Juliette was back on the same street, with the rusty gate striped with old blue paint and the sky enclosed by high walls, and she was surprised. It would have felt perfectly natural if the road had vanished and she’d found herself facing a blank wall, or if she’d searched in vain for the book depot, only to discover it had been replaced by a pharmacy or a supermarket with fluorescent yellow or green boards advertising the week’s special offers.
No. She placed the flat of her left hand on the cold metal. The nameplate, too, was still there. And the bookstop, allowing a smoky draft to escape through the double door. She turned around and stared at the facades across the street. Why was she suddenly worried about being watched? Was she afraid that someone might see her going in and judge her? In this sleepy neighborhood, people probably watched their neighbors’ comings and goings with suspicion. And this place was bound to arouse their curiosity, if not more. Juliette didn’t know what she was afraid of. But she felt the stirrings of a vague anxiety. Giving books to strangers—strangers you handpicked and spied on—who would devote time to that? Devote all their time, even? What did the father and little Zaide live on? Did he sometimes go out to work despite what he’d said? The thought brought no image to mind, and Juliette couldn’t imagine Soliman behind a bank window or at an architecture firm, even less in a classroom or at a supermarket checkout. Or did he stay shut away, far removed from day and night, in that book-lined room with the lights on all day long? He might very well work there, designing websites, doing translations, writing freelance articles or catalog copy, for example. But she couldn’t picture him in any of those roles. The fact was that she couldn’t see him as a real person, an ordinary person with material needs and a social life; nor could she see him as a father.
Nor really as a man.
We are taught to be suspicious, she thought, as she pushed the heavy door, which opened slowly, almost reluctantly. Always to expect the worst. Giving books to people, to make them feel better—if I’ve understood correctly … I’m sure the woman in the corner grocery shop thinks Soliman’s a terrorist or a drug dealer. And that the police have already been here. If he were a dentist, that thought wouldn’t cross anyone’s mind.
The courtyard was deserted. A scrap of paper was fluttering on the bottom steps of the metal staircase, and the office door was closed. No light inside. Disappointed but reluctant to leave, Juliette made her way over to the grimy windows, spurred on by curiosity. The beast’s lair without the beast—the thrill of danger without the danger. Why was she making these strange comparisons?
Why not, though? She edged toward the window. The silence was extraordinary. Impossible, or almost, to believe that a few meters away rumbled the city, devourer of time, of flesh, of dreams, the city never sated, never sleeping. A flapping of wings signaled to her that a pigeon had landed on the guardrail of the gallery above her head; a cracked bell could be heard striking eight. Morning. It could have been any hour, anywhere, in one of those country towns that Balzac was fond of describing.
“Don’t stand there. Come in.”
The voice came from up above. It floated toward her, making her jump. She hadn’t glued her nose to the window, but still she felt as if she’d been caught red-handed snooping.
“I’m coming. I’m a bit late today.”
He was already there—as if he’d moved without touching the ground. Juliette hadn’t even heard his footsteps on the stairs. Before he appeared, she caught a whiff of the fragrance that permeated his clothes, a blend of cinnamon and orange.
“I’ve just made a cake for Zaide,” he said. “She’s a bit under the weather.”
He looked at his hands, covered in flour, and wiped them on his black trousers with an apologetic smile.
He was a hands-on father after all. But a cake? For a little girl who was unwell?
“If she’s got a tummy ache…” Juliette began disapprovingly, before biting her tongue, because she suddenly heard her mother’s and her grandmother’s voices coming out of her own mouth.
What business was it of hers, for goodness’ sake?
Soliman pulled down the handle but the door’s rusty hinges resisted. He forced it open with one shove of his shoulder.
“Everything’s askew here,” he said. “The walls and their occupant. We go well together.”
Juliette should have protested—out of politeness—but actually he was right. She smiled. Askew … the word had a certain charm. As did the stone doorstep with its grooves forming parallel curves, the floor gray with dust, the windows whose panes trembled at the slightest breath of wind, the ceiling lost in the semidarkness, and the books piled up in every nook and cranny. And yet the overall effect of this haphazardly created place was one of solidity; this place that could have vanished overnight, like a mirage, could have been transported in its entirety through time and space to reappear elsewhere, without the door ceasing to creak or the piles of books collapsing as visitors walked past. You could come to like the soft, muffled thud, the rustle of crumpled pages; but Soliman rushed over and, indicating a free chair, gathered, consolidated, and pushed away the scaffoldings of books with concerned kindness.
“Have you already finished?” he asked at last, breathless, as he sat down. “Tell me.”
“Oh! No. That’s not it. I…” But he wasn’t listening.
“Tell me,” he urged. “Maybe I forgot to explain: I write everything down.”
He placed the palm of his hand on a big, green, dog-eared register. Juliette, who could once more feel herself slipping into—into what? Another country, another time, perhaps—became absorbed in contemplating that hand. It was a large hand, the fingers widely spaced, covered in brown downy hair. Trembling. Like a little animal. Short nails, edged not with black but with dull gray, the gray of dust, book dust, of course. Ink returned to powder, words returned to ash and accumulated here, therefore able to escape, fly, be inhaled, and perhaps understood.
“Everything?”
This time, her voice expressed neither surprise nor wariness; rather … perhaps … a childlike wonder. No. That word, wonder, was mawkish, or strong, too strong. Too strong for suspicion, irony, indifference. Too strong for everyday life.
I’m going to get up, decided Juliette, dazed. I’m going to leave and never come back. I’ll go to the cinema, why not, and then eat sushi, or a pizza, and I’ll go home and I’ll …
You’ll do what, Juliette? You’ll sleep? You’ll flop down and watch a stupid program on TV? Wallow once again in your solitude?
“Yes, everything. Everything that people tell me. The history of the books. The way they live, the people they touch—each book is a portrait and it has at least two faces.”
“Two…”
“Yes. The face of the person who gives it, and the face of the person who receives it.”
Soliman’s hand rose and hovered briefly over a pile that was not as high as the others.
“These ones here, for example. Someone brought them to me. That doesn’t happen often. I don’t write my address on the flyleaves. I like knowing that they get lost, that they follow paths unknown to me … after their first passage through my hands, of which I preserve a trace, an account.”
He took the book from the top of the pile without opening it. His fingers slid along the fore edge. A caress. Juliette couldn’t help shivering.
He’s not even good-looking.
“It was the woman I told you about the other day, the one you met on the Métro, who passed on this book. And then I found it wedged in the door yesterday. I don’t know who left it there. And that makes me sad.”