An Imperfect Librarian (5 page)

Town Council of Peat Bog Cove

Request by Norah Myrick approved for construction

of a third hexagonal structure at Cliffhead.

The scoremyprofessors.com web site shows three entries:

> tested us on words to the Ode to Newfoundland.

Hello? Anybody there?

> rubber-booted tree-hugger with a Nfld flag draped

over her shoulders. Avoid!!!

> fair markr Midterm wz a joke Final WZ CRAP

I program the database to alert me of additions or changes related to the name Norah Myrick. Next, I open a word-processing document to record the information I've gathered so far. I name the file francis_norah.doc.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
CAN
'
T
BLAME
H
ENRY FOR WANTING
to sit nearer the window. He's so short he needs a front row seat to be able to see down into the Room. There's a hooded body curled up, dozing in a chair. In a nearby carrel, a girl is copying something from a book. The couple on the two-seater couch below the window are necking. Straight ahead, a long rectangular beam of light cuts through the greens, blues and reds in the stained glass.

“Can you move away from the window and be less obvious about it?”

“Less obvious about what?” Henry says.

I don't bother to argue. I rearrange the chairs while Henry serves himself at the stand. He walks his fingers through the cookies, picks a plump one then goes to his chair. I pour my own cup, wipe off the stand and circle round to join him. By then, he's already rearranged the seating and the conversation. “Your libido is a) in remission, b) in quarantine, c) on extended disability leave or d) in some other arrested state. Which one?” he says.

I take my place next to him. “How would you feel if your wife left you for another woman?”

“I wouldn't marry that type of woman.”

“It's not that simple.”

“That's because you make everything more complicated than it needs to be,” he says.

“I was a good husband. I did everything I could to please her.”

For her thirty-fifth birthday I borrowed some money to buy tickets for two to Greece. I tried to come up with the best itinerary, best hotels, best gift, best husband. I put the tickets in a large box and had it gift-wrapped. We went out to supper. As planned, the waiter came by with the box during dessert. Diners at other tables turned to view the spectacle. I watched her face. She smiled and laughed as she pulled out fat wads of stuffing. Her expression changed when she found the tickets in an envelope at the bottom. It turned out Elsa didn't want to go to Greece. She'd been there already.

“There are husbands who are pathological cheats,” Henry says. “There are husbands who are pathological liars. Then there's the worst kind.” He pauses as if he's expecting me to finish his sentence.

“What's that?” I ask.

“The pathologically pleasing husbands,” he says.

“More like pathologically wrong. I worried that she'd leave me for another man, not another woman.”

“Is worrying the strategy you have in mind for dealing with Francis and his People for Privacy?” he says.

“I need a break from conversations about Francis.”

“A break from worrying about him, did you mean?”

“Whatever.”

“If worrying didn't prevent your wife from leaving you, don't expect it to work with Francis. All you'll accomplish is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“I hate those words. You sound like Elsa.”

When she came home late night after night, I couldn't resist questioning her: Where were you? Why does it matter? It matters to me. I was nowhere. You had to have been somewhere. Who cares? I care. You're such a bore sometimes, Carl. Yes, well please remember you're married to the bore.

“You ended up instigating exactly what you feared most,” Henry says.

“The more I worried about her leaving me, the more she pulled away, the more she pulled away, the more I worried, and so on and so on. I went alone to a psychologist as a final resort. Elsa wouldn't come. ‘You're the one with the problem,' she said.”

“I'm surprised someone who counts his pennies the way you do would tolerate paying psychologists' fees,” Henry says. “I would have diagnosed you for far less.” He eases up from his chair like a woman pregnant with twins who stands with the shape of the chair still under her. He takes three or four steps before he can straighten up completely. His gait is awkward because the sciatic nerve problem makes his left leg move slightly to the side each time he steps forward. He compensates with the movement of his right leg or else he might go sideways instead of forward.

I slide both our chairs away from the window. “And what would you have diagnosed?”

He returns with a refill. Matter-of-factly, he lays it on my desk as he moves his chair back where it was. “We haven't discussed my fee yet,” he says. “Give me a précis of the diagnosis and move up here to the front so I don't have to pay for conversation with a sprained neck.”

I slide my chair forward next to his. “The psychologist figured I was clinging to my wife because I was afraid she'd abandon me like my mother did.”

“What does your mother have to do with anything?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I'm the patient, not the psychologist. What do I know?”

“Not much by the sound of things. What you need is a good shag to take your mind off your worries. And when you are worrying, it shouldn't be about a wife who wasn't attracted to the opposite sex. Not when you've got Francis spitting in your face.”

“I think Elsa cares for me. She's simply passing through a premature mid-life crisis. One of these days, I'll open up my email and there'll be a message from her.”

“What are you expecting that email to offer? ‘Hi, Carl. Come back to Norway at once. I've decided I'm not a lesbian anymore. I want to give you a blow job
tout de suite
.'”

“I don't care what the email says. I simply need to believe there's hope.”

“Put your hope in a basket alongside your worrying, pour some petrol over the lot and set it ablaze. Your delusional hoping is worse than your festered, infected worrying. The sooner you clue into that fact, the sooner you'll be feeling like a new man.”

“That's more or less what the psychologist said. And what good did that do me?”

“But I'm not a psychologist.”

“Then what qualifies you to speak with such authority?”

He shakes his head. “You don't need a psychologist to see what's wrong with you any more than you need a meteorologist to advise you to open or close your umbrella when it's raining.”

“All right. I forget about her. Then what?”

“Put your energy into dealing with Francis. Before you know it, you won't remember her name.”

“You make it sound too easy.”

He nods again then raises the type of hand that bestows a blessing. “You have me to guide you.”

“Thanks, Henry. If you didn't have such a fat belly, I'd put my arms around you and hug you.”

He leans away from me. “If you weren't such a fragile, fucking wimp, I'd give you a boot in the arse.”

CHAPTER NINE

E
LSA
'
S STAY IN
E
NGLAND WAS
supposed to last a year or
until
she managed better in English. She was working as a waitress
until
she found a better job. Her flat was rented by the month
until
she could afford a better place. I followed her to Norway where she agreed to
until
death do us part, which evolved into
until
Brutus do us part. Elsa called her Sophie. They did lots together: went to the gym, talked on the phone, skied, and attended a judo competition in Stockholm for five days. They worked in the same travel agency.

Brutus showed up at our Oslo flat one day. “Come with me now, Elsa, or it's over,” she said. I listened to them quarrel.
What's over?
I wanted to ask. For months after, I walked past her flat and office daily until I wore the pavement thin. It was also Brutus' flat and office. Whenever I called or emailed, she answered.

Norway felt overcrowded all of a sudden. I considered moving back to London but there'd be far too many memories
of Elsa. Tatie didn't live there anymore. England was a country of uncultured monarchists without manners or taste. That's what she told me after she moved back to France to live with Papa. She wanted me to move there too. “Come home and take care of us,” she said. If it hadn't been for the ad in the librarian's journal, I might have done exactly that.

KING EDWARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
,

St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
,

invites applications for the permanent position of

Head of Digital Library Systems
.

Preference may be given to bilingual applicants.

Appointment effective September, 1999.

For information, visit:
http://king.nl.ca/HR/library

I applied and waited. The longer I waited, the more I dreaded the possibility that I'd spend the rest of my life in Norway. When they finally offered me the position, I dreaded the thought of being so far away from her. The day before I left, I stopped by Elsa's new flat. I should have known Brutus would be there. It was the first time I'd seen her that close. I counted the number of piercings and stopped after five. Her forehead was riddled with pockmarks. Her hair stood hard, like bristles on a scrub brush. Elsa had left me for an inferior being. What did that make me?

She was in the bathroom when I arrived. I sat opposite Brutus in the living room. There was no music or radio, no sound besides our breathing. I flipped through a
Bodybuilding for Women
magazine.
Positive Steroid Use and Testosterone Supplements.
I heard the click of the bathroom door behind me. Elsa leaned over the back of my chair to give me a peck on the cheek then sat with Brutus on the couch. The two of
them cuddled together and held hands. Brutus tilted her head to kiss Elsa's ear.

The conversation was about “we” except “we” didn't include me. “We're going on holiday to Greece,” she said. “It was a surprise gift from Sophie for my birthday.”

Up until then, Elsa had done all the talking.

“When I invited you, you claimed it was too Greek,” I said. “But when Brutus invites you it's a special voyage. What's changed?”

“Nothing has changed. I've always been Sophie, not Brutus.”

“Elsa, could we talk alone without her interrupting?”

“Say what you want. There are no secrets between Sophie and me. We–”

“Please, Elsa. Ask her to go. I'm leaving tomorrow for Canada. I may never return. It's a permanent position.” I stood up then reached forward to take Elsa's hand. “I want to talk to Elsa alone,” I said to Brutus.

Brutus shoved her fist against my chest. That's when I noticed the
ELSA
tattoo, one letter per knuckle. I stumbled over the side table and nearly fell.

“Why do you always insist?” Elsa said. “Why can't you accept that I'm with Sophie?”

I couldn't answer those questions then or now. I sent her one last email hoping she'd come to the airport to say goodbye:

Flight 205 to London @ 22:30. I'll wait at the Air

Norway counter. Do **NOT** tell Brutus. Please!

I checked my mail at an Internet station before I boarded the plane. I was relieved to find a message I thought came from Elsa:

Date:
Wed. August 30 1999 21:42

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Elsa has no feeling for you except pity. LEAVE HER

ALONE!

Sophie

After that night, the only response I received from my emails to Elsa was
Message blocked for this recipient.
If I'd been nice to Brutus, she might have allowed Elsa to come see me at the airport, but being nice to her wasn't something I could pretend under any circumstances. And so I headed off to the end of the world, overwhelmed with longing for my wife and loathing for her lover. Someone at the library arranged temporary accommodation for me in a basement flat in St. John's. The owners, Mercedes and her husband Cyril, were a couple in their late fifties, volunteers with the newcomers' society. They met me at the airport.
Welcome, Carl Brunet
, their sign read.

Cyril spoke first, very quickly. “How ya gettin' on?”

“Sorry?” I responded.

“How are you?” he said.

Later, when we knew each other better, Cyril confessed he was concerned. “I don't know who knit you, but you were some slow catching on that night at the airport.”

At the time, I didn't expect to be around them for long. “Thanks for the flat,” I said. “My wife will be joining me soon. We'll be needing a larger place then.”

CHAPTER TEN

I
MOVED TO
N
EWFOUNDLAND THINKING IT
would distract me until Elsa and I could work things out. In the meantime, I planned to plunge myself into implementing my vision for the library of the future – omniscient, ubiquitous and with all the knowledge of the world at our fingertips. The plunge was more like a duck-n-cover. The vision was more like a blind spot. People misunderstood my role. I wasn't there to help the administration cut jobs by computerising services. I had no plan to siphon the library's book budget in order to purchase computers. Contrary to what Francis was claiming, I was not engaged in any form of electronic surveillance.