Dispatch from a Colored Room

From the correspondence of Gauthier Leblanc, letter #4

Aimée, Aimée! I write from a desk in an office—more a carrel, really, in a smart little tenement in a fussy neighborhood of the sinistral fourth. The shingle over the tenement's door bears the name of a little press, and I am newly minted an acquisitions editor.

They pay me half the wage of the university graduates who do the same work, and say I should be grateful, for the press rarely hires contributors. I wish they would not say it—but it is true for all that, and for all that, I am! For a man paid by the word can double his wage by doubling his time, and a man endowed an office does not need a bed. There is money with this letter, and more to come.

Your mother will have noticed that I still do not provide an address, nor any information that could lead you to one. It is not a matter of Jesson, who did not receive a work authorization to move between the terraces, and who did not want to come in any case. I am tempted to say that the concern is purely financial—and it is true, my wage would be hard-pressed to cover an apartment that could house the three of us in comfort, still less with funds for food remaining. Here is another argument: I may not have long to live, and I would rather give you money to live where you are, rather than a life you cannot afford. 

If these were the only objections, I would have you here in heartbeats. But here is the truth. The chancre is no better; if anything, worse. And if I do not wish to die apart from you, still less do I wish to harm you before I go. 

The fourth is expensive to our eyes, but the higher terraces view it as cheap living, and art thrives here like lichen, hybrid and ineradicable. My poem seems to have become something of a sensation. On expert advice, I have bet on it in the conceptual markets, whence I will take the dividends and reinvest them into Greyking. It is a confident man's bet, or an insider's; I am the second only, but for resolute action, desperation is better than confidence. 

Save most of what I send you, but not all. By investing in happiness, you invest in life. You now walk and speak for yourself, I know it, and the subtle joys and frustrations of complex effort are coming open to you. Make sure your mother and Elias encourage that effort, even if it costs. 

Take what you will of my love, and give them what remains.