed to be a wine glass at some point in the evening, but he had put it somewhere a few hours ago.Due to insomnia and boredom, he developed the habit of wandering through the many rooms every night.He couldn't find the jacket either, it must have been lost somewhere in a room he'd visited before.In the morning, the slick maid will return things to their original owners without hesitation. In his study he sipped brandy by the bottle, trying to work between each sip.The content is mainly to use a pen to write quickly on different pieces of paper.He hadn't actually worked in years, hadn't come up with a new idea, let alone put out a new production.The customary cycle of readying, pushing, moving on to the next project had come to a screeching halt a few years ago, for reasons he couldn't say.

He didn't know what to do, it was the same tonight, and it was the same on other nights, no matter how high the brandy in the bottle was, the situation didn't change.Things don't work this way.In the past when he starts a project, develops and prepares it, then pushes it out into the world, the whole thing tends to become self-sufficient, and then he is no longer needed.While it wasn't always pleasant to be in this position, it was the way things were, and Chandrash knew the process well.He will feel honored, even if he is a little melancholy when the receipt is received and the case is closed, he will continue to move forward bravely.

The circus left him behind and sailed away on its own, but he couldn't turn away from the shore.He has too much time to regret the end of his creative process, and to start over without inspiration.For nearly fourteen years, he has had no major new projects, nor has he launched anything bigger or better. He thought he might be at the end of his game, but that thought was unpleasant, and he drowned it in brandy, trying to ignore it. The circus troubled him. He was most disturbed when the bottle of brandy bottomed out and in the dead of night.It was not too late, not yet dark by circus standards, but the stillness was heavy.

At the moment when he drank the wine bottle and wrote the pen, he just sat, barely raised his hand, combed his hair absent-mindedly, and stared blankly at the void at the other end of the room.In the gilded fireplace a flame was dying, and a tall bookcase stuffed with bric-a-brac and bric-a-brac stood in the shadows. His erratic gaze drifted across the open door and settled on the door panel across the corridor.It was Marco's office door, which was low-key tucked between a pair of long Persian-style columns. It was a part of Marco's entire suite, and it was convenient for him to be summoned to do business at any time, but Marco went out tonight.

Chandrash wondered through the alcohol-soaked fog in his head that maybe Marco kept the circus papers in his office.He wondered what those files would contain.He had only skimmed through the circus-related documents before, and had never bothered to examine the details over the years.Now he was full of curiosity. Still holding the empty bottle of brandy in his hand, he managed to stand up and staggered into the corridor.When he reached the polished dark wooden door, he thought it was locked, but unexpectedly he turned the silver handle easily and the door swung open. Chandrash hesitated at the door.The tiny office was dark except for the pool of light that streamed in from the hallway, and the dark mist from the street lamps that filtered in through the single window.

Chandrash reconsidered for a moment.If there was still brandy in the bottle, he might have closed the door behind him and wandered away.But the bottle was empty, and it was his own house after all.He fumbled for the light switch near the door, and the lights flickered and clicked on, illuminating the room before him. The office is overcrowded with too much furniture.Filing cabinets and suitcases line the walls, as well as neatly stacked rows of filing boxes.The desk in the center, which occupies almost half of the space, is a smaller version of the one in the study room, with a relatively moderate size, but there are pots of ink, pens and notebooks on the desk, everything is in order, and it is not lost in a pile of small books. Among statues, precious stones and antique weapons.

Chandrash put the empty bottle of brandy on the table and began to search the filing cabinets and folders, opening drawers and flipping through papers, not quite sure what he was looking for.There doesn't seem to be a specific section for circuses; the circus clips are mixed in with theater receipts and box-office receipts. He was slightly surprised that there was no recognizable classification system here, and there were no labels on the boxes.Although the items in the office are in order, there is no clear way to organize them. Chandrash found stacks of blueprints and sketches in a file cabinet, many of which had Mr. Barris's seal and initials, as well as diagrams written by different people, in handwriting that Chandrash did not recognize .Some of the documents were written in a language he couldn't even recognize, but the edges of the paper were carefully marked with Circus of Dreams.

He pulled them toward the light source, spread them out one by one on the little floor space left to examine them carefully, and let the previously read papers tumble into a stack as he moved on to the next one. Clearly the work of Mr. Barris, with text overlaid on it.The content added in different handwriting is layered on top of the original design. Chandrash left the documents on the floor and went back to the desk, next to the discarded brandy bottle was the neat notebook.They looked like ledgers, line after line of numbers and calculations, with notes, totals, and dates.Chandrash tossed it all aside.

He turned his attention to the desk itself.He started opening the heavy wooden drawers, several of which were empty.One of them contains dozens of blank notebooks and unopened inkpots, and the other drawer is full of old calendars. Marco can use his neat and delicate handwriting to write shorthand appointments in the blank spaces of different days. The last drawer was locked. As Chandrash was about to turn to the nearby filing box, something pulled him back into the locked drawer. The desk didn't come with a key, and the other drawers didn't come with locks either. He couldn't remember whether the desk had a matching lock when it was placed here a few years ago.At that time, the office consisted only of desks and a filing cabinet, and it seemed spacious.

After searching for the key for a few minutes, he became more and more impatient, and simply went back to his study to get the silver knife stuck into the dartboard on the wall. Lying on the floor behind the desk, he tried to pry the mechanism open, nearly destroying the lock, but was rewarded with a satisfying click just as the bolt said goodbye to the blade. He left the knife on the floor and opened the drawer, only to find a book. It was a large leather-bound booklet.Chandrash took it out of the drawer, dismayed at its bulk, and slammed it down on the table. The old booklet was dusty, with thin leather and frayed binding around the edges.

Chandrash hesitated for a moment, then opened the cover. The title page is covered with exquisitely detailed sketches of trees covered with symbols and marks.The scribbles were thick and thick, with more ink than blank pages.Chandrash couldn't decipher any of it, couldn't even tell if the markings were broken up into words or just a continuous string of patterns.Here and there he glimpsed familiar markings, some almost numbers, others the shapes of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and more so the tattoos of cartilage technicians. The paper in the booklet was covered with similar markings, but what stood out was that they all contained other items, small scraps of paper scavenged from other documents. It took Chandrash a few pages to realize that each scrap of paper had a signature on it. It took him longer to realize that he knew the names. It wasn't until he found the page where the Murray twins spelled out their names in aptly childish scribbles that he was sure the book contained the names of everyone involved with the circus. And it was only when he looked more closely that he noticed that there were locks of hair next to the names. Subsequent pages bear the names of the original curators, though one is conspicuously absent and another has been removed. The last page contained his own signature, beginning with a C, in illegible cursive handwriting, carefully cut from an invoice or letter.A strand of raven-black hair was taped to the page below, surrounded by symbols and letters.He couldn't help reaching up to touch the ends of his hair curled around the collar. A shadow passed over the desk, and Chandrash jumped back in astonishment.With a slip of the hand, the booklet fell and closed. gentlemen? Marco stood in the passageway at the door, looking at Chandrash curiously. I thought you went out at night.Chandrash said.He looked down at the brochure and then at Marco. I went out, sir, but forgot to take something.Marco glanced at the documents and blueprints scattered on the ground.May I ask what you are doing, sir? I can ask you the same question, Chandrash said: What is going on here?He opened the booklet again, and the pages fluttered and fell back to their original place. Those are circus records.Marco said without reading the brochure. What kind of record?Chandrash pressed. It's a system I designed myself. Marco said: You know, the circus has a lot of affairs that need to be managed. How long have you been doing this? What are you doing, sir? Save these for whatever the absurd thing is.He flipped the pages of the booklet, though he found he didn't want to touch it. The system I built has been around since Circus started.Marco said. You've been messing with it, messing with all of us, haven't you? I'm just doing my job, sir, said Marco, with a sense of urgency in his tone now, and let me say this, I don't like it when you're flipping through my book without telling me first. Chandrash walked around the table to face him, stumbling over the blueprint, though his tone remained steady. You're my employee, and I have the right to see what's in my house and what's going on with my own projects.You've been working with him, haven't you?You have been deliberately hiding it from me, you have no right to do it behind my back Behind your back?Marco interrupts: You have no way of understanding what's going on behind your back.Those things have been going on secretly for a long time, long before all this started. That's not what I hoped to get out of this arrangement.Chandrash said. You never have a choice about this arrangement, Mark says: you have no control, never have.And you never want to know how things are done, and you sign receipts without even glancing at them.You said that the purpose is not to make money, nor is it to fuss over the details, and those things are always left to me to deal with. When Marco turned up the volume, the paper on the table also fluctuated.He stopped talking, took a step back from the table, and the papers settled into messy layers again. You have been deliberately sabotaging the cause, said Chandrash: How dare you lie to my face.leave god knows what in these books What brochure, sir?Marco asked.Chandrash looked back at the desk.There is no paper and no accounting books.Next to the reading lamp was an inkwell, a bronze Egyptian god, a clock, and an empty brandy bottle, but nothing else on the polished wooden surface. Chandrash staggered, looking back and forth between the desk and Marco, unable to concentrate. I would never let you do that to me, said Chandrash, taking the brandy bottle from the table and waving it vigorously in front of his face.You have been fired and you should leave immediately. The brandy bottle vanished into thin air.Chandrash stopped his movements and repeatedly grabbed at the empty air. I can't leave.Mark can speak in a calm and restrained tone.He spoke each word slowly, as if explaining something to a young child.I don't have permission to leave, I have to stay here all the time, and have to go on with this ridiculous thing, that's what you call it.You're going back to your drinking and partying and you won't even remember we had this conversation.Everything will go on as it has been, that's how it is. Chandrash opened his mouth in protest, then closed it again in confusion.He glanced at Marco, then looked back at the empty desk.He looked at his hands, opened and closed his fingers, tried to grab something long gone, but couldn't remember what it was. Sorry, he turned to Marco again and said: I lost my train of thought.What were we talking about? Nothing important, sir, said Marco: just a few minor details about the circus. Of course, said Chandrash: where is the circus now? Sydney, Australia, sir.His voice trembled slightly, but he masked it with a short cough before turning away. Chandrash just nodded distractedly. Shall I get that for you, sir?Marco said, pointing to the empty bottle standing on the desk again. Oh, Chandrash said: Yes, yes, of course.He handed it out without looking at the bottle or the marco, barely feeling the gesture. Shall I get you another bottle, sir? OK, thanks.Chandrish said, wandering from Marco's office to his study, where he sat in a leather armchair by the window. In the office, Marco gathered up the fallen notebooks and documents with trembling hands.He rolled up the blueprint and folded the documents and books. He put the silver knife that was discarded on the ground back on the dart board in the study, and stabbed the blade into the red heart. Then he emptied every drawer in the office, taking out every folder and document.Once everything was in order, he found a set of suitcases in an adjoining room and packed them to the point of bursting, with two stacks of paper as cushions for the large leather-bound volume.He carefully organized these rooms, removing every personal item in the space. He turned off the desk lamp in the office and locked the door behind him. He put a full bottle of brandy and glasses on the table next to Chandrash's chair before he hung his arms full of suitcases and left by night with rolls of blueprints in his hands.Chandrash didn't even notice when Marco showed up.He stared out the window at the darkness and the rain.He didn't hear the door click when Marco left. He has no shadow.Chandrash muttered to himself, then poured out a glass of wine. In the middle of the night, Chandrash has a lengthy conversation with the ghost of an old friend he knows only as Prospero, the Master of Magic.Thoughts that might have drifted away with the wave of brandy remained intact in his mind, confirmed and firmed by the translucent magician.