CHAPTER IX. THE SHRINE

Your hero talks books

I pick up the introductions. The Last Refuge has another regular. He has a seat of honor, in Modern Classics. He has a special place, in his own mind. A truth is discovered in the silence of disdain: Not all society is civil.

“I wish he was at the reading last night.” Nick gestured towards Literature, where the compact figure of its guardian kept a disdainful distance. “You should make him a deal.” Our dignitary was ensconced in his seat of honor, out of earshot, but in the public eye. Cordelio Cortés, the full name appears on the cover, the first is dropped in the flesh. “Señor would have put that guy in his place.”

“Señor would have made it all about himself.” Jill has little regard for the person, still less for the reputation. “Confabulations! Does anyone understand a word?”

A ruffling of feathers? Yes, it distresses me to confirm the suspicion. I have welcomed you into a little world of books, which you might hope to find a model of peace, love, and understanding, but the model needs some repair. Jill’s bone of contention is our de facto writer in residence and daily beneficiary of my largesse, but he never stays late. The readings take place after hours, and he dedicates the evening to his calling. Nick joshes with Jill, occasionally listens to my learning, but hangs on Cortés’s every last rare word. Our peculiar institution represents the young scribe’s literary archetype, a life dedicated to writing, given to gnomic pronouncement.

“Literature has no more faithful witness than Cortés.” I cast a careful glance. The witness had been wary, thought the seer denied any sulk. Do I care about every small-minded review? “But the man goes too far. He has transcended the human condition, prefers the company of long-dead writers to that of mortal flesh. He once told me that if a fire broke out in his building and he had to choose between saving his books or his lover, the written word would win. I think he was serious.”

“Seriously deluded. If we’re talking about his own work, I’d be tossing it into the flames.” Jill is normally even of temper.

“Cortés gets a lot of respect.” Nick is chronically nice, as I have noted. “Unlike some people. After his talk I googled Michael Jackson—”

“Young man, kindly keep your sexual fetishes to yourself. This is a family store.”

“Jackson’s written a couple of novels himself, out of print. And the reviews I found were not flattering.”

“There you go, Nick. Sour grapes. Instead of complaining that readers have been duped, write a great book yourself, why don’t you?”

“He did go rather quiet when you mentioned The Employment.”

“I’m under no illusions. My book is a good enough read, if I say so myself. I’ve never pretended a classic of world literature.”

I drew on the well. Nick aspires to the top shelf, writing his undergraduate thesis on the great American novel. His novel does sport a title. The Running Back starts on a hardscrabble Mississippi farm and details a football player’s steady fall as he ascends the ladder from high school celebrity through college to the Cowboys. The story should have wide appeal. Sex, violence, craven ambition, treachery: The ingredients are there. It screams Hollywood.

The manager has read the manuscript. We are not on the same page. She presented a generous opinion. Annie, I think the Running Back has lots of promise. I never refuse a gift. A lot of promise, like a ticket for the Titanic. Bada boom! Don’t be so mean, Annie, it isn’t Nick’s fault he’s so handsome. Please, the author’s photo would grace the cover, but no resentment prejudices my reading, I have no need to insist.

Let us get back to nature. Ducks are colorful creatures, though differ in disposition: The wood duck, Aix sponsa, is a solitary specimen, the wigeon, Mareca americana, only seen in flocks. Our native birds, too, exhibit a varied nature: Cortés withdraws, Nick gives us the pleasure, but his company is a mixed blessing. Jill’s notion notwithstanding, I feel some fondness for the boy, yet my spirits drop when he pedals up with his pack. I have not told him of the club, lest he have a wish to share the work in progress. The Running Back drops the ball.

“Ahem, the bowl is empty.” Nick’s gluttony spares no sweet.

“The name of your next work?”

“No refills today, I’m afraid.” Jill’s pointed look assigned the blame.­ “The cupboard is bare as well. Speaking of which, Annie, I ran into Chris—”

“No big surprise. My ex-wife parades past the window every day, with her man.”

“He teaches in her studio.”

“Oxford University has a college down the street?”

“Doing very well. Quite a crowd, waiting at the door.”

“As she never tires of sharing.”

“When did we last have a line outside?”

“Just a fad. When did you last break out that hula hoop?”

“Chris is a little worried about your drinking.”

“I had no choice. Mutual friends, the party was an obligation.”

“She wanted to say goodbye to you. Your car was outside, but you were nowhere to be found. A little concerning?”

“Needed to stretch my legs. Tell dear Christine I’m still alive when you just happen to run into her again. If anything, you should be worried for your friend. There’s a sadness in her eyes now.”

“Seems pretty happy to me.”

 “Refill, señor?” The proprietor was plying the pot.

“Your mathematics selection is to be commended”—the scholar had a stack by his chair—“your coffee not. My stomach is ill-equipped for battery acid.”

“Ivan can be heavy handed. Doesn’t it make for an experience, though? Who knew that caffeine was hallucinogenic?”

“My imagination needs no further stimulation.” Cortés subjects his metabolism to meticulous monitor. The prize-winning psychosomatic selected a vial from the portable pharmacy of his shoulder bag, looking to brick his defenses against the onslaught of complimentary beverage. The Arabian Peninsula lies directly across the street, a hand-painted sign promising brews of distinction, but to my certain knowledge he has never deployed his wallet to the advantage. Our forbidding fixture shows up every day at noon and assumes his reserved chair after dismantling the pile of obscure volumes that he selected on the previous sitting, and never pays for lunch. And attempt no wit. The writer of a lauded short story collection honors The Last Refuge with his presence and will greet your dissident comedy with deserved contempt.

A likely story! You’re talking to me, again? We’re supposed to believe that a famous novelist frequents an infamous hovel. How dare you—there is more juice on the joint than meets the jaundiced eye! So much more. Let’s put things in perspective. The owner is a patient man. I am prepared to flatter the Confabulist’s conceit. For all you know, the ingrate has imposed himself on other dens of literature—to less happy effect. At least we put up with him. Most of us, that is.

His work enjoys prominent display. He has the only label on the shelf, a benediction that fails to meet with unqualified managerial blessing, but which makes the store his shrine. The person also enjoys his pride of place, in close company to his creation. A generous institution, we save the seat, no matter how unprofitable the favor. Should you possess the predilection, the author will graciously sign the rare purchase after you make the hesitant identification from a youthful snapshot on the promotional poster. I will not flesh out the picture, but through no willful tease; the face fascinates only for a formlessness of feature. An amorphous globe sits on slender shoulders, the writer saving all expression for the work. He once smuggled his dachshund past our interdiction and the seated pair made an impression, a face of fur the only personality.

So unnecessary! Listen up now, I harbor no resentment. The critical acclaim? I am most happy for the recipient, honored by the residence, respect his retreat. If I allude to negative reviews, on occasion, I really pay him a compliment. Does an easy A not shed suspicion on the class?! 

His biography is similarly blank, although he does share an esoteric fancy with the Argentine laureate and acknowledges your praise in unaccented English whose propriety could only issue from the long study of a non-native speaker. The flow has a facility of which you will have plentiful occasion. But your offer of flattering handshake puts him in a bind, his constitution allowing no physical contact. Twisting the top off the amber bottle, he shook another capsule onto a diminutive palm.

 “Order!” Cortés cleared his throat. A distinguished speaker expects undivided attention.

“Uh oh. Court is in session.” I had already taken a bench. “But is this really the place? A welcoming bookstore!”

“The Last Refuge has the name. And suspicious characters take advantage.”

“Last week you sentenced Heathcliff to purgatory.” I humor the conceit. “A little extreme, in my humble opinion. Who is in the dock today?”

“The defendant was about to face his justice. However, he died of coronary thrombosis, according to the editor’s note. Deceased . . . and dearly beloved? I hardly think so! He may have avoided the criminal trial, but cannot escape a reckoning. A superior court is in session. I am the judge, jury and executioner. The defendant left a statement, unfortunately.”

“Your honor, would you please repeat his name?”

“Humbert Humbert.”

“You’re a funny one!”

“I have reached a verdict. Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male, my pronouncement is . . . perjury! The deposition details some serious depravity, but makes a mockery of the truth.”

“Cordelio, for once, I agree with you. The character has a reputation. I don’t believe a word he says.”

—Humbert, did you even know a girl? If so, we are brothers in bewitchment, though fail of fraternity. You are an old-world peacock, charmer of leisure, lover of conceit. I favor flannel shirts, sell bargain books, nosh on instant ramen, noodle on guitar. A bird of plainer plumage, I am still the better man!

So where is that justice? I spasm in spine; you strut in success . . . of your own devising! Humbert please, nymphets, you expect us to believe?! And if you really dispatched a rival, you now face lasting competition.

You do seduce the reader. A wizard of words conjures away the contempt. Your fellow fool will also bare himself, at some risk of summary judgement. I trust my travails will temper the taunts. And unlike you, poet of reprobate lust, I stayed within the bounds. At least my love was legal. Though she was pushing a law-abiding citizen to the limit . . . of his endurance, needless to say!—

“So Cordelio, what is your pleasure today?” I had underwritten the reading material open on his lap. He hoisted the volume for my inspection; Kline’s Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times is very reasonably priced at $19.95, though the paying public steadfastly spurns the opportunity.

“I have reached the ‘Stagnation in Mathematics.’ Here is Augustine: ‘Whatever knowledge man has acquired outside of Holy Writ, if it be harmful it is there condemned.’”

“Jolly fellow. And so Christianity’s first millennium extinguishes the candle of learning, first lit by the Greeks. We thank the Arabs for keeping the flame.”

“Suppose they were not alone. We talk of the Dark Ages—has darkness not just fallen on the truth?” Cortés has eyes of Andean basalt. The lava of invention stirs, the volcano only dormant of face. “I penetrate that darkness. I see a clandestine academy, a hive of activity, a fount of invention, until some resentful second-rate thinker betrays his better to the clerics.”

“Unfortunate consequences?”

“Not only for the person. An unprecedented wealth of mathematics is consigned to the flames, irretrievably lost.”

“We would never know.”

“I will give him the memorial he deserves. For I see a monk, secreted in an abbey, leading a double life. The thinker discovers calculus, five hundred years before Newton. Received history only tells of a heretic, tortured and burned at the stake. I see him rushing to hide his scrolls, when he hears the sharp knock on his chambers—”

“Cortés, I rarely presume. That reviewer said your stories lack female interest. Maybe she had a point?” I never look for trouble. “Your thinker could be an abbess.” I have an aversion to conflict. “Go for it.” Provocation is the last thing on my mind. “She would do you proud.” A man of sensitivity just cannot hold his tongue.

“Mathematics, Physics, Philosophy . . . ” He perused our periphery. “And the women?”

“How much have we lost?!”

“Women! Spare me the sermon. Sentimentality is the death of literature. One of them calls herself your manager”—he directed his disdain at the counter—“has that woman ever opened a book?” Cortés’ low estimation fails the physical facts: The man looks up to the object of his scorn.

“Reading right now, is she not?”

“Some infantile genre, no doubt. Is she lost in fantasy, hanging in suspense, haunted by horror?”

“She has found romance.”

“I rest my case.”

“Cordelio, welcome to the modern world. Most novelists are women.”

“And most whores.”

“The manager is a master, degree in English.”

“Silly Sally says.”

“Jill! As you well know. You hit her up for ten bucks only this morning.”

“Which she summarily denied. Shouldn’t such an impressive education command a more generous salary?”

“Maybe working in a distinguished bookstore is enough. The characters!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure!” His lids drooped. “An abbess!” His voice trailed off. I know the sign, made no protest. Like a city metro, his train of thought will disappear underground, to reveal itself down the line in one of his “peerless” Confabulations. He deflects personal inquiry about his writing, although gives the occasional guarded report in the safekeeping of club meetings.

“I leave you.” He flipped his silver pocket watch. Cortés’s work requires an unbending routine. I have never seen the inside of his residential hotel room, but he speaks of a typewriter and oak desk, where he must be seated every evening at six. Mathematical thought joined the medicinal contents of the leather bag. My merchandise regularly leaves the premises in that transport, though I have never made the offer and he is yet to return the loan. He found a pressed handkerchief, but the coughing that signaled his departure carried little conviction.

 “I’m looking for Joseph Campbell.” A light brightened my day. The girl was new to the store; I would have remembered a previous visit. Straight black hair, oval face, warm complexion and dark brown eyes—neither overtly friendly nor entirely dismissive—orient the compass, but sometimes you can’t be sure. Entering the rarified world of books, the girl regretted her superficial fashion statement. At least she should have.

“You just missed him. He was here a minute ago.” What a wag!

“Josef Campbell? Ve have good selection, miss. You find in Religion.” The Terrible’s notebook lost the battle. “You vant I help you?” He jumped up from the stool, his first discernible move of the day.

“Er, no thanks, I’ll be fine.” She escaped towards the back of the store. “I’m sure I’ll find the switch.” An ensemble of black tights, knee-length boots, and short skirt lays down a law. Perched behind the counter, two thirds of The Last Refuge’s salesforce monitored the bookcases in her direction until the vision made the turn and disappeared into the penumbra of mysticism.

“Josef Campbell, pfff.”

“Appearances can be deceptive. She might be quite the student.” I managed a chuckle, though my back was acting up again. Please, wipe your smirk of speculation! In reality I had not slept well the night before, should really get a new mattress.

“Back section, vot she vant.”

“We can but dream.”

Scholarship imposes a regime. But proximity to female contour loosens Ivan’s tongue, the severity of his wardrobe belying a baroque imagination. His stunted English, seldom employed in legitimate customer service, imposes little handicap in verbally bending women shoppers over the reference shelves. I offer no encouragement, though must nod to the gusto of invention. But the bravado covers a pity, one of the most woefully undersexed vitae since The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of the Mariner.

—Crusoe, trust me, I have nothing but respect. The very name of self-reliance, your surprizing adventures issue a challenge: How long could modern man survive without the trappings of civilization, endure the solitude? Although given the benighted bent of our literary studies, some obscure journal paper will have cast tedious aspersions on you and Man Friday. Don’t take offense; publish or perish, the sheep will say anything to find favor with the herd.—

Mother and son live in the same apartment. I see them at the supermarket, The Terrible still clad in suit and tie. And I hear her distress. Such good boy, what will become? Mr. Anselm, you know American girl who not smoke the drug or have sex orgy?

Merrywood! . . . Not again! . . . You make mock . . . A little harmless fun . . . Who is the real object of ridicule?

I redress the reproof. My own worldly career may have fed no tabloid frenzy, but is discretion not the better part? Ask Jill, I have ample opportunity; any number of women visit the store on my days of schedule. Magnolia, who owns the art gallery across the street, has suggested dinner. She has her charms and can carry a conversation. If I have yet to make a more intimate acquaintance, the fence is freely founded. The artist possesses a laugh. And she takes advantage of her license.

 “Eeek.” A shriek shattered the silence.­ “Attack!” The news came from History. She returned with some dispatch, but no purchase. The fashion boots flashed by the till. “Mouse!” The thrill was gone. And my back pain also left, if you must know.

“Monty checking her out.” I heard the door expel another empty-handed customer.

“Must take break, boss.” The Terrible stashed his notebook and made haste for the bathroom.

 The window told the story. Our counter commands a view of parking spaces, where a distinguished automobile did the honors, the same model as mine. Our small nation has a camaraderie; I always wave. This beauty was convertible, permitting inspection of the driver, who showed no inclination to leave his seat. The worthy individual was my contemporary, favored the same straw hat and was studying our display, sharing my love of books. The good man caught my eye, and we nodded in mutual respect. However, The Last Refuge would not enjoy his business at this juncture. The sitter stirred, and his sojourn explained itself as he got out of the car to open the passenger door for our fleeing customer. A father would share her features, so he must be an older friend, or boss. Or a kindly member of her book club had offered her a ride? Yet again, given her looks, she might need an agent. In any case, the man did have some manners. Tipping his hat in my direction, he chaperoned his charge, civilly took her coat, carefully cleared her seat.

The tableau takes a twist. A gentleman shut his door; a rascal opened my eyes. The overexcitable young woman retreated to the safety, pointing an accusing finger at the scene of a bestial crime, the menace of Monty. Her middle-aged companion shrugged, reached for the ignition, and a throttle sped his face out of sight. Although a revelation remained, a mug of signal satisfaction. A grizzled hunter can bag a trophy. A fawn had planted a kiss.

—Humbert Humbert, the name of notoriety, redoubled. Nailer of nymphets . . . I’m sure! You too are a revelation? Well, you open a can of worms! Confession of a White Widowed Male, the proceedings are preposterous. We can only imagine the debacle driving the deceit. Solipsistic free-fall, libidinal famine, impotent panic . . . ? You were no stranger to the sanatorium. Did those stays presage a complete collapse of cerebration?—