Gatsby and I

The Crimson Letter

The moment when I woke up, it was pouring hard. The rain galloped down the roof like a thousand horses in a great stampede. I was afraid the roof might fall on me. But thankfully it didn't. The moment when I was down the stairs and in the kitchen, I saw that Celestine was gone. I remarked a note on the countertop and that note was written in ink. In fountain pen or dip pen, to be precise. The writing was smooth and cursive, and the note said something like this:

"Clara, I'm off to discuss with an important figure about their garden. They're thinking to re-plant a row of flowers in some different patterns from the ones there already are. So they need me. Please eat and find a way to pass the time until I arrive: read the 'Odyssey', write something in the first room on the left, do whatever you like. I'll be back in a couple of hours or when the rain stops.

Take care - Celestine"

So I did take care indeed. I just ate as much bread as I could get from the cupboard. It was about three quarters of a loaf and maybe a bit more, but I still didn't dare turn the gas stove on because I knew it wasn't as safe as the one back home and I could set the house on fire if I wasn't cautious.

After finishing, I went upstairs in the room she'd indicated - the first one to the left. There was a writing desk in there and on the table, there were three different inkwells and an array of thirty different dip pens. Some were plain feather pens while others had intricate handles made of wood or ivory. Of course, there was also a typewriter there in the middle of all the clutter.

The walls of the writing room were lined with bookcases, all filled with all kinds of books. Ancient texts, newer titles, even one book with a label on it saying "To be burnt" called "Rise of a coloured empire".

"Finally," I thought. "Someone who isn't racist in a sea of racists". Because indeed, the 20s were fueled by racism in all the works there came out during that time. There was a hatred of the Whites against the Coloureds and there was a hatred of the Coloureds against the Whites about that age, but there still was some good revolving around that age. The stocks were high, the prices were low (I guess because I don't know an awful lot about that time), the use of electricity was spreading slowly but surely, the smell of another industrial revolution in the air, jazz began to take shape (especially those snappy ragtime tunes and those notoriously slow ones) and I loved it. It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. But all of this contrasting amalgam of sounds, smells and feelings was happening at once.

And there I was, in front of the table, with my inkwell to my right and my dip pen ready to use. I was more than prepared for writing something. But what is it that I would write? And to whom? Because if I wrote in calligraphy, I most certainly do it in a letter to someone. So what paper would be fit to write a letter?

I looked in the drawer of the writing desk and guess what I saw? A few A4 sheets of crimson paper. This paper was as red as a fiery poppy and the ink in my well was as black as the seeds in it. I spent two hours composing the following letter on impulse, without really wanting to:

My dearest!

No words can describe the feelings I have for you. Look, I don't know you or your name. But there is one thing that I know about you - the smell. It is about this smell that I wish to speak to you.

Now this scent I shall describe. First, it smells of vanilla which fades away into an insanely tempting smell of coffee which doesn't let me sleep well for a few nights now. This all gives in to an explosion of cedarwood which tempts me to get lost in questions about who the bearer of this smell might be.

I get drunk on this fragrance of yours. I lose control when I smell any part of it. I feel tears of overwhelming love in my eyes whenever I breathe it in. And with it comes the feeling of you and your protection surrounding me.

Please, all I want you to do is let me hold you tight and breathe in this smell as if it were the last one I ever felt in my entire life. Let me keep the source of this scent in my heart. Be mine once and forever and I shall never let go of you.

I shall keep you near me and never let you down in anything I do. I swear by anything you want that I shall end along with you, being faithful until the very end because I love you too much. If a smell made me say all of these, then I know for certain that I found true love.

Yours forever,

                             Clara W.

I sighed looking at the letter and somehow decided to keep it. Don't know what for, don't know for whom. All I know is Celestine came in after I finished.

"You wrote, huh?"

"Yeah, I wrote a love letter to nobody in particular. I smelled a book back home and it smelled kind of like a man's perfume."

"Whoa, hold up! A man's perfume? What did it smell like?"

"Vanilla, coffee and cedar."

"The nobleman I just went to discuss the matters of the garden smelled just like that."

"And who did you go see?"

She came close and whispered the name in my ear:

"Gatsby."

"Really?!", I went, with my eyes wide from the surprise of this fact.

"Really. Don't tell anyone that the most influential twenty-year-old of the area called for my services."

"Twenty?! I thought he was thirty-two. Shoot! A fifteen-to-sixteen-year-old in the war... Wow!"

"Wow is right. He lived a full life, believe me. An awful smart old sport he is, and an awful fast learner."

"That explains a lot."

"In fact, some of the data in the diary was changed when they published it so it wouldn't be too hard to believe. Like Daisy married at age 17 and it was about three years, not five. Yeah, all of this so it would be more plausible. Get it?"

"Get it, got it , gotten it."

"Hey! You can conjugate verbes really well."

"What can I say? I'm a conjugating machine?"

And the rest of the day merrily went by between meals and discussions of love, living intensely and that one name that was even repeated in my mind before I went to sleep, the name that brought with it a lot of truble for Celestine or anyone known to be familiar with her.

Gatsby.