It wasn’t a peaceful Sunday.
He swept the gangway and carried the books he’d refused to sell over the past few days back to their places, where they fitted to within a millimetre. He put a new roll of paper in the till. He didn’t know what to do with his hands.
If I can get through today, I can get through the rest of my days too.
He served an Italian: ‘I recently saw a book with a raven wearing glasses on the cover. Has it already been translated?’
He let his picture be taken with a tourist couple, took orders from Syria for some books that were critical of Islam, sold compression stockings to a Spanish lady, and filled Kafka’s and Lindgren’s bowls.
While the cats roamed around the boat, Perdu flicked through a supplier’s catalogue that advertised place mats featuring the most famous six-word stories from Hemingway to Murakami – alongside salt, pepper and spice shakers shaped like the heads of Schiller, Goethe, Colette, Balzac and Virginia Woolf, which dispensed salt, pepper or sugar from the partings in their hair.
What’s the point of that?
‘The huge non-book bestseller: new bookmarks for every bookshop. With an exclusive offer of Hesse’s Stages – the cult bookend for your poetry department.’
Do you know what? That does it. You can stuff your crime-novel toilet paper. And Hesse’s Stages – ‘In all beginnings dwells a magic force’ – as shelf decorations. Honestly, that does it!
The bookseller stared out the window at the Seine, at the glittering waves, at the curve of the sky.
It really is pretty.
Was Manon cross that she had to leave me that way? Because I am who I am, and there was no other choice? Like talking to me, for example. Asking me for help. Telling me the truth.
‘Am I a man who’s not up to that? What kind of man am I anyway?’ he cried.
Jean Perdu snapped the catalogue shut, rolled it up and stuck it in the back pocket of his grey trousers.
It was as though for the last twenty-one years his life had been leading up to this precise moment when it became clear to him what he had to do, what he should have done from the start, even without Manon’s letter.
Down in the engine room, Monsieur Perdu opened his fastidiously tidy toolbox, took out the battery-powered screwdriver, put the bit in his shirt pocket and went out to the gangway. There he laid down the catalogue on the metal plank, worked the bit into the tool and, one by one, began to loosen the large screws that held the gangway to the underside of the embankment.
Finally, he also undid the pipe leading to the harbour’s freshwater tank, pulled the plug out of the landing stage’s distribution board and cast off the ropes that had bound the Literary Apothecary to the bank for two decades.
Perdu gave the gangway a few powerful kicks to release it finally from the ground. He raised the plank, pushed it into the entrance of the book barge, jumped after it and closed the hatch.
Perdu walked to the wheelhouse in the stern, shot a thought in the direction of Rue Montagnard – ‘Forgive me, Catherine’ – and turned the ignition key to preheat.
Then, after a passionate ten-second countdown, Perdu turned the key a notch further.
The engine started without hesitation.
‘Monsieur Perdu! Monsieur Perdu! Hello! Wait for me!’
He looked over his shoulder.
Jordan? Yes, it really was Jordan! Along with his earmuffs he was wearing sunglasses that Perdu identified as Madame Bomme’s glittery bug-eyed shades.
Jordan ran towards the book barge, a kit bag slung over his shoulder and bouncing with every step as various other bags dangled from his arms. He was being pursued by a couple with cameras.
‘Where are you going?’ Jordan shouted in a panicky voice.
‘Away from here!’ Perdu shouted back.
‘Great – I want to come!’
Jordan hurled his luggage aboard when Lulu was already a metre from the bank, shaking and trembling with the unfamiliar vibrations. Half of the bags fell in the water, including Jordan’s pouch with his mobile and wallet inside.
The engine spluttered, and the exhaust discharged a cloud of black diesel smoke. Half the river was veiled in a blue haze. Monsieur Perdu saw the harbourmaster striding towards them, cursing.
He pushed the throttle to full speed.
The writer launched himself into his run-up.
‘No!’ cried Perdu. ‘No, Monsieur Jordan, no way! I really must …’
14
‘… beg you!’
Jean Perdu watched as Max Jordan stood up, rubbed his knee, looked back at where the rest of his things floated on the surface of the water for a second before sinking – and then limped to the wheelhouse with a beaming smile.