THE BOOKSELLER

Bingo! Your hunch was right. Plano University Library (a Texas up & comer) has your two stolen books. They had just recently been cataloged. The special collections librarian, who seemed very annoyed by my visit, retrieved them for me. They appeared to be in good condition, considering their age. I looked for property stamps, but all had been expertly removed. A forensic lab could probably reveal some traces. The librarian said the books had been legally purchased six months earlier from a known Latin American dealer. She produced the receipts. Price: $4,000 each. The dealer’s name is Miguel Osorio. Maybe you even know him, as he lives in your city! His address is a post office box (copy of receipt enclosed).

I told the librarian to keep the books safe and out of use pending repatriation. This annoyed her even more. She said she would be speaking with the university lawyers before anything like that happened. Then she gave me a little lecture about how the books were probably safer in her library than in yours (witness the theft). And if one takes a long view of civilization, they had finally found their home.

At this point I had to leave as I was getting ready to slug her.

Don’t worry, amigo, international law is on your side, but I suppose justice could be delayed for years by the lawyers.”

Saludos cordiales,

Juan Francisco Salazar

P.S. Next time we get together, you pay for the beer.

My Dear Friend,

I had long hoped to express the contents of this letter to you personally. I imagined doing so after a fine dinner, served with my best wines. A night of good conversation. I even planned the menu. However, the more I thought about it, the more I feared it might lead to a possible misunderstanding, even a falling out. I did not want that to happen.

When Teresa died, so unexpectedly, of a brain aneurism, my life effectively ended. I have been operating on auto-pilot, doing everything by the numbers. Now my doctor informs me that I will soon join her. Believe me, I am ready.

This will be a long letter, and some parts of it will undoubtedly puzzle you. Please bear with me. Everything will be explained.

Let’s begin by talking about Aimé Bonpland. Two hundred and twenty years ago two healthy, ebullient, brilliant young men in their twenties began a scientific expedition to Latin America, which, five years later, would dramatically expand mankind’s knowledge of the world. They were, of course, Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland. Bonpland is not nearly as well known as Humboldt, but he was co-equal in the expedition. He had previously studied medicine and botany in Paris. His teachers were the finest in France, great scientists like Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu. Bonpland loved studying plants. In field work he was passionate, tenacious, and skillful. During the expedition he took serious risks to obtain specimens. And with what results! Altogether, he and Humboldt brought back 60,000 plant specimens, of which 6,000 were new species.

Their expedition was just the beginning of a fabulous life which I cannot relate in this letter. Bonpland spent the next 14 years in France, mainly as director of gardens for the Empress Joséphine. But he often daydreamed about returning to Latin America, a more insouciant and simpático land, where he could continue his pursuits as a naturalist. He was already great friends with Simón Bolívar, having first met him in Paris’ finest brothel. And another revolutionary, later to become Argentina’s first president, Bernardino Rivadavia, invited him to emigrate to Buenos Aires to become a professor of medicine at the university and the founding director of the natural history museum. So he did, leaving Europe for good in 1817, accompanied by a young wife, her daughter, 500 citrus trees, many plants, and countless seeds. His shipboard nursery proved providential for the promised appointments came to nothing due to political turmoil. For the next three years he made his living selling fruits and vegetables. Then abruptly he leaves his wife, going up river 800 kilometers to Corrientes and onward to Misiones in Paraguay. Perhaps the words I use are too harsh, for with so much deteriorating and spinning out of control in Buenos Aires (financially, academically, socially) Bonpland was desperate to resume serious botanizing and possibly make a fortune. Circumstances permitting, the family might have a chance to reunite.

Uppermost in Bonpland’s mind, not surprisingly, was a plant: yerba mate. The green tea brewed from it was the beverage of choice in the Southern Cone. It had immense economic value. At the same time it was a botanical mystery. The Guaraní Indians had long harvested leaves from this wild and uncommon tree, the Ilex paraguariensis. The Jesuits, observing them, successfully cultivated it at their utopia in Misiones. But how they did so was a secret, a lost secret. It was almost impossible to grow from seed. That is, until our genius, Bonpland, observed on the river island Martín García, birds eating the seeds, and grasped at once that yerba mate was one of those unusual plants that sprout only after passing through the intestines of an animal. With this knowledge he too could devise means of cultivating it.

So he settled amidst the Jesuit ruins in Misiones, and began his plantation. Unfortunately the land was in disputed territory, also claimed by Paraguay. And the fact that he was growing yerba mate, a Paraguayan state monopoly, enraged its dictator, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who promptly ordered 400 troops to cross the Paraná River, destroy the buildings, kill the workers, and capture Bonpland. For the next nine years he would be Francia’s prisoner. Placed under house arrest in a village, he was forbidden to travel or correspond with anyone. Spies watched him and soldiers were nearby. To live he could practice medicine and farm. Bonpland, as usual, made the most of it and eventually prospered. He even married the daughter of a Guaraní cacique and had two children.

For another 29 years Bonpland would live through numerous adventures and close calls and never stop botanizing and learning. But I am going to end the sketch here, when he married María, the Indian girl.

What I am going to say next would be inappropriate in a scholarly article because evidence supporting it is scarce and scattered, though not contradictory. It is based on a hunch. I’m sure that you as a police detective often follow your hunches, and so, as an intellectual historian and book collector, must I.

During his long life of 84 years, Bonpland chased and loved countless women, married some (without divorcing any), and fathered lots of children. Does this make him a Casanova? I don’t think so. His portraits, most executed when he was older, show a man of average appearance, certainly not handsome nor dressed in finery. Not a trace of donjuanismo. What does come through are penetratingly observant eyes. Sometimes they fell upon a plant, sometimes a woman. Interestingly, the plant he most loved to collect was an orchid because it reminded him of a woman’s vagina—and South America is full of orchids. What’s more, women loved him back, desired him, trusted him—no matter whether they were French, Spanish, Creole, Mestizo, or Indian. No doubt as a medical doctor he knew how to give women great pleasure. And of course he would want to.

Indians also trusted him. For many, especially in the jungle, Humboldt and Bonpland were their first contact with Europeans—and not the usual sort. They came to learn, not instruct, not exploit, not convert nor conquer. We can be sure the Indians observed these two white men as closely as they were being observed, and apparently concluded that they were neither deceitful nor hostile, just eager to learn everything they could about nature. As barriers fell, the Indians proved very generous, sharing their great knowledge. Above all, Bonpland, as a doctor, had interest in medicinal plants, and he witnessed many treatments employing them. Later, in his own practice, often in remote regions, he had difficulty reordering European medicines. Yet people kept coming to him for help. So he employed indigenous remedies—and why not? They often worked. One time a poisonous snake bit a farm worker when he stuck his hand inside some foliage. He ran to Bonpland, who applied an herbal poultice, which was all he had. Four hours later the man’s condition had grown far worse, so he transported him by cart to a nearby Indian village where their medicine man, using a different materia medica, cured him. This was the kind of thing Bonpland registered in notebooks, plant descriptions, and botanical catalogs. However, a great many of his documents never survived the tropics. Insects, rodents, heat, humidity, mildew, canoes swamped in turbulent rivers, unretrieved luggage, military actions, thefts, and even a shipwreck on way to Europe took their toll. And in what concerns us, a very important document, which did survive, disappeared.

This document was a compendium describing 5,000 tropical and subtropical plants, the product of 45 years of botanizing and observation: a manuscript known as La Nomenclature de Bonpland. It circulated among a small group of Argentine scientists in the late 19th century, and one Brazilian who examined it claimed that it was the fundamental record of Bonpland’s astonishing knowledge of indigenous medicine. The fount, one might say, for future research. Let us remember that Darwin himself called Bonpland “the best of judges.” Unfortunately, the last person to borrow the manuscript never returned it.

You see I could talk on and on about the interesting Monsieur Bonpland, but now we must turn our attention to another person: Professor Matteo Conti. He was an ethnobotanist at our university and before that at the University of Buenos Aires. He had to flee Argentina when the Videla regime took over and began hunting intellectuals. We met because he needed advice and help in obtaining certain botanical books, which neither the university library nor ours had. I was able to find quite a few of them, which, when they weren’t too expensive, he purchased and added to his personal collection. He was very affable, and we became friends. Eventually his health failed, interfering with his teaching, and the university laid him off. His position had always been tenuous. He was too sick to do field work, but he still published articles derived from analysis and reflection of printed sources. His own collection of books kept him going.

That collection he bequeathed to me upon death. A lot of books, a small suitcase, a letter, and a key. I hauled everything over to my house as there was no other place to put it. The contents of the letter shocked me, for he said the suitcase contained a treasure. He gave no indication of how he had come by this treasure, only that he felt compelled to remove it from Argentina, given that murderous barbarians were in power.

I took the key and opened the suitcase. Inside were four thick neatly-wrapped parcels. I carried them to a table and unwrapped the first parcel. It was a handwritten manuscript bound in boards. The title page read La Nomenclature des Plantes Tropicales d’Amérique, Vol. I, Aimé Bonpland.

I was stunned. I stood up and walked around the room, then walked out into the garden. There was no question, it was a treasure. A unique, unpublished work of the first order, of immense untapped scientific value, as well as extreme monetary value. For a librarian or a book collector to hold such a work in his hands, and indeed possess it, is a culminating moment of life.

The manuscript, after Bonpland’s death, had never had a home. As far as we know, it had not belonged to anyone or any institution. It circulated, and had been missing for more than 100 years. And now I had custody of it, but I really didn’t feel I owned it. Mankind owns such works.

I spent the next few weeks reading the entire thing. It was sometimes difficult deciphering his handwriting, which was small, even scribbled. Diligent editing will be needed in order to publish it, but that is not my job. Overall it was legible. A nomenclature systematically classifies a subject, so entries were grouped in plant families. They varied in length from a line or two to long paragraphs. A typical entry might include the binomial scientific name (if established), the common name in Spanish or Portuguese, the indigenous name (mostly Guaraní, which Bonpland spoke), a description of the plant, habitat, and known uses. Food and medicinal plants were always identified, with, in the latter case, the disease named and how the remedy was prepared and applied. Of course, not all entries were so complete.

For a very long time I puzzled over what to do. My mind went everywhere, but eventually options fell into two categories. I could sell it or donate it. It was worth a lot of money. At Christie’s in London or Sotheby’s in New York or the Hôtel Drouot in Paris numerous institutions would bid for it, and a case could be made why some of them were fitting destinations (for example, Le Jardin des Plantes, which already had many of Bonpland’s papers and specimens). Of course, ultimately, the manuscript would go to the highest bidder. Let’s say Harvard got it.

As a South American this stuck in my throat. Why should this fundamental research about our land, our plants, our indigenous people wind up in a foreign country? Why should we lose this key to future scientific work? This opportunity, so appropriate? I decided not to sell.

Donation, on the other hand, had its own problems.

Number One: “Casting pearls before swine.” A donation to most academic institutions would likely proceed as follows:

Publicity

A ceremony upon receipt

Exhibit in library lobby

Deposit in special collections department

Indeed the manuscript might just be left in the lobby’s glass case, in effect becoming a show piece, a museum object, a fossil.

I pondered this scenario for a long time before formulating a different plan, one that would compel a worthier destiny for my Bonpland. As great as the manuscript was, it nonetheless lacked sufficient critical mass by itself to provoke institutional adaptation and growth. The way forward was to see it as a lodestone, powerfully attractive. As a librarian it was obvious to me that it could become the cornerstone of a major research collection. Indeed, Professor Conti had already begun laying the foundation with his personal collection. It was my task to continue the process and build this library. So, with my own money, my own salary, I started buying books on ethnobotany in Spanish, French, Portuguese, English, and German. It’s something I know how to do. However . . .

Problem Number Two: Some books were just too expensive—and they were highly desirable. This is when I turned rogue. Now I’m confessing to you, Guillermo. You can finally solve the case. Yes, to shine the worst light on it, I began using the public library as a piggy bank. I tried to pick a subject I thought almost no one was interested in, to do the least damage and to avoid detection. Church history. But, as you know, I was wrong, I miscalculated. Señor Molina was passionate about it.

So yes, I became the mysterious bookseller Osorio. El Librero. Turned out I was good at that too. I amassed tens of thousands of dollars for my special acquisitions fund. Mind you, I never spent a penny on myself. It all went into the books. Ahh, what books! My friend (I hope I can still call you that), just walk down the hall to the first door on the right. Inside you will find an outstanding specialized library on ethnobotany ready for use. A veritable force field. The manuscript is in the locked case built into the bookshelves. You have the key. In addition, when my home is sold, the proceeds will turn into an endowment to support this library in perpetuity. I am offering this package to our own university, provided they establish an Aimé Bonpland Center for Ethnobotanical Research. If they don’t, it goes somewhere else.

So there it is.

Que te vaya bien!

Adiós,

Andrés Vidal