THE BOOKSHELF
Word Count: 920
I didn’t notice the books disappearing until I went looking for Murakami’s Kafka on The Shore. I went back and forth reading titles on the shelf of M through N thinking perhaps in a hurry I’d misplaced it. Then I looked through the shelf just above, wondering if a guest may have taken it out and placed it with the Ks incorrectly.
Back and forth, over several days, I searched through my collection of classics and bestsellers I’ve so patiently accumulated over these many years. I’m the proud owner of a first edition Absolom! Absolom! and I’m thrilled to own the complete works of Poe and of Marquez and McCarthy. Murakami’s a new favorite of mine and I haunt library sales and the few bookstores remaining.
I moved on to select Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, though I hadn’t been particularly taken by Mrs. Dalloway. I could not find it! I knew that I had it, it was crossed off my list of “To Buy” books. I thought of Bolano’s 2666, one that I’d just recently purchased. It too, was not there. This was getting ridiculous; more, completely odd!
“Buy a Kindle,” said Cyril, a rare friend who sometimes came over to dinner. I realize his intent may have been to console, but what consolation for the loss of the scent of old books, the texture of paper against fingers, the feel of the turn of a page?
“Perhaps you laid them somewhere and forgotten them,” he said.
“I checked everywhere,” I replied, ignoring his unwarranted mistrust of my nature to care for my books like orphan children.
“Well it’s certainly not a sneak thief,” he said, “coming in and stealing your collection book by book.”
This of course was a silly idea, and yet, what could be happening?
I stood there at the bookshelves for hours, my list of “To Read” in one hand, a pencil in the other, while I scrutinized the spines. Then I went through again, checking my list of “Have Read.” All in all, it appeared that fifty-three books were missing!
At night I was restless, sleep pecked like a tree by a woodpecker. The holes left gaping with the spaces where my children had been snatched by some evil though well-read kidnapper. Each morning I’d take count, no longer interested in what was taken–since all of my books were special and each gone was a wound to the heart. I did take off the shelf my Poe and a few others, renting a safe deposit box at my bank to secure them.
I took to sitting up at night, since I believed they were being taken during its black cover of darkness that matched the heart of the thief. I was desperate. I’d called the police who seemed to pooh-pooh my misery and doubt my claims after a complete check of the apartment. They only found my own fingerprints and one or two that matched Cyril’s though I’m sure I’d thoroughly cleaned since his latest visit.
One night as I sat in my chair, the lights full aflame revealing an obviously battered bookshelf half-filled with sad leaning books, I woke with a tickle. I listened. I leaned forward, following my ear. I got up and traced the slight shuffle of what sounded like pages. I stood in the small entryway in front of the coat closet. A thin slit of light flared out from beneath the door. What’s this?!
I held my breath and cautiously turned the knob and with a great burst of anxiety reinforced by pure anger I pulled open the door!
She was tiny, no taller I’d guess, than eight or ten inches. She looked up at me, obviously frightened, her hands gripping the page of a Hemingway that lay open on the floor.
“Ahah!” I bellowed. She covered her ears. Her big eyes were soft with tears. Her bottom lip quivered.
“Please sir,” she trembled, “I only wanted to read!”
Well of course I was mighty surprised by my thief, yet she looked so sweetly determined that I relented.
It seems that she used to live at the bookstore downtown, (Ah yes, I remember that treasure chest of literature, now long gone) and took up in the new large one at the mall (where I did go often, since it’s all we had left to us). When that too closed its doors, she followed me home from its final sale, impressed by the titles I had purchased (at half-price too!).
To cut from the nose to the tail of the story, she and I became great friends. The missing books were all there in the closet; she, apologizing for not putting them back on the shelves but her explanation, seeing her size, was quite understandable and forgiven.
I’ve since replaced all the missing books into their proper alphabetical order on the shelves. She tells me what she wants to read next and I get them down for her. We have great literary discussion–though she favors Joyce over Faulkner, our one main source of disagreement–and all in all, it has turned out quite right in the end. She has proven to be a wonderful dinner companion though we soon learned that her wee size could not handle more than a thimble of wine. We talk about books and the old days, and we both laugh heartily at the thought of buying any form of electronic reader. I’ve even brought Poe back home.
He felt the tugging at his sleeve sometimes and brushed away the silk threads that she’d woven onto his arm. He didn’t mind that they were trailing on the floor behind him. He didn’t know that they clung to all the places that he’d been.
