The Old Lion & the Ghost of Bovary’s Cousin, Whose Scent is Rain on Crinoline
The customers come and go like a dream. A couple of teenage girls browse the stacks. They are anywhere from 16 to 19 but surely not more. One browses the erotica. I cross my fingers that she won’t try to buy one. I don’t know the owner’s policy on minors buying erotica. It isn’t porn. There are no picture books. However, I feel somewhat perplexed as to whether to sell erotica to teens. She buys a Harry Potter instead to my relief.
I breathe easy now. An old gent and a young man with a ponytail enter. Both wear ritzy suits and look straight out of the Godfather. The young guy buys “The Bell Curve.” The old guy buys memoirs by military generals. My gaze follows them. The elder man stares back as if to wonder why I look so intently?
I love the smell of books. I think that, even more than my love of literature, may be the reason I work in a used book store. That and because it is so quiet. I love quiet places where I find I can think more clearly. I know people who crave noise and feel lonely in places like this book store.
However, I feel right at home among the books of Pablo Neruda and Anne Sexton two of my favorite authors among the many represented in the stacks of this antiquarian book store. The books are like companions to me. I feel as though I am in the company of the ancients with Sophocles and Sappho present in spirit in the form of a book. All I have to do is open the pages, read, and I commune with these long dead authors. I gaze into their minds and relish the treasures of their legacy.
It is a late November afternoon in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The day has been kind of cold and rainy and the tourist haven’t flocked the streets as much as usual. The radiator creaks as I stand by it warming my hands. At sixty years old my hands are showing the first sign of wrinkles. The cold seems to seep through the old oak floors. My fingers are beginning to feel warm again as the heat soaks into them. I keep my turtle neck sweater on feeling the rough abrasion of the wool on my neck as I move across the store helping customers.
The building is old. It goes back to the late eighteen hundreds and looks like a room out of a Dickens novel. The manager doesn’t want to install central heat. During the summer the ceiling fans and small air conditioner, his only concessions to modern technology, do little to cool the rooms. On cold days in the winter it is like an ice box.
I gaze at the print of the Collier nude “Lilith” which hangs near the door. The look on her face is one of total rapture as the snake wraps round her in a seductive embrace.
I think how my life is so caught up in images such as this painting. I interpret the world through images. There are gender images, such as the Botticelli Venus, which are etched in my mind. Then there are the images of Chagall, of androgynous beings from some mythical region of the mind.
In my mind’s eye I can see myself as the most famous, enigmatic figure found in the Lascaux caves known as the ”Bird-Man” a rare, stylized human depiction with a bird-like head, ithyphallic form, and four-fingered hands whose figure represents a shaman or spirit mediator, with the bird-like head symbolic of the connection between the earthly and celestial realms.
I still cannot fathom how these images influence my conscious mind. But they are there in the depths of my subconscious ocean. They shape my world and guide my every thought, feeling, and action.
I walk over to the window and look out at the light drizzle with sunlight sparkling through the drops leaving a golden mist in the street. Tourists walk by carrying their cameras strapped around their shoulders and wearing light jackets.
As I gaze out at the scene I begin daydreaming. I watch a woman walk by in a long black dress wearing a tiny white, speckled with red, carnation on her left breast. She stands talking to a man in a long black rain coat. The man has shaggy long black hair, specked with grey, and a small pince-nez beard. She kisses him languorously on the lips and whispers something in his ear. Her red hair is wet with the light rain and shines in the late afternoon sunlight.
A flock of pigeons descends onto the street and begins wandering around them. He turns around, blows her a kiss, and strides off into the crowd making the pigeons scatter into the air. I wonder what their lives are like.
It is funny how I briefly glimpsed these snap shots of stranger’s lives. People come into the store alone with frightened looks or well dressed and confident. Some seem lost and others, I imagine, enjoy their solitude.
I watched a young teenage girl once as she sat in the sofa in the corner. She was intensely focused on the book she was reading. When she put it up, I saw that it was Jean Genet’s play, “The Balcony.”
I wonder what connotations it brought her and why it fascinated her so much. Perhaps by reading about the bizarre characters in it she felt more normal. Perhaps she, like I, had found a kindred spirit in a stranger’s heart. By reading this book, so full of passion, perhaps her spirit was rekindled. Perhaps she had a tragic life and found herself validated by sharing Genet’s suffering.
I wake from my daydream and see the tall dark woman in the street walk toward the building. She strides like a Ballerina with her long lithe legs. I gasp as I hear the bell ring and the door creak open.
She floats into the room and stands looking at me. Her eyes pierce me with her predatory gaze.
She walks up to me and leans down, telling me, “I have a month with nothing to do. Do you have a book written by Lenin, any book by him?”
I am enchanted by her ambience and she watches me like a hawk while I search the stacks for her. “Here is one about him but not authored by him.”
“I would like to browse a bit before making my final decision.”
Finally, she approaches me with a handful of books. They are books on feminism, Post-modernism, and Latin American socialism.
“My dear man I have found in your store something to satisfy my thirst in my drought.”
She gets freaked out for a moment by the mannequin dressed as a French Legionnaire which leans against the book shelf end. His steely blue eyes gaze eerily. We laugh about how life like he is.
I wield the paper tablet and hold it up for her to sign her credit card receipt. She huddles close enough for me to feel her breath as she awkwardly attempts to sign.
Her hands stroke mine with our palms in a silken waltz as though she is a palmist reading my life line. Paths of pleasure tingle under her touch in our incidental intimacy.
She giggles at the absurdity no doubt until my hands finally retreat from contact. “Would you mind if I stay for a while to soak in the ambience of your literary kingdom?”
“Please be my guest.”
The ghost feeling of her touch reminds me of how ephemeral our convergence was in the smoldering afterglow of serendipity.
Her eyes open like an eagle piercing me with her gaze. And she asks, “Much as I feel I have found the motherlode would you have anything from classical civilization of a romantic nature?”
I say, “Well, yesterday I saw the ancient Greek pastoral romance, Daphnis and Chloe by Longus.”
She wipes the rain from her brow and says, “Is it classy and of literary quality? I am not a woman who reads Harlequins.”
“Well, it possesses a magic and innocence unlike most modern romances I have read. Two foundlings fall in love after facing pirates and suitors with the help of Pan and nymphs.” I tell her as my heart flutters.
She replies, “Tell my Sir, are there sensual themes involved in this tale?” I wonder whether this novel will suit her tastes or if she would feel intruded on by me a strange man giving her a book to read with risqué content.
I smile coyly and say, “I must confess that involves a loss of sexual innocence. Yet it relies more on pastoral metaphors, euphemisms, and ‘innocent’ naivety, rather than the explicit, step-by-step physical descriptions often found in contemporary romance novels.”
“My innocence was lost long ago. And I would like to revisit my own awakening told as it might have happened had it occurred in such an idyllic pastoral setting and written with the poetry more suited to my tastes.” Her words tell me that I have not stepped over her boundaries and I sigh.
She follows me into the narrow passageway between the stacks. I find the book and hand it to her.
She takes the 1st edition from my hand holding it delicately in her long slender fingers and caressing its spine. She says, “Don’t you think books are wonderful? They are so fragile yet can be so full of beauty and knowledge. I think there is nothing more sensuous than to open a book, feel its texture, and smell its scent.”
Her words find a home in my heart. “The physical appeal of inked and bound paper is one I have felt on many a night in the solitude of my bedroom. The experience is not unlike the touch of a lover.” And I wonder if I have gone over the top.
She walks past me toward the opening at the end of the stacks and steps up to the radiator standing close to it. She asks, “Would you mind if I stay here a while and get warm? I feel as though I am frozen to the marrow.”
I think she is strange and feel nervous around her. But at the same time, I feel intrigued by her. I say, “Sure, make yourself at home.”
She smiles at me and says, “Please come get warm. You look like you’re shivering.” I walk up to her and stand next to her with my hands near the radiator soaking the heat to warm my cold fingers. I stretch raising my hands to the ceiling and put my hands back into my sweater pockets.
I don’t know what comes over me but I feel free with this woman. Spontaneously, before I know what I am saying, I say, “I grew up Catholic and my father insisted that I should go to the seminary to become a priest when I graduated. I couldn’t do it. I found Catholicism to be like starched stiff shirt which didn’t fit. I never really grew till I gave it up.”
I am wondering why I am telling this total stranger something this personal.
She gazes into my eyes with a fierce look and asks me, “When was the first time you fell in love?”
I say, “I can’t honestly say I have ever felt in love. Kind of tragic but I have been a confirmed bachelor all my adult life.”
The strange woman says, “Why do you say that is tragic? Tragic is word reserved for Hamlet and Ophelia types. You don’t strike me as one of those.”
Wide eyed and incredulous I posit, “Well, my favorite playwright was Tennessee Williams whose often tragic characters haunted my boyhood because I felt a sense of prophetic urgency in them even though they were fictional.”
She says, “Yes. I have often felt incipient madness over take me much like that of Blanche because I couldn’t save the man I loved and may have kept him from fulfilling his destiny.”
“Women have been blamed as being man’s downfall since Eve. I rather believe in women as liberators.”
She grinned, “We are neither of those things but the myths keep us in bondage from the truth.”
I blush again and ask, “What is your name?”
She runs her fingers through her hair and says, “Cassandra like the Greek goddess of doom. My friends call me Cassie. I’m sorry. I should have introduced myself. I am afraid my brain must be cold.” I stand looking at her. She places her right hand lightly on my shoulder and smiles warmly saying, “Please call me Cassie.”
I think maybe she has escaped from some lunatic asylum. But somehow, she seems together in a weird way. I am hungry to know more about this strange woman. I say, “My name’s Gustavo.” I hold out my hand timidly taking hers in my fingers. I reach into my pocket for my comb and hand it to her. She smiles and combs her hair.
I say, “Here let me help you.” I stand behind her combing her hair and feeling the fine velvety texture of it. Then I run my fingernails along the crest of her scalp.
She sighs. She turns, leans down, and grooms my beard like a cat but with fingers instead of paws. She kisses me lightly on my forehead. I smell her perfume like a bouquet of flowers. I say, “Cassie, you seem like a really interesting person. I’d love to get to know you more.”
“Why don’t we have tea after you get off work? But let’s go to my house. You’ll love the exotic ambiance. I’ll just float around until closing time, if you don’t mind?”
“Why of course it would be my pleasure.” And I wonder if I could really be bold enough to go for tea at the house of a stranger, made even more peculiar by her eccentricity.
She sits far back in the stacks reading Virginia Woolf as I check out customers.
Darkness falls upon the city. I look out the window across the street at a young Goth couple. One has cropped hair and is wearing tight leather shorts with a leather vest. She has an image of a witch emblazoned on her upper back.
The woman holding her hand is a young girl with orange hair, a black leather miniskirt, and halter top which seems to cling to her body like a second skin. She wears a dog collar around her neck with sharp metal spikes. They wander into the crowd.
I think of how these atavistic notions of ownership in relationships still pop up in the modern world. I wonder how far we had come from those days. However, these instincts still shape our world. These dark mysteries of the human soul never cease to create wonder in me. What perplexes me the most is how I fit into the picture?
A police car passes slowly by with its blue lights flashing in the night and its siren letting out a couple of shrieks. People step aside to let it through.
I open the door and stand on the steps. The evening is shrouded in fog. Mists roll in from the river across the shimmering haze of lights casting their glow from stores and restaurants lining Decatur Street. Tourists move by like apparitions haunting the night air.
I breathe deep the heady aroma of alcohol and woman’s perfume, feeling the moist night breeze caress my grey-bearded face.
I retreat back in the store and close the door. I feel like a hermit crab hiding in his shell from the world outside. I walk back in the stacks where Cassie is asleep. She is lying back in the chair with her eyes closed. She looks like a Madonna with a calm smile of beatific bliss on her glowing face.
While she is resting, I record the book sales for the day in the ledger. I wonder how I appear to her. I am wearing tweeds and oxfords. However, each individual’s perception is different. My perception of myself, when I look into the mirror, may be completely different from hers. She sees me in the context of her emotional history. I cannot not imagine what I mean or represent to her.
I touch her face and she wakes up with her eyes still closed. She grins as I continued to stroke her cheek.
Cassie opens her eyes. She looks enraptured as she speaks haltingly saying, “I can see the pain in your face. Where does it come from?”
I say, “I think it comes from the pain in my soul; the agony of existence. I am terrified of life, especially at night as I feel my heart beat in my chest. I feel the terror of existence, but then I ask myself how am I going to enjoy the experience? Even, existential fear must be appreciated and fused into one’s life as a motivating force. Death is what defines or punctuates our life. The best ending we can hope for in the end is to be blessed with a peaceful passing by the Greek god Thanatos.” I look down at her and say, “I see the same sorrow in your eyes.” I stand leaning over her and ask, “Cassie, who was that man I saw you with out in the street?”
She says, “He is just a dying ember of a once passionate flame. We are just friends now, close friends.” Her eyes flicker like a tigress. “I hope you aren’t intimidated by me. So many men are. I feel we have and affinity.”
I tell her, “I find your eccentricity alluring. It will be refreshing to keep up with your no doubt fascinating intellect. I find the prospect of visiting you most inviting.”
“Then join me tonight we shall commune.”
I help her up and her lips rendezvous on my cheek as she rises from the chair. I watch as she waits for me, her shadowy form ghostlike where she sits in the corner by the window in the streetlight. I feel a rush of tingling pleasure emanate from my solar plexus as my eyes follow her into the night.
Ambulance and police sirens sing from the street. My heart beats like a tambourine as the circus sounds of life and death play outside. It is ten minutes before closing. A young Asian man, Indian or Pakistani, hurriedly enters. I urge him in, not being concerned with closing as much as allowing him to ogle the texts and perhaps add a few dollars to my boss’s coffers. He eagerly browses up and down the shelves as I wait thirty minutes past closing time. Finally, he parades down the aisle brandishing a book. It is Faulkner’s “Sound and Fury.”
I am giddy from one last sale on a slow day. The streetlamp outside flickers, casting a long, skeletal shadow of the French Legionnaire mannequin across the floorboards. I stand there for a moment in the dark, the scent of old paper and Cassie’s perfume forming a strange, intoxicating atmosphere.
I walk toward the back to retrieve my coat, and when I turn around Cassie is standing right in front of me. She tucks a small, carnation in my coat pocket. She says, “It is for our good luck tonight, in the hopes of our magical friendship. I plucked the flower from Marie Laveau’s grave this afternoon.”
I felt a rush of tingling pleasure emanating from my solar plexus. I grasp her hand helping her out of the chair and turn out the light, and lock the door. We walk hand in hand down Royal Street, as she pulls me along through the crowd of people. We run and laugh as we dash across Canal Street, dodging cars.
We wait for a street car, my arm wrapped around her waist. A woman in a tight high cut, silver sequined dress, hair streaked with multi-colored glitter, and a dimpled boyish face, walks by. She stops, smiles at us and says, “You two look good together.” I laugh, demurely, and Cassie, says, “Why thank you madam. I think we were made for each other.” The girl blows us a kiss and dashes into the crowd. A street car lumbers up to us, its electric line sparking. It grinds to a halt and the doors open, the step ladder extending. I hold Cassie’s hand as she gingerly steps up onto the platform, finding us a seat next to the window. We sit snug against each other. The street car begins its slow journey to the garden district. Outside I can see car lights passing by in parade as we plow through the cool night. I feel the cold breeze through the window and begin to shiver.
Cassie lowers the window and wraps her arm around me pulling me close. She lays her head against my chest and rests. I feel her breath, like the whoosh of a fluttering bird, against my neck. I close my eyes and hear her soft voice consoling me in my time of deepest need.
The street car grinds to a halt with a jerk. Cassie raises her head and I help her up. We leap off the street car into the night. We walk past the houses, seeing the light from the windows. The huge oak trees seem to watch over us as we walk down St. Charles Avenue to the corner of Soniat Street at the graveyard.
We walk up the porch of the two story duplex she lives in. She unlocks the door and I feel a flood of warmth from the living room. She gently leads me by the hand to the kitchen and we sit at the table. She makes us tea and we sit sipping it. I am a bit tongue tied but my eyes sparkle with delight when she says, “I can see you are a bit shy. But I know just what we should do now. Let’s sit in the living room and listen to Debussy while we each read a book.” She points to the towering bookshelf on her wall. “I have books for all tastes. Pick one.”
I browse her collection. My fingers finally rest upon her volume of Alice in Wonderland. We sit by the womb-heat from her fireplace, cradled by the night.
