A Very Special Year

by Thomas Montasser

  ‘Have you been here before?’ she heard herself ask.

  ‘In your bookshop you mean? No, I’m afraid not. But I could spend my life here.’

  With an embarrassed smile Valerie withdrew. ‘If there’s anything I can do for you…’ she muttered, before sitting back at the desk in the office, not without continuing to watch the strange visitor through the door. Spend my life here, she thought, and realized that she could very well imagine that. But after a while she got back down to her tasks, leafing through the publishing catalogues that had arrived in the post, and trying to ignore the peculiar disturbance that the young man’s arrival had caused.

  When she turned her attention to him again it was dark outside. Valerie looked at her watch. She cleared her throat. ‘I don’t wish to sound impolite…’ she said, going down the two steps to the shop floor with the keys in her hand.

  ‘Oh, I must apologize, it’s me who’s been impolite,’ the young man hurried to say. ‘I’ve detained you. You were meant to close ages ago, weren’t you? I’m terribly sorry; I completely forgot the time.’

  ‘Didn’t you find anything?’ Valerie asked. She felt that after hours of reading for free in her bookshop he really could buy something.

  ‘Too much!’ the man replied, brushing away a strand of his thick hair from his forehead. ‘I’d love to take the whole lot.’

  ‘Perhaps you ought to start with just one or two,’ Valerie suggested.

  ‘You’re right. Absolutely right.’ Slowly he turned 360 degrees, as if waiting for one of the books to jump out at him to buy. Then he took a few steps to the rear of the shop and laid his hands on a second-hand volume. It wasn’t anything special; Valerie hadn’t noticed the book before. On the slightly yellowed jacket was a detail from a painting, perhaps from the art nouveau era: A.S. Byatt, Possession.

  ‘Do you know it?’ the young man asked. His eyes blazed at hers.

  ‘Ermm… no. To be honest, it’s the first time I’ve seen it.’

  ‘Oh. You should read it.’ He passed it to her. ‘Choose any page.’

  Any page. Valerie opened it. Page 186–87. ‘So?’ she said. ‘What now?’

  ‘May I?’ He took the book back and his voice became very soft when he said, ‘It’s a light novel. But it’s told in the way stories ought to be told.’

  ‘And how’s that?’ Valerie asked, half out of amusement, half out of curiosity.

  ‘With joy in the magic of words.’ And he read out loud: ‘Silky snow, pomegranates, drugget, yellowish, breastplate, gas-mantels, metal covers… Or here, later on: shuttle, Peephole, patient, generous, Noah’s ravens, Swammerdam, sense, grosser… and then: spilt milk, Melusine myth, Vestal Lights… Isn’t that wonderful? This cornucopia of possibilities of giving expression to a story?’

  Valerie couldn’t suppress a smile. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said. ‘It is a particular type of magic.’

  ‘You said it.’ He offered her a smile, which took her breath away momentarily. ‘I’d love to take it.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, swallowing. She held out her hand and felt his fingers touch hers as he passed her the book. Her heart missed a beat… No, that would be one cliché too many. Even if that’s exactly how it felt to Valerie. We can state here that she’d slightly fallen in love with this unknown, attractive and cultivated young man.

  ‘That’s…’ she turned the book over and looked in vain for a price label. ‘Well…’ She examined the first page, then the last. ‘It’s second-hand.’

  ‘And in excellent condition. Would you be happy with, let’s say, a hundred euros? I mean, it is signed by the author.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Valerie said. ‘But I reckon a hundred euros is rather too much than too little.’

  ‘Are you just helping out here?’ the young man asked, taking out a worn, brown wallet, from which he plucked a brand-new note to give her. It was so immaculate it almost looked like a forgery.

  ‘Not really,’ Valerie explained, hesitating only briefly to take the money. ‘The shop belongs to my aunt. She’s disappeared and I’m trying to sort out the chaos she left behind.’ She shrugged and climbed the two steps up to the till. ‘It’s a complicated story.’

  ‘I like complicated stories,’ the young man said, following her. When Valerie turned to him he was standing so close that the two of them almost bumped into each other.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘No worries. Do you need a receipt?’

  ‘No.’ In one perfectly elegant movement he thrust the book into the inside pocket of his coat and was about to leave with a small bow when he suddenly stopped and stared at the floor, no, not at the floor, but at the recycling bin. Or rather, inside the recycling bin.

  ‘You’ve got A Very Special Year?’

  ‘Pardon? Oh, well, hmmm, I’m afraid it’s a… it was a defective copy.’

  ‘A defective copy?’ As delicately as he could, the young man took the book from the pile of paper, opened it and said, ‘There had been no forewarning of the sudden change in weather.’ Visibly moved, he looked up. ‘Will you sell it to me?’

  ‘Listen,’ Valerie tried to explain, ‘this book is completely misprinted. The text breaks off after a few pages.’ She shrugged apologetically.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ the young man said, giving her a puzzled look. ‘You don’t want to give it away?’

  ‘No, I do. Please, please take it,’ Valerie said. ‘Have it as a present.’

  ‘A… present? I… I can’t accept that. You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for this book.’

  ‘And then all you find is a defective copy.’ Valerie smiled with a mixture of sympathy and amusement. But the young man laughed as if he’d cracked a brilliant joke, before thanking her again with radiant eyes, pocketing this book too and vanishing into the darkness. Valerie remained at the door of the little bookshop for a short while, watching him go, although in the gloom of the ancient street lighting she wasn’t sure she could see exactly where he was. Then she felt a gust of wind drive down the street, bringing with it such an unexpected downpour that she had to take refuge inside. As she slammed the door behind her she repeated the words the stranger had muttered only a few minutes earlier: ‘There had been no forewarning of the sudden change in weather.’

  EIGHT

  Another of the elderly bookseller’s whims had been to keep letters from customers who’d written after reading particular books. She’d filed them away in what was now an overflowing folder. It had been some time, a few years in fact, since Aunt Charlotte had received her last letter; at least, the last one she’d filed was dated the same year that Valerie had finished school. Sven had taken the folder and was browsing through it, while Valerie went through the inventory, recording every single book – she had just got to shelf thirteen. ‘Or this one!’ he cried, citing another example: ‘I really couldn’t see anything coming in this novel! It’s a masterpiece! You gave me a sleepless night! Thanks! God, she’s hysterical that one. Can’t write a sentence without shoving an exclamation mark at the end. This book is a revelation! How come so few people know it?’

  ‘Does she say what book it is?’

  ‘Yes, wait a moment, it’s somewhere in the letter.’ He made that pointless and embarrassing dum-da-dum-da-dum-da-dum sound, which some people do when they’re reading to signal to other people that they’re doing what they’re purporting to do: reading. It’s a well-honed insecurity they like to round off with an ‘Ah’. ‘Ah, here,’ Sven said. ‘By Night Under the Stone Bridge. By…’

  ‘Leo Perutz.’

  ‘Not bad. We ought to put you up for a quiz show.’

  ‘Wasn’t too hard. I just had the book in my hand.’

  ‘If it’s such a revelation, maybe you ought to read it,’ Sven said off-handedly, without any attempt to sound serious about his suggestion. But even as he was reading out the title, Valerie took hold of the book again. It was an old edition, not an antiquarian one, but with a slightly faded spine and yellow
ed pages. She’d immediately taken to the title; it sounded mysterious and enticing.

  ‘Or this one here!’ Sven called out. He was holding another letter: ‘Once again you found something exactly to my taste. And yet the books you recommend me are all so different that I’m at a loss as to how I end up liking them all so much. Thank you very much! Yours, Natalia de Bon-Leclerq. Lovely writing paper – looks like it’s from the nineteenth century. A marquise. Natalia Marquise de Bon-Leclerq du Tour. Unbelievable. How come the shop’s in the red if your aunt had customers like that?’

  ‘That’s something I’d love to know too,’ Valerie replied, brushing a hair from her face. Yes, it did irritate her that Sven sat around either fiddling with his smartphone and cracking stupid jokes about the shop, but never made himself useful in any way. ‘You might also lend me a hand,’ she said finally, as she realized that neither subtle hints nor body language can induce a man to remedy his social infirmity when it comes to being helpful.

  On this occasion, even explicitly articulating one’s wishes did no good. Sven seemed not to have heard. Maybe this was the case, maybe something else had absorbed every grain of his attention. Perhaps it was the missive he’d unfolded, written on paper from the elegant Zurich hotel Baur au Lac. A letter from the world-famous Viennese actor, Noé.

  ‘Noé? Does he still live in Vienna?’

  ‘Is he still alive in fact?’

  It wasn’t easy to find out whether Noé still lived in Vienna, but it wasn’t important either. Thanks to Sven’s smartphone, however, they were able to establish after a few minutes that he was still alive. And evidently life was rosy for Noé. He had a new wife as well as numerous, doubtlessly well-paid jobs in television. He also seemed to be a permanent guest at prize ceremonies, and the more they honoured his life’s work the more tortured his expression in the photographs became.

  My Dearest Charlotte, How wonderful that package was which you sent to my little hideaway. I shall never, ever forget you for having included, besides the Thoreau and Gracián that I requested – and which I need for a part I’m playing at the Burgtheater in Vienna – the volume of Henry James stories and Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad. Both writers, each in his own way, are godlike observers and windbags. ‘As a general thing, we have been shown through palaces by some plush-legged filigreed flunkey or other, who charged a franc for it.’ – Twain. I cried with laughter, dearest Charlotte! His experience was like that you get in a posh hotel where every few paces there’s a boy who bows while holding out his hand. Polished buttons everywhere but no sense of discretion!

  Appended to this letter you will find another short list of requests which I’d be terribly grateful if you would send me. These are books I’ve been meaning to read for ages or ones I’ve lost somewhere over the course of my wandering artist’s life. Please be so kind as to send them again to my mountain retreat. There’s no particular hurry; I’m on tour in France for the next three weeks. But if your package were to be there on my return, it would be a source of great comfort and relaxation after the strains that such travelling and nightly performances place on a sensitive artist’s heart and my permanently somewhat frail physique. Please put the books on my account and I shall pay my debts when I next visit your city. With my warmest regards and deep respect,

  Yours,

  Noé

  P.S. Please try to find the most beautiful editions available. A book is so much more than the sum of its words!

  What couldn’t be found was a list of the books. There was nothing else with the letter. But another thought had crept into Valerie’s mind as Sven read out the letter: she’d seen the name of the famous actor on another list – several times in fact! On the list of unpaid bills…

  At this point, dear reader, we can’t help forcing our narrator to revise his pre-conceived ideas. Even the most witless business economist can, in certain circumstances, be placed in a position to steer his or her imagination in some other direction than towards currencies. This doesn’t mean that such circumstances will always obtain. In Sven’s case, we’re looking at someone whose imagination was clearly fired by monetary affairs, which is why – surrounded by countless fascinating stories – he quickly became bored in the small bookshop. ‘I can’t understand,’ he said sulkily one evening, ‘why you’re wasting your time in here. It’s all hopeless.’

  ‘Sven… it’s what my aunt wanted. We don’t even know where she is. How she is…’

  ‘Which means she abandoned all of this long ago, and it’s high time you followed her example.’ He blew some non-existent dust from a copy of Man of Straw and then stared morosely out into the street, where a crane was being delivered.

  ‘What? Vanish into thin air? Great plan.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he carped. He wasn’t in the mood for jokes. ‘I mean you should abandon this.’

  ‘Maybe she’ll come back. Hopefully…’

  ‘Then she can do the job herself. This slump in turnover – was it your fault or hers?’

  ‘Instead of being so mean about Aunt Charlotte, why don’t you help me?’ Valerie replied, suppressing the lump that was trying to rise in her throat.

  ‘You want help? OK then!’ He turned around, went up the two steps to the office, grabbed a pen and paper and scribbled down some bullet points. Then, perched with one buttock on the edge of the desk, he pontificated, ‘The first thing you ought to do is a target group analysis. Who shops in this joint?’

  ‘OK… well, at the moment I’d say it’s almost exclusively people who just pop in off the street. Far too few at any rate.’

  ‘Look, if you know who you’re sitting here for and which sort of people you’re expecting,’ Sven continued impassively, ‘you’re on the way to sharpening your profile. Otherwise you’re missing out on at least half your ideal customers. Don’t waste any time on the minnows. If you’ve got three sorts of customers, concentrate on the two lucrative groups and let the third go.’

  ‘Three sorts of customers would be great, Sven. The way things look at the moment I don’t even have…’

  ‘Process optimization and profit maximization,’ the young man blurted out with a faint tremolo – his forehead was quivering. ‘These are measures you need to undertake. A business doesn’t work because you’ve tried to understand how others have got it wrong; it runs smoothly because you find out how you can make it work yourself.’

  Although at that moment Valerie hated Sven for his perspective on things and found his pathological diagnosis ridiculous, his insight was perhaps not altogether wide of the mark. And yet, everything he’d said before that sounded so inane, and she marvelled she had ever taken all the nonsense from her course so seriously. ‘Or…’ she said, getting up. ‘Or the secret of a bookshop is something quite different.’ She shoved Sven off the desk and herded him to the back door.

  ‘Right,’ Sven said laconically. ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Listen, I know myself that the shop wasn’t working. But believe me, if it were as simple as you say and that all you had to do to get the cash rolling in was a target group analysis, process optimization and tralala, then any moron with a bookshop would soon be minted.’

  ‘Thanks for calling me a moron,’ Sven grumbled, half-heartedly resisting being shoved out of the door. ‘Hey, what are you doing?’

  ‘Go home, Sven. I could be here a while yet. I need more time to work my alchemy. You’ll get out via the backyard.’

  ‘Alchemy?’ Sven spluttered, aghast. ‘Are you mixing with poets now or…?’

  Valerie was very pleased when the door closed and shut out the noises coming from outside. Thrusting his hands into his coat pockets, Sven trudged off. And Valerie could have sworn that behind her an armada of books were chuckling softly.

  But she wasn’t happy. Somehow her relationship with Sven was not going in the right direction. Ringelnatz & Co. was to blame, quite clearly. Last year, in February, they’d considered renting a flat together instead of living separately in overprice
d apartments. But no more had been said on the matter since Charlotte vanished. And while she watched Sven turn the corner and disappear from view, the image of that mysterious young man came into her head again. How differently he had left the shop. In fact, as Valerie had to admit to herself, he’d never really left it – all too often she thought she could feel his presence, all too often she could hear his voice: ‘I could spend my life here.’

  The lump had returned to her throat and the only way she could be rid of it was to wash it back down with a flood of tears. Valerie looked reproachfully at the books, which maintained an embarrassed silence. Finally she blew her nose, packed one of the folders with letters into the large bag she always carried around with her these days, so she could take a few books to and from home, and left the shop too. As she walked out she glimpsed Grisaille’s nose poking out from behind a ledge on the wall.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, stopping. ‘I didn’t give you anything today… I’m very sorry.’ The rat gave her a curious look. ‘Wait.’ Valerie quickly opened the shop, took a saucer from the cupboard, poured a little milk and placed it on the window sill before locking up again and standing a short distance from the window. Grisaille was not at all afraid of her; the young woman had long been a familiar face and the two of them occasionally talked to each other. Valerie noticed that the creature had become a little rounder. Was that the milk? But surely the rat’s belly was growing a bit too quickly for that.

  ‘You’re pregnant!’ Valerie exclaimed quietly, observing her little friend with fascination. ‘Of course, it all happens rather quickly with you lot. That’s why you’ve got so round.’

  This sparked a thought in her. She picked a little red book from her bag, a collection of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems. ‘Do you know this one?’ she asked Grisaille. ‘It’s called From a Railway Carriage. Listen!