Looking for Jake Part 4

BWVF PAPERS, NO. 223. JULY 1981.

uncertain, but there is little reason to doubt his veracity. Both specimens tested exactly as one Looking for Jake, By China Mieville would expect for VD, suggesting no difference between VD and VF at even a molecular level.

Any distinction must presumably be at the level of gross morphology, which defies our attempts at comparison, or of a noncorporeal essence thus-far beyond our capacity to measure.

Whatever the reality, the fact that the two specimens of VF mortar can be added to the BWVF collection is cause for celebration.

This research should be ready to present by the end of this year.

REPORT ON WORK IN PROGRESS:.

VF and Hermeneutics by B. Bath.

Problems of knowledge and the problematic of Knowing . Considerations of VF as urban scripture. Kabbala considered as interpretive model. Investigation of VF as patterns of interference. Research currently ongoing, ETA of finished article uncertain.

REPORT ON WORK IN PROGRESS:.

Recent changes in VF Behaviour by E. Nugen.

Tracking the movements of VF is notoriously difficult. [ Inserted here is a scrawl - 'No b.l.o.o.d.ykidding. What do you think we're all b.l.o.o.d.y doing here? ] Reconstructing these patterns over the longue duree [ the accent is added by hand] is perforce a matter of plumbing a historical record that is, by its nature and definitionally, partial, anecdotal and uncertain. As most of my readers know it has long been my aim to extract from the annals of our society evidence for long-term cycles (See Working Paper 19, Once More on the Statten Curve ), an aim on which I have not been entirely unsuccessful.

I have collated the evidence from the major verified London sightings of the last three decades (two of those sightings my own) and can conclusively state that the time between VF arrival at and departure from a locus has decreased by a factor of 0.7. VF are moving more quickly.

In addition, tracking their movements after each appearance has become more complicated and (even) less certain. In 1940, application of the Deschaine Matrix with regard to a given VF's arrival time and duration on-site would result in a 23% chance of predicting reappearance parameters (within two months and two miles): today that same process nets only a 16% chance.

VF are less predictable than they have ever been (barring, perhaps, the Lost Decade of 187686).

The s.h.i.+ft in this behaviour is not linear but punctuated, sudden bursts of change over the years: once between 1952 and '53, again in late 1961, again in '72 and '76. The causes and consequences are not yet known. Each of these pivotal moments has resulted in an increased Looking for Jake, By China Mieville pace of change. The anecdotal evidence we have all heard, that VF have recently become more skittish and agitated, appears to be correct.

I intend to present this work in full within 18 months. I wish to thank CM for help with the research. [ This CM is presumably Charles Melville, to whom the package was addressed.

Clipped to the BWVF papers is this handwritten note: Yes, Edgar is a pompous a.r.s.e but he is on to something big.

What is it Edgar N. is onto? Of course I wondered, and still wonder, though now I thinkperhaps I know. ]

* * * [ Then there is a doc.u.ment unlike the others so far. It is a booklet, a few pages long. It waswhen I started to read this that I stopped, frowned, looked again at the envelope, realised myinadvertent intrusion, and decided almost instantly that I would not stop reading. 'Decided'

doesn't really get the sense of the urgency with which I continued, as if I had no choice. b.u.t.then if I say that, I absolve myself of wrong doing which I won't do, so let's say I 'decided',though I'm unsure that I did. In any case, I continued reading. This doc.u.ment is printed onboth sides like a flyer. The first sentence below is in large red font, and const.i.tutes the booklet'sfront cover. ]

URGENT: Report of a Sighting.

Princ.i.p.al witness: FR.

Secondary: EN.

On Thursday 11th February 1988, so far as it is possible to tell between 3:00 a.m. and5:17 a.m., a little way south of Plumstead High Street SE18, Varmin Way occurred.

Even somewhat foreshortened from its last known appearance (Battersea 1983 - see the VF Concordance), Varmin Way is in a buckled configuration due to the constraints of s.p.a.ce. One end adjoins Purrett Road between numbers 44 and 46, approximately forty feet north of Saunders Road: Varmin Way then appears to describe a tight S-curve, emerging halfway up Rippolson Road between numbers 30 and 32 (see attached map). [ There is no map. ]

Two previously terraced dwellings on each of the intersected streets have now been separated by Varmin Way. One on Rippolson is deserted: surrept.i.tious enquiries have been made of inhabitants of each of the others, but none have remarked with anything other than indifference Looking for Jake, By China Mieville to the newcomer. Eg: in response to FR's query of one man if he knew the name of 'that alley', he glanced at the street now ab.u.t.ting his house, shrugged and told her he was 'b.u.g.g.e.red if he knew'. This response is of course typical of VF occurrence-environs (See B. Harman, 'On the Non-Noticing', BWVF Working Papers no. 5).

A partial exception is one thirty-five-year-old Purrett Road man, resident in the brick dwelling newly on Varmin Way's north bank. Observed on his way toward Saunders Road, crossing Varmin Way, he tripped on the new kerb. He looked down at the asphalt and up at brick corners of the junction, paced back and forward five times with a quizzical expression, peering down the street's length, without entering it, before continuing on his journey, looking back twice.

[ This is the end of the middle page of the leaflet. Folded and inserted inside is a handwrittenletter. I have therefore decided to reproduce it here in the middle of the leaflet text. It reads:Charles, In haste. So sorry I could not reach you sooner - obviously phone not an option. I told you Icould work this out: Fiona was only on-site because of me, but I modestly listed her asprinc.i.p.al for politics' sake. Charles, we're about to go in and I'm telling you even from whereI'm standing I can see the evidence, this is the real thing. Next time, next time. Or get downhere! I'm sending this first cla.s.s (of course!) so when you get it rush down here. But you knowVarmin Way's reputation - it's restless, will probably be gone. But come find me! I'll be hereat least.

Edgar At the end of this note is appended, in the same handwriting as that of the package'sintroductory note: What a b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I take it this was when you and he stopped seeing eye to eye? Why did he cutyou out like that, and why so coyly?

The leaflet then continues:]

Initial investigation shows that the new Varmin Wayoverlooking walls of the houses now separated on Purrett Road are flat concrete. Those of Rippolson Road, though, are of similar brick to their fronts, bearing the usual sigil of the VF's ident.i.ty, and are broken by small windows at the very top, through the net curtains of which nothing can be seen. (See 'On Neomural Variety', by H. Burke, WBVF Working Papers no. 8) Looking for Jake, By China Mieville Those innards of Varmin Way which can be seen from its adjoining streets bear all the usual signs of VF morphology (are, in other words, apparently unremarkable), and are in accordance with earlier doc.u.mented descriptions of the subject. In this occurrence, it being short, FR and EN were able to conduct the Bowery Resonance Experiment, stationing themselves at either end of the VF and shouting to each other down its lengths (until forced to stop by externalities).

[ Here in Edgar's hand has been inserted'Some local thuggee threatening to do me in if I didn't shut up!'] Each could clearly hear the other, past the kinks in this configuration of Varmin Way.

More experiments are to follow.

* * * [ When I reached this point I was trembling. I had to stop, leave the room, drink some water,force myself to breathe slowly. I'm tempted to add more about this, about the sudden andthreatened speculations these doc.u.ments raised in me, but I think I should stay out of it.

Immediately after the report of the sighting was another, similarly produced pamphlet. ]

URGENT: Report of an Aborted Investigation.

Present: FR, EN, BH.

[ Added here is another new comment in Charles's nameless contact's hand. It reads: 'Dread to think how gutted you were to be replaced by Bryn as new favourite. What exactly did you do to get Edgar so p.i.s.sed off ?']

At 11:20 p.m. on Sat.u.r.day 13 February 1988, from its end on Rippolson Road, an initial examination was made of Varmin Way. Photographs were taken establis.h.i.+ng the VF's ident.i.ty (figure 1). [ Figure 1 is a surprisingly good-quality reproduction of a shot, showing a street signby a wall, standing at leg-height on two little metal or wooden posts. The image is at a peculiarangle, which I think is the result of the photograph not being taken straight on, but fromRippolson Road, beyond. In an unusual old serif font, the sign reads Varmin Way.]

As the party prepared for the expedition, certain events took place or were insinuated which led to a postponement and quick regrouping at a late-night cafe on Plumstead High Street. [ Whatwere those 'certain events'? The pointed imprecision suggested to me something deliberatelynot committed to paper, something that the readers of this report, or perhaps a subgroup ofthem, would understand. These writings are a strange mix of the scientifically exact and theimprecise - even the failure to specify the cafe is surprising. But it is the baleful vagueness ofthe certain events that will not stop worrying at me. ] When the group returned to Rippolson Road at 11:53 p.m., to their great frustration, Varmin Way had unoccurred.

[ Two monochrome pictures end the piece. They have no explanatory notes or legend. They are Looking for Jake, By China Mieville both taken in daylight. On the left is a photograph of two houses, on either side of a smallstreet of low century-old houses which curves sharply to the right, it looks like, quickly unclearwith distance. The right-hand picture is the two facades again, but this time the houses - recognisably the same from a window's crack, from a smear of paint below a sash, from thescrawny front gardens and the distinct unkempt buddleia bush - are closed up together. Theyare no longer semidetached. There is no street between them. ]

* * * [ So.

I stopped for a bit. I had to stop. And then I had to read on again.

A single sheet of paper. Typewritten again apart from the name, now on an electronicmachine. ]

Could you see it, Charles? The damage, halfway down Varmin Way? It's there, it's visible in the picture in that report. [ This must mean the picture on the left. I stared at it hard, with thenaked eye and through a magnifying gla.s.s. I couldn't make out anything. ] It's like the slates from Scry Pa.s.s, the ones I showed you in the collection. You could see it in the striae and the marks, even if none of the b.l.o.o.d.y curators did. Varmin Way wasn't just pa.s.sing through, it was resting , it was recovering , it had been attacked. I am right.

Edgar * * * [ I kept reading.

Though it's not signed, judging by the font, what follows are a couple of pages of another typedletter from Edgar. ]

The earliest occurrence I can find of it is in the early 1700s (you'll hear 1790 or '91 or something - nonsense, that's just the official position based on the archives - this one isn't verified but believe me it's correct). Only a handful of years after the Glorious Revolution we find Antonia Chesterfield referring in her diaries to 'a right rat of a street, ascamper betwixt Waterloo and the Mall, a veritable Vermin, in name as well as kind. Beware - Touch a rat and he will bite, as others have found, of our own and of the Vermin's vagrant tribe'. That's a reference to Varmin Way - Mrs Chesterfield was in the Brotherhood's precursor (and you'd not have heard her complaining about that name either - Fiona take note!).

You see what she's getting at, and I think she was the first. I don't know, Charles, correlation is so terribly hard, but look at some of the other candidates. Shuck Road; Caul Street; Stang Street; Teratologue Avenue (this last I think is fairly voracious); et al. So far as I can work it Looking for Jake, By China Mieville out, Varmin Way and Stang Street were highly antagonistic at that stage, but now they're almost certainly noncombative. No surprise: Sole Den Road is the big enemy these days -remember 1987?

(Incidentally, talking of that first Varmin occurrence, did you ever read all the early cryptolit I sent you?

The Clerk entered into a Snickelway That then was gone again by close of day Fourteenth century, imagine. I'll bet you a pound there are letters from disgruntled Britannic procurators complaining about errant alleyways around the Temple of Mithras. But there's not much discussion of the hostilities until Mrs Chesterfield.) Anyway, you see my point. It's the only way one can make sense of it all, of all this that I've been going on about for so long. The Viae are fighting, and I think they always have.

And there's no idiot nationalism here either, as [ And here is the end of the page. And there is another message added, clearly referring to thisletter, from CM's nameless interlocutor. 'I believe it', he says, or she says, but I think of it as aman's handwriting though that's a problematic a.s.sumption. 'It took me a while, but I believe Edgar's bellum theory. But I know you, Charles, "pure research" be b.u.g.g.e.red as far as you're concerned. I know what Edgar's doing, but I cannot see whereyou are going with this.']

URGENT: Report of a Traveller.

Wednesday June 17th 1992.

We are receiving repeated reports, which we are attempting to verify, of an international visit.

Somewhere between Willesden Green and Dollis Hill (details are unclear), Ulica Nerwowosc has arrived. This visitor from Krakow has been characterised by our comrades in the Kolektyw as a mercurial mediaeval alleyway, very difficult to predict. Though it has proved impossible to photograph, initial reports correlate with the Kolektyw's description of the Via. Efforts are ongoing to capture an image of this elusive newcomer, and even to plan a Walk, if the risks are not too great.

No London street has sojourned elsewhere for some time (perhaps not unfortunate - a visit Looking for Jake, By China Mieville from Bunker Crescent was, notoriously, responsible for the schism in the BWVF Chicago Chapter in 1956), but the last ten years have seen six other doc.u.mented visitations to London from foreign Viae Ferae. See table.

[ There is a thick card receipt, stamped with some obscure sign, its left-hand columns renderedin crude typeface, those on the right filled out in black ink. ]

BWVF collection.

Date: 7/8/1992.

Name: C. Melville Curator G. Benedict present: Requested: Item 117: a half-slate recovered from Scry Pa.s.s, 7/11/1958.

Item 34: a splinter of gla.s.s recovered from Caul Street,8/2/1986.

Item 67: an iron ring and key recovered from Stang Street,6/5/1936.

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville * * * [ This next letter is on headed paper, beautifully printed. ]

SOCIeTe POUR L'eTUDE DES RUES SAUVAGES 20 June 1992 Dear Mr Melville, Thank you for your message and congratulations for have this visitor. We in Paris were fortunate to have this pretty Polish street rest with us in 1988 but I did not see it.

I confirm that you are correct. Boulevard de la Gare Intrinseque and the Rue de la Fascination have both stories about them. We call him le jockey, a man who is supposed to live on streets like these and to make them move for him, but these are only stories for the children. There are no people on the se rues sauvages, in Paris, and I think there are none in London too. No one knows why the streets have gone to London that time, like no one knows why your Importune Avenue moved around the area where is now the Arc de la Defence twelve years ago.

Yours truly, Claudette Santier * * *

[ There is a handwritten letter. ]

My Dear Charles, I'm quite aware that you feel ill-used. I apologise for that. There is no point, I think, rehearsingour disagreements, let alone the unpleasant contretemps they have led to. I cannot see that youare going anywhere with these investigations, though, and I simply do not have enough yearsleft to indulge your ideas, nor enough courage (were I younger...Ah but were I younger whatwould I not do?).

I have performed three Walks in my time, and have seen the evidence of the wounds the Viaeleave on each other. I have tracked the combatants and s.h.i.+fting loyalties. Where, in contrast, isthe evidence behind your claims? Why, on the basis of your intuition, should anyone discard thecautions that may have kept us alive? It is not as if what we do is safe, Charles. There arereasons for the strictures you are so keen to overturn.

Of course yes I have heard all the stories that you have: of the streets that occur with lightsas.h.i.+ne and men at home! of the antique costermongers' cries still heard over the walls ofDandle Way! of the street-riders! I do not say I don't believe them, any more than I don't - or Looking for Jake, By China Mieville do - believe the stories that Potash Street and Luckless Road courted and mated and thatthat's how Varmin Way was born, or the stories of where the Viae Ferae go when theyunoccur. I have no way of judging. This mythic company of inhabitants and street-tamers maybe true, but so long as it is also a myth, you have nothing. I am content to observe, Charles,not to become involved.

Good G.o.d, who knows what the agenda of the streets might be? Would you really, would youreally, Charles, risk attempting ingress? Even if you could? After everything you've read andheard? Would you risk taking sides?

Regretfully and fondly, Edgar * * * [ This is another handwritten note. I think it is in Edgar's hand, but it is hard to be sure. ]

Sat.u.r.day 27th November 1999.

Varmin Way's back.

* * * [ We are near the end of the papers now. What came out of the package next looks like one ofthe pamphlet-style reports of sightings. It is marked with a black band in one corner of thefront cover. ]

URGENT: Report of a Walk.

Walkers: FR, EN, BH (author).

At 11:20 p.m. on Sunday 28th November 1999, a Walk was made the length of Varmin Way.

As well as its tragic conclusion, most members will be aware of the extraordinary circ.u.mstances surrounding this investigation - since records began, there is no evidence in the archives of a Via Fera returning to the site of an earlier occurrence. Varmin Way's reappearance, then, at precisely the same location in Plumstead, between Purrett and Rippolson Road, as that it inhabited in February 1988, was profoundly shocking, and necessitated this perhaps too-quickly-planned Walk.

FR operated as base, remaining stationed on Rippolson Road (the front yard of the still-deserted number 32 acting as camp). Carrying toolbags and wearing Council overalls over their harnesses and belay kits, BH and EN set out. Their safety rope was attached to a fencepost close to FR.

The Walkers remained in contact with FR throughout their three-hour journey, by radio.

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville In this occurrence of Varmin Way, the street is a little more than 100 metres long. [ Anamendment here:'Can you imagine Edgar going metric? What kind of a homage is this?'] We proceeded slowly. [ Here another insertion: 'Ugh. Change of person.' By now I was increasinglyirritated with these interruptions. I never felt I could ignore them, but they broke the flow of myreading. There was something vaguely pa.s.sive-aggressive in their cheer, and I felt as if CharlesMelville would have been similarly angered by them. In an effort to retain the flow I'll start thissentence again. ]

We proceeded slowly. We walked along the unpainted tar in the middle of Varmin Way, equidistant from the rows of streetlamps. These lamps are indistinguishable from those in the neighbouring streets. There are houses to either side, all of them with all their windows unlit, looking like low workers' cottages of Victorian vintage (though the earliest doc.u.mented reports of Varmin Way date from 1792 - this apparent aging of form gives credence [ To my intense frustration, several pages are missing, and this is where the report thereforeends. There are, however, several photographs in an envelope, stuffed in among the pages.

There are four. They are dreadful shots, taken with a flash too close or too far, so that theirsubject is either effaced by light or peering out from a cowl of dark. Nonetheless they can justbe made out.

The first is a wall of crumbling brick, the mortar fallen away in scabs. Askew across the print,taken from above, is a street sign. Varmin Way, it says, in an antiquated iron font. Written inbiro on the photograph's back is: The Sigil.

The second is a shot along the length of the street. Almost nothing is visible in this, exceptperspective lines sketched in dark on dark. None of the houses has a front garden: their doorsopen directly onto the pavement. They are implacably closed, whether for centuries or onlymoments it is of course impossible to tell. The lack of a no-man's-land between house andWalker makes the doors loom. Written on the back of this image is: The Way.

The third is of the front of one of the houses. It is damaged. Its dark windows are broken, itsbrick stained, crumbling where the roof is fallen in. On the back is written: The Wound.

The last picture is of an end of rope and a climbing buckle, held in a young man's hands. Therope is frayed and splayed: the metal clip bent in a strange corkscrew. On the back of thephotograph is nothing. ]

* * * [ And then comes the last piece in the envelope. It is undated. It is in a different hand to theothers. ]

What did you do? How did you do it? What did you do, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d?

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville I saw what happened. Edgar was right, I saw where Varmin Way had been hurt. But you knowthat, don't you?

What did you do to Varmin Way to make it do that? What did you do to Edgar?

Do you think you'll get away with it?

* * * That was everything. When I'd finished, I was frantic to find Charles Melville.

I think the ban on telephone conversations must extend to email and web pages. I searched online, of course, for BWVF, 'wild streets', 'feral streets', 'Viae Ferae', and so on. I got nothing. BWVF got references to cars or technical parts. I tried 'Brotherhood of Witnesses to Watchers of the Viae Ferae' without any luck. 'Wild streets' of course got thousands: articles about New Orleans Mardi Gras, hard-boiled ramblings, references to an old computer game, and an article about the Cold War. Nothing relevant.

I visited each of the sites described in the sc.r.a.ps of literature, the places where all the occurrences occurred. For several weekends I wandered in scraggy a.r.s.e-end streets in north or south London, or sometimes in sedate avenues, even once (following Unthinker Road) walking through the centre of Soho. Inevitably, I suppose, I kept returning to Plumstead.

I would hold the before-and-after pictures up and look at the same houses of Rippolson Road, all closed up, an unbroken terrace.

Why did I not repackage all this stuff and send it on to Charles Melville, or take it to his house in person? The envelope wrongly sent to -ley Road was addressed to -ford Road. But there is no -ford Road in London. I have no idea how to find Charles.