You know the Bibliotheque Nationale de Barbes? I was taking some books back. There’s a little creature at the desk, like a little barrel with a little round head and the scarf on. She goes to get my ticket and she stops and I see her looking up at me and kind of nodding, like, ‘a-ha!’, you know. So she goes in the back and she comes out with a, I guess he must have been a senior librarian. So one or two of the books might be a little overdue. Nothing too drastic. She calls me ‘Mr. Wahid’. She’s like some kind of automaton with the squeaky little voice, ‘there are some irregularities here, Mr Wahid’. Euch. I said, ‘Yes I know, I’m sorry, I think one or two of my books might be a little overdue’. She’s shaking her head, it’s like it’s on a stick just turning from left to right. ‘I’m afraid there are some irregularities here, Mr Wahid’. And the senior guy is looking me up and down. Like it’s a crime.
He starts in with the ‘Mr Wahid’. ‘We’ve audited our library recently, Mr Wahid, and the process has thrown light on some unusual borrowing patterns and some, as my colleague says, ‘irregularities’. We will deal with the late returned items in due course but I’m afraid there are, ipso facto, some more serious matters that I have to raise with you.’
He pauses and he looks at me. I look at him. I mean, I’m dumbstruck. This place. They are obsessed, they are obsessed with bureaucracy. What’s wrong with them? I blame the Ottomans. I had nothing to say. What could I say? So he goes on;
‘As you know, Mr Wahid, there is a covenant that exists between a library and its members, the great borrowing public. If a book is late and another borrower has requested it, the prime borrower must make all reasonable efforts to return the book at once. All reasonable efforts, Mr Wahid. In addition, this covenant, this contract between the library and the great borrowing public has as its very foundation, its very foundation, Mr Wahid, the lofty ideal that the library and all its readers jointly and severally strive for, for the good of all.’
He could see I wasn’t getting it:
‘The good of all. The, as it were, the greater good. The library happily offers a wide variety of titles that bring glee and good cheer and there is no harm, per se, in glee and good cheer, in moderation. But a good reader balances this fare with an even broader range of, pro bono civitas, educational books. We have all the classics, for example, and even a selection of technical manuals for those who seek to learn a new trade, such as...
‘Plumbing’.
‘In short. We have reviewed your, your ‘borrowing habits’, Mr Wahid and we are left in something of a quandary; we are hoist, as it were, between two petards. Unique amongst our readership, you have borrowed exactly the same number of good books as, for want of a better term, ‘bad’ books. Not that they’re that bad. If they were... If your borrowing was clearly skewed beyond reasonable doubt in favour of the more frivolous titles then we would simply and summarily revoke your membership forthwith.
‘We wouldn’t have them. If they were that bad. Would we Mr Olsun?’
We both ignored the girl. I asked if there was a fine to pay.
‘Not so much a ‘fine’, per se.
So I’m sent along the corridor to wait outside the head librarian’s office. He’s actually ok. He’s not too bad. He says, ‘Look. This is an unusual case. Technically, you can’t borrow anything else, but you’re not excluded from borrowing either. You have to read, ah, between the lines, Wahid. You’re cast out, forever to wander, to read between the winds.’ He’s a card, the head librarian. ‘This is what you need to do. Just bring them a gift, say, probably three gifts will probably do it. Show them you’re a good citizen, bring them something they’ll like.’
‘Like what?’
‘It’s hard to say. Like a good book or something. Try the station.’
I’m down at the station and I go in to the newsagents there, the international one. You know the one. They have everything. The shelves are heaving, I mean they’re bending in the middle. They have books there too. Not just the usual stuff, they have good books, American books. Really, quality. And I have a good look and I’m thinking about maybe this European dictionary that has all the main languages in it. That’s when I saw the Omni magazines. D’you ever see Omni. Wow. ‘America’s Hidden Power Source, The pyramids: a bold new theory, Taping people’s dying words, Far out fractals and Frog Telekinesis. Frog Telikinesis? Where else can you read about this stuff? Who else gives you far out fractals? In colour! There’s a big pile of them and I think, my God. They’re throwing these out. Can you believe it? I take as many as I can carry and I get back to the library. Olsun’s not there. Just the girl. She nods. ‘Not bad, Mr Wahid. Keep them coming.
I think she means more Omni so I go back but they’re gone. Damn. That’s my luck. I thought I was on a roll. After that, well, to be honest. Everything looks so ordinary. I mean, Harold Robbins? What’s the point. Vogue Uomo. There’s nothing in it. Pictures of suits and Italian narcissi. Mental chewing gum for retards. Pathetic. I’m getting really hacked off with it all. Up and down. Up and down. It’s like I’ve been in that station all my life. Nothing at all... inspirational. I’m shuffling up and down in that seaweed that comes in there, kicking it out of my way, and then it dawns on me. Why not try the international trains? Why not? What have I got to lose? My dignity?
Those trains are long. I mean really long and, it has to be said, the pickings weren’t too bad, I got a Playboy down the side of a seat in first class, not exactly suitable. I thought about taking all the foreign papers – you know I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get, so I was considering, anything really. Finally, the miracle happened. You’ll never believe what I found. Never. You could never guess. This, I mean, really, this restores your faith in people reading out there. Leopoldo Lugones. The one, the very same. Lugones. ‘Cuentos Fatales’. Can you believe it? Not only that, but a nice, modern softcover, large format with a tiger on the cover. A tiger.
Of course I considered keeping it. I mean, who wouldn’t? But I take it round to the library. What I expect is that I get my card back right away because this, what library would not want to have a book like this? You know what she does? She gives me a magnifying glass. ‘Look harder.’
Still, I’m thinking, two down, one to go. I just need to get lucky. A train’s coming in from across the border. One of the long ones. I can’t think what else to do so I stand there watching people get off, watch them looking around, lost. It all seems so tired and ordinary. Banal. The same Norwegians with the same big rucksacks. The same trains, the same seaweed. It’s all the same old, same old, same, same, same. And you know what I do? I give up. To hell with the library card. I’ve been down here for days, sifting through junk like a tramp and I’ve got nothing to show for it but a magnifying glass. Enough. That’s it. And I’m kicking at the seaweed. Enough. I’ve had it with this, scuff, scuff, kick. I’m going to go back and tell them. Kick. That’s when I see it. How could I miss it? Bright red. You know I think it was real Moroccan binding? ‘Folk Tales from Els Tesors: the Traveller’s Compendium’. I had one at school. It was a prize. You know what the best bit was? It was mine. I checked with the magnifying glass. Awarded to, and then, filled in on the dot dot dot, my name! What do you think of that? Incredible.
Back at the library I’m sure this will do it. This will get me back in. And it does. It’s all good. I get my card, there’s no fine, even better. The Head Librarian comes out and he’s looking at my gifts; the Omnis, the Lugones, the Folk Tales and I can tell he’s pleased. He says:
‘These are gifts of beauty, the ‘Frog Telekinesis’, well, I’m not sure how practical that is, but these gifts are really, extraordinarily beautiful.’
The Altizourus Social Club readily acknowledge that Wahid’s account of his difficulties with library membership bear more than a passing resemblance to Joachim Neugroschel’s rendition of the great Yitzhak Lieb Peretz story, ‘Three Gifts’.