The Bequest
I received the books as a gift, a gift from the dead. One hundred thirty books published by Franklin Library, in three series. Beautiful books, the kind that look good on the shelf and make you feel really cultured and intelligent. I remember studying the books on my uncle’s shelf as a child, with longing. They spoke to me of time, of the leisure of a long-ago upper class, of wisdom and knowledge and everything that mattered. So much time has passed since then, and there have been poverty and family strife, war and more war, and the meaning of anything, in books or otherwise, is less and less clear to me. Which brings me to my uncle, for he is the dead man, the one who gathered these books.
When you receive a gift from the dead, it’s difficult to know what you’ve got. The dead tell you little. Like whether the binding is really leather, the pages acid-free, the bookmark silk, how many volumes there are and how they were selected, what they’re worth in money and what they were worth to the deceased to make him part with that money. Who was the deceased when he wasn’t my uncle, when he was alone in his apartment or with his friends? Who was the man who bought the books?
And what can they be to me? As many as three copies of some titles (titles that landed in all three series, presumably), many I never would have selected myself, 130 books to read instead of doing I don’t know what else. Many things, I suppose. And yet one mustn’t take death lightly, no more a gift from the dead – though I must tell you about the other gift I received: it was, alas, a dachshund, a specimen of perhaps the most poorly designed dog of them all, and spoiled rotten at that. And, again alas, the dachshund is gone these many years (well seven or so, anyway), and the books, in their multiples of ten, remain.
I shall read them.
I shall read them and see what truths they yield about life and death and language (yes, look for some words that I’ve learned along the way). I shall read them as they attract my eye or as their titles appeal, which is to say, not quite randomly. And if they don’t reveal the dead man – who didn’t after all select the books in the series – perhaps the act will do homage to him and to whatever spirit there is that we all share.
