32 
A Walk in the Village

Since her arrival at the chalet, Amanda had only once been in the village of Wengen, and then only briefly with Sister Gretchen. Today, Sister Hope asked if she would deliver a loaf of bread to the lady who operated the post.

As she was heading out the door, Sister Marjolaine came bounding down from upstairs.

“Oh, Amanda, I heard that you were going to the village,” she said. “Would you mind taking this book back to Herr Buchmann? I borrowed it last week.”

“Buchmann,” laughed Amanda. “Doesn’t that mean bookman? Is that really his name?”

“Actually . . . I don’t know,” Marjolaine replied. “That is what everyone calls him. He is the old schoolmaster and now something of a bookdealer, although mostly what he does is lend out his own books. He is a one-man library. I don’t know what I would do without him. Someday you will have to hear his story.”

“I would like that.”

“In the meantime, here is the book. He lives four houses down from the post. Frau Schmidt can point out the cottage to you, but you can’t miss it—a thatched roof with garden in front, and with a door knocker in the shape of a book.”

“I will find it,” said Amanda.

She left the chalet and walked to the village in good spirits, and went into the post to make her delivery.

“So you must be the new young lady at the chalet,” said the woman, taking the wrapped loaf and placing it on the counter. “I am Frau Schmidt.”

“Hello. I am Amanda Ruther—er, I mean . . . my name is Amanda.”

“I am happy to meet you, Amanda,” said Frau Schmidt, extending her hand. “I have known dear Hope Guinarde almost since the very day she arrived here in Wengen to care for her husband’s mother, God bless her. She is a dear, dear woman.”

“Can you tell me the way to Herr Buchmann’s cottage?” asked Amanda.

“Of course, dear,” replied Frau Schmidt. “Come with me—I will show you.”

She led the way out the front door and pointed along a side street to the house.

“I see it . . . thank you very much,” said Amanda and continued on.

A few minutes later she approached the cottage, which was exactly as Sister Marjolaine had described it. She lifted the book-shaped knocker and let it bang against the brass plate beneath it.

Ten or fifteen seconds later the door opened. There stood a man whom Amanda judged to be in his early sixties, with a massive crop of unruly hair, mostly grey but with thick remaining patches of black strewn throughout it, and a full pure white beard. He was wearing what appeared to be laborer’s clothes—dungarees, a red-plaid flannel shirt, over which were strung a pair of green suspenders.

“Are you Herr Buchmann?” asked Amanda.

“At your service,” he replied with a wide smile.

“I am from the Chalet of Hope. I brought you back this book from Sister Marjolaine.”

“Oh, the dear girl—finished it already, has she?”

“I don’t know. She only asked me to return it to you.”

Amanda handed him the volume. He took it, though without any indication that the interview was over.

“Come in, come in,” he said, “—what is your name?”

“Amanda.”

“Well, Amanda, I am delighted to make your acquaintance. Please . . . come—perhaps there might be something I can do for you in the way of a book, since you are here.”

The friendly but, to Amanda’s eyes, somewhat eccentric man led her into the sitting room of a quaint and old-fashioned cottage. He did not stop there, however, but continued through it into a dimly lit corridor which led to the rear of the home. Books lined every available space, sometimes from floor to ceiling.

“This is my library . . .” he said as they entered what appeared to be the largest room of the cottage, which sat at the opposite end from the door by which she had entered. The four walls of the room were not even visible, for books on the bookshelves literally took up every inch of vertical space, in many places two volumes thick. Books sat upright, were stacked in piles, and leaned against one another at every possible angle between zero and ninety degrees. The dusty aroma of oldness met Amanda’s senses as they entered, which she recognized but was not yet quite seasoned enough to love as one of the treasured fragrances of the growing, learning, reading, deepening life. Two or three worn overstuffed chairs, a couch, and a couple of reading tables—upon which sat several more stacks of books, and one large atlas, which was open to a map of the continent of Europe—took up the remaining floor space. He was either a sloppy librarian or else this room saw a great deal of use that rendered neatness both impossible and unnecessary. Amanda already suspected the latter. On one of these packed shelves he set the book in his hand that Amanda had given him.

“ . . . and over here,” he added, continuing on through a low alcove and pointing into a tiny room that might once have been something like a large closet but was now sort of an anteroom to the library, “is my little workshop and bindery.”

“You bind books too?”

“Oh yes, and repair them,” he replied. “Anything a book needs I will try to do for it. I am greatly fond of books.”

“I can see that,” laughed Amanda.

“I love not only their souls, which are obviously the most important parts, but also their bodies.”

“So you’re a little like a book doctor.”

“Indeed, right you are—a good image, Amanda. And occasionally a surgeon, though never an undertaker.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I do not believe in death.”

The statement struck Amanda as odd. She glanced at Herr Buchmann with a curious expression, which he returned only with a mysterious smile in which was mingled a hint of cunning, as if he were attempting to coax from her further question on the matter. The expression indicated worlds of intended significance it would probably take many fascinating discussions to plumb. Amanda did not take the bait, however, and he quickly went on.

“That is to say,” he said, “I do not believe that books die. So they have no need of an undertaker. Any book can always be brought back to life from the jaws of death. Although I confess mildew is a disease for which there is no known cure. But even that cannot kill the book’s contents and ideas any more than sin can kill the human soul. But mildew is something of a trial for one who loves books as I do.”

He paused briefly, and a thoughtful expression came over his brow. For an instant Amanda wondered if he had forgotten she was there.

“But as I said,” he went on after a moment, “I do not believe that a book ever dies, even if the physical specimen in which the thoughts of the author were housed one day should fail altogether and be cast on the fire, the thoughts that were in the mind of the author live on. Not altogether unlike the human species, if you don’t mind a bit of theology thrown in at no extra charge. For wasn’t it said that one might kill the body but never the soul? That’s how it is with books too, although what role the fire may play insofar as the book is concerned is probably something less eternal than its counterpart in the world of men’s souls.—But excuse me,” he said, glancing back toward Amanda with a smile of good humor and a return of the mysterious twinkle in his eyes, “I diverge on a tangent that is something of a hobby with me—a theological hobby, that is.”

“I’ve never heard of theological hobbies,” laughed Amanda.

“Oh, I have a good many.”

“Why do you call them hobbies?”

“Because I indulge myself thinking about them and studying and reading about them and searching the Scriptures for light on them, all for my own enjoyment. But they are not central things to the faith. If I may say it like this—they don’t matter. Eternally, I mean. They are fascinating, but not essential to what comprises belief.”

“What is essential?” Amanda found herself asking.

“What else,” replied Herr Buchmann, as if the answer was the most obvious thing in all the world, “—but to do what he said.”

A brief silence followed.

“But I thought you were a bookseller,” said Amanda, changing the subject.

“Upon occasion. When the villagers have need of a certain book, I will order it for them. But mostly I like to lend my own books, and fix and bind the ones people bring me that are in poor repair. So, as you say, I am more physician and librarian than merchant of the written word.”

“Sister Marjolaine said you used to be the schoolmaster.”

“That I did. Many of my regular—what shall I call them? Hardly customers . . . but those who visit me now to read one, now another from my literary storehouse, were once my students. I tried to do one thing above all else—instill a love of books in young people. And over the years, because of my own love of books, I somehow accumulated a good many, as you can see. I hope you will feel free to come back anytime, Amanda. My door is always open, and never locked even when I am not here.”

“That is very kind of you.”

“I do not think I have ever had a book stolen. Occasionally one comes back a little worse for wear. But I do not mind. Books are to be used, not sit on shelves. Mildew never infects a book that is being read over and over and passed from one hand to the next. With the insides of books as well as the insides of hearts, mildew is the result of disuse. It is the disease of staleness and stagnation, the opposite of life. Oh, there I go again!” he said, laughing heartily. “Before I die I hope every one of my books is full of smudges and scuff marks and bruised bindings, and even a few torn pages. These are all good and healthy signs to a booklover, as long as they have come from use, not carelessness. Nothing pleases me more when returning home, either from the post down the street or from a day or two down in Interlaken, than to find my cottage occupied with one or more of my friends and acquaintances browsing through my shelves, even sitting in one of my chairs quietly reading. The cottage may be mine, but my library belongs to the entire village.”

“That is very generous of you. I shall be sure to come back. Thank you very much.”

When Amanda left a few minutes later, Herr Buchmann did not seem nearly so peculiar as she had first taken him for. Theologically eccentric perhaps, but so personable and friendly that who could hold it against him?

As she left the intriguing librarian and physician of books, and with the sun shining down brightly, Amanda decided to explore a little more of her surroundings.

As she walked through Wengen’s two or three streets, snow was still to be seen in some of the shadows where it had been piled against the north sides of buildings. Her heart was merry, and gradually her thoughts returned to Sister Hope’s remarkable story of the previous evening. She could sense it penetrating into deep places within her, though she had no idea what might be the end result in her own life. She found herself wishing Sister Hope and her mother could know each other.

Ahead of her, coming out of an alleyway into the street, Amanda saw an old woman approaching, bent over and dragging a load of branches. Still in good spirits from her pleasant encounters with Frau Schmidt and Herr Buchmann, she greeted the woman with a friendly smile.

“Would you like some help with your load?” Amanda asked. “It looks heavy.”

“Mind your own business, girl!” the woman barked out in a Swiss dialect Amanda could scarcely understand, not even looking up at her as she did, and then continued on.

Saddened and bewildered by the sharp word, Amanda stared after her. She watched as the woman turned into an unkempt and overgrown yard toward a cottage in the middle of it, which appeared in as sorry a state of repair as the grounds.