The Little Paris Bookshop

by Nina George

  Impossible.

  Surely she couldn’t have …?

  She had betrayed him twice. She had left him. Then she had died. He had been so sure of that. He had built his entire life since on that assumption.

  He felt like throwing up. Now he had to face up to the fact that it was he who had betrayed her. Manon had waited in vain for him to come to her while she …

  No. Please, please – no.

  He had messed everything up.

  The letter, the PS – it must have seemed to her that his feelings weren’t strong enough. As if Jean Perdu had never loved Manon enough to fulfil this wild wish – her final, earnest, most ardent wish.

  And with this realisation his shame knew no boundaries.

  He saw her before him in the hours and hours of the weeks following the letter, waiting for a car to pull up outside her house and for Jean to knock on her door.

  Summer passed, autumn painted frost on the fallen leaves, winter swept the trees bare. Still he hadn’t come.

  He slapped his hands to his face, but would rather have slapped himself in the face.

  And now it’s too late.

  Fingers shaking uncontrollably, Monsieur Perdu folded up the fragile letter, which miraculously preserved her scent, and pushed it back into the envelope. Then he buttoned up his shirt with grim concentration and groped for his shoes. He tidied his hair in the mirror formed by the darkened windowpane.

  Jump out, you vile idiot. That would solve things.

  When he looked up, he saw Catherine leaning against the door frame.

  ‘I was her … ,’ he began, indicating the letter. ‘She was my …’ He couldn’t find the words. ‘But things turned out completely differently.’

  What was the word for it?

  ‘Love?’ asked Catherine after a while.

  He nodded.

  That’s right. That was the word.

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ he said.

  It’s destroying everything. It’s destroying me.

  ‘It seems that she …’

  Say it.

  ‘… . left me for love’s sake. Yes, for love’s sake. Left me.’

  ‘Will you see each other again?’ asked Catherine.

  ‘No. She’s dead. Manon has been dead a long time. But all these years I refused to accept it.’

  He shut his eyes so as not to see Catherine, not to see how he was hurting her.

  ‘And I loved her. So much that I stopped living when she went away. She died, but all I could think of was how mean she’d been to me. I was a stupid man. And forgive me, Catherine, for I still am. I can’t even talk about it properly. I should go before I hurt you any more, right?’

  ‘Of course you can go. And you’re not hurting me. That’s life, and we’re not fourteen any more. We turn peculiar when we don’t have anyone left to love. And old emotions always linger for a while among the new ones. That’s just how humans are,’ whispered Catherine, calm and collected.

  She stared at the kitchen table, which had set everything off.

  ‘I wish my husband had left me for love’s sake. That’s the best way to be left.’

  Perdu walked stiffly over to Catherine and awkwardly embraced her, even though it felt incredibly strange.

  13

  He did one hundred press-ups while the coffee pot spluttered away. After a first sip of coffee he forced himself to do two hundred sit-ups until his muscles sang.

  He took a cold and hot shower, and shaved, cutting himself often and deeply. He waited until the blood ceased to flow, ironed a white shirt and put on a tie. He shoved a few banknotes into his trouser pocket and draped his jacket over his arm.

  He didn’t look at Catherine’s door as he went out. His body was yearning desperately for her embrace.

  And then? I console myself, she consoles herself, and in the end we’re like two used towels.

  He took out the book orders his neighbours had stuck in his letterbox, stepped out of the building and greeted Thierry, who was wiping the dew from the café tables.

  He ate his cheese omelette without really noticing or even tasting it, because he was concentrating hard on the morning paper.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Thierry, laying a hand on Perdu’s shoulder.

  His gesture was so playful and so friendly that Monsieur Perdu had to force himself not to grab Thierry and shake him.

  How did she die? What from? Did it hurt? Did she call out for me? Did she watch the door every day? Why was I so proud?

  Why did things turn out like this? What punishment do I deserve? Would it be best to kill myself, to do the right thing for once?

  Perdu stared at the book reviews and read them with effortful, frantic concentration, willing himself not to miss a single word, opinion or snippet of information. He underlined things, jotted down comments and forgot what he was reading.

  He started again.

  He didn’t even look up when Thierry said, ‘That car, it’s been there half the night. Is someone asleep in it? More people looking for that writer?’

  ‘For Max Jordan?’ asked Perdu.

  May that boy not act so stupidly.

  He slipped hurriedly away from his table as Thierry walked over to the car.

  When death came knocking, she was scared. And she wanted me to protect her. But I wasn’t there. I was too busy pitying myself.

  Perdu felt sick.

  Manon. Her hands. There was something so alive about her letter, her scent and her handwriting. I miss her so much.

  I hate myself. I hate her!

  Why did she let herself die? There has to be some misunderstanding. She must still be alive somewhere.

  He ran to the toilet and threw up.

  It wasn’t a peaceful Sunday.

  He swept the gangway and carried the books he’d refused to sell over the past few days back to their places, where they fitted to within a millimetre. He put a new roll of paper in the till. He didn’t know what to do with his hands.

  If I can get through today, I can get through the rest of my days too.

  He served an Italian: ‘I recently saw a book with a raven wearing glasses on the cover. Has it already been translated?’

  He let his picture be taken with a tourist couple, took orders from Syria for some books that were critical of Islam, sold compression stockings to a Spanish lady, and filled Kafka’s and Lindgren’s bowls.

  While the cats roamed around the boat, Perdu flicked through a supplier’s catalogue that advertised place mats featuring the most famous six-word stories from Hemingway to Murakami – alongside salt, pepper and spice shakers shaped like the heads of Schiller, Goethe, Colette, Balzac and Virginia Woolf, which dispensed salt, pepper or sugar from the partings in their hair.

  What’s the point of that?

  ‘The huge non-book bestseller: new bookmarks for every bookshop. With an exclusive offer of Hesse’s Stages – the cult bookend for your poetry department.’

  Do you know what? That does it. You can stuff your crime-novel toilet paper. And Hesse’s Stages – ‘In all beginnings dwells a magic force’ – as shelf decorations. Honestly, that does it!

  The bookseller stared out the window at the Seine, at the glittering waves, at the curve of the sky.

  It really is pretty.

  Was Manon cross that she had to leave me that way? Because I am who I am, and there was no other choice? Like talking to me, for example. Asking me for help. Telling me the truth.

  ‘Am I a man who’s not up to that? What kind of man am I anyway?’ he cried.

  Jean Perdu snapped the catalogue shut, rolled it up and stuck it in the back pocket of his grey trousers.

  It was as though for the last twenty-one years his life had been leading up to this precise moment when it became clear to him what he had to do, what he should have done from the start, even without Manon’s letter.

  Down in the engine room, Monsieur Perdu opened his fastidiously tidy toolbox, took out the b
attery-powered screwdriver, put the bit in his shirt pocket and went out to the gangway. There he laid down the catalogue on the metal plank, worked the bit into the tool and, one by one, began to loosen the large screws that held the gangway to the underside of the embankment.

  Finally, he also undid the pipe leading to the harbour’s freshwater tank, pulled the plug out of the landing stage’s distribution board and cast off the ropes that had bound the Literary Apothecary to the bank for two decades.

  Perdu gave the gangway a few powerful kicks to release it finally from the ground. He raised the plank, pushed it into the entrance of the book barge, jumped after it and closed the hatch.

  Perdu walked to the wheelhouse in the stern, shot a thought in the direction of Rue Montagnard – ‘Forgive me, Catherine’ – and turned the ignition key to preheat.

  Then, after a passionate ten-second countdown, Perdu turned the key a notch further.

  The engine started without hesitation.

  ‘Monsieur Perdu! Monsieur Perdu! Hello! Wait for me!’

  He looked over his shoulder.

  Jordan? Yes, it really was Jordan! Along with his earmuffs he was wearing sunglasses that Perdu identified as Madame Bomme’s glittery bug-eyed shades.

  Jordan ran towards the book barge, a kit bag slung over his shoulder and bouncing with every step as various other bags dangled from his arms. He was being pursued by a couple with cameras.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Jordan shouted in a panicky voice.

  ‘Away from here!’ Perdu shouted back.

  ‘Great – I want to come!’

  Jordan hurled his luggage aboard when Lulu was already a metre from the bank, shaking and trembling with the unfamiliar vibrations. Half of the bags fell in the water, including Jordan’s pouch with his mobile and wallet inside.

  The engine spluttered, and the exhaust discharged a cloud of black diesel smoke. Half the river was veiled in a blue haze. Monsieur Perdu saw the harbourmaster striding towards them, cursing.

  He pushed the throttle to full speed.

  The writer launched himself into his run-up.

  ‘No!’ cried Perdu. ‘No, Monsieur Jordan, no way! I really must …’

  14

  ‘… beg you!’

  Jean Perdu watched as Max Jordan stood up, rubbed his knee, looked back at where the rest of his things floated on the surface of the water for a second before sinking – and then limped to the wheelhouse with a beaming smile.

  ‘Hello,’ said the hunted author cheerily. ‘Do you travel on this boat too?’

  Perdu rolled his eyes. He’d tear a strip off Max Jordan later and then politely chuck him overboard. Now he had to concentrate on all the things heading his way: sightseeing vessels, working barges, houseboats, birds, flies and spray. What were the rules again? Who had priority, and how fast was he allowed to go? And what did the yellow diamonds on the bottom of the bridge mean?

  Max was looking at him as if he were waiting for something.

  ‘Jordan, take care of the cats and the books. And make some coffee. Meanwhile, I’ll try not to kill anyone with this thing.’

  ‘What? Whom do you want to kill? The cats?’ the author asked with a blank look.

  ‘Now take those things off,’ Perdu pointed to Jordan’s earmuffs, ‘and make us some coffee.’

  By the time Max Jordan placed a tin cup full of strong coffee in the holder beside the tyre-sized wheel, Perdu had grown more accustomed to the vibrations and to navigating upstream. He hadn’t steered the barge in a long time. Simply nosing this thing along the river – the length of three shipping containers – was so discreet. The book barge cut quietly through the water.

  He was so scared and yet so thrilled. He wanted to sing and scream. His fingers clutched the wheel. What he was doing was mad, it was daft; it was … fan-tas-tic!

  ‘Where did you learn to drive a cargo boat and all this?’ asked the writer, gesturing in awe at the navigation instruments.

  ‘My father showed me. I was twelve. When I was sixteen, I did the Inland Waterways Helmsman’s Certificate because I thought one day I’d be transporting coal to the north.’

  And become a big, calm man who never needs to arrive to be happy. My God, how quickly life hurries on.

  ‘Really? My father didn’t even show me how to make paper boats.’

  Paris passed by like a film reel. The Pont Neuf, Notre Dame, the Arsenal Harbour.

  ‘That was a perfect 007 escape. Milk and sugar, Mr Bond?’ asked Jordan. ‘So what made you do it, anyway?’

  ‘What do you mean? And no sugar, Miss Moneypenny.’

  ‘I mean sending your life up in flames. Scramming. Doing a Huckleberry Finn on his raft, a Ford Prefect, a—’

  ‘A woman.’

  ‘A woman? I didn’t think you were so interested in women.’

  ‘In most, I’m not. Only in one. And in her case a lot. I want to see her.’

  ‘Oh. Great. Why didn’t you take the bus?’

  ‘Do you think only people in books do crazy things?’

  ‘No. I’m just thinking that I can’t swim and that you were a kid the last time you drove a monster like this. And I’m thinking about the fact that you arranged the five tins of cat food in alphabetical order. You’re probably insane. My God! Were you really twelve once? An actual small boy? Incredible! You seem as if you’ve always been so …’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So grown-up. So … controlled. So totally in command.’

  If only he knew what an amateur I am.

  ‘I wouldn’t have made it to the station. I’d have had too much time to think things over on the way there, Monsieur Jordan. I would have come up with reasons not to go. And I wouldn’t have gone through with it. Then I’d be standing up there’ – he indicated some girls on bikes waving to them from one of the bridges over the Seine – ‘and stay where I’ve always been. I wouldn’t have budged one centimetre from my normal routine. It’s shit, but it’s safe.’

  ‘You said “shit”.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Excellent. Now I’m a lot less worried about the ABC in your fridge.’

  Perdu reached for his coffee. Wouldn’t Max Jordan worry a whole lot more when he began to suspect that the woman Jean Perdu had suddenly dropped everything for had been dead for twenty-one years? Perdu imagined himself telling Jordan. Soon. If only he knew how to.

  ‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘What’s driving you away, Monsieur?’

  ‘I want to … look for a story,’ Jordan falteringly explained. ‘Because … I’ve nothing left inside. I don’t want to go home until I’ve found it. In fact, I only came to the embankment to say good-bye, and then you cast off. May I please come with you? May I?’

  He looked at Perdu with such hope in his eyes that for the time being Perdu shelved his plans to set Max Jordan ashore at their next port of call and wish him luck.

  With the world ahead, and an unwanted life astern, suddenly he felt once more like the boy he had indeed been – even if that must barely seem possible from Max Jordan’s youthful perspective.

  In fact, Jean did feel as he had when he was twelve. When he had seldom been lonely, but liked to be alone or with Vijaya, the weedy son of the Indian mathematician’s family next door; when he had been enough of a kid to believe that his night-time dreams were an alternative real world and a place of trial. He had once even believed that his dreams contained tasks that would move him up a rung in his waking life if he managed to accomplish them.

  ‘Find the path out of the maze! Learn to fly! Vanquish the hound of hell! Succeed and when you wake up, a wish will come true.’

  At the time he had believed in the power of his wishes, which were naturally associated with the offer of forgoing something precious or important.

  ‘Please get my parents to look at each other again over breakfast! I’ll give an eye for it to happen, the left one. I need the right one to steer a barge.’

  Yes, that’s how he had bargained when he
was still a boy and had not been so … How had Jordan put it? So controlled? He had also written letters to God and sealed them with blood from his thumb. Now, only about a thousand years too late, he stood at the wheel of a gigantic boat and sensed for the first time in a long time that he did indeed have desires.