He felt strange the moment he walked into the shop, but not because there was something weird about it. It was more the strange feeling you get when you walk into your new house, eyes roving the walls, the corners, the way the light breaks through the window, maybe following the contours of the few pieces of furniture that have been already moved in. Everything not quite familiar, the connections not quite there yet soon to become home.
Bookshops were like homes to him. Books were like furniture for his mind, longing to find just the right chair to relax in.
The owner of the second-hand book shop would later tell others about this customer. How he would spend hours and hours in his shop. How he treated each book, first touching the cover, moving his fingers slowly, like a blind man reading. How he would read the first five or so pages, his eyes never blinking. How he sometimes held a book just an inch from his nose and sniffed, trying to understand it by its smell. How the man, after great deliberation, would finally select a book.
The bookseller, his tone very serious, would then tell his friends how he was misled by his client’s behaviour. Although the man bought a masterpiece every time he visited, creating the aura of a connoisseur, he didn’t seem to know anything about literature. Despite the bookseller’s efforts to make conversation, the man had not the slightest idea about the book he had bought, about the author, or about the importance of the book for modern literature. And when his friends grew tired of hearing him talk about his client, the bookseller would protest, “But this has happened, this is true”, as if afraid his friends had lost interest in reality. As if the stories in the real world were somehow different to those in a novel. More urgent.
When his friends’ interest in listening returned, the bookseller would describe every detail of his client: his appearance (large, like a giant), how he smelled (like something that absorbs everything, the musty, dusty smell of second-hand books departing with him), what he wore (a heavy leather jacket, even in the summer, that was too short for his arms), his habits (liquorish in his left pocket, of which he ate four or five pieces per visit, noiselessly). Yes, the bookseller missed nothing in describing the man’s habits; he knew that a good writer would lavish attention on the behaviour of the characters in his novel.
Attention, that is what a good writer can give his readers.
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He felt strange the moment he walked into the shop, but not because there was something weird about it. It was more the strange feeling you get when you walk into your new house, eyes roving the walls, the corners, the way the light breaks through the window, maybe following the contours of the few pieces of furniture that have been already moved in. Everything not quite familiar, the connections not quite there yet soon to become home.
Bookshops were like homes to him. Books were like furniture for his mind, longing to find just the right chair to relax in.
The owner of the second-hand book shop would later tell others about this customer. How he would spend hours and hours in his shop. How he treated each book, first touching the cover, moving his fingers slowly, like a blind man reading. How he would read the first five or so pages, his eyes never blinking. How he sometimes held a book just an inch from his nose and sniffed, trying to understand it by its smell. How the man, after great deliberation, would finally select a book.
The bookseller, his tone very serious, would then tell his friends how he was misled by his client’s behaviour. Although the man bought a masterpiece every time he visited, creating the aura of a connoisseur, he didn’t seem to know anything about literature. Despite the bookseller’s efforts to make conversation, the man had not the slightest idea about the book he had bought, about the author, or about the importance of the book for modern literature. And when his friends grew tired of hearing him talk about his client, the bookseller would protest, “But this has happened, this is true”, as if afraid his friends had lost interest in reality. As if the stories in the real world were somehow different to those in a novel. More urgent.
When his friends’ interest in listening returned, the bookseller would describe every detail of his client: his appearance (large, like a giant), how he smelled (like something that absorbs everything, the musty, dusty smell of second-hand books departing with him), what he wore (a heavy leather jacket, even in the summer, that was too short for his arms), his habits (liquorish in his left pocket, of which he ate four or five pieces per visit, noiselessly). Yes, the bookseller missed nothing in describing the man’s habits; he knew that a good writer would lavish attention on the behaviour of the characters in his novel.
Attention, that is what a good writer can give his readers.
“I would love to return this book.” A few weeks had gone by and the client wanted to give back the book he had bought. Not that he wanted his money back: “It just did not interest me and I don’t want to own something that does not interest me completely”, he had explained. This buying and returning became a pattern. For years, every book he bought, he returned, the interval between sale and return growing shorter and shorter.
And long after the bookseller had stopped talking about his client (he understood that a recurring pattern with no new developments is no basis for a good tale), the man had still not found a ‘suitable’ book. And while other booksellers would have discussed this with the client, or maybe stopped selling him books altogether, or just gone mad, this bookseller didn’t ask anything. He waited, thrilled, for his client to return, one of the few people who still visited his shop, too few to run a business.
The white, hand-painted announcement that appeared on the shop window didn’t deter the client from visiting. ‘Final discounts.’ Nor did the client ask the bookseller why he was still in business months after the words had changed to ‘last few days’.
Some people thought the client would have stopped coming if he had known that the bookseller had stayed in business just for him, and that it would have saved the bookseller. “Why are you so obsessed with this client,” a friend who had become a stranger following the visits of the man, once asked. The bookseller’s answer tumbled forth, strange: “This client is not a man but a lover ... After a while I suddenly understood that his love was not of the stories ... the most beautiful stories ever written could not capture his entire interest ... he liked reading, but he was searching for something that could not be read ... he was trying to find an entrance to the Beloved by reading all that was ever written ... you know the Beloved (his friend had not answered)?
At a certain point I stopped asking him questions, stopped trying to make conversation about books and writers. I just watched him moving, feeling, smelling, reading, selecting and returning. And with every book he returned I knew he would come closer with every subsequent one he bought. The time would come when he would meet the Beloved. And I felt privileged to watch this happening. In silence. And I felt happy to invite this client again and again, just being there for him. And by not closing my shop. Somewhere in my head I heard a voice saying: come again, and again, and again. And these words were the most beautiful ones I had ever heard. They were so inviting, not only for my client, but for me as well, inviting to meet the Beloved, knowing that every story can come home into It. Even the stories you are ashamed of reading.”
The friend who had become a stranger told people that as the bookseller spoke it was as if he had become half a man, that he had almost dissolved while speaking, his head covered with white paint too, as if he also entered his ‘last few days’. And when the bookseller really disappeared, the discussion started. Some people said that the bookseller had gone mad and killed himself. Others were convinced that the client had finally found the book he could rest in, and that they had left together. Some would add that they had become lovers.
All stories, all of them come home.
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