This Book Made Me Think of You(29)
I know it’s not the same, but I hope this book gives you a flavor of Paris. And maybe you might even go for me one day and make the trip we never managed to take.
If you do ever find yourself in Paris, don’t forget to visit Shakespeare and Co (I know you’d have dragged me there!). You might just find a surprise waiting for you on the shelves…
I love you. Or should I say, “Je t’aime”?
Joe x
She places the letter back carefully on the shelf. For a second, she pictures him sitting on the balcony, the sun brightening his face and catching on his blond hair. He’d be in shorts and T-shirt as usual, his feet likely bare on the terrace tiles. So, what’s first then, Nightingale? he would say in his husky American accent.
“I think I have an idea…”
Nineteen
Shakespeare and Company sits in the shadow of Notre-Dame, opposite the Seine and next to a leafy and tranquil park. Having successfully negotiated the metro (once she’d figured out how to open the train doors), Tilly emerges at Saint-Michel Notre-Dame, craning her neck to take in the sight of the iconic cathedral before walking along the riverside, passing open-air bookstands selling secondhand books and posters depicting old French advertisements and Toulouse-Lautrec paintings.
The shop is on a cobbled street that runs parallel to the Quai de Montebello where traffic races alongside the river. But here it is quieter, a breeze whipping in from the Seine and bringing with it a scattering of cherry blossoms. The bottle-green awning matches the peeling paint of the shop front and the tables set out in the spring sunshine, browsers crowding around them.
Tilly steps through the doorway of Shakespeare and Company and into a place that feels less like a shop and more like some extravagant character’s personal library. The shelves are packed, separate rooms filled with books leading onto one another through a series of winding corridors and stairways. It is busy with tourists and browsers but not unpleasantly so, the air filled with an excited buzz of appreciation. Tilly finds herself at the bottom of a red staircase, the paint worn from countless footsteps. Her breath quickens as she recognizes words she knows belong to a fourteenth-century poet but that also feel like a message from Joe. “I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”
She takes her time browsing. She has nowhere else to be, after all, something that still feels surreal. In the shop time seems to slow, the sounds from the street outside muffled by the walls of books.
Eventually, she approaches the desk. A young woman with a sleek blond bob and wearing neat gray trousers, a gray sweater, and bright red lipstick greets her with a smile. “Bonjour! Hello!” she says in a French accent. “Can I help you?”
Her smile is so warm that it gives Tilly the confidence to reach into her satchel and pull out the letter slipped between the pages of her book.
“I don’t know. I hope so. It probably sounds quite strange, but my late husband arranged this special gift for me before he died. A year of books, one for every month, each with a letter. This was his latest letter…”
Tilly takes a breath and passes it across the counter. Joe handled this piece of paper and wrote on it in his achingly familiar handwriting, so it feels as though the bookseller is handling a part of him. But the woman holds it gently, scanning the text quickly, her eyes shining as she reaches the final words and passes the letter back to Tilly.
“Ah! So you are Matilda Nightingale! I can’t believe it’s you! We’ve been waiting for you to come in. Wait, let me go get my colleagues, they’ll be enchanted to meet you.”
After a few moments, a crowd of booksellers assembles around the counter, a mix of English and French. Each of them greets Tilly with such enthusiasm that she begins to feel like some sort of celebrity.
“It was me who took the phone call from your husband,” says the woman with the red lipstick. “Such a romantic gift. Although we’re all so sorry for your loss,” she adds with genuine warmth.
“Thank you,” says Tilly, surprised to find that her voice doesn’t break.
“My name is Cécile. Now, let me find your gift for you…”
She reappears a few minutes later, holding a Shakespeare and Company tote bag in her outstretched hand. “We weren’t quite sure when you would turn up, so it’s been waiting in our back room all this time. I’m so glad I was working today!”
“Thank you so much,” Tilly replies, taking the bag and spotting a flat and suspiciously book-shaped parcel wrapped up in beautiful marbled paper.
“I’d recommend going to our café next door for a cup of tea before you leave,” Cécile says.
“Thank you, I think I will,” Tilly replies, turning to leave. But before she reaches the doorway, Cécile’s voice reaches her again.
“Attendez! Wait! I hope you don’t mind me mentioning this, but we have a book event on Friday evening that I think you might appreciate. You would be very welcome if you will still be in Paris then. Our events are always very friendly. Lots of people come alone. I’ll be working that night, so I’ll be there.”
She hands Tilly a flyer, which shows the details of the event and an image of a book with a simple blue cover decorated with stars, the words “Light and Dark by Amirah Lopez” dancing along the top.