The Tower of Babel

By G. T. Anders

Austin Feckidee wants to make it as an artist. He has the talent, the grant, and the studio space in the city. If only he could shake his past—the strange work he did with a few friends at an abandoned church in the countryside.

Now, that past is staring him in the face again. Stella, the ringleader of the old operation, has sent him a letter begging him to return to the work that failed utterly three years ago. Should he answer her call to be a servant, or should he stay and pursue the heights of his own artistic genius? His decision might just change the world, or show him who he really is—or both.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G. T. Anders
• Release date: Oct 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301732715

G. T. Anders

G. T. Anders started his writing adventures when he first learned his letters. Homeschooled from an early age, he rebelled in the area of penmanship and developed handwriting that many people still find difficult to read. But that was only the first way in which he would make the act of writing his own. Around age 12, he read The Lord of the Rings, C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, and Madaleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time. These must have been quite formative, as much of his subsequent work aims the same epic heights. In his twenties, as he attended Kent State University (studying music composition), Anders' muse kept speaking, and he kept filling 3-ring binders. The Tower of Babel emerged from his junior and senior year at Kent. The novel was published last summer, to four- and five-star reviews. This may be only the beginning. Anders has notebooks full of the workings of his myth-saga, the Vaulan Cycle (of which The Tower of Babel is Book II, and his upcoming novel Book I). He also has a non-fiction project in the works, tentatively titled We’re All Singing Now: Making Art in the 2010s. This book will examine the stories of individual artists in music, literature, visual art, and other media, connecting these stories to a larger understanding of how changes in technology and culture have changed the kind and quality of art that we get to experience. While he has chosen to self-publish his fiction, he will seek traditional publication for We’re All Singing Now, as he believes that route better suits the subject matter.

Book preview

Socialism is not only the labor question… but first of all the question of atheism, the question of the modern embodiment of atheism, the question of the Tower of Babel built precisely without God, not to go from earth to heaven but to bring heaven down to earth…

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

June 10th 1964

It was too late now for Gaddo to convince him to stay; but to humor the dear old man who was the only thing like father he had ever known, he followed him down into the cellar.

Let me show you, Austin. Gaddo spoke as if things weren’t falling apart.

I’ve seen it before. Stella said—

Don’t listen to her. She’s already given up.

They descended into the dark and damp. Gaddo set the oil lamp on a crate and sat down in the Adirondack chair. Grab the flashlight. Easing his head back into the space between crystal panes. And cover the lamp.

Austin gave up and did as he was told.

Oh gods… Sapping his strength, as usual. The old man would stumble to bed and groan for a day after this.

Gaddo, you shouldn’t…

Glowing wheels rolling across the wall. Ant-like figures falling prostrate on the steel planet.

Oh gods. Gaddo wept, not for anguish but perhaps from exhaustion.

Stop it.

This is why, Austin…

Stop it!

This is why we were working towards…

He kicked the flashlight off the table and stumbled towards the stairs in the darkness.

Austin, how could you—

Stella had quit. That was how.

July 21st to August 22nd, 1967

1

He put the letter down.

Pacify her, or follow his first call, his first love? They’d been over this before. She wouldn’t understand if he tried to explain it to her—how woman was made to relate but man was made to work, and how, as the man, he had to balance the two, tirelessly. What, she didn’t think that sculpting was work? Did she have any idea what an arduous painful process it was to bring a concept through endless iterations of sketch and clay rough and mockup and study, always towards but never quite reaching the grandiose form in his head?

Darling!

I hope your trip is a ravishing delight. I know you’ll be back in a week, but I just couldn’t wait any longer. When you get this I’ll be in Paris, but I’m going to Rome afterwards, as you know. I’ll be there on the 23rd. Join me that weekend, Austin! I know you can get away easily whenever you want. I know the money is nothing; but it’s nothing to me either, and I already bought your ticket. See? You can’t really refuse me—and you won’t.

You know the hotel where I’ll be. Surprise me; don’t disappoint me. I’m thirsting for you.

—Your dearest lover,

Jessica

As much as that was the reason he was with her (because she had it), he did not want that right now. There were some things deeper than passion, than thrilling gratification. The sense of purpose and calling, of the somber laying-on of duty, was absent from her caresses. Maybe he was tired of caresses. Maybe it was time to work. He hadn’t had anything to show for himself in ages. Times like these, he almost missed the old place and Gaddo and Stella and the years when he had been simpler and could sculpt freely without an infinite cycle of self-questioning interfering…

He looked at the other envelope, the one that they had slipped under his door. He read the one word scrawled there in majestic quill-spilled ink.

L’Hermitage.

He could go back.

But why had it come? Why now?

Never mind his resolution not to read it. He tore it open.

Hello, old friend.

How are you? It’s been a long three years, but I think of you often. I hope you’re in good health. I know this letter disturbs you, and I’m sorry for that. I would much rather talk to you in person, but I came twice and you didn’t answer the door. They said you still live here—but I suppose it’s better this way. I don’t know if I could face you now.

I won’t risk a phone call. Yes, you know. It’s about that. I wouldn’t write to you for any other reason, because we promised. I wouldn’t write to you now unless I had good reason…

[Scribbles.]

No, I won’t put it on paper.

I wrote to the others too. I know I can count on them, but I need all three of you. Please get here by July 22nd or send word if you’ll be late. If I hear nothing from you by then, I’ll never torture you again with this business, and you can go on with your life and forget about our old misguided work.

But Austin, you have to come. We need you. I see through one little chink in the wall. I can see what we should have done. Guess what: we can still do it.

You know where to find us.

—Your friend,

Stella

The audacity. The audacity of calling him back on a whim three years after the failure and everything else and the way that she had—

He blinked, blinked, and put the letter down. It was just an emotional reaction, just his first feeling. He really ought to think it through. The glassiness of his eyes shouldn’t be happening.

What the hell do you want, Stella?

Don’t talk to her that way, even if it’s just in your mind.

Guess what: we can still do it.

It? Really?

Today, the 21st. Get there by tomorrow.

Goddamn it! Flung the letters away, stormed out of the apartment.

The streets gleamed wet, but the rain had stopped. He glimpsed the evening star setting in ragged fleeing cloud between buildings. If the sky could be peaceful even in its death, couldn’t he stay calm? Just letters. Just invitations. Just people who would get over it. He could disappoint them.

He stopped on a sidewalk-swept hill in the city park. His tennis shoes glowed soft white in the dusk, still bright and clean enough for embarrassment. And he was still wearing his bathrobe.

He was already a disappointment…

Screw them all; he was an artist.

Far away, through a hole in the tree cover, a tiny black needle rose against the orange horizon, a red light twinkling at its top. The Tower, he murmured.

He had already decided.

He burst into the apartment. It was hard, but he didn’t lock the door. He picked up the phone and dialed familiar digits. Her intoxicating voice oozed out of the speaker. You’ve reached Jessica Angronista. I’m probably in a meeting, or else relaxing by the pool, sipping a martini. Leave a message and I’ll return your call when I find the time.

Hey Jessica, it’s me. I love you. I love you so much. Oh, I miss you.

Not really, but—well, he would come clean with her later. Sometime.

I’m sorry. I can’t come this weekend. You know how it is when I get inspired. I can’t let this fade away. I have to create. It’s not you; it’s me. The… the galleries will trample each other for this one—the collectors too. There’s a lot of money waiting to be sculpted in my studio. That’s where I’ll be. Call me when you get back, and come to my apartment.

No, no, no… sucking up again…

Come after dark. He just couldn’t control himself. I’ll be waiting for you. I’m sorry I can’t come this weekend. I love you.

He hung up the phone. He was an idiot.

Into his studio, into safety. City glare lit the room from one wall of windows, but the desolation left the glass on the other side black. Only the faint beacons of the tower shone out there, blinking red where the construction went on even through the night.

He should feel inspired and creative in this room. If he didn’t, wasn’t he shoving away Jessica’s gift? But either her schooling as an interior designer had gone to waste, or else he was the kind of person on whom such things were wasted. She hadn’t even asked. There again: add it to the list of grievances. He had to have that talk… but he didn’t want to hurt her; she had never once tried to hurt him. It was just that she was so…

Not now. He flicked on the light and unzipped his portfolio and whipped out those sketches—the ones that had sent him soaring home on the wings of inspiration. After the contemplation of the plane ride and the stabilization of a mind at rest in its dwelling, he had the proper perspective to evaluate this, to see if it was worth pursuing. This was the most fearful moment, when all of his ideas collapsed: when the first rush of the muse was gone and the product sat in the cold light of self-critique…

But these were brilliant.

A vine with a single flower wrapped itself around some sort of tall angular structure. In the last sketch, the vine was tearing the structure to pieces.

He could sculpt this. The rush was back.

2

Jackhammering destroyed his sleep again. He had learned to—no, how could anyone learn to? The sun wasn’t even up yet. Going to bed earlier didn’t mean his mind would shut off when it was supposed to. Hence the cycle: exhaustion, in bed by eleven, lying awake worrying about insomnia, rattled to life a few hours later by construction or destruction or whatever it was. Life used to be easier. But perhaps, as Gaddo had once told him at the height of some teenage crisis, it was just a season.

Anyway, he knew what the sound was: destruction, ongoing for nearly a year and no closer to completion or peace. The tower project needed steel, and the only way to get enough without mortgaging the whole nation was to reuse and recycle. When they had started, the very name Steele Pointe made him wonder if he had chosen the wrong apartment tower, if this one was next on the list to fall under the ravenous appetite of eminent domain; but they had insisted that the preservation line wouldn’t move, even if it was so near that he could…

Anyway, it didn’t matter. This was the last time in a long time that he would wake up to jackhammering and the resultant blank waste of a city devoured.

Of course there was a traffic jam. For glittering miles before him, the interstate unfolded in stagnation until it hit the barricade beyond which everything was mud, and at which the rush and roar of Babylon’s economy must trim itself to two lanes.

Damn it.

Two hours and eighteen miles round about later, he picked up speed as the cars fanned out into six lanes. The potholes, the skeletal gas station signs, announced his passage from Babylon’s glass and steel into dead suburbia. No one entered or exited the freeway. Drivers swept on en masse under the frowning hills, avoiding the accusatory glare of the abandoned land and culture and way of life.

But a weed-eaten exit ramp drew him up into the woods.

He dared his silver machine to grip the crumbling roads. He swept away the herded shapes of leaves, the slow art of wind. The hills rang. Launched over a turning slope, he caught a flicker of red in the trees below that was not a maple changing early. Beyond a dead downtown and a crossroads straddling a steep hill, the trees opened out and showed him the old red-roofed white church in the midst of golden fields and rotting but living willows.

It should’ve felt like home, but a certain…

He steered listlessly into the gravel and parked on the steep hill under the side door. The only other car there was hers, a rusted and vine-devoured relic.

Eyes clouding—this wasn’t supposed to happen—

But he climbed out and breathed the air and knew immediately that L’Hermitage hadn’t changed at all in three years. It was still alive, still growing and pollinating and dying, still hidden from Babylon, and still safe, the safest place he had ever been—safe with the smell of those particular willows taking nutrients from that particular ground, a particular confluence of organisms found nowhere else on earth and thus creating that smell that was the smell of childhood and safety, of being rather than of doing in a time before he knew the difference…

Oh well. He was older and sadder now.

He reached for the side door. The handle turned before he could—

She stood on the stoop. Her green eyes, sullen with desperation, took him against his will, waiting, preparing to live or die with his response.

He blinked and blinked.

She raised an eyebrow, laughed a little, looked down. You came. The same sonorous alto that had once… I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Golden runes ran up and down the black and red and green of her garments, showing, hiding, showing, whispering of something that shouldn’t be said. The strange fierceness of her inquisition hadn’t dulled with the hints of new creases around her mouth and eyes, and she was still—oh, those eyes! Arrogant, jeweled eyes incapable of fearing her friends’ opinions, certainly incapable of fearing his. But he could forgive Stella Orgetorix. He could always forgive her.

After all, when we parted…

Stella, I would never ignore you if you needed help.

You know I don’t play by my own emotions.

Right.

She moved: a strident clash of colors. Austin…

He waited.

Oh, Austin! Slowly, gently, she hugged him. I can’t pretend I didn’t miss you.

He hugged back, but—

She pulled away, her unsmiling eyes taking him again. Thank you. She turned and surveyed his car. Next to her gold-red-brown rustheap on a green palette, that gleaming sweep of fenders threatened with a certain metallic cruelty. "Where did you get that?"

At a dealership.

Ha. A derisive imitation of a laugh. Since when do you have money?

I got a grant.

Austin, that car is the very thing we’re trying to—

I know. Listen, I never thought we would come back here. I thought it was over, so I tried to find my way—

And you thought that buying—

Yes.

Eyes closed, breathing deeply. All right. All right. Her exhalation relaxed her. Are you hungry?

A little. You know how the freeway’s been—

I’ll make you something.

He took his bag and followed her inside.

L’Hermitage, that lost church in the green-eaten wreck of a small-town; the sanctuary, its holy-of-holies—that place of brown light that had once been gold—now shabbier than ever before, frail with the frailty of the deathbed gaze, but in that gaze the same smile and loving eyes that he had known all his life in the thriving organism that it had once been. Even in death it was the same, it was the same.

He sat down at the ancient table at the front and became again part of the wreckage of books and dirty dishes and blankets and clothes and plans imagined and plans discarded. Again the towering purpose was larger than he would ever be, and again there was some call in that eclipse and obliteration of himself: the sense that maybe he would be happiest when he mattered the least…

Stella put a steaming bowl and a glass of water in front of him and swept her limbs gracefully into the moldering wingback chair, busying herself with the papers in front of her—turning them this way and that as if they were someone else’s.

It was bean soup, and it was good.

I wonder if anyone else will come. Spoken as if to the papers, to the table, certainly not to him.

Excuse me? He nearly dropped his spoon.

I’m sure Gaddo will come. I never heard from Israel, but…

He looked down from her eyes into the soup, studying its composition: the ingredients, the color…

Do you even want to be here, Austin?

He looked up again, and he knew his face was blank.

If it’s too difficult for you—

Everything is difficult, he muttered at last, especially our work. It never stopped us in the past. He studied her. "Stella, do you want to be here?"

Yes… I think so. I love L’Hermitage. Gods willing, I’ll live here till I die.

I was thinking of the old work, not really this place.

She nodded. I see. That’s hard to answer. Our ideals…

If you aren’t sure, why did you call everyone back? A stupid question, but he was rusty in talking to her.

"Because it doesn’t matter what I want or what you want. If we have cosmic work to do, how dare we put it aside? That’s what I was telling you before. It has nothing to do with my emotions."

Of course. Of course. It had nothing to do with her emotions, except that it was the one thing she cared about, and she didn’t give a damn about any human being in comparison to it. But he couldn’t say that, so he said something else.

"You saw some sort of sign, didn’t you?" Then the old eagerness rose up, unanticipated—

Sure, if you believe in signs and wonders. Or you could say it’s a natural unfolding of what’s been working under the surface all along.

And you couldn’t tell me about it in your letter?

No.

What is it?

You’ll find out once everybody’s here.

A while later she led him to the narthex and the front of the church. Dark faux paneling and shadowy coats on hangers repelled the light that poured in through the great oaken double doors. A world of white sunshine blazed out there, excluded from the dark church, chiseling her potted plants in black silhouette.

I like seeing the green reclaiming this place. She watered the plants patiently. Even stained glass windows don’t last forever. It just goes to show you that divinity is looking elsewhere.

How do we get it to look here again?

She frowned at him. That’s not what I meant.

After watering, she stood on the cracked cement, soaking up the sunshine, herself a plant perhaps, immobile and photosynthesizing. So you got a grant? For your art, I’m assuming?

Yes.

Have you produced anything yet?

As usual, she got straight to it.

In the strictest sense… I mean… no, I don’t have any finished pieces. I’ve started more things than I can count, but somehow… they just aren’t right. They aren’t worth finishing.

You didn’t think that when you started them.

He said nothing.

You must have just gotten the grant then. Maybe you’re still flailing around, trying to find your voice. It happens.

I got it just after our work stopped.

Long silence. Gods, he was a failure.

I know how you feel. Her voice was almost humble. I feel like I got a grant of sorts too, in coming here and taking up our task. But my chance ended three years ago. At least you still have a chance.

Stella, you called us back for a reason—

You’re right; what am I saying? Our chance goes on.

A cool breeze ruffled his hair. He closed his eyes. She was a failure! He could handle that. Yes, he certainly could.

Did you want to put your luggage away?

Oh…

You can have your old space. I’ll help you.

Old familiar hallways. Following Stella—and that was old and familiar too. He had never meant to come back here, to start following her again, to start hoping again for something that he couldn’t quite visualize. But here he was.

Does it look any different? A flash of white cheek and glittering eye over her shoulder.

It hasn’t changed at all.

Right. She giggled. Your room is still in the same place too.

So was her humor, still in that place that he could never quite break into.

Down the hallway behind the sanctuary, up the stairs, to the little alcove with three doors, probably just below the stained-glass rosette. She didn’t have to lead him, but somehow he always let her do it anyway.

Center door. She grabbed the handle, clanked the mechanism, tortured the screaming hinges.

Don’t go in…

But he followed her.

A narrow, dome-ceilinged space, filled with light. The covers on the bed still held the shape of his body. His old slippers sat kicked-off beside the desk. Over it all, three years’ worth of undisturbed dust.

Oh dear, it’s so dirty. Sorry. Do you want to stay here? You can have another room.

I’ll be fine.

He looked around…

No lock on the door.

How could he make art here?

But three years ago, he hadn’t needed—

He was neurotic.

You don’t look too good, Austin.

He said nothing but went over to the bay window. Through grungy glass, between wrought-iron frames, he saw grassy lawns a story and a half below.

Let’s get some fresh air in here. She pushed him aside. Iron handles shrieked and she swung the windows open. Dust clouds billowed. The breeze stirred cobwebs not seen before. I’ll do some dusting too. She turned and left and came back with a rag. He lounged on the bed and watched her work.

What was it about her?

She was not striking at all. Honestly, he had gone after better. But something below the surface must have overturned the look of things on paper. Her oddness? Her seclusion, the hermit of L’Hermitage? Her strange clothes? Strange ideas?

Jessica… but he had forgotten her face and even her body. Only her red lips glared out at him, red without lipstick. Lazily his mind tossed the thought of her aside and rolled over and gazed drunkenly on Stella.

She spun around. "Are you going to help? I don’t mind doing this for you, but it is your room."

Oh. He shifted stupidly and tried to get out of bed. It looks clean. Don’t trouble yourself.

I haven’t finished dusting, silly. I’m going to finish that at least.

All right. I don’t know what else needs done.

You could organize this mess.

I don’t really care.

Well, I can’t do that for you. You know how I am with clutter.

He fell back onto the bed with a sigh.

You’re a lazy bastard.

He smiled dimly but didn’t open his eyes.

At least they knew to avoid each other, to allow some time for warming up. He didn’t see her after dinner, and thoughts crowded down into the lonely room until he was nearly bursting. He tried drawing on the walls and the desk, but he couldn’t, so he went to bed.

The thoughts would not leave. No choice but to play them out.

The child crouched down on the cold steel planet. He knew it was himself; Gaddo had always told him that. Something flashed in the boy’s hand. He drew it across as if making an incision in the steel…

The images never changed. Were these his memories, or Gaddo’s? The mind could recreate the past to view it from the outside. Maybe that was why he could see himself from twenty feet away, though he had been barely more than a kindergartener then, and had seen these things from within his own head if he had seen them at all. The pictures must be corrupted with Gaddo’s projections—with what might be his delusions.

It was an incision. The boy kept backing up across the planet in a straight line, crouched down, drawing the scalpel across the steel. And the steel split. It always did. Slowly, but widening more and more. The boy was unzipping the planet.

Orange-gold light dimmed the stars. Dawn was coming, but from within. One towering excavator beam rose out, swinging a crimson bucket-claw. A glittering smokestack, then another—then red wheels swinging up on axels, gripping canyon walls, lifting endless bulk—

This was why they had tried so hard. And somehow, this was why Stella had called them back. It would be a sleepless night, even without the fear of jackhammering.

3

Woken by rumbling, fearful and dazed with mid-morning sun and the raucous chirruping of birds, he went down towards the parking lot but stopped halfway, gazing at the empty road where it came out of the trees. The side door clanked open and Stella came out, arms crossed. So she had heard it—and now she saw it too, that column of dust drifting up out of the green countryside, that signal that might be an answer to her summons or the coming of the law. After all, every moment of L’Hermitage’s undiscovery had always been a gift…

An engine chugged and a little red four-door bounced up the hill past the crossroads, trailing dust like a comet, tail drifting into the lot as it grumbled in too high a gear. It stopped beside Austin’s car and the engine died in cacophonous collapse.

Austin ran down the hill.

A silver-bearded face rose up behind the out-swung door.

It was him. He had come.

They hit him at the same time, swaying in a silent embrace. Tap, tap, tap, something kept a beat in the cooling engine, and birds twittered in the deeper soundscape; but otherwise L’Hermitage was silent.

Gaddo’s warm hand on Austin’s shoulder, then his gaze, his crooked smile twitching beneath his mustache. He was old (and dressed like it), but under his shimmering hair his face still held a spark of potential, as if his long life had not yet used up all its possibilities nor been sapped of its seeking fire.

Stella. He embraced her alone. Austin. He gave Austin the same and then stood back as if admiring them.

It’s still running? Stella forced a smile, forced herself to point at the red machine.

More or less. Gaddo blinked. Then his face lost its façade and his eyes moistened. What’s going on, Stella? Gods, I don’t even know what to think or feel…

What to feel? Now her eyes were something like tender. Feel hope, if you have to feel anything.

It’s not that. I meant… what to feel about seeing you again. His glance included Austin.

Oh. She surveyed the countryside.

He shrugged. And here we are.

You didn’t have to come back. Now she looked at him.

"Stella, I came because you called me. Remember, I wasn’t the one who—"

I know, you weren’t the one who ended it. I was. So now you’ll lord it over me.

He shook his head. No. I won’t. His face softened. It’s good to see you, Stella.

It’s good to see you too, said Austin from the side.

Then they were all sitting

Reviews for The Tower of Babel

[My Email · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

i thought it was good and understanding words as well as keeping sense

[iamindeed · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really a 3.5 star read.
It was with a mixture of intrigue and excitement that I started reading this work. That was soon replaced with a degree of irritation. Usually a book needs to capture and hold my attention within the first 100 pages to make me want to read it through to its conclusion. A writer will do this by having a plot, a “punchy” attention grabbing style coupled with a hint of things to come to ignite the wish of the reader to want to ‘see’ the outcome.

The plot and concept is good, hence my initial excitement and interest. Anders has a way and passion with words, and herein lay the source of irritation for me. Whilst I could appreciate his way with words, its usage in the timing and the context of the book was {IMHO} not appropriate.
Instead of holding my attention and wanting to turn the page to see what happens next, I found the “play” of descriptive words off- putting. As a result, I found myself able to put this effort down and walk away and not want to bother to return to it. To do so to a book is foreign to my nature. So I persisted with it.

As said the plot was good, inspired by the biblical tale of The Tower of Babel. Basically, the story is told from the perspective of one character named Austin. He and a group of friends /colleagues are seeking for a means to return individuality and humanity back into a society that to all intents has become clone-like and geared to the aspirations and objectives of a select elite few.
The writer’s style, instead of providing a smooth flow through the narrative, had me ‘kangaroo hopping’ through the pages. Other than that grumble, it was a good effort. However, should he persist with this style in the second book, I wouldn’t guarantee finishing it.

The usage of words like Babylon and Vaulan had me thinking a little of the plot lines of the Sci-Fi series Babylon 5 by book’s end. I feel that the writer has the makings of a good series if he can but temper the level and placement of his descriptive paragraphs.

An eBook copy of the book was provided by the author for purpose of honest review. No compensation was provided for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibilities.