The Smell Of Books
Nothing compares to the pleasure of buying a new book. I love wandering among the shelves and dimmed lights of a bookstore. Entering this kind of places is one of my favourite ways of relaxing. I pick a book up, open it at a random page and start reading. If I like what I read I buy the book. Back covers are not very helpful, I don’t even bother reading them.
Most people like the sensation touching the pages and the cover of a book gives you. I’m no exception; I like turning old yellowish pages, hearing the creaking sound they make, passing my finger over the back of a volume after it has been read over and over. But what I like best about books is their smell. Paper can absorb the typical smell of a place, and it can tell a double story: the one which is printed inside the book and the story of the many hands that have held it, the sunny places where it has lied watching the dust dance suspended in air and the conversations that have taken place near it. By smelling a book we can guess many things about its previous life.
A free copy of The Charismatic Rebel: The Figure of Lucifer in Milton by David Sourcil was in my briefcase as I left David’s office. We had agreed he would phone me as soon as possible to tell me if Linda had changed her mind. He had given me all his contact details and, since he had noticed that the cover of his new book had caught my eye, he had insisted I should take one. He thought I might be interested in reading about John Milton and I was. But, to be honest, I was definitely more interested in the painting displayed on the cover. It represented an angel with a devilish gaze. His similarity with Gwen’s favourite subject was more than striking and I found myself overwhelmed with curiosity once again. Father and daughter obsessed by the same figure. What did that mean?
Once at home, that night, I sat on the sofa and opened David’s book at a random page. I had just started reading the sentence Lucifer is the angel who rebels to God and, ultimately, to his destiny….when the phone rang.
- Could I speak to Mr. Indigo Eyebrow please?
My heart skipped a beat. It was Linda.
Family Matters
David Sourcil came back to our table bringing two mugs of black coffee. I was aware I desperately needed caffeine and sugar. The man sitting in front of me was staring at his mug. Suddenly he said:
-This is so embarrassing. I’m really sorry. You’re such a kind person and you barely know me and my family and here I am, asking you a big favour…
I had been misinterpreting his behaviour. What I had taken for superiority wasn’t that at all. It was terrible embarrassment. David bent his head to the side and smiled at me briefly. He looked very young now. Thirty-two, thirty-three, but he must have been older. He had a fifteen-year-old son.
-Yours is an extra-ordinary family and I’m sincerely glad to have met you all. And I guess I could find some time to teach Gwen maths and science, since I’m more and more interested in indigo children. But I can’t deny you really took me off guard. Besides I’m very curious to know why you are in favour of your daughter’s moving to Portland whereas your ex wife isn’t.
-We were never married but that’s not the point. See, Linda and I split mainly because of the way we want to raise our children. She thinks out kids should try and mingle among other children, and she wants them to spend as much time as possible with their peers. I guess Jett is an adorable kid, he gets on with everybody, he’s kind, he’s got a lot of friends. He likes going to school, so I’m totally ok with him being surrounded by “normal” kids if that’s what he wants. But Gwen, well, Gwen is a completely different person. She hates school, she hates most of her teachers and schoolmates. She needs to be constantly challenged and she isn’t. Therefore I’ve always been in favour of her quitting school. She has to study with someone who can stimulate her to do her best. And of course I want her to have friends, but obliging her to go to school doesn’t work. She’s extra-ordinary, she’s unique. She will always be different, isolated. It pains me but that’s exactly what is going to happen and Linda doesn’t want to come to terms with it. I know she’s her mother, and I understand her need to protect her, but Gwen’s unhappy now and we gotta do something about it.
David’s eyes shone as he was talking of his daughter. He seemed to have a deeper understanding of her and her desires. Jett was thin and tall and sociable just like Linda, and Gwen was probably very similar to her father, so terribly shy that she risked appearing aggressive and rude. We were on our way back to the departments.
-Linda hasn’t changed her mind yet, David went on, but if I tell her that you’re available she will have to accept Gwen’s moving here and quitting school. The thing is last week end I went back to Saskatchewan to see my kids and Linda and I had another terrible fight. When I moved to Portland, one and a half year ago, we decided Linda should look for a job in Portland and would move here with the kids. But I guess she has never really looked for a job, otherwise she would have found one by now. She’s a school teacher, not an astronaut! She wants me to be as far away from the kids as possible as not to interfere with their upbringing and education. Gwen must have heard our conversation and now she’s threatening Linda she will go on a hunger strike if she can’t come and live with me.
-Oh my…
-Yes, it’s terrible. And Gwen is just as stubborn as her mother, so I have no doubt about the fact that she will do it if we don’t stop her before.
-I’m really sorry to hear this. Of course I will help you. Tell Linda I can teach Gwen and let’s hope she will let her come to Portland.
-Thanks. This is my office, would you like to come in?
I hadn’t realised we had entered the English department. As soon as David opened the door I spotted a huge, wonderful painting representing an old Indian woman whose resemblance with Devi was incredible.
- Was that painted by Gwen? It does look like her style.
-That was actually painted by her father, he said. He did it when he was eight.
I should have guessed it from the start. David Sourcil had been an indigo child, too; why did I always realise things when it was too late?
Alpha Males
Alpha males are the leaders of animal communities. Nature chooses some of her sons and makes them inclined to command. The rest of the males defer to the alpha and the female members of the community fight over him.
David Sourcil was an alpha male: men can always recognize natural leaders when they see them. The fact that I hated him from day one actually says more about me than about him, I guess. I’ve always thought of myself as a gregarious animal, but things are probably different. I think I would naturally be an alpha male myself, but I’m too politically correct to fully acknowledge it. I’ve always rejected leadership, but I must admit I’ve always been able to influence others, to appear reasonable and persuasive, to make people do what I wanted. This sharply contrasts with my shyness, but opposites seem to co-exist in me.
I was formulating these thoughts somewhere deep in my mind as I invited David Sourcil to have a seat in my office. Natalie left the room quietly, but not without casting a last admired glance at the young man sitting in front of me. I couldn’t help feeling annoyed. I’m afraid university professors, alpha males or otherwise, tend to be very jealous of their territory. We are supposed to be cleverer than people with worse education, but we are just as hopeless.
-I need to talk to you about something, Mr. Eyebrow, David said. Then, in order to break the ice, he added:
-Have you had lunch yet?
-It’s 3 pm! I replied. – Of course I have.
- Well, I have been very busy with correcting papers and I still need to go to lunch. Would you mind talking in the cafeteria?
- Of course not.
-Thanks a lot.
The guy seemed kind and friendly, which made me hate him even more. On our way to the cafeteria I caught a lot of female glances directed at him, but he made no sign of noticing it. Maybe he was just used to it, I couldn’t tell. He had bright eyes which contrasted with his dark, heavy eyebrows. His hair was of a slightly brighter shade. Gwen had identical eyes but much fairer hair. And now that I came to think of it, I had never been able to see her eyebrows.
David was slowly chewing his sandwich and showed no hurry. On the other hand, I was very impatient to know what he wanted to talk to me about, so I asked him. He put his sandwich down, drank some water, and said:
- I know you’ve told my daughter Gwen that you don’t want to tutor her. I’m here to ask you to reconsider.
He looked me in the eye defiantly and said no more. He simply picked his sandwich up and finished it.
Of course I could have said no, especially as I didn’t like the man who was talking to me, but, deep inside, I knew it was not what I wanted. Somehow, my trip to Saskatchewan had produced an irreversible change in me. I didn’t know what it was yet, but I felt it had to do with Gwen and her family. After years spent confuting theories I felt the indigo children I had met were a new, unexplored universe of possibilities.
Besides, I had often had the impression that an external force, call it fate, destiny or whatever, was pushing me towards a greater involvement with the Sourcils.
And I was curious to see where this would take me.
