THE BOOK, ANCIENT, heavily bound in red leather, teetered over the precipice of a high shelf.
Manuel willed that book to give in to gravity onto the head of Forcat, the fornicator, schemer and literary mendicant. Manuel uttered a supplication–not to Mother Mary, but to Mephistopheles. Not that he was a real Satanist, but he was an old-school Christian and so had to believe in the anti-Deity. He pondered on that teetering book. It must contain a thousand pages. Part of the Codex of the Inquisition, he hoped. He could have asked the comely librarian, Elodia Limon, but was afraid the señorita would have had the book made safe, removed.
It would have to happen soon. The book falling on his rival, and Manuel’s courage to pluck up and allow him to ask the Sophia Loren of libraries to dinner. He’d said this to himself ten years ago, when this Biblioteca Nacional de España started digitising its volumes and renovating the reading rooms. This enclave was the last to go. Floor to ceiling pre-twentieth century volumes, from Art to Zoroaster, poetry to mathematical proofs.
He worked at becoming the world expert on bindweed, after he’d tripped on it in his childhood. Manuel supposed it wouldn’t take long to learn all there was to know on the plant, but to his horror, then delight, discovered there were over two hundred species, and that was only in the nineteenth century Volumes of Indigenous Flora of the Iberian Peninsular. He looked down at his battered briefcase, pregnant with notes written at this mahogany desk.
His Visconti fountain pen, had crafted half a million royal-blue words on that weed with the melodic name of Convolvulus. Sunlight slanted in through a narrow window. It illuminated dancing motes–fragments of books and rare fonts.
An aroma of mustiness and polish was another reason he loved this place. And the traditional hush, with occasional footfalls, apologised coughs, rasps of pages turning and lately, the jingle of phones followed by the shh and stern glares of Señorita Limon. He melted just at the sound of her angry hush, her eviction of over-timed readers and her aroma–essence of inkpad. Over the years, Manuel had bought tickets for her favourite operas, but he’d yet to find sufficient courage to offer them to her.
Instead that lanky Forcat, aka Freddy Kreuger–complete with the fedora but maybe only one facial scar–stalked the woman but unlike Manuel, had spoken whole sentences to her. All unwanted, of course. Elodia brushed Forcat off, blanked him, turned on her sienna-brown sensible heels–quiet for library purposes.
Last Friday Manuel worked himself up to approach Elodia’s desk: a massive poop deck of light oak with inlaid red leather. Her head was down over a ledger, her shiny black hair obscuring any view of her face.
He’d started with his rehearsed speech, “Señorita?”
The hair lifted and he saw she’d been texting, incongruous in this section of antiquity. To a lover?–surely not! He stumbled through throat clearing until, “I wondered if you knew where volume twelve of the Volumes of Indigenous Flora of the Iberian Peninsular is? I’ve read the prior and post volumes, but...” He fumbled in his jacket inside pocket for tickets to La Boheme.
His speech was interrupted by a crash, a book avalanche from Palaeontology D to G. Manuel’s dismay plunged further when Forcat’s apology smarmed its way over.
Later, Manuel stared at the overhanging book, willing it to creep another millimetre in readiness to plummet onto his rival. “Come on Beelzebub, have I not suffered enough? Haven’t I supported your existence in post-evensong conversations at the Church de Asunción?”
As if in response, his vision blurred, his chair vibrated. The light yellowed more with dust and an alarm trilled. He looked up to where the book ought to be tumbling but he could see its stubborn aloofness.
The librarian shrieked, “Everyone out. We are in earthquake evacuation!” And as an afterthought, “Leave all books behind.”
One of many tremors, but Manuel swore the parquet floor tilted before returning to the horizontal. He made progress towards the marble-pillared exit. Then he returned for his briefcase. A shrill voice reached him.
“Señor Gomez, get out now, you imbecile!” At last, words of endearment from his beloved. Perhaps she’d come over and take him by the arm. No, so he shuffled away, slowly. Before he reached the exit, he heard the gravelly voice of Forcat.
“I am stuck, Señorita, I need your help.”
Such a transparent ruse. Manuel headed back. He saw Elodia holding out an arm to his arch enemy. Manuel’s face heated with anger. He glanced up through the swirling white dust. The book remained aloft. In frustration Manuel stamped his feet. The book teetered over the edge. Manuel’s heart leapt, but the book slowed its downward flight, hovered. Impossible, and yet there it was, five kilos of words and leather floating like a giant maple leaf. Had his adjures to Satan worked and it was being guided to the head of Forcat? Manuel’s smile grew in expectation. He should feel remorse, but didn’t. How could an every-Sunday worshipper at the Iglesia Luterana invoke devil worship and bring forth the demise of a fellow human being? Because Forcat was no human, he was Freddy Kreuger, even if no one else could see that. Manual was exacting a favour to humanity, women in particular with this execution. Pest control.
No! The book wavered. Having re-aligned, it headed for Manuel. The whole plot must have offended God, or another deity, able to steer levitating tomes. The air soughed out of Manuel’s tyres. His shoulders sagged. Should he run? He was no athlete. He was skilled in closing his eyes and awaiting fate.
A moment later, a puff of air against his eyes, then a thump on a nearby desk. He dragged open his eyes, now wet with the tears of impending doom. The desk rattled from the impact, but he read the gilt lettering on the red cover. Not the Memorandum Mephistopheles Codex, but the missing Indigenous Flora of the Iberian Peninsular: Vol. 12. Before his eyes the stiff pages, gold edged, creaked open one at a time and then stayed on Convolvulaceae; vulgaris–the common bindweed. Manual’s personal plant, his raison d’être. He smiled, but became concerned at the magical way it found him. Before he could ponder on the latter, the book was wrenched up by the surprisingly beefy arms of Elodia.
She glared her lovely deep brown eyes. “You must have done this.”
“W-what?”
“I’ve watched you, Gomez, your evil glares at me, and looking up at this book. I’ve intended to wheel the ladder around shortly, but no, you brought it down by violence, shaking that stack. Look what you did!” She waved her arms around at the debris of books and papers. Manuel looked too, but through the tears of injustice. How could she have misinterpreted his intentions all these years?
“I did no such—”
“You are banned from the library. Leave.”
He stood in catatonic mode, staring after her as she strode to her mission control desk. To his horror, the despicable Forcat put a fawning hand on Elodie’s shoulder, and leered at Manuel.
Outside, and believing there must really have been an earthquake, he expected to find fallen roof tiles, screaming women, but people massed at pedestrian traffic lights as normal. He saw another reader, a woman who always wore an orange Arab scarf, looking equally perplexed, settling into a white wrought iron chair at the Café Picasso. They exchanged semaphored hands apart signalling ‘what happened in there?’ He’d seen her in the library for decades. Didn’t know her name, but perhaps with that smile she could be a backup plan.
Ruminating, Manuel strolled along the pavement. He’d cross the park and settle his tormented soul with tapas and a beer. How could that book fly to him? More importantly how could Elodia reject his honourable intentions in favour of that... that caricature? Freddy was only in there to torment Manuel while feigning to study... what? With a shock, Manuel realised he’d no idea what books Forcat was studying all those years. He laughed at the notion Forcat wasn’t real, but an imaginary unfriend. That must be it. Whether it was true or not the idea appealed and Manuel’s steps became lighter and faster as he spied the snack bar in the small park. He laughed and started running.
Out of his right vision two things tightened his stomach. Forcat, who was in the library behind him a moment ago, stood in front pulling a long knife out of his black coat. Simultaneously, the park’s tourist train ride bore down on Manuel, who still running couldn’t stop before collision. Be run over then stabbed. Blackness closed in. His system shut down and he stumbled. His head hit the ground.
Light filtered back in as friendly hands and words helped him to a sitting position. Beyond the ‘how are yous?’ he heard crying, barely stifled screams. His vision cleared sufficiently for him to see the easy-access carriages in front, stationary. Everyone was looking down on the other side from Manuel. He guessed Freddy wasn’t imaginary after all. He listened. “...just slipped... head hit the rail... exploded like a melon... feet entangled in that weed stuff.”
What, bindweed? Then he wondered why he’d tripped, and there the tendrils curled around his ankle. His childhood botanical misadventure revisiting his adulthood. Just one of his legs was immobilised enough to prevent his headlong lope into the train. There were several of the snake-like rhizomes and some ventured across the track. Had they stopped him but snared his adversary and pulled him, screaming? Manuel smiled. On rising, he noticed the new building behind the snack bar. Biblioteca Digital de la Comunidad. Perfect. Perhaps he’d find Señorita orange scarf, start a book group with her. This time he’d invoke Aphrodite. Didn’t she have a flower related to the three sixes?