Chapter 408: The Returnee

The question was, what should he write?

Should he write another piece like his essay submission?

That wouldn't work. His success this time had relied on luck; it had just happened to perfectly capture the current climate.

He couldn't expect every article to perfectly match the zeitgeist. If he did, wouldn't they just be editorials?

And who liked reading editorials?

As for essays, the editor-in-chief of the Northern Literary Review had told him to write authentically.

But essays were the kind of thing readers might nod along to as they read, only to forget the moment they finished. They never truly stuck in the mind.

Richard wanted something that would take root in the minds of those gentlemen.

He thought about it for a long time before recalling a political satire he particularly loved.

He decided to serialize a story about two people.

One would be a minister sitting in a thickly carpeted office on the top floor of the Department of Internal Affairs, his head full of pretty words about serving the country and the people.

He wanted to accomplish a few monumental deeds that would go down in history.

The other would be his subordinate, the Permanent Secretary—a highly educated, wily old fox who had spent decades navigating the bureaucracy.

His greatest skill was seamlessly translating all those pretty words from above into official documents that accomplished absolutely nothing.

The minister wanted reform; the secretary only wanted to avoid trouble.

The minister wanted the prestige of front-page newspaper headlines, while the secretary just wanted a peaceful, spotless archive.

The two would politely go back and forth, hiding their clashes in their dialogue and administrative measures. Richard tried drafting a snippet of their conversation.

"Mr. Secretary, I want to push this proposal forward. It is a matter of justice."

"Of course. You are very wise, and this is an extremely brave decision."

"Why would you call it brave?"

"Your Excellency, 'brave' means this decision will likely cost you votes."

"And your suggestion is?"

"I suggest establishing a committee. We must thoroughly, prudently, and comprehensively research the matter."

"And how long will this research take?"

"Until you are no longer responsible for it."

After finishing this exchange, Richard laughed to himself.

Highly satisfied, he decided this was exactly what he wanted.

When those upper-class figures read this comedy, they would laugh. They would assume it was about other departments, other high officials, and other people's absurdities.

As they laughed, they would grasp the author's underlying message.

Laughter aside, they might also recall a certain official document they had signed the week before, or some committee that had prudently conducted research for years before quietly dissolving into nothing.

The comedy was fiction, of course, but the events it portrayed were likely very real.

He tentatively ran the idea by Montagu.

He explained that he wanted to write something that "made those at the top laugh while making them squirm."

The blond youth leaned against the wall in the training room corridor and thought for a moment.

"You want to... force them to look in a mirror, but make them think they're looking at someone else."

"Speaking of which, you've found the right man. I have an uncle in the Department of Internal Affairs."

Richard's heart skipped a beat.

Montagu looked at him, a faint smile touching his lips.

"People like them hate two things.

"Someone pointing at their nose and accusing them of holding a sinecure.

"Or someone writing an article laying out everything they've done exactly as it happened."

"My uncle isn't afraid of direct insults. Plenty of people curse him, and he has a thick skin."

"But the latter terrifies him."

"He can't lash out, because no one is actually insulting him.

"And if he jumps up and claims it's about him, doesn't that mean he's admitting to it?"

He chuckled at his own words.

"I want to write exactly the second kind."

Richard's expression, however, was completely serious.

"Hmm."

Montagu studied him for a moment.

"Williams, you really are..." He shook his head, leaving the rest unsaid.

"Alright. Show me the draft when you're done. I've grown up around plenty of men like that.

"I can tell you which lines will sting and which ones will miss the mark. Let me check it for you."

Montagu gazed up at the gas lamp.

"I'd love to see the looks on their faces when they read about themselves."

"I've spent over a decade staring at those fake faces across the dinner table. I've been sick of them for a long time."

Richard, however, still hadn't settled on a title for the new serialization.

He wrote The Lord Premier on his draft paper, then crossed it out.

He wrote Cabinet Corridors, but crossed that out as well. It sounded too academic.

He left it blank for now. The title could wait; he needed to try writing the story first.

It was late into the night. The oil in the storage room lamp was nearly gone.

Richard blew it out and sat in the darkness for a while.

His mind had already raced far ahead.

If the serialization received a good response, established a foothold in the Century Review, and gathered a loyal base of readers following every update, that would complete the first step.

Even publishing it issue by issue, the readership would be limited to the few thousand eyes that frequented the clubs.

If he had more resources and money later on, he could commission illustrations for the comedy, which would definitely elevate the presentation.

Satirical cartoons were still a highly novel and eye-catching medium in the current Empire.

He could have an artist draw the minister sticking out his belly while spouting pretty rhetoric, with the secretary standing behind him, squinting as he schemed.

The literate would read the text, and the illiterate would look at the drawings. Afterward, they would all remember those two faces.

They could be stuffed into the baskets of newsboys below, and displayed on the coffee tables of clubs above.

By then, both the Collection of Strange Tales and this comic could be rolled out in full force.

Richard smiled. He was getting way ahead of himself.

He didn't even have a title yet. Resources, distribution channels, and an artist willing to draw for him—none of those were anywhere in sight.

He had to take things one step at a time.

...

Recently, something of moderate significance had occurred at Imperial Capital University.

The drama club was going to rehearse a new play.

The club usually put on stale, outdated pieces.

Shakespeare, Sheridan, and the occasional adapted ancient Greek tragedy. Every year, they recycled the same few plays for the exact same audience.

With severe wartime manpower shortages, the club president had been replaced three times, and this year they had originally planned to suspend performances entirely.

Yet on March 10th, a poster was pinned to the noticeboard. It read: The Returnee.

Fischer was the first to spot it, and he immediately dragged Richard out of the classroom.

"An original piece." He pointed at the poster, his face full of disbelief.

"Can you believe it? The Imperial Capital University drama club is doing an original play?"

"When was their last original production?"

"1891," Fischer answered instantly.

"They performed Death of the Proctor, a satire mocking the provost at the time."

"And the result?"

"The provost walked out halfway through. The following year, the drama club's funding was almost completely slashed."

Fischer shoved his hands back into his pockets.

"For the twenty-four years since, they haven't dared to touch original works."

March 12th, east auditorium of the Petrie Building.

Ten minutes before the curtain rose, Grey poked her head out of the crowd.

She was wearing her school uniform coat, and her cheeks were flushed from the wind outside.

Standing on her tiptoes, she scanned the crowd, and her eyes lit up the moment she spotted Richard.

"Richard!"

She bumped into two people as she squeezed her way over, constantly muttering, "I'm sorry, excuse me."

"You weren't around on Valentine's Day..."

She stopped mid-sentence, her face growing even redder.

"This is for you." She shoved a Tin Box into Richard's arms.

Richard lifted the lid and glanced inside. A row of heart-shaped pastries was neatly stacked within, not a single one broken.

"I baked three batches."

"What happened to the first two?"

"I ate the first two myself."

Richard picked one up and popped it into his mouth.

The icing had hardened and the almond scent had faded significantly, but the slight tartness of lemon in the center was still there.

"It's good," he said.

"Then have another one."

Richard took another.

Right at that moment, the lights dimmed.

A simple gray sheet hung against the back wall, serving as the entire stage backdrop.

There were only two stage lights. Shining from the sides, they stretched the actors' shadows out long across the empty floor space in front of the stage.

Almost everyone Richard knew was there. Fischer had brought a paper bag tucked into his coat and started shelling peanuts the moment he came in.

The prologue was brief. A man in a military greatcoat knocked on a door, but no one answered.

He stood there, taking his hat off and putting it back on.

The first act was in a parish office.

"Sir, you want to prove that you are alive?"

"Yes."

"Who said you were dead?"

"You did."

"Then you must first prove that we were wrong."

Someone in the audience chuckled.

The clerk flipped open an incredibly thick ledger and read out a string of identification numbers.

He told the man that acquiring a proof of life required two witnesses who had known him for at least five years.

The man said his wife had known him for eleven years.

The clerk replied that his wife had already signed an affidavit confirming his death, and changing her statement now would be perjury.

The second act consisted entirely of offices.

The same two actors swapped hats, changing them one after another.

A felt hat was the Pension Department, a stiff-brimmed hat the Civil Registry, a brimless cap the Conscription Office. The audience laughed louder and louder.

His five-pound pension had already been spent on his funeral.

To be declared alive, he first had to return the five pounds.

His position at work had been taken by a female worker who did it better than he had.

His ration book had been canceled, so he couldn't buy bread.

In the final office, the clerk took off his hat and poured him a cup of tea.

"I can't help you."

"I know."

"Have you ever thought..." The clerk pushed the teacup across the desk. "...that perhaps the ledger is right?"

The laughter stopped.

The epilogue was at home.

His wife finished setting out the knives and forks, then collected one set and put it away. As she did, she didn't spare a single glance for the man sitting right there.

The family ate their dinner and talked.

They discussed how much of the pension money was left, whether they should buy a new frame for the photograph on the mantelpiece, and how he never used to like turnips.

They spoke entirely in the past tense.

The man sat at his own family's dining table and looked up at the photograph on the mantelpiece.

The photograph was of him.

The lights went out.

The hall remained silent for a long time, so long that someone finally cleared their throat in the dark.

Only then did the applause begin, scattered and sporadic.

"I don't think that form in the second act was filled out correctly."

Fischer was the first to jump in with his opinion.

"Pension applications use a Class C form. The one he was holding was obviously for civil registry changes. Even the color was wrong."

No one responded to him.

"...I'm just saying." Fischer pulled his scarf up.

Edith remained completely still in her seat.

"If he could afford a lawyer, the second act couldn't have continued."

"Where I'm from, getting a certificate drawn up by the town clerk costs two shillings."

"For two shillings, my father has to carry twenty sacks of flour."

Montagu stared at the empty space below.

"That final scene, where he sits at his own dining table while his family talks around him."

The blond youth rested his hand on the edge of the bench.

"My family is just like that. My brother writes letters home, and all they say is that he's doing well."

"We read his letters at home. Once we're finished, we put them away and go right back to eating."

It's a pity we'll never see another one, he thought silently to himself.

Catherine opened her small notebook, wrote a line, and turned it around.

"The ledger cannot be balanced. Neither side is at fault."

After writing that, she closed the notebook and placed it on her lap.

Grey had been clutching the Tin Box the entire time.

"I don't really understand what you're all talking about."

"I was just thinking, he should have knocked on the door first."

"Why knock?" Richard asked.

"If he knocked, his mother would have had to open it."

Saying this, Grey pulled out a second, much larger pastry box and passed it around.

Fischer tossed them back in single bites, eating three in a row.

Edith cupped hers in her hands and refused to eat it, saying she wanted to save it.

Catherine usually didn't eat other people's food. When Grey nudged the box toward her, she hesitated, but finally took one.

Grey said, "They're made with beet sugar, so they might not be very sweet."

Catherine took a bite, opened her notebook, and wrote:

"It is delicious."

When the show ended, the crowd squeezed out through the two narrow doors.

Montagu and Richard walked at the back.

As they reached the steps, he suddenly spoke.

"Did you look at the program?"

"I did."

"Phillips provided the original script."

"How do you know?"

"I know the president of the drama club."

Richard turned to look at him.

Montagu stuffed his hands into his overcoat pockets.

"Four days after the funeral, he took the script to the drama club.

"The president said he walked in, dropped the manuscript, and left without saying a single word."

"The president chased after him and asked if he wanted his name on it."

"He just waved his hand dismissively from a distance."

"Did he come tonight?"

Montagu glanced back at the two narrow doors.

"He sat in the very top row, right next to the door, for the entire show."

"He left right before the lights came back on."

Richard walked back a few steps and pushed open one of the doors.

Half the lights in the hall had already been turned off. The long benches sat completely empty, and the stage carpets had been rolled up and leaned against the wall.

Up in the top row, in the seat right next to the door, a circular water stain lingered on the wood.

He closed the door and stepped back.

Grey broke the final pastry in her Tin Box in half and handed him a piece.

"You can have the burnt half."

"Why?"

"Because you said last time that you eat anything."

Richard accepted the burnt half.