Jeanette Winterson - The missing book

Last August when I went the village library to borrow some books for the summer,  Maria José, the summer librarian, told me that I couldn't take out books, that my account was blocked because the computer says that I borrowed out a book two years ago and I still have it.

Our library 'under the sea'

I was shocked. - It can't be, Maria José, I always return the books I take out.

     - No, Pilar. You have had one called  La mujer de púrpura ('The Daylight Gate' )for two years now.

      -That book doesn't sound familiar to me. Besides, it's been just that long since     I've been here, - I said.

    - Well, you'll have to wait for Gabi to come because I can't change anything on the computer. It says here that you took it from the El Chaparral library and that you still haven't returned it.

            I didn't remember borrowing La mujer de púrpura, much less from another library in a village that I only passed through when I went out on my bike; I didn't understand anything of what Maria José was telling me, but since I saw that I couldn't take out books with my card, my granddaughter Sara let me use hers and I thought I would sort it out later. I was able to take four books home and as compensation, Maria José gave me two months to read them.     

            It's been two months since August and when I returned the books last Friday, Gabi, the head librarian, had already joined.   

            - Your card is blocked, Pilar, because you borrowed a book that you haven't returned. See if you have it at home.    

            - No, Gabi. I already told Maria José, I didn't take that book, I haven't read it, and I don't have it at home.

            - It says here that you took the book on December 21, 2022.

            - Yes, from the El Chaparral library, I said, fed up with the subject.

            Gabi added, - When I came back from my holidays, I saw Maria Jose's note with your problem and I wasn't surprised to see that book in your account because it's the kind of books you read.            

            What was Gabi referring to? Right there I checked Wikipedia and discovered that the book "that I lost" is by Jeanette Winterson. And when I read her biography, I saw that I had read two books by that author. I knew her, yes.         

            - You're right, Gabi. She's my 'type of author'. I've read two of her books, for different reasons.

            - Look, - I said - and I explained to her how I had found her books.

            - I read 'The Girl in the Lighthouse' (Lighthousekeeping) because my sister Teresa had the book, she recommended it to me and lent it to me. It's a very bleak and sad story about Silver, a girl who is orphaned and sent to live with the blind lighthouse keeper at the Lighthouse of Wrath on the coast of Scotland, who tells her true or real stories about the lighthouse and about different characters. The novel moves from the present to the past because either the lighthouse keeper Pew is over 100 years old, or he is a family of lighthouse keepers, who keep and live in the lighthouse. There are many strange characters: the Reverend Babel who has a lover in Bristol with whom he spends long periods and who has two personalities and "served as inspiration for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". R.L. Stevenson and Charles Darwin also appear. The girl visits a world exhibition in London and travels to Capri, to a Greek island, to London... In short, a huge mess that I didn't like very much.

Oranges ... among newspapers

       --I've also read another book by this author - I told her - one in English, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit.  One day when I went to buy the newspaper at the newsstand opposite the church, Fatima the girl who works there, was sitting quietly reading a book. I asked her what she was reading and she showed me this book. She told me that she is studying English Philology and that this book had been recommended to her at the Faculty. She told me that she was enjoying it and I looked for it as an ebook and read it shortly after. It is an autobiographical book. The author tells us that her mother did not take her to school when she was little and taught her to read with the Bible. Her only world was the church meetings, a fundamentalist church with a very narrow mentality that made her live in a world where her only vital references were the first books of the Bible, the Knights of the Round Table and the stories of the town, a miserable town in the Midlands. The girl managed to get out of this sordid world and became a writer. This was her first book and it made her famous. It is another sad book that did not touch my heart either.

             - You see, I know her and I have read these two books of hers, - I said - but I know nothing about La mujer de púrpura. I also read the books several months after I went to the library, supposedly to borrow that third book.

             Gabi was surprised that I remembered so many details about it.

--It's easy, I told her. - I keep a diary and I also write a review of all the books I read and, to finish, I take a photo at least every day so that my memories don't get blown away by the wind. (I always thought I would lose my memory when I got older, like my grandmother did. - I didn't tell Gabi this, but it's the reason I started keeping a diary when I was quite old.)

             --I keep everything, - I told her - and I don't have a photo of the cover, or a review of having read it, or mention it in my diary, but I can tell you when I read the two books and even the exact day Fatima told me about the damn Oranges.    So I can say with the little certainty that my years now allow me that I didn't take that book and therefore I don't have it. I think a ghost with my name went to the Chaparral library and took it. And another ghost, Jeanette Winterson, who appeared twice in my life, has now appeared again.

            --But if by chance or whatever, one day I picked it up, either it's stuck in a hole in my memory or it fell through a hole in my book tote bag, because it's not at home and I don't remember taking it out, touching it, reading it

Decorations in the library

            --It's a mystery to know what happened to that book that I didn't bring, and who took that book from the Chaparral library with my name on it, why there's a book in my account that I haven't returned. I hope this mystery will be solved one day.   

          ---  In the meantime, I'll keep coming to this library even if I have to continue using Sara's card because I love seeing what new decorations the librarians have hung on their walls and because I always find some interesting book to add to my reading collection.

        I finished my conversation with Gabi and left the library. The truth is that we both were really upset.

My books by Enid Blyton - a precious treasure

   This story full of mystery reminds me of Enid Blyton's books 'Mystery in the Haunted House', 'Mystery of the Invisible Thief' and others of the same kind, which I read when I was a little teenager. This is the 'Mystery of the missing book'

La mujer de púrpura - It has appeared!!

FINAL NOTE: Before publishing this long story on my blog, the book has appeared. Here you see it. It was not in my house. That's all I can tell you.