Page 15 of The Little Provence Book Shop
His eyes met hers. ‘Bonjour,’ he replied with a smile that carried with it more sadness than a frown might have.
‘Ah, Claude!’ Monique said, putting down the book she was dusting and straightening her skirts as she stood up. ‘You have come.’
‘Oui, you have a book for me?’ he said, his voice hopeful.
Monique nodded and lifted out a box from behind thecounter. In it there were several books they’d ordered in. She picked out one with a burgundy cover and handed it to him.
He took it gratefully, turning it over in his hand. ‘Merci. Thank you for not giving up on me.’
Monique walked closer to him, put her hand on his shoulder. ‘But Claude, we will never do that. You know this.’
He smiled. ‘How much…’
‘It’s nothing. A gift.’
‘Thank you.’ He slipped the book into the pocket of his large overcoat – surely too warm a thing to be wearing on this clement spring day – and nodded. ‘I am sorry to be such a difficulty for you,’ he said.
Monique laughed. ‘It is not a difficulty. It is a challenge perhaps. But it is also a pleasure. I am happy to do it. And it is certainly what Violet would have wanted.’
He nodded, a brief shadow flicking over his features. ‘Oui,I hope so.’
Moments later he shuffled off, his hand hovering over the pocket containing the slim volume. Once the door was closed, Adeline turned to Monique, her head full of questions.
‘He seems so sad,’ she said.
Monique nodded, a wry smile on her lips. ‘Yes, he lost his wife two years ago. They had fifty years together. And he is lost,’ she said, shaking her head sadly.
‘Oh, poor man.’
‘Oui. And he says he is too old to start again, to find a new purpose in life. But he is too young to give up too. And I promised him that I would help him to find a way.’
Adeline was silent for a moment, wondering how to phrase the question. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘How exactly?’
Monique laughed. ‘With books of course. We find the rightbook for him, and it will give him hope. Maybe ideas or a purpose.’
‘Like a self-help book?’
‘Non,’ Monique shook her head. ‘He does not need instructions. He knows how to look after his health. But he needs to find a way to bring his heart back to life. The book I gave him is about another who lost their love – it will call to him. His spirit.’
There it was again. Spirit.
Adeline continued typing the ISBNs from Monique’s list into the machine, but she found she couldn’t quite let the subject go. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said. ‘But I don’t… I know having a good book can be a distraction. Can be good for our mental health. But I don’t quite understand what you are doing for Claude. He seems so very sad, so hopeless. Do you really think that the right book will help him enough? The right story?’
Monique turned, her skirt moving softly around her calves. ‘But of course. That is what I do. I find a book that speaks to their situation, their soul.’
Suddenly something struck Adeline: ‘“He ate and drank the precious words; His spirit grew robust”,’she murmured softly to herself, remembering the lines from her Emily Dickinson volume.
‘Exactement,’ Monique said with a nod.
Perhaps she had been going to say more, but they were interrupted by the bell ringing loudly as the door was pushed open with more force than Claude had mustered earlier. And there he was, Michel, smiling, tousled, somehow bringing with him a sense of lightness – flooding the room with optimism.
Adeline shook her head. She was thinking lyrically now. She had to get her head out of the clouds. He’d let in a little more sunlight, was all; he was wearing a light yellow shirt. He wasn’t bloodyApollo.
‘Bonjour,ladies!’ he said, stepping fully into the shop.
Monique turned, lining the last volume on the shelf she was working on. ‘Bonjour,Michel. I am surprised you are so happy this morning after so much wine last night.’
He smiled mischievously. ‘Perhaps I am still young enough to get away with it.’
