The Little Paris Bookshop (16 page)

Perdu got into the habit of posting a card to Catherine every day, and collecting new entries for his encyclopedia of minor and moderate emotions in a notebook, for the benefit of the next generation of literary pharmacists.

Each evening he would sit down in the stern and look up at the sky. The Milky Way was always there, and every now and then a shooting star would race past. The frogs gave a cappella concerts and the crickets joined in with a chirp, all to the background beat of lines slapping softly against masts and the occasional chime of a ship’s bell.

New feelings surged through his body. It was only fair that Catherine should hear about them, for she was the one who had set everything in motion. He was still waiting to see what kind of man this would make him.

Catherine, today Max understood that a novel is like a garden where the reader must spend time in order to bloom. I feel strangely paternal when I look at Max. Regards, Perduto.
 

Catherine, for three seconds when I woke up this morning I had the insight that you are a sculptor of souls, a woman who tames fear. Your hands are turning a stone back into a man. John Lost, menhir.
 

Catherine, rivers are not like the sea. The sea demands, while rivers give. Here we are, stocking up on contentment, peace, melancholia and the glass-smooth calm of evening that rounds off the day in grey-blue tones. I have kept the sea horse you fashioned out of bread, the one with the peppercorn eyes. It desperately needs a companion. In the humble opinion of Jeanno P.
 

Catherine, river people only really arrive when they’re afloat. They love books about desert islands. River people would feel nauseated if they knew where they were going to moor the next day. Someone who understands them is J. P. from P., currently of no fixed address.
 

Perdu had discovered another thing above the rivers – stars that breathed. One day they shone brightly, the next they were pale, then bright again. And this had nothing to do with the haze or with his reading glasses, but with the fact that he no longer simply stared at his own feet.

It looked as though they were breathing to some never-ending slow, deep rhythm. They breathed and watched as the world came and went. Some stars had seen the dinosaurs and the Neanderthals; they had seen the pyramids rise and Columbus discover America. For them, the earth was one more island world in the immeasurable ocean of outer space, its inhabitants microscopically small.

At the end of their first week in Briare, a man from the council told them on the quiet that they’d either have to register as a seasonal trader or move on. He happened to be addicted to American thrillers.

‘But from now on, watch out where you moor – by definition French bureaucracy has no blind spots.’

Equipped with food, power, water and the names and mobile numbers of a handful of friendly people living along the waterways, they swung out of the marina and into a side canal of the Loire. Soon they were passing châteaux, dense woods redolent with the scent of resin, and vineyards growing Sauvignon and Pinot Noir grapes to make Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé wines.

The further south they went, the warmer the summer weather. From time to time they would meet a boat with women in bikinis stretched out on deck.

In the river meadows, alders, brambles and wild vines formed a magical jungle, dappled with shimmering, greenish light and spangled with twirling forest particles. Marshy pools lay sparkling among the elderberries and leaning beeches.

Cuneo pulled one fish after another from the murmuring waters, and they sighted herons, ospreys and swifts on the long, shallow, sandy shoals. Here and there, beavers peeked out of the bushes as they hunted for river rats. An ancient and lush France unfolded before their eyes, luxuriant, grand, leafy and remote.

One night they tied up beside an overgrown pasture. It was silent. There was not even the burbling of water, and no sound of traffic was to be heard. They were completely alone, aside from a few owls that sent the occasional call scooting over the water.

After a candlelit dinner they dragged blankets and cushions out onto the deck and lay there – three men, head to head, in a three-pointed star.

The Milky Way was a streak of light, a vapour trail of planets overhead. The silence was almost overpowering, and the blue depths of the night sky seemed to suck them in.

Max conjured forth a thin joint.

‘I protest in the strongest terms,’ said Jean in a relaxed drawl.

‘Aye aye, skipper. Message received. A Dutch guy gave it to me because he didn’t have any money to buy the Houellebecq.’

Max lit the reefer.

Cuneo sniffed. ‘Smells like burned sage.’

He accepted the joint clumsily and took a short, cautious toke.

‘Ugh. Like licking a Christmas tree.’

‘You have to draw it into your lungs and hold it there for as long as possible,’ Max advised him. Cuneo followed his instructions.

‘Holy
balsamico
!’ He coughed.

Jean took one gentle drag and let the smoke roll around his palate. Part of him was afraid of losing control; part of him longed for exactly that. Even now it seemed as though a dam of time, habit and petrified fear were preventing his grief from gushing forth. He felt as if there were stone tears inside him that left no room for anything else.

He had not yet confessed to Max or Cuneo that the woman for whom he had cast off from Paris had long since turned to dust. Nor had he confessed that he was ashamed, and that it was shame driving him on. But he had no idea what he was supposed to do when he reached Bonnieux or what he hoped to find there.

Inner peace? He had a long way to go to even merit it.

Oh well, a second drag couldn’t do any harm.

The smoke was searingly hot. This time he sucked it in deep. Jean felt as though an ocean of heavy air were pressing down on him. It was as silent as the marine depths. Even the owls made no sound.

‘Super starry,’ mumbled Cuneo, tripping over his tongue.

‘We must be flying above the sky. The earth is a discus, yeah that’s what it is,’ said Max by way of explanation.

‘Or a platter of cold meats,’ hiccupped Cuneo.

Max and he snorted. They laughed, and their voices echoed across the river and frightened the baby hares in the undergrowth into pressing themselves, hearts thumping, deeper into their sleepy hollows.

The night dew settled on Jean’s eyelids. He didn’t laugh.

‘So, Cuneo, this woman you’re looking for: what was she like?’ asked Max when their laughter had subsided.

‘Beautiful. Young. And extremely brown from all the sun,’ answered Cuneo.

He paused. ‘Apart from you-know-where. There she was as white as cream.’ He sighed. ‘And tasted every bit as sweet.’

They saw shooting stars flare up here and there, flash across their field of vision, and fade away.

‘Love’s follies are the sweetest. But you pay most dearly for them,’ Cuneo whispered and pulled his blanket up to his chin. ‘Little ones and big ones alike.’ He sighed again. ‘It was only one night. Vivette was engaged at the time, but all that meant was that no man should touch her, especially not a man like me.’

‘What, a foreigner?’ asked Max.

‘No, Massimo, that wasn’t the problem. A river man – we were taboo.’

Cuneo took another toke and passed the joint on.

‘Vivette came over me like a fever – and I’ve still got it today. My blood boils at the thought of her. Her face stares out at me from every shadow and from every ray of sun on the water. I dream about her, but each night reduces the number of days we might spend together.’

‘I feel somehow terribly old and parched,’ Max said. ‘All these passions you two feel! One of you has been searching for his one-night stand for twenty years, and the other sets off at a moment’s notice to …’ Max broke off.

In the pause after these words Jean felt a jolt at the very edges of his grass-clouded consciousness. What was it that Max had just stopped himself from saying? But Max carried on talking, and Jean let it go.

‘I don’t even know what I
ought
to want. I’ve never been that deeply in love with a woman. I’ve always focused on what … what she is
not
. One was pretty, but a snob about people who earned less than her father. Another was nice, but took forever to get a joke. And another girl was unbelievably beautiful, but she started weeping when she took her clothes off – I’ve no idea why – so I preferred not to sleep with her. I wrapped her up in my biggest jumper instead and hugged her all night long. I tell you, women love to snuggle and spoon, but all the man gets is a dead arm and a bursting bladder.’

Perdu took another drag.

‘Your princess is somewhere too, Massimo,’ said Cuneo with conviction.

‘So where is she?’ asked Max.

‘Maybe you’re searching for her already and you simply don’t know that you’re on your way to finding her,’ whispered Jean.

That was how it had been with him and Manon. He had got on the train from Marseilles that morning with no idea that half an hour later he would find the woman who would shake his life to its foundations and topple all the pillars holding it up. He had been twenty-four, barely older than Max was now. He had had only five years of stolen hours with Manon, but he had paid for what amounted to those few days with two decades of pain, longing and loneliness.

‘But I’ll be damned if those few hours weren’t worth it.’

‘What did you say, Capitano?’

‘Nothing, I was merely thinking. Can you hear my thoughts now? You’ll both walk the plank.’

His travelling companions chuckled.

The silence of the country night seemed to grow increasingly surreal, drawing the men away from the present.

‘What about your love, Capitano?’ asked Cuneo. ‘What’s her name?’

Jean said nothing for a long time.

‘
Scusami,
I didn’t mean to …’

‘Manon. Her name is Manon.’

‘She must be beautiful.’

‘As beautiful as a cherry tree in spring.’

It was so easy to close his eyes and answer the difficult questions Cuneo asked in his mellow, kindly voice.

‘And clever,
si
?’

‘She knows me better than I know myself. She … taught me to feel. And to dance. And loving her was easy.’

‘Was?’ a voice asked, yet so softly that Perdu was unsure whether it came from Max, Salvatore or his own inner censor.

‘She’s my home. And she’s my laughter. She’s …’

He fell silent. Dead. He couldn’t say it. He was so scared of the grief that lurked behind the word.

‘And what will you say to her when you meet?’

Jean wrestled with himself, then opted for the only truth that concurred with his silence about Manon’s death.

‘Forgive me.’

Cuneo ceased his questions.

‘I envy you so much,’ said Max. ‘You live out your love and your longings, however crazy they may be. I, on the other hand, feel like a waste. I breathe, my heart beats, the blood pumps through my veins. But my writing’s going nowhere. The world is falling to pieces, and I’m whining like a pair of punctured bellows. Life’s not fair.’

‘Death alone awaits us all,’ said Perdu coolly.

‘That’s true democracy,’ added Cuneo.

‘Well, I think death’s politically overrated,’ said Max. He handed the end of the joint to Jean.

‘Is it really the case that men choose their beloved according to whether she looks like their mother?’ asked Cuneo.

‘Hmm,’ said Perdu and thought of Lirabelle Bernier.

‘
Si, certo!
In that case I’d have to look for someone who’s always calling me an imposition and slaps me when I’m reading or use words she doesn’t understand,’ said Cuneo with a bittersweet laugh.

‘And I’d have one who only in her mid-fifties learns to say no and to eat something she actually likes rather than whatever’s cheapest,’ Max admitted.

Cuneo stubbed out the roll-up.

‘Hey, Salvo,’ asked Max when they had almost fallen asleep. ‘May I write your story?’

‘Don’t you dare,
amico,
’ was Salvatore’s reply. ‘Kindly come up with your own
storia,
young Massimo. If you take mine, I’ll have none left of my own.’

Max gave a deep sigh. ‘Oh, okay,’ he muttered drowsily. ‘Do the two of you at least have a couple of words for me? You know, a favourite word or two? To send me to sleep?’

Cuneo smacked his lips. ‘Like milk soufflé? Pasta kiss?’

‘I like words that sound like the things they describe,’ whispered Perdu. His eyes were closed. ‘Evening breeze. Night runner. Summer child. Defiance: I see a little girl in pretend armour, fighting off all the things she doesn’t want to be. Well behaved and thin and quiet – no way! Lady Defiance, a lone knight against the dark forces of reason.’

‘Some words can cut you,’ mumbled Cuneo, ‘like razor blades in your ear and on your tongue. Discipline. Drill. Or reason.’

‘ “Reason”  is the word on everyone’s lips, so it’s no wonder others can hardly make it through,’ Max complained. Then he laughed: ‘Imagine if you had to buy beautiful words before you could use them.’

‘Some people with verbal diarrhoea would soon be broke.’

‘And the rich would call the shots because they’d buy up all the important words.’

‘And “I love you” would cost the most.’

‘And twice as much if it’s not used sincerely.’

‘The poor would have to steal words. Or play charades rather than speak.’

‘We should all do that anyway. Loving is a verb, so … do it. Less talk and more action. Right?’

Crikey, dope does amazing things.
 

Not long afterwards Salvo and Max rolled themselves out of their blankets and slipped away to their berths belowdecks.

Before Max Jordan disappeared, he glanced back at Perdu one last time.

‘What is it, Monsieur?’ Perdu asked sleepily. ‘Want another word to take to bed with you?’

‘Me? … No. I just wanted to say … I really like you. Whatever …’

Max looked as if he wanted to add something, but didn’t know how.

‘I like you too, Monsieur Jordan. A lot, in fact. I’d be delighted to be your friend. Monsieur Max.’

The two men looked at each other. The only light on their faces came from the moon; Max’s eyes were in darkness.

‘Yes,’ whispered the young man. ‘Yes … Jean. I’ll gladly be your friend. I’ll try to be a good one.’

Perdu didn’t understand the last bit, but put it down to the grass.

When Perdu was alone, he simply lay there. The fragrance of the night was beginning to change. From somewhere a scent wafted over to him … was it lavender?

Something quaked inside him.

He remembered that he had felt the same about the scent of lavender as a young man, even before he had met Manon. A shock wave. As though his heart knew even then that at some point far in the future this scent would be associated with longing. With pain. With love. With a woman.

He took a deep breath and let this memory sweep through him from head to toe. Yes, maybe he had sensed long ago, at Max’s age, the shock wave Manon would soon send through his life.

Jean Perdu took the flag that Manon had sewn down from the prow and smoothed it out. Then he kneeled and laid his eye on the book bird’s eye, on the spot where the drop of Manon’s blood had dried into a dark stain.

We’re nights apart, Manon.
 

As he kneeled there with his head tilted, he whispered: