Tales of Theft and Cowardice from The Crippled Bee

    No one even knew that Eva Holubk had a husband. After reading her poem Swimming in a Ship as a lesbian allegory, I had always been under the impression that she was in the habit of ‘picking raspberries in spring’ (as Barbara Susenbach puts it). After all, not only was she frequently pointing out the flaws of the opposite sex in her verse, but she had never been seen with a man in public. Not that this new evidence proves me wrong, of course (she could still be engaged in some seasonal fruit gathering) but it comes as a surprise nonetheless. Who’d have thought Holubk was married?

    Not just married, but married to a man of some stature: a six foot eight part-time pugilist and full-time freak-of-nature from the rough end of some southern Estonian town; with brick-like fists and a stare capable of making even the sturdiest calves wobble from thirty or forty feet. Enter Witold Holubk, previously thought by his wife to be safely ensconced in their homeland, enjoying the attentions of his mistress. This set-up was, apparently, one that suited both parties – until a thought crawled like a drowsy earwig into Witold’s head. And that thought was this: that Eva’s new-found fame as a poet might be due to her feeding off his transgressions. That is, he got the idea she might be writing about him, and he didn’t much like it.

    There is no doubt that this thought of his was a silly one. First of all, Eva Holubk is not even close to being (or becoming) a famous poet. Her first book, Not Weeping But Chopping Onions had a limited print run and barely attracted any critical attention. From here her descent in utter failure seemed inevitable, till she was picked up by that least discerning of pretentious publishing houses, Upside-Down-Then-Backwards, who were fooled by her desire to have her poems printed upside down into thinking that she was some sort of ‘futurist’. She isn’t, with the possibility of her becoming a cult hero in the near future highly unlikely.

    On top of this, if there are any readers who are patient enough to deconstruct her poems, they will soon realise that her husband does not feature in any of them. Aside from the aforementioned ambiguous odes to femininity, most of her work deals either with adolescent affectations or the limpid wonders of the natural world. So far as I can tell, there isn’t even a passing reference to an Estonian boxer, let alone a measured criticism of his personality.

    Unfortunately for some, Witold wasn’t in the mood to consider this information when he turned up late last night at The Crippled Bee in North London, intent on gate-crashing the launch of his estranged wife’s new book, The Marmalade Jar. Accompanied by a wiry, greyhound-faced teenager (who turned out to be his cousin Edgar) his mission was simple: to round up every copy of the book in the building before taking off into the dark London night. There was no time set aside for debate. It was a case of 'get the books and go'.

    And this is pretty much how it panned out. The evening had started an hour earlier, marked by a typically tedious speech by the publishing house director Georgy Riecke – in which he responded to a recent review by his colleague Heidi Kohlenberg (in which she claimed he was a coward). ‘I am not a coward,’ he retorted, ‘but a logician. And logic says I should act like a coward.’ This was received, unsurprisingly, by a solitary smirk (from his wife, I think). Little did he know, however, that he would soon be given the perfect opportunity to take part in yet another cowardly act. But this was still to come. In the meantime, Eva stepped up to give a reading, which required all sorts of ridiculous poses from her audience, only half of which (e.g four) were willing. To be fair to some (and here Mr Riecke features, once again) it was unreasonable to be asking older citizens to stand on their heads for five minutes, but then Mrs Holubk is at least taking this whole ‘active reading’ malarkey seriously – which is both sweet (and very stupid) of her. For my part, I can only say that I find her poetry even less convincing when I listen to it with a glass of water balanced on my head – proving, I suppose, that circumstances do affect interpretations, but also that you’re much better off in a comfortable chair, whatever book you’re reading.

    Maybe it was the fact that we were being asked to contort our bodies into increasingly inelegant shapes - or the affect of the cheap Italian wine that The Crippled Bee serves – that Witold Holubk was able to force his way to the front and start denuding the presentation table without raising even the hairiest of eyebrows. Even Eva took her time, shocked though she was by the appearance of someone whom she presumed to be strolling along the shores of the Baltic Sea with Kadri, his raven-haired lover. Indeed, it was only when he and his chronically slender accomplice started shifting the two boxes of spare books hiding underneath the table that she sprung into action. I say sprung, but I really mean ‘shuffled’. After all, Witold is clearly not the kind of gentleman whom one assails without second thoughts. Her advance was, thus, riddled with reluctant hesitancy, as if she were approaching a rhinoceros on steroids.

    Considering that we were witnessing a married couple meeting each other for the first time after a lengthy break, the atmosphere turned out to be curiously limp. Though no one expected them to dive into each others arms, Witold’s stony face deflected any possibility of the opposite also, sucking all the life out of Eva’s attempts to ask him what the hell he was doing there. As far as he was concerned, this was a business trip – and, for now, the business consisted of nothing more than removing the supposedly offending books from the building. Marital rows could wait. He treated Eva, therefore, as if she were any old bystander (suggesting that his motive in stealing the books was to primarily protect his own reputation, rather than to soil hers). In any case, she failed to disturb him from his task. The task which was, incidentally, almost completed by now (the print run of The Marmalade Jar, after all, ran only to a hundred or so, most of which were tightly packed into two large boxes, presenting no ostensible difficulty to someone with arms as think as an elephant’s trunk).

    Now would be the time, you would think, for a member of the audience to step in. Perhaps even the event organiser – the man with the most to lose. Surely Riecke’s blood must have been boiling at the sight of this aberrant boxer trying to make off with every copy of his publishing house's hottest new product? For as anyone will know, Upside-Down-then-Backwards is not the most professional of affairs. It prints approximately three books a year, few of which interest anyone outside of a select circle of obscure critics. Indeed, it says a lot that its greatest success so far has attracted claims of deception (i.e. the mysterious case of 'Yevgeny Nonik'). Furthermore, the ever changing publication date of J-P Sertin’s p.52 ('forthcoming' for almost a year now) suggests that funds are running low.

    Needless to say, they’d be running even lower if all the copies of Eva Holub’s new work were to go astray. So why was it that Mr Riecke seemed so disinterested in challenging either Mr Holubk or his weedy cousin? So far as I could tell, he chose this moment to slip off to the lavatory instead – an odd reaction to seeing his beloved publishing house slipping further towards the drain in which it is destined to fall one day. We all associate him with active reading, perhaps we ought also to associate him with active fleeing. Is this the behaviour we have come to expect from the editor of a journal that professes ‘to reject the well-trodden path and rush off into the prickly undergrowth’? Well, he knows how to rush off, that’s for sure – but there’s nothing brave about Riecke’s stance here. Is he defending the right to produce challenging literature? Hardly. He’s giving in all of his good intentions at the first sight of someone slightly taller than him.

    But let’s get back to the story here. Need I say that Witold Holubk, after an unintentional pas de deux with a barmaid on the way out, managed to escape from The Crippled Bee without meeting any serious resistance, taking with him all but two copies of The Marmalade Jar? It was easier than squeezing water out of a fish. Talking of which… No, but I shan’t allow myself to throw any more criticism in Georgy Riecke’s direction. He’s got enough on his plate as it is. After all, he now has to contend with launching a book which no longer exists. What of all those readers who have been waiting to read The Marmalade Jar? A hypothetical question, I know, since I doubt anyone has been actually looking forward to it, but - nevertheless - the psychological strain will be tough on the man. His only hope, perhaps, is that Mr Holubk will return the offending articles once he has realised there is nothing insulting contained within. The problem is, printed upside-down and backwards as they are, will Mr Holubk be bothered to decode the poems? Or have Riecke and Eva H shot themselves in the foot by daring to print the works in this way? Ironically, the only interesting thing about this collection of poems may be the one thing that leads to their destruction. Personally, I can’t see old Witold taking part in any ‘Active Reading’. Most likely he will burn all the books, or tip them into the Thames. The latter appeals to me the most, for of course, Riecke’s active reading probably allows for the introduction of fish into the equation – in which case he might he pleased to hear that Eva’s work is being appreciated by whatever hardy fish brave the Thames these days. Except of course he won’t – for active reading is at best an affectation – all talk and no action. Or mostly no action – for The Marmalade Jar was, I suppose, a step in the right direction. A step, however, that has gone disastrously wrong.

    What next? Well, we can only sit and wait for the outcome. Will Witold Holubk and his skinny cousin return the missing books? If they don’t, can Upside-Down-Then-Backwards afford to print any more? Finally - and most importantly - will we ever see Georgy Riecke actually stand up for his beliefs?

    Only time will tell.

Preview of 'The Marmalade Jar'

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