Or Rain on Memory Lane
Alas, I am definitely a creature of habit – in summer, I forget I’ll need overcoat and gloves in a few months; on vacation, I cannot imagine going back to work (my family will tell you it’s the opposite that is really true) and when I interrupt the newsletter, I must drag myself towards the computer again.
Recently, I also dragged myself upstairs to re-arrange the junk in the attic, (this house, by the way, possesses a magical quality which results in any mislaid object being instantaneously transported either up at least a floor or down a floor, which, while being a continual source of regular exercise, means the atmosphere is often punctuated by the cry of “Have you seen the…” echoing in the stairwell) and after a while forgot to come down for about a week, but found all kinds of wonderful stuff I had totally forgotten.. including my worst memory of my most dreadful signing session. Ever.
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We had only moved to Neuchâtel not long before, and naturally I was very flattered to be asked to sign my books at THE local bookshop.
Turned out there were four of us – a singer/songwriter, a local cartoonist, a local gentleman who had written a study of literary cafés and a local… me.
We ended up lined up on a long table near the entrance to the bookstore, with stacks of books set out before us.
Now, if you’ve ever been to Switzerland, you may have remarked that the Swiss are not generally a spontaneously extroverted lot, and Neuchâtel, it was dawning on me, is home to some of the more reserved.
People would wander in off the street, a slight hesitation in their stride would denote the sudden realisation that the imminent perils of a) contact with strangers and b) the impulse purchase were uncomfortably close at hand. They would immediately tack hard to starboard and actually detour by the back of the shop so as to not approach the table, as if there was a perimeter, which, if entered, would occasion a mandatory purchase, or worse, the obigation to – horror! – strike up a casual conversation.
Of course, I knew nobody either side of the signature table. Michel Buhler, I have since found out, is well-known on this side of the Sarine (or the röstigraben, the divide between French and German speakers in Switzerland), and every 20 minutes or so, someone would stride purposefully in and declare “Hi Michel, I’ll have a copy of that there book of yours!” The cartoonist, a household name locally, but from the TOP of the canton, up in the Jura, where folks are generally a little rougher and more forthright, quickly became heady on the excess of oxygen at the lower altitude and climbed up on the table to apostrophize the timorous customers sneaking around the back of the store, trying to hide behind the shelves. (There is a long history of rivalry between “ceux du haut” et “ceux du bas” in this canton, witness as it is to the most unwarlike history of practically any canton, including the world’s only Revolution that ALMOST happened. The canton of Neuchâtel is curiously also a Republic, and is quite a tardy additon to the Confederation.) He didn’t bully anyone into actually buying a book, but it was amusing to watch them scatter. As for the other writer, with his book that obviously no-one gave a toss about one way or the other, he remained slightly sad and stoic throughout (but then of course, he was from Neuchâtel – who else would write a book on such an obscure subject – so I imagine he knew what to expect and accepted his literary martyrdom). I think the songwriter sold a couple of dozen books, the cartoonist about the half that, the historian a handful.
And me?
One.
To the cartoonist, who took pity on me and accomplished his good deed for the day by splurging his hypothetical and meagre royalties on a book he probably didn’t want.
I hadn’t felt so miserable for ages. (Thankfully, since I knew nobody, there were no acquaintances to pretend I didn’t recognize. Even my wife wasn’t there, since our son had been born just over a week before, she was happily occupied elsewhere.)
Afterwards, the local manager (he was fired shortly after, I believe) offered us an aperitif, which I gulped down without tasting it, so eager was I to slink off and crawl under the humid and weighty boulder of self-pity in the slimy swamp of self-pity and gloom and stay there forever and never come out, not even up for air. This while, naturally, vowing cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die that I would NEVER no NEVER EVER sign another book in this miserable canton. (I have since revised that stance.)
Goodness, when it rains on memory lane…
I must be more careful of that attic.
