Read Online Looking for Jake by China Miéville - Free Book Online Page B

interlocutor.
‘I believe it’,
he says, or she says, but I think of it as a man’s handwriting though that’s a problematic assumption.
‘It took me a while, but I believe Edgar’s bellum theory. But I know you, Charles, “pure research” be buggered as far as you’re concerned. I know what Edgar’s doing, but I cannot see where you are going with this.’]
    URGENT: Report of a Traveller.
    Wednesday June 17th 1992.
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    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.
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    No London street has sojourned elsewhere for some time (perhaps not unfortunate — a visit 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 documented visitations to London from foreign Viae Ferae. See table.
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DATES
VISITOR
USUAL RESIDENCE
NOTES
6/9/82–8/9/82
Rue de la Fascination
Paris
Spent three days in Neasden, motionless from arrival to departure, jutting south of Prout Grove NW10.
3/1/84–4/1/84
West Fifth Street
New York
Appeared restless, settling for only up to two hours at a time, moving among various locations in Camberwell and Highgate.
11/2/84
Heulstrasse
Berlin
A relatively wide thoroughfare, the empty shopfronts of Heulstrasse cut north of the East London Crematorium in Bow for half a day, relocating late that night to Sydenham, and moving for three hours in backstreets, always just evading investigators.
22/10/87, 24/10/87
Unthinker Road
Glasgow
This tiny cobbled lane, seemingly only a chance gap between the backs of houses, occurred on the Thursday morning jutting off Old Compton Street W1, spent a day occurring with stealthy movements further and further into Soho, unoccurred on the Friday, recurring on Saturday only to cut sharply south toward Piccadilly Circus and disappear.
15/4/90?
Boulevard de la Gare Intrinsèque
Paris
Uniquely, this Via Fera was not witnessed by an investigator, but by a rare noticing civilian whose enquiries about a French-named street of impressive dimensions and architecture in the heart of Catford came to the Brotherhood’s attention.
29/11/91–1/12/91
Chup Shawpno Lane
Calcutta
The pale clay of C.S. Lane, its hard earth road cut by tram tracks, were exhaustively documented by TY and FD during its meanderings through Camden and Kentish Town.

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    [
There is a thick card receipt, stamped with some obscure sign, its left-hand columns rendered in crude typeface, those on the right filled out in black ink.
]
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    Â Â Â Â Â Â  BWVF collection.
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Date:
7/8/1992
      
Name:
C. Melville
      
Curator present:
G. Benedict
      
Requested:
Item 117: a half-slate recovered from Scry Pass, 7/11/1958.
      
 
Item 34: a splinter of glass recovered from Caul Street, 8/2/1986.
      
 
Item 67: an iron ring and key recovered from Stang Street, 6/5/1936.

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    [
This next letter is on headed paper, beautifully printed.
]
    SOCIÉTÉ POUR L’ÉTUDE 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.
    Â Â I confirm that you are correct. Boulevard de la Gare Intrinsèque and the Rue de