through its rooms, the history of this place feels alive, tangible—you’re literally walking in the footsteps of famous writers and artists—expats in search of a community who found a home.
My favorite part of the store is the second floor. The short, narrow, twisting stair-bookcase (yes, a diagonal shelf of books runs along the outer rails of the stairs) spells out a message on each step: I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astounding light of your own being. A quote from Hafiz, my mom told me on one of our annual visits. A fourteenth-century Persian poet. A Muslim. “See,” she whispered to me at the time, “we’re everywhere.”
Up those well-worn, possibly not structurally sound red stairs are the old books. And the nook I adore the most—a cozy typewriter alcove with a single chair and tiny desk that can fit exactly one person, its three walls lined with scraps of paper people have typed on. I love ducking into that niche and reading people’s anonymous notes. They’re all wishes and dreams and words to lovers, and it feels like you’re reading someone’s diary, except that you’re also helping them bring those words to life. I wonder what the store does with the old notes. I hope they burn them in a bonfire so that all those hopes can travel to the stars on a trail of smoke. Those anonymous dreams deserve a happily ever after.
I know I told Alexandre I’m a realist and not a dreamer, and that’s true, but I’m not completely oblivious to the poetry of life. That’s the too easily wounded part of me I keep hidden from everyone.
But today, I don’t let myself linger over other people’s secrets. Today I’m leading with my head, not my heart. I walk right past the typewriter to the poetry section.
I have a mission. Find that Byron poem.
I run my finger across the spines until I come across a simple black paperback: George Gordon Lord Byron: Selected Works. I pull it from the shelves; flecks of dust catch the light. Byron might have been the most famous and flamboyant of the Romantics, but apparently even his books can sit on shelves untouched for ages. Still, at least we know his name.
I search the table of contents and find the title of the poem my mom mentioned right away:
She Walks in Beauty
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
There she is on the page—the woman with the raven tresses. I whisper across time, “Leila, could this be . . . is it you?” I run my fingers over the words on the page like they are something sacrosanct, a relic to be prized and guarded. I read the poem again, slowly this time, my index finger underlining each word. Leila, if this is you, if you are Dumas’s raven-tressed lady and Byron’s, could you be the Giaour’s Leila? The one the Pasha killed? But how? I pause. These questions are too simple. Leila isn’t defined by the men whom she inspired. She is the inspiration. Some men tried to shape her into their fictional fantasies; others tried to muffle her voice. But she had her own story.
I feel that melancholy again—what I felt when reading Leila’s letter to Dumas. When you’re living, when you’re alive, especially when you’re young and feel immortal, you don’t always think about what comes after you’re gone. I don’t mean heaven