Footnotes to the Life of Julian Vane

fiction

14. The author's assertion that Vane’s early interest in theology was a product of rigorous study is contradicted by the parish records of St. Jude’s. The sudden disappearance of Elias Thorne (1642.1645) coincides precisely with Vane’s sudden proficiency in Latin. Vane’s private journals from this period describe a persistent scent of crushed lilies and wet wool that clung to his skin for three years: the first documented instance of sensory residue. 32. While the main text characterizes Vane’s residency in Venice as a period of artistic patronage, there is no record of his arrival at the port. He spent those twelve years in a cellar in Eastcheap. The correspondence cited in Chapter 4 consists of forgeries written in the hand of a deceased gondolier. During this time, Vane’s skin began to flake in iridescent, salt-like scales; a somatic echo of a city he never visited. 57. Vane’s supposed kinship with the exiled nobility of the 1780s is a fabrication. The memories he absorbed from the Comte de Valois were poorly integrated. Vane spent the subsequent decade speaking in a dialect of French that had been extinct for a century, frequently forgetting his own name in favor of the Comte’s. The residue here was auditory: he claimed to hear a constant, low-frequency humming that sounded like a thousand bees in a lead box. 88. The biography attributes Vane’s longevity to a strict regimen of diet and exercise. This is a sanitized lie. The maintenance of a singular identity required the consumption of a fresh, coherent psyche every seven years. By 1890, the parasitic toll became evident. Vane could no longer touch silk or velvet without experiencing the violent, phantom sensation of drowning. He began to smell of ozone and old copper, regardless of how often he bathed. 112. The final years of Vane’s life were not spent in quiet contemplation. The room in which he died smelled of stagnant water and burnt sugar. I found the hidden journals behind the wainscoting. He was not contemplating; he was leaking. The memories had become a sludge, an oily saturation of foreign lives that he could no longer contain. The handwriting in the final entries dissolves into a series of jagged, overlapping scripts. 115. It is a mistake to believe the process ended with Vane’s death. I have spent six months cataloging these papers. I can now taste the copper in the back of my throat. Last night, I dreamt of a gondola in a city I have never seen, and I woke up with my fingers smelling of crushed lilies.