Meanwhile, everything Duncan had told me about his underground adventures began to recede into the distance as “real life” took over again, for both of us. A retreat of sorts, you could call it—me from what Duncan had said, Duncan from what he had done. Perhaps he needed time to absorb what had happened to him. Perhaps he had been exhausted by what he had seen, and he couldn’t physically undertake another journey so soon. Whatever the reason, he would become, in a sense, a religious man, while I would take a different path entirely. (I never became any more or less religious than I’d always been, or do you mean this as a joke? What I became was more aware of the world, the texture and feel of it, the way it changed from day to day, minute to minute, and me with it. And I did continue with my work, although I don’t blame you for not noticing.)

If I gave Duncan’s life less attention in those years after the starfish, it was because my fortunes waxed unexpectedly. Martin Lake—an arrogant, distant prick of a man—rose to prominence through my gallery, his haunted haunting paintings soon a fixture next to the telephones in the living rooms of the city’s wealthiest patrons of the arts. (And who can say, in the long run, which was the worthier work—Lake’s bizarre melancholia or the telephone’s febrile ring.)

My gallery sparked a nameless, shapeless, and unique art revolution that soon became labeled (pinned like one of Sirin’s butterflies) “the New Art.” The New Art emphasized the mystical and transformative through unconventional perspective, hidden figures, strange juxtapositions of color. (It would be most accurate to say that the New Art opened up to include Martin within its ranks, and that he devoured it whole.)

As soon as I saw the change in Lake’s art—he had been, at best, uninspired before whatever sparked his metamorphosis—I sought out anything similar, including the work of several of Lake’s friends. Within months, I had a monopoly on the New Art. Raffe, Mandible, Smart, Davidson—they all displayed their art with me. Eventually, I had to buy the shop next door as an annex, just to have enough space for everyone to come see my art openings.

I had begun to experience what Duncan had known briefly after the publication of his first book: fame. And I hadn’t even had to create anything—all I had had to do was exploit Lake’s success, and build on it. (You’re too modest. You made some brilliant decisions during that time. You were like one of the Kalif’s generals, only on the battlefield of art. Nothing escaped your attention, until much later. I admired that.)

Suddenly, the local papers asked for my opinion on a variety of topics, only a few of which I knew anything about, although this did not stop me from commenting.