She set off one rainy morning. It wasn’t what she’d planned, or imagined: the Yellow Submarine—the Y.S., as she called it, for short—looked dull under the dismal gray clouds, so low they grazed the rooftops. She had spent almost a week choosing the books that would be crammed onto the shelves screwed to the metal walls.
“I’ll come back every so often to restock,” Juliette had said.
She’d laughed, and so had Leonidas. He added: “People will bring you books, wherever you stop. The ones they want to get rid of, most likely.”
“Or, on the contrary, the ones they love most … don’t be such a pessimist! Isn’t it better to give away a book one loves?”
Leonidas nodded indulgently.
“That’s true. But I think you’re deluding yourself, Juliette.”
She said nothing for a moment and looked pensive, perhaps sad.
“You’re right. But ultimately, I prefer that. Staying a bit stupid.”
After a long argument, they’d decided, for this first trip, not to include series, because Juliette wasn’t certain to return to such-and-such a village to drop off volume two, three, or twelve. She wanted to preserve her freedom, that precious freedom which she was only just beginning to learn to handle. Proust would remain in the depot for now, and so would Balzac, Zola, Tolkien, the books of Charlotte Delbo, even though she loved them, Lian Hearn’s Otori trilogy, the complete Diary of Virginia Woolf, the three volumes of Herbjørg Wassmo’s Dina’s Book, Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil, and all the famous family sagas that wouldn’t fit into the palm of a hand. What remained were the solitary works, fat ones, thin ones, medium-size ones, those whose spines were already split from having been opened and sometimes left facedown on a table or a sofa, the rare ones whose binding still smelled of cardboard and new leather, those that had been covered like schoolbooks in the old days. Juliette still remembered the unruly plastic film that wouldn’t stay put, that constrained the spine of the book and left your hands sticky.
There, too, she had to make a choice. It was no easier than classifying them.
“I wonder…”
Sitting on a box full of paperback novels, Juliette bit her lip—all heroines in romances did that—frowning.
“The thing is, the Y.S. isn’t a mobile library. There are already lots of those. So I don’t need to worry about catering to all tastes, all ages, all readers’ interests … or do I? What do you think? Leonidas?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
Leonidas, who was flicking through his precious book on insects—which he took everywhere with him in his briefcase—darted a severe look at Juliette over his half-moon glasses.
“Why am I supposed to have an opinion on everything? My choice would inevitably be different from yours. And right now, it’s yours that matters.”
“But I have to take into account what the readers like, too,” insisted Juliette.
“Do you think so?”
“Yes.”
“So go back into the Métro and take notes. You’ve already started that, haven’t you?”
Juliette nodded. Yes, she’d started a sort of list—especially of repeats. Books she’d seen in several pairs of hands, more than once in the week.
“But they’re not necessarily the best ones,” she argued. “I’m not going to be taken in by … um … publishers’ hype.”
Leonidas shrugged as he fondly ran his magnifying glass over a color plate illustrating the Empusa pennata, noting its bipectinated antennae so closely resembling tiny dry twigs.
“It takes a little of everything to create a world,” he said placidly. “Even a world of books.”
Those journeys on the Métro were tinged with a sense of farewell. As well as titles of novels, Juliette brought back images, lovingly recorded with care: a fresco she’d never noticed before, depicting a woman in a tutu jumping, her legs folded under her, eyes closed, in front of a cityscape against a backdrop of cotton-candy-pink clouds—as if she were dancing among the stars, or falling, or spiraling up in a dream; pigeons—females, she decided—strutting along the glass canopies at Dupleix station; the fleeting image of a gilded dome; the graceful curve of the track just before Sèvres-Lecourbe; an oval-shaped apartment building, another one round as a pancake, and another clad in gray slates like scales, which shimmered with green, blue, and purple reflections when the train passed; a roof garden; the Sacré-Coeur in the distance; the hefty barges cleaving the river, others moored, decked out like gardens with bamboo hedges in huge planters and little tables, chairs, seats … Juliette alighted at almost every station, changing carriages, watching people’s faces, waiting, without admitting it to herself, for a sign. Someone, surely, would smile at her or wish her well, like at New Year, or say something mysterious that she would take years to understand—but nothing happened. One last time, she ignored the escalators, climbed up the gray steps glinting with mica particles, and walked off into the rain.
Again, it was in the rain, a persistent drizzle, that she carted out the boxes full of the books she’d decided to take with her, or that had surreptitiously placed themselves in her line of vision—she no longer knew, and ultimately it didn’t matter. If she had learned one thing, it was this: with books, there were always surprises.
The shelves the local carpenter had built (not without a certain amount of mockery) had brackets to prevent the books from falling off as she rounded the first bend in the road. Once filled, they gave the interior of the bus a warm, quirky feel.
“It’s better than Soliman’s office,” observed Leonidas, amazed. “More … intimate, in a way.”
Juliette agreed: if she hadn’t had to get behind the wheel, she’d have happily snuggled up under the tartan blanket with a cup of tea and one of the many books lining the walls. They created a tapestry of colorful and abstract patterns, the reds and apple greens making a splash among the classic ivory, pale yellow, and gray-blue covers.
In the little remaining space, she piled everything she would need: that tartan blanket, a rolled-up futon, a sleeping bag, several folding stools, a lidded basket containing crockery and kitchen utensils, a little camping stove, and some nonperishable foods. And a flashlight, of course, to be able to read at night. A torch that she’d hang from a hook that would sway, projecting moving shadows onto the rows of books.
Leonidas was worried about her, a woman on her own, on the road … Juliette saw the newspaper headlines dancing in his round eyes as he pictured her dismembered under a bush. A few minutes before her departure, he stood in front of her, arms dangling, looking dejected. She wedged her first-aid kit under the driver’s seat, turned around, and hugged him.
“I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“You don’t even know where you’re going,” he complained in an uncharacteristic voice.
“Is that so important, do you think?”
He hugged her tight, awkwardly.
“Maybe. It’s silly, I know. But it would reassure me.”
Suddenly, his face lit up.
“Wait for me. Just a minute, please, Juliette.”
He turned around and almost ran in the direction of the office. Juliette started hopping from one foot to the other. Her stomach was knotted with anxiety, but she was in a hurry now, in a hurry to get the goodbyes over with, in a hurry to make the engine rumble and drive through the gray streets into the unknown. Leonidas came bounding back. Under his raincoat there was a strange bump on his stomach. When he stopped in front of her, panting, he reached under the fabric and pulled out three books.
“The first one is from Zaide,” he explained. “I almost forgot, I’m sorry. She’d have been furious with me.”
It was a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Touched, Juliette leafed through it. Soliman’s daughter had carefully cut out the illustrations, which she’d replaced with her own drawings. A purple crocodile was pulling the trunk of a baby elephant with huge terrified eyes and outsize feet; a slant-eyed whale rose out of the sea; a cat, its tail raised, was wandering toward the horizon where something closely resembling a little yellow truck was vanishing in the distance.
“I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me,” murmured Juliette, a lump in her throat. “Is that how she sees me, do you think?”
“Do you?”
Without giving her time to reply, he took the book of stories from her hands. Juliette held her breath: the second book, she recognized. She had often seen it lying in the lap of the woman with the gentle face, Silvia, the one who had chosen to die, to nurse her memories no longer.
A recipe book, written in Italian, tattered, stained, often used.
“I so regret not having spoken to her,” he said softly. “We could have grown old together. Made one another happy. I didn’t dare. I’m angry with myself. No, don’t say anything, Juliette. Please.”
His lower lip was trembling a little. Juliette kept still. He was right. Don’t speak, don’t move. Let him pour out his heart.
“Soliman told me a little about her,” he went on. “She had no family, apart from a nephew over in Italy. In Lecce. That’s below Brindisi … in the far south. She had once told him that this book was the only thing she had to bequeath. That these pages contained her entire youth, and her country: the colors, the songs, the sorrows, too, the grieving, the laughter, the dances, the loves. Everything. So … I didn’t dare ask you but … I’d like…”
Juliette understood.
“Me to take it to him?”
“Yes. And the last one,” he added hurriedly, “is a French–Italian conversation manual. I found it yesterday in one of the drawers of Soliman’s desk. Maybe he himself intended to go to Lecce; we’ll never know. And the newsstand on the corner sells maps. I can go and get you one if you like.”
“Are you so certain that I’m going to say yes? And how am I supposed to recognize her nephew? Do you know his name, at least?”
“No. But I know he has a little restaurant near the Via Novantacinquesimo Reggimento Fanteria. It’s a bit of a mouthful, I know, so I’ve written it down for you.”
“There must be dozens of restaurants there!” she exclaimed.
She looked down at the cover with its faded colors. The vegetables, the plump red peppers. The cheese cut with a single knife stroke. And, in the background, the ghost of a hill, an olive tree, a low house. You can want to enter into the landscape of a book, she reminded herself. To linger there. To start a new life.
“I’ll recognize him,” she announced suddenly.
“Yes,” echoed Leonidas. “You’ll recognize him, I’m certain you will.”