The Mystery of Henri Pick

by David Foenkinos

  PUSHKIN PRESS

  In association with

  WALTER PRESENTS

  THE

  MYSTERY OF

  HENRI PICK

  In a world where we have so much choice, curation is becoming increasingly key. Walter Presents was first set up to champion brilliant drama from around the world and bring it to a wider audience.

  Now, in collaboration with Pushkin Press, we’re hoping to do the same thing for foreign literature: translating brilliant books into English, introducing them to readers who are hungry for quality fiction.

  I discovered Henri Pick in a Parisian bookshop whilst waiting for a train. The characters and setting are quintessentially French and the mystery that lies at the heart of the book has instant international appeal. It’s a charming plot, full of twists and turns, which will keep you guessing to the very last page. A perfect first selection for the Walter Presents Library.

  THE

  MYSTERY OF

  HENRI PICK

  DAVID

  FOENKINOS

  TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH

  BY SAM TAYLOR

  PUSHKIN PRESS

  In association with

  WALTER PRESENTS

  THE

  MYSTERY OF

  HENRI PICK

  “This library is dangerous.”

  ernst cassirer,

  on the Warburg Library

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  EPIGRAPH

  PART ONE

  PART TWO

  PART THREE

  PART FOUR

  PART FIVE

  PART SIX

  PART SEVEN

  PART EIGHT

  PART NINE

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  COPYRIGHT

  PART ONE

  1

  In 1971, the American writer Richard Brautigan published The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966, a quirky love story about a male librarian and a young woman with a spectacular body. In a way, the woman is the victim of her body, as if beauty were a curse. Vida—for that is the heroine’s name—explains that a man was killed in a car accident because of her; mesmerized by the sight of this incredible passer-by, he simply forgot that he was driving. After the crash, the woman ran over to the car. The driver, covered in blood, managed to utter two last words before he died: “You’re beautiful.”

  In fact, though, Vida’s story is less important than the librarian’s. Because the novel’s most distinctive feature is that the library where he works will accept any book rejected by a publisher. For example, we meet one man who deposits his manuscript there after receiving four hundred rejection slips. All kinds of different books accumulate in this way, from an essay such as “Growing Flowers by Candlelight in Hotel Rooms” to a cookery book compiling every meal eaten in Dostoevsky’s novels. One advantage of this arrangement is that the author can choose the spot on the shelf where his book will sit. He can leaf through the pages of his unfortunate colleagues before finding his place in this sort of anti-posterity. On the other hand, no manuscripts sent by post are accepted. The author must come in person to deliver the unwanted tome, as if to symbolize the final act of its absolute abandonment.

  A few years later, in 1984, the author of The Abortion committed suicide in Bolinas, California. We will return to Brautigan’s life and the circumstances that drove him to suicide a little later, but for now let us concentrate on that library, born in his imagination. In the early 1990s his idea became a reality: one of his fans created a “library of rejected books” in tribute to the deceased author, and the Brautigan Library began to accept the world’s literary orphans. First located in the United States, it is now housed in Vancouver, Canada.1 Brautigan would surely have been moved by this initiative, although obviously it is hard to know how a dead person would feel about anything. When the library was first founded, it made the news in several countries, including France. A librarian in Crozon, Brittany, decided to do the same thing, and in October 1992 he created a French version of the library of rejects.

  2

  Jean-Pierre Gourvec was proud of the small sign hanging outside his library: a quote by Emil Cioran, an ironic choice for a man who had practically never left his native Brittany:

  “Paris is the ideal place to mess up your life.”

  Gourvec was one of those men who prefer their region to their country, without descending into nationalistic fervour. His appearance might suggest otherwise: a tall, lean man with bulging neck veins and a very red complexion, Gourvec looked like someone with a very short fuse. But in fact he was a calm, thoughtful person, for whom words had a meaning and a destination. It took only a few minutes in his company for your false first impression to be replaced by another feeling: here was a man capable of withdrawing into himself like a Russian doll.

  It was he who altered the layout of his bookshelves to create a space, at the back of the municipal library, for the world’s homeless manuscripts. That rearrangement brought back to his mind a line by Jorge Luis Borges: “If you pick up a book in a library and put it back again, you tire out the shelves.” They must be exhausted today, thought Gourvec with a smile. He had the sense of humour of an erudite man: a solitary, erudite man. That was how he saw himself, and it wasn’t far from the truth. Gourvec was endowed with a minimal dose of sociability; he rarely laughed at the same things that made his neighbours laugh, although he would pretend to whenever they told a joke. Sometimes he would even go for a beer in the bar at the end of the street, where he’d talk about everything and nothing with the other men—particularly about nothing, he thought—and in those moments of collective excitement he would occasionally agree to play cards. It didn’t bother him to be seen as a man like other men.

  Little was known about his life, other than the fact that he lived alone. He had been married in the 1950s, but his wife had left him after only a few weeks and nobody knew why. It was said that he’d encountered her through a lonely hearts ad; they had written to each other for a long time before finally meeting. Was that the reason that their marriage failed? Gourvec was perhaps the kind of man whose written declarations of love were wonderful to read, so good that you were willing to give up everything for them, but behind the beauty of his words the reality was inevitably disappointing. Some malicious gossips at the time had claimed that his impotence was to blame for his wife’s untimely departure. This theory seems improbable, but when the psychology of a situation is complex, people like to stick to the basics. In truth, nobody ever solved the mystery of that failed romance.

  He had no long-term relationships after his wife left, and he never fathered children. It is difficult to know what his sex life was like. One might imagine him as the lover of neglected wives—the Emma Bovarys of his time. Some must have sought a deeper satisfaction between his bookshelves than mere words on a page. With this man who was a good listener—because he was a good reader—it was possible for a woman to escape the banal confines of her life. But there is no proof of any of this. One thing is certain: Gourvec’s enthusiasm and passion for his library never faded. He gave his full attention to every customer, striving to listen carefully to what they said so that he could create a personal journey through his book recommendations. According to him, it was not a question of liking or not liking to read, but of finding the book that was meant for you. Everybody could love reading, as long as they had the right book in their hands, a book that spoke to them, a book they could not bear to part with. For this purpose, he had developed a method that might appear almost paranormal: he would examine each reader’s physical appearance in order to work out which author they needed.

  The ceaseless e
nergy he put into making his library dynamic forced him to keep making it bigger. In his eyes, this was an immense victory, as if the books of the world formed an ever-diminishing army, and every act of resistance against their planned extinction was a kind of revolution. The Crozon mayor’s office even agreed that he could hire an assistant. He placed an ad in the jobs section of the local newspaper. Gourvec enjoyed choosing which books to order, organizing the shelves and many other activities, but the idea of making a decision about a human being terrified him. All the same, he nurtured hopes of finding someone who would be a literary accomplice, someone with whom he could chat for hours about the use of ellipsis in the works of Céline, or quibble over the reasons for Thomas Bernhard’s suicide. There was only one obstacle to this ambition: he knew perfectly well that he would be incapable of saying no to anybody. So the process would be simple: the person he hired would be the first one to apply. That was how Magali Croze came to join the library, thanks to the inarguable quality of having been quicker than anyone else to respond to the job offer.

  3

  Magali was not particularly fond of reading2 but, as the mother of two young boys, she needed to find work as soon as possible. Particularly since her husband had only a part-time job at the Renault garage. In the early 1990s, fewer and fewer cars were being built in France, and the economic situation showed no signs of improving. As she signed her contract, Magali thought about her husband’s hands, which were always smeared with grease. At least, handling books all day, that was one unpleasantness she was likely to avoid. It would be a fundamental difference in their marriage; her hands and her husband’s were now on diametrically opposed trajectories.

  When all was said and done, Gourvec liked the idea of working with someone for whom books were not sacred. It was possible, he acknowledged, to have a very good relationship with a colleague without discussing German literature every morning. He took care of recommending books to customers and she dealt with the logistics; as a working partnership, they were nicely balanced. Magali was not the kind of employee who questioned her boss’s initiatives, but she couldn’t help expressing her doubts when it came to all these rejected books.

  “What’s the point of stocking books that nobody wants?”

  “It’s an American idea.”

  “So?”

  “It’s a tribute to Brautigan.”

  “Who?”

  “Richard Brautigan. Haven’t you read Dreaming of Babylon?”

  “No. But anyway, it’s a weird idea. And do you really want them to bring their books here? We’ll get stuck with all the psychopaths in the area. Writers are mad, everybody knows that. And ones who aren’t published… they must be even worse.”

  “They’ll finally have a place. Think of it as charity work.”

  “I get it: you want me to be the Mother Teresa of failed writers.”

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  “…”

  Magali gradually came around to the idea, and tried to bring a positive attitude to the new venture. Jean-Pierre Gourvec ran an ad in some trade magazines, notably Lire and Le Magazine Littéraire, inviting all authors who wished to deposit their manuscript in the library of rejects to visit Crozon. The idea quickly took off, and many people made the journey. Writers came from all over France to rid themselves of the fruits of their failure. It was a sort of literary pilgrimage. There was a symbolic value in travelling hundreds of miles to put an end to the frustrations of not being published. Their words were erased, like sins. And perhaps there was something symbolic, too, about the name of the département where Crozon was located: Finistère, the ends of the earth.

  4

  In the ten years that followed, the library welcomed nearly a thousand manuscripts. Jean-Pierre Gourvec spent his time observing them, fascinated by the power of this useless treasure. In 2003, he became seriously ill and was hospitalized for a long time in Brest. This was doubly harsh in his eyes: his failing physical health bothered him less than being torn away from his books. He continued sending Magali instructions from his hospital bed, keeping his finger on the pulse of the literary world so he would know which books to order. He didn’t want to miss anything. He poured the last of his strength into his lifelong passion. The library of rejected books no longer seemed to interest anybody, and that made him sad. After the excitement of its beginning, it was kept alive now only by word of mouth. In the United States too, the Brautigan Library was starting to flounder. Authors were no longer abandoning their unwanted books there.

  When Gourvec returned from the hospital, he was much thinner. You didn’t need to be a fortune teller to realize that he did not have long left to live. The town’s inhabitants, in a sort of kindly reflex, were seized by a sudden desire to borrow books. Magali had fomented this artificial bookmania, understanding that it was the one thing that would make Jean-Pierre happy. Weakened by his illness, he didn’t suspect that there was anything unnatural about this sudden surge of readers. On the contrary, he let himself believe that his long years of hard work were finally bearing fruit. He would leave the world soothed by this satisfying knowledge.

  Magali also asked several of her acquaintances to quickly write a novel so that they could fill the shelves of the library of rejected books. She even got her mother involved.

  “But I’ve never written anything in my life.”

  “Exactly. It’s time you did. Write down your memories.”

  “But I don’t remember anything. And I’ve committed so many sins.”

  “Nobody cares, Mama. We need books. Even your grocery list will do.”

  “Oh really? You think people would be interested in that?”

  “…”

  In the end, her mother decided to copy out the phone book.

  Writing books that were intended for the library of rejects was a far cry from the original project, but Magali didn’t care; the eight books that she collected within the space of a few days made Jean-Pierre very happy. He saw it as a stirring of hope, a sign that all was not lost. He knew he wouldn’t be able to witness the library’s recovery for much longer, so he made Magali promise that she would at least keep all the rejected books they had accumulated up to now.

  “I promise, Jean-Pierre.”

  “Those writers put their trust in us… We can’t betray them.”

  “I’ll look after them. They’ll be protected here. And there will always be a place for books that nobody wants.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Jean-Pierre…”

  “Yes?”

  “I wanted to thank you…”

  “For what?”

  “For giving me The Lover… It’s such a beautiful book.”

  “…”

  He took Magali’s hand and held it for a long time. A few minutes later, alone in her car, she started to cry.

  *

  The following week, Jean-Pierre Gourvec died in his bed. People talked about him as a lovable man who would be missed by everyone. But very few mourners attended the brief ceremony at the cemetery. What would remain of this man, in the end? On the day of his funeral, it was perhaps possible to understand his determination to create and expand the library of rejected books. It was a sort of gravestone, a bulwark against oblivion. Nobody came to lay flowers at his graveside, just as nobody came to read the rejected books.

  *

  Of course Magali kept her promise to look after the books they’d already acquired, but she had no time to seek out new ones. For the last few months, the local government had been trying to cut spending, particularly on anything cultural. After Gourvec’s death, while Magali took over the running of the library, she was not allowed to hire an assistant. She found herself alone. Gradually, the shelves at the back of the library would be abandoned, and dust would cover those unread words. Magali was so busy carrying out more pressing tasks that she rarely spared a thought for the rejects. How could she possibly imagine that they would one day turn her whole life upside down?

 
1For more information, go to www.thebrautiganlibrary.org

  2When he first laid eyes on her, Gourvec immediately thought: she looks like someone who would adore The Lover by Marguerite Duras.

  PART TWO

  1

  Delphine despero had lived in Paris for almost ten years, kept there by work commitments, but she had never lost her attachment to Brittany. She appeared taller than she actually was, and the illusion had nothing to do with high heels. It’s difficult to explain how some people manage to grow in this way: is it ambition, the fact of having been loved as a child, the certainty of a radiant future? Maybe a little of all of this. Delphine was the kind of woman you wanted to listen to, to follow; she had a kind of gentle charisma. Her mother was a literature teacher, and she was born among words. She spent her childhood examining the essays written by her mother’s students, fascinated by the red ink of correction; she scrutinized their mistakes, their awkward sentences, memorizing all the things she shouldn’t do.

  When she finished secondary school, she went to the University of Rennes to study literature, but she had no desire to become a teacher. Her dream was to work in publishing. She spent her summers doing internships or any work that would allow her to enter the literary world. She had realized very early in life that she didn’t feel capable of being a writer; she was not frustrated by this, but more than anything she wanted to work with writers. She would never forget the frisson she felt the first time she saw Michel Houellebecq. At the time, she’d been an intern at Éditions Fayard, who had published The Possibility of an Island. He had paused for a moment in front of her, not really to look at her, but rather, let’s say, to sniff her. She had stammered hello and received no response, and to her this seemed the most extraordinary conversation of her life.