Secrets; I Tried To Keep Us Together, You Were Busy Keeping Secrets

The Library Of Mabel Mogaburu

As a sufferer of a sort of classificatory mania, from adolescence I took great care in cataloguing the books in my library.

By the fifth year of secondary school, I already possessed, for my age, a very reasonable number of books: almost six hundred volumes.

I had a rubber stamp with the following legend:

LIBRARY OF FERNANDO SORRENTINO
VOLUME Nº ______
REGISTERED ON: ______

As soon as a new book arrived, I stamped it, always in black ink, on its first page. I gave it its corresponding number, always in blue ink, and wrote its date of acquisition. Then, imitating the old National Library's catalogue, I entered its details on an index card which I filed in alphabetical order.

My sources of literary information were the editorial catalogues and thePequeño Larousse Ilustrado. An example at random: in many collections from the various editors was Atala, René and The Adventures of the Last Abencerage. Motivated by such ubiquity and because the Larousse seemed to give Chateaubriand such great importance, I acquired the book in the Colección Austral edition from Espasa-Calpe. In spite of these precautions, those three stories turned out to be as unreadable as they were unmemorable.

In contrast to these failures, there were also complete successes. In the Robin Hood collection, I was captivated by David Copperfield and, in the Biblioteca Mundial Sopena, by Crime and Punishment.

Along the even-numbered side of Santa Fe Avenue, a short distance from Emilio Ravignani Street, was the half-hidden Muñoz bookshop. It was dark, deep, humid and mouldy, with creaking wooden planks. Its owner was a Spanish man about sixty years old, very serious, and somewhat haggard.

The only sales assistant was the person who used to serve me. He was young, bold and error-prone and had neither knowledge of the books he was asked about nor any idea of where they were located. His name was Horacio.

When I entered the premises that afternoon, Horacio was rummaging around some shelves looking for heaven-knows-what title. I managed to learn that a tall, thin girl had enquired about it. She was, in the meantime, browsing the wide table where the second hand books were on display.

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From the depths of the shop, the owner's voice was heard:

'What are you looking for now, Horacio?'

The adverb now indicated a bad mood.

'I can't find Don Segundo Sombra, don Antonio. It is not on the Emecé shelves'.

'It is a Losada book, not Emecé; look on the shelves of the Contemporánea'.

Horacio changed the location of his search and, after a great deal of hunting, turned toward the girl and said:

'No, I am sorry; we have no Don Segundo left'.

The girl expressed disappointment, said she needed it for school and asked where she could find it.

Horacio, embarrassed in the face of such an insoluble problem, stared at her wide-eyed and raised his eyebrows.

Luckily, don Antonio had overheard:

'Around here', he answered, 'it is very hard. There are no good bookshops. You will have to go to the centre of town, to El Ateneo, or somewhere in Florida o Corrientes. Or perhaps near Cabildo and Juramento.'

The girl's face fell.

'Forgive me for barging in', I said to her. 'But if you promise to take care of it and return it to me, I can lend you Don Segundo Sombra.'