The Infinite Library (7 page)

Today’s books are produced inelegantly. I compare a folio edition from the 1700s to a mass trade paperback - the new and embarrassing invention of the mid-19
^th
century with the noble intention of democratizing objects for the demands of a growing literate population - and note the stark juxtaposition of quality. Quantity wins the day. Who was it that demonstrated to me the durability of books? Perhaps it was in college, where I obtained my first real taste for the sublime beauty of rare texts. Professor Zenas Payne, a scruffy and bulbous-nosed man with a stout physique and a crumbling, scratchy voice… He came to class on the first day, without introducing himself, holding two books. The one was a luridly mass produced Clive Cussler, and the other was a book of significantly older appearance although I could not discern then what book it was. All I knew then was that this second book was extremely old, like I had seen in period films about the Renaissance. In fact, it was incunabula… a 1416 treatise of some kind on princely affairs and the writing of laws for feudal governance - a kind of motley town charter. Professor Payne took one look at us with the glazed glance of a man fresh from a gin bender, and violently winged the Cussler across the lecture hall with enough precision to land on the table beside the lectern. The Cussler burst apart, its many tongue-pages loosing themselves from the cheap Perfect Bind. He then looked at us to note the effect. I had the impression that this had been rehearsed many times, that this was the way he had always introduced this course in his twenty plus years of teaching it. He found his sensationalist opening the determination of a rhythm. He then pitched the incunabula with the same force (which would inspire a sense of horror in any bibliophile) where the Cussler now sat in its own exploded paper entrails. The manuscript held together just fine. Not a page was disturbed from its hardy binding. “See?” he said. “At one point, books were made to last.”

It was from him that I learned that, not only do older books age well, but books always age much better than us as though we occupy a different temporal velocity - more intense and less calm than that of our cherished incunables. As well they should. Great families and their legacies may come and go, but the patient accumulatory documentation of our language, history, and culture needs to contained in far more durable and resilient stuff than that of which human organisms are composed. And, perhaps, I also learned the cheap thrill of hurling pulpy books to watch them explode.

Despite my eagerness to start on my task, and in staying up, I propped myself up in bed scanning a catalogue and dozed off…

My mornings generally start the same, a routine one may as well predict as coming from a book somewhere. I tend to roll over and let my hand blindly fumble about for my eyeglasses first, and then a cigarette (now that I had quit quitting once again), a lighter, and bring them all into an all-too-often rehearsed ritual. On this morning, there was a difference, but I could not say a welcome one. Just as I was about to light my cigarette, and as my eyes were adjusting from the non-focus of sleep and dreams to that of harsh daylight slashing through the crack in the velvet drapes that were too obstinate to stay absolutely drawn, I was given a scare. Mornings were not built for fright, and it is only the sign of the cruelest god that does not grant its subjects the mercy of easing into the day like a warm bath. As I had the cigarette in my lips, a sudden flick followed by a flame appeared. I recoiled and a voice followed.

“You ought to pick up around here. I nearly twisted my neck, and everybody knows mornings aren't a good time to kick it.”

My eyes adjusted automatically out of shock. I saw a man with thinning black hair smoothed back with gel and a goatee. He was in an English rain slicker looking more like a rat than a man. It was Angelo, carrying some kind of shoulder bag, the shoulder strap of which he had let hang loose on my bed. He was sitting on the edge with a kind of vacant grin on his face, as if even he didn’t know why he was there or what to expect next.

“What the hell?” I croaked in these first words of waking.

“I thought you and I would get an early start on the day, maybe I’d show you the ropes…You know, trainee stuff.”

Angelo stood up and walked around, surveying the contents of the home he had just unlawfully entered, perhaps it not having occurred to him that there were alternate ways of calling on someone. I seriously suspected that, in his trade, it would have seemed unnecessary. He picked half-interestedly at my shelf of books, a meagre collection. He then peeked in the direction of the kitchen, asking me if we could rustle up some coffee and eggs.

“What… What gives you the right to just… enter and - “

“Hey, whoa, mister master of his domain… I’m just doing my job, and if you want to earn your pay with the boss, you better ease up a little on your bourgeois sense of propriety. We’re partners, you and I, and maybe it would suit you better to act accordingly. What kind of host are you, anyway? And would it kill you to pick up around here so I don’t twist my neck?”

Going on about his neck yet again. Would this be his stock phrase? Audaciously, he yanked the drapes open with such force that I thought he would rip them from their bar. “Gotta let some light in here, start the day. Rise and shine, and all that.”

“I… do not work well… under these rude conditions!” I said, gaining vocal momentum to roar, but only sounding whiny, grizzling ineffectually. “Castellemare told me nothing about having or needing a partner. I did not elect for this.”

I was standing now, shaking both with mounting anger and with the residual shock of rude awakening. The credibility of my anger and intimidation was being thwarted by my painful realization that I was in nothing else than my boxers with a cutesy balloon pattern. It was a bad day to let my laundry lapse.

“There’s a lot Castellemare did not tell you, but it isn’t his fault: he’s a busy man, you understand, and he can’t be bothered micromanaging his crew by going over all the small details. Hell, you should - and probably will - meet Setzer one day. Hope not. Forget I mentioned it. Nice shorts – where's your teddy bear?”

“So, this is just a little detail? Maybe he thought it unimportant to make this omission, but when I awake to a stranger sitting on the edge of my bed, I have a right to be jumpy and believe that this was a detail he ought to have communicated to me!”

Angelo had seemed to give up hinting at coffee, and was now motioning to go and make it himself.

“Suit yourself, grumpy, but you’d be hard pressed to have such a swank job with such sweet pay. Say, where do you keep the sugar in this joint? And, by the by, I am no stranger, bub. If anyone is the stranger in this operation, it’s you. I am not one to question my boss’ judge of character, but I have my reservations about you. You professorial types are all alike. Who said this?: 'crotchety stinkers to the very last, ornery natures unduly imbued with an unsubstantiated sense of entitlement and superiority.' Mornings don’t suit you very well, it seems. I'll make a note of that and try to remember to ring your butler a week in advance.”

“You have reservations about me?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah, of course. I don’t trust you, and you have a massive pickle up your ass. Now get it in gear because these books aren’t just going to pop into your post. And, for godsakes, get some trousers on – I feel as though I've just barged into Bobby the Child Adventurer's bedroom.”

I was livid. He had left his shoulder bag on the bed. It felt greasy, just how I pictured everything Angelo owned to be - his objects a perfect match for his wretched character. I slapped the bag against his chest and stretched out a finger, expecting him to follow the direction it was pointing at: out.

He smirked and said, “You’re making a big mistake, mate. I’m not trying to be cute with you, and I can assure you that despite my gruff appearance and manner that I am no ignoramus as you may have assumed. I act only out of necessity. You may think you have it all figured out, that you don’t need my assistance… and so be it. But I can tell you that arrogance will only bring you so far, and after that, well, you may need your wits about you. What I mean to say, my good Gimaldi, is that you know squat about what you are getting into, and if it were up to me I would have chosen a much better equipped candidate. As it stands, you will make enemies fast, and I can assure you that you will either become a liability or a corpse.”

Angelo seemed to step out of what could now be called a comedic façade, and was standing before me with a sudden surge of personal gravity.

“What are you saying, Angelo?”

“In our occupation, we need to craft and cultivate a series of masks to suit all occasions, a face for all seasons. Our art is that of subtlety, stealth, and anonymity. If you come flaunting your self-important intellect in all its silly ego rigidity, you are asking to be noticed. Note well the success of the ninja: they were silent workers, and could blend seamlessly into any situation, among any kind of people, speaking any kind of dialect. Take me, for instance. I know eleven languages. I can speak ‘street’ with as much ease as any native-born speaker of the dialect, just as I can perfectly mimic the dialect of an Oxfordian economics professor or a Grecian dockworker. This is the first lesson that one must learn: talk may be cheap, but it gets you into and out of everything. You want unlimited access? You want minimal detection? You need to relearn the art of speaking. I can guarantee you that if you and I wanted to get a limited access manuscript at the
Bibliotheque Verillons
, I would succeed and you would fail because I would know how to chat up the lowly clerk or the highbrow librarian officer. You, on the other hand, would protest in the only way you know how, completely disregarding the sensitivity of the situation by stamping your foot in petulant outrage with demands, thinking yourself entitled as if your academic affiliation was some kind of noble birthright. You see, rhetoric is part of our trade, and so greases the wheels of acquisition. I could already tell the first moment you set foot in Castellemare’s flat, casting your eyes on me, that you assumed I was some ignorant flunky footman who procured his position by mere luck alone - or that I was the gruff hired help, some kind of leg-breaker or scheming weasel. Of course, if Castellemare asked me to break your legs, I'd be fully capable of doing so. Cast any aspersions you like, but you are always being tested. You are proof that I can fool all the people all of the time. It is not only the library that is infinite potentiality. I suppose now that I am speaking in the phrasings of a more refined individual you feel that you can warm up to me… that we share some kind of common set of values and interests. Be wary of this, too, for you will only be enamoured with a mere affectation, a facet of my person, and ultimately your own narcissism. If you wish to extend your friendliness to me, you must accept that I am always much more than I seem in any given moment. Don't get any silly ideas that we're going to be pals palavering over Plato, mind you. I see right through your type... So full of himself, but at bottom just another pretentious sot who thinks the world owes him a living. So, how about that coffee?”

“The coffee maker is broken,” I said, ashamed and defeated, yet not really knowing why. I felt scolded.

“No matter, then; I saw a café on the way here. Let’s catch that quick guzzle of joe before heading for St. Mike’s college. I ought to tell you the sordid tale of Mike, the saintly Mikhail…”

And so he did. I had to admit that the thoroughness of his explanation, filled as it was with intriguing anecdotes and lateral associations to other meaningful historical events, perhaps even outshone my own knowledge. His words had an eclipsing effect, and when he decided to speak in this way, I was pulled in by my own desire to hear more.

Before leaving, he arranged for my “disguise”… He had me wear my old suede sport jacket with the leather patches, tussled my hair, and produced a pair of awkward-looking and very thick spectacles. He mildly complained that my nose was not aquiline enough to balance the effect of the spectacles, but that it would have to do. I trusted his judgement, for what other choice did I have? He had demonstrably proven that he was much more skilled at a task I was yet to even do once. We left my apartment and situated ourselves in the pastiche bustle of the early morning café crowd, each resignedly dreading the rest of their day of employment spent in waste and little benefit. It was there that Angelo schooled me on the particular “ruse” we needed to utilize in order to procure text number one. We were a comical pair: me in this stereotypical harried professorial Harvard get-up and him steeped in a kind of maccassar hoodlum leather gear making him less suitable for a library than a patron at a dingy late afternoon pub.

“You,” he began, “are a visiting scholar from - let me see now…” - He rifled through his shoulder bag for a particular envelope, plucked it, and opened its contents - “Ah, here we are! State University of New York.”

The letter bore the unmistakable SUNY letterhead.

“I am to use this?” I asked.

“Yep. It’s pretty standard. I drew it up last night. It says, in the proper froufrou style that you have been given express permission by the Department of Philosophy to remove this text from the library for the duration of your stay. The letter states that permission was granted by the Chair of the Department. I also have permission letters by the SUNY department, and a backup letter from the library head in case they don’t buy it. Just let me double-check to see if all the names are correct.”