The Smell of Old Books

I considered the dishes. I looked at the pantry. I turned on the light in the living room and approached the couch. I was halfway to sitting when I heard a knock at the door. I turned my ankle as I slid on a book halfway under the living room table.

The knock came a second time, louder and with a hint of personality that identified it. I hobbled my way out of the mess of books and papers which had been brought down in an avalanche after my misfortune. I think I made a noise to suggest my eminent arrival, to no avail.

The door opened a moment later. “Lisbeth,” I heard directed toward the kitchen. Only one person uses that name for me.

I changed my direction. “Miryam,” I called out to her.

“Lizzie,” she said with the familiarity of my family. Miryam looked me up and down. She sighed and shook her head. “You need a keeper.”

“I need a maid.”

“I don't need to hear your kinky fantasies.” She slid an arm around my shoulders. “Let's look at your ankle.”

She helped me sit and pulled my foot into her lap. She rubbed it in soft circles, listening to where I was quiet and when I gasped. The silence lasted after a bit as I just enjoyed the warm touch of her pale, wrinkled hands. I hadn't realized that I had dozed off again until Miryam's moving around my living room woke me up.

“You looked tired,” she said.

“I fell asleep outside, too,” I noted. “Am I too old to become narcoleptic?” I sniffed the air; she had obviously started up something resembling dinner.

She ignored the question. “You aren't sleeping at night, still?”

“Samuel Johnson said, `Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel,'” I offered in weak defense.

“Your mister Johnson must have come to a bad end. Jeannie is a year dead. Why haven't you tried dating?”

“Jeannie is a year dead,” I repeated in answer.

“Does she still haunt you?” She slid a hand through her white hair and didn't look at me.

I didn't answer. “Thank you,” I said, after a moment.

She looked distinctly uncomfortable. “You don't have to thank me. I am only being a good neighbor,” she said. After a moment she smiled. “I made dinner. When was the last time you cleaned your kitchen?”

“How long has Jeannie been dead, again?” I tried to make it a joke.

“You can't date; anyone who would come home with you would be scared of coming in the front door,” Miryam said. “Maybe a little less now that I've picked up some of the more egregious evils. Did you know you had two copies of `Webs of Passion'?”

“I haven't read even one.”

“I wonder what the books were when they started,” she murmured, as if they had incurred a metamorphosis. She wandered back into the kitchen.

I glanced at the two copies of `Webs of Passion,' and split them up on the bookshelf. I noticed that my ankle no longer hurt, and so I put the appropriate weight on it. I came across a book I didn't recognize, and pulled it out, bringing it back to me at the table.

“Keeping them from breeding?” Miryam asked, holding two plates full of food. It looked hot and spicy and had oranges and rice in it, which was just fine. Miryam preferred eating no meat, and my kitchen was likely to oblige her, unless mold counted as some sort of animal protein.

I made a noise of assent, which turned into a growl as my stomach threatened to take control of my body and drag Miryam and her plates down like some sort of tasty ungulate who wandered in front of a starving tiger. Miryam laughed and passed me a fork.

“What do you make of this?” I asked her after the first few bites assuaged my immediate id and allowed the more communicative parts of my brain a chance. I pushed the strange book across the table to her, noting in that moment that the table had been cleared and the collected detritus had been organized in some fashion that would doubtless make sense upon further examination.

She looked at it. “Green, probably leather.” It was actually the same green as her eyes.

I rolled my eyes in some exasperation. She took the hint.

“It doesn't have a title,” Miryam continued. “Probably a journal of some sort.” She flipped open the first page. “`To my Kasia,' an inscription that says you're not the intended recipient. Except it seems to be the name of a poem that evokes the gathering of wings before the storm, and--” she went quiet for a moment. “Kasia is a variant of Katherine, and thus, `purity.' To my purity, or is this to my pure one?” Miryam liked mystery novels. Of course, she said it was because so many people died during them she didn't have to keep track of the names.

“It says this is a book of maps, but,” she flipped through the pages, “it is a book of poetry, I think. Artsy.” She dismissed it, and passed it back to me.

I watched her. She was interested.

“I don't remember picking it up.”

“With the chaos you're heir to, I'd be surprised.” She reached to pick up her wine glass.

I stopped her with a light touch to the wrist. “No, Sweet Polly. I know every book on my shelves like they were members of my family.”

“I showed you a second copy of `Webs of Passion.'”

“The exception that proves the rule. Maybe Jeannie bought it for me, or my well-meaning mum.” I smiled.

“So someone broke in, put a book on your shelf, and then left?”

“You see my quandary.” She looked uncomfortable. I thought about pressing her, but she made dinner. In my kitchen, which meant she also cleaned my kitchen, at least enough to have made dinner. My interrogation could wait for a time when I had balanced my favours.

That would have to wait, as she took this opportunity to bring in ice cream from a container I knew hadn't been in the freezer. I was again in her debt. Macadamia nuts and praline, if you need to know. Crunchy.

Miryam stayed until a few minutes before midnight. I would not have her cross the path between our homes if she hadn't insisted. She had slept over many times, if never with me. She was a better friend than she would be my lover, besides, I suspect she liked men more than enough. I remembered a time when I had seen her bring home a man far young enough to be a son or a nephew.

I smiled, thinking of it.

She was a bit of an enigma. Her herb garden was my constant envy. She lived alone, but there were letters, copious letters between herself and a mysterious family. She had taken me on as some kind of project, I supposed. I was just another flower, and Jeannie, who she had never trusted, was some sort of weed she would have plucked.

I watched with concern. A year buried, a year still occasionally showing up at my door, if always under the moon, and never under the light of the sun.