The Man Who Sold Books By The Kilo

I was walking down rue Gay-Lussac, a street in the heart of the 5th Arrondissement (the so-called "Latin Quarter") of Paris, headed for the Jardin Luxembourg, when I saw a man taping a sign to the inside of his shop window: "Livres vendus au kilo" (Books sold by the kilo[gram]".

Intrigued, I followed the man into the shop. It was the usual used-book store: a small space crowded with improvised bookshelves that were groaning with the overload of books, dusty piles of magazines on the floor, a couple of ancient cupboards in which one could see "collectors editions" through the smudged glass of the doors. In the middle of all of this there was a desk behind which sat the owner--a stout fellow with a Cheshire cat smile parting his bushy, white beard. A scale stood in the middle of the desk as if he were some sort of male Astraea waiting to weigh the souls of his books rather than of the dead.

Seeing that casual browsing was out of the question due to the jumble of piles of books and magazines on the floor, and feeling he was waiting for me to justify my presence in his shop, I asked, in my poorly pronounced French, if he had a copy of the Gallimard edition of Proust's "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu".

"English?" he asked.

Thinking he was asking me if I wanted an edition in English, I replied, "No, French."

"You are French?"

"No, no," I said, understanding the misunderstanding. "I am neither English or French. I am Mexican, in fact."

"Ah, but you speak in English."

"Yes, I grew up in the United States."

"Ah, bon?" he replied raising his eyebrows in surprise. "Then you must come here," he said and jumped up from behind his desk and motioned for me to follow him.

He moved rather quickly and nimbly through the piles and bookshelves, in spite of his stoutness. He came to a halt in the dark recesses of the back of the shop.

"The international section," he said with a proud sweep of his arm.

In the dim light that was provided by a small, bare bulb hanging from a wire that disappeared into the darkness of the high ceiling, I perceived yet more bookshelves that were bent with the weight of the tomes they held. Each bookshelf had a sign tacked to the middle shelf: "Allemand", "Espagnol", "Anglais" the first three read.

He nodded and left me there to browse the contents. I decided that out of politeness I would pick a book or two and then head back to the front of the store to have them weighed. I found an early novel by Mario Vargas Llosa and another by Julio Cortázar. After dusting them off, I started to thread my way back but stopped when I saw a burgundy-colored folder (one of those that open like an accordion) with white lettering that stated: "Notes on My Trip to France".

The folder was bound with a black ribbon that was neatly tied into a bow. I undid the ribbon and opened the flap. Inside there were many loose sheets of bond paper, several cloth-bound notebooks, and yellowed newspaper clippings. I carefully withdrew some of the loose sheets and found that there were writings in English, Spanish, and even some French. A label has been pasted to the inside of the cover flap; it read: "This folder belongs to Rafael Artebuz". No address or telephone was provided.

I hurried back to the front of the store and put the two books and the folder on the desk.

"I'd like to buy these books and...is this folder, the papers inside, I mean...is it for sale, too?"

"Of course," said the store owner smiling, "everything in this store is for sale."

Tomorrow: "The Notes and Comments of Rafael Artebuz" or "Lost in France" comes to life.