As if I could give anyone any advice.
‘I’d rather write an encyclopedia about common emotions,’ he admitted. ‘From A for “Anxiety about picking up hitchhikers” to E for “Early risers’ smugness” through to Z for “Zealous toe concealment, or the fear that the sight of your feet might destroy someone’s love for you”.’
Perdu wondered why he was telling a stranger all this.
If only he hadn’t opened the room.
The grandmother patted his knee. He gave a quick shudder: physical contact was dangerous.
‘An encyclopedia of emotions,’ she repeated with a smile. ‘I know that feeling about toes. An almanac of common feelings … Do you know the German writer Erich K?stner?’
Perdu nodded. In 1936, shortly before Europe sank into the black-and-brown gloom, K?stner had published a Lyrical Medicine Chest from the poetic medicine cabinet of his works. ‘This volume is dedicated to the therapy of private life,’ wrote the poet in the foreword. ‘It addresses – mainly in homeopathic doses – the minor and major ailments of existence and helps with the “treatment of the average inner life”.’
‘K?stner was one reason I called my book barge the Literary Apothecary,’ said Perdu. ‘I wanted to treat feelings that are not recognised as afflictions and are never diagnosed by doctors. All those little feelings and emotions no therapist is interested in, because they are apparently too minor and intangible. The feeling that washes over you when another summer nears its end. Or when you recognise that you haven’t got your whole life left to find out where you belong. Or the slight sense of grief when a friendship doesn’t develop as you thought, and you have to continue your search for a lifelong companion. Or those birthday morning blues. Nostalgia for the air of your childhood. Things like that.’ He recalled his mother once confiding to him that she suffered from a pain for which there was no antidote. ‘There are women who only look at another woman’s shoes and never at her face. And others who always look women in the face and only occasionally at their shoes.’ She preferred the second type; Lirabelle felt humiliated and misjudged by the former.
It was precisely to relieve such inexplicable yet real suffering that he had bought the boat, which was a working barge then and originally called Lulu; he had converted it with his own hands and filled it with books, the only remedy for countless, undefined afflictions of the soul.
‘You should write it. An encyclopedia of emotions for literary pharmacists.’ The old woman sat up straighter and grew more lively and animated. ‘Add “Confidence in strangers” under C. The odd feeling you get in trains when you open up far more to someone you’ve never met than you ever have to your own family. And “Grandchildren comfort” under G. That’s the sense that life goes on …’ She fell silent, far away.
‘A zealous toe concealer – I was one. But he liked … he liked my feet after all.’
As the grandmother, mother and girl said their good-byes and went on their way, Perdu reflected that it was a common misconception that booksellers looked after books.
They look after people.
When the stream of customers abated around midday – eating was more sacred to the French than state, religion and money combined – Perdu swept the gangway with the stiff broom, disturbing a nest of bridge spiders. Then he saw Kafka and Lindgren sloping towards him beneath the avenue of trees that lined the embankment. Those were the names he’d given to the two stray cats that paid him daily visits on the basis of certain preferences they had developed. The grey tomcat with the white priest’s collar enjoyed sharpening his claws on Franz Kafka’s Investigations of a Dog, a fable that analyses the human world from a dog’s perspective. On the other hand, orange-white, long-eared Lindgren liked to lie near the books about Pippi Longstocking; she was a fine-looking cat who peered out from the back of the bookshelves and scrutinised each visitor. Lindgren and Kafka would sometimes do Perdu a favour by dropping off one of the upper shelves without warning onto a third-category customer, one of the greasy-fingered type.
The two well-read strays waited until they could come aboard without fear of big, blundering feet. Once there, they rubbed themselves against the bookseller’s trouser legs, mewling gently.
Monsieur Perdu stood totally still. Briefly, very briefly, he let down his guard. He enjoyed the cats’ warmth and their softness. For a few seconds he abandoned himself, eyes closed, to the unbelievably soothing sensation against his calves.
These near-caresses were the only physical contact in Perdu’s daily life.
The only ones he allowed.
The precious interlude ended when, behind the bookcase in which Perdu had arranged books against the five categories of urban misery (the hectic pace, the indifference, the heat, the noise and the ubiquitous sadistic bus drivers), someone could be heard having an infernal coughing fit.