Howard Norman - Next Life Might Be Kinder

It was overcast and dreary out. The moment I stepped inside the cobblestone building, I saw the librarian asleep at her desk, using her folded arms as a pillow. (I thought right away of Elizabeth’s story of stealing a book in Wales; I now knew of two sleeping librarians, a continent apart.) Her dark brown hair was fanned out across — I looked — an open copy of The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield. There were no other patrons in the library. I toured the stacks in the main room and soon discovered, off in a corner, a section dedicated to natural history, especially that of Nova Scotia. In this section were field guides to birds, wildflowers, trees, fish, reptiles and amphibians, moths and butterflies. I also found a number of personal accounts, written by locals. One was called When I Walk Out in the Morning: Notes on Birds and Bird-Watching by Malcolm Drury. According to the back cover, Drury was born and raised near Vogler’s Cove. In the author’s photograph, an elderly Drury had a pair of field glasses hanging from his neck. After reading a few pages, I knew this was the book for me. The writing was direct and informative, with a pleasant style, not too many autobiographical distractions, and there were hand-drawn maps, a nice touch.

I tried to figure out the protocol for checking out books. Then I noticed a stack of three-by-five index cards on the desk. The librarian was lightly snoring. On the topmost card was the title of a book, The Moon and Mrs. Miniver. It all appeared quite efficient and perfectly well matched with the local feel of the library, which was built, according to the cornerstone, in 1902. So I took a new card from a stack on an adjacent table and wrote, “ When I Walk Out in the Morning, borrowed by Sam Lattimore.” I had forgotten the date, so I didn’t write that down, but I added my unlisted phone number. I wedged the card under the librarian’s hand and left. Sitting in my truck, I opened the book at random to a section called “The Odd Sighting and Tidbits,” which included data from a scattered coterie of birdwatchers:

Sept. 24—a dark-phase rough-legged hawk at Grand Pre

Sept. 28—2 ospreys, 650 km offshore, at southern edge of the Grand Banks

Oct. 4—a pied-billed grebe at Canning Aboiteau

Oct. 6—a sandhill crane, east of Scotch village

Oct. 9—a yellow-billed cuckoo in lower Canard Valley

Oct. 10—two immature peregrine falcons, one yellow-billed cuckoo; on Brier Island, also a great horned owl hooting at night

Oct. 11—a northern saw-whet owl tooting in the morning turned out to be Roger Foxall! (He did hear one on Brier Island)

Oct.12—twenty-two American widgeons, thirty-seven greater yellowlegs in Canning

Oct. 13—one stilt sandpiper, 400 green-winged teals at Sheffield Mills

Oct. 18—a black-billed cuckoo east of Canning

Oct. 21—a northern mockingbird in Canning; a Say’s phoebe photographed on Brier Island

Oct. 23—a bufflehead and many lesser scaup at Canard Poultry Pond

Oct. 25—several fox sparrow seen in Truro

Oct. 26—on Bon Portage Island, 5 Leach’s storm petrels, 25 northern saw-whet owls, 1 boreal owl, 1 yellow-bellied sapsucker, 1 northern mockingbird, 1 red-eyed vireo, 1 northern oriole, a few water pipits on Bon Portage Island

Oct. 30—125 buffleheads and a number of black-bellied plovers at Porter’s Point

Oct. 31—a dark-eyed junco singing in Wolfville

I read a few more pages and then drove home.

“Is this Mr. Lattimore?” the voice on the phone said when I picked up and said hello. “My name is Bethany Dawson. The card you thought was for borrowing a book was not. It was for inventory. You’ll have to come in and start over, please.”

“I take it you’re the sleeping librarian,” I said.

“Sounds like the title of a Perry Mason mystery, doesn’t it? I deserve that, I suppose. I’ve had too many late nights — well, no matter. I confess I slept during library hours.”

“Well, I imagine there’s no theft to worry about in the Port Medway Library. I’ll drive right over and make amends.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lattimore. I understand you’re a very private person, so leaving your phone number was appreciated. I’ll file it away for safekeeping.”

“Be there in fifteen minutes.”

Bethany Dawson was about forty and mentioned almost right away that she’d been the Port Medway librarian for eight years. “People have asked my heritage — I mean, look at me, such a mongrel, eh? There’s some Scottish and some Abenaki. In years long past such things happened, eh? That’s how my grandmother put anything to do with ancestors, ‘in years long past.’ With my grandmother you never knew if she meant a decade ago or in Bible times. And I’ve got traces of Dutch. All sorts of people got along well in my past, apparently. Ha-ha!” She had a nice laugh.

“Where were you born and raised?” I asked.

“Born in Anglo Tignish, Prince Edward Island. My mother and father were living there for a few years. But I grew up mostly in Kentville. Up through high school. Then off to study library science in Montreal. Then an early marriage. Then an early end to it. Ha-ha! Then assistant librarian in Bridgewater. Then fed up with Bridgewater. Then searched the job listings and up popped Port Medway. I live right next door to the library here.”

“The house painted robin’s-egg blue. I’ve admired that house.”

“The exterior was painted by yours truly, so thank you.”

Bethany showed me the proper way to borrow a book. There was a brown, leather-bound ledger for that purpose. “The book by Mr. Drury hadn’t been checked out in five years,” she said, “and it was last checked out by Mr. Drury himself. He said he’d given all his personal copies away. Are you interested in the local birds, Mr. Lattimore?”

“Sam, please. I’m hoping to stay in Port Medway a long time, and I’m trying to educate myself a little. I guess I like knowing the names of things.”

“I’m not admiring of people who keep life lists, so called. Reduces the variety in nature to arithmetic. Besides, as Emerson said in an essay, repetition of experience does not necessarily refine understanding. I agree with that.”

“I don’t keep a list of birds. I’m just trying to tell one from another.”

“An owl from a heron,” Bethany said. “Not so difficult, really.”

“I mean one sandpiper from another sandpiper, one sparrow from another sparrow, one warbler from another warbler.”

“I had a seagull drop down my chimney last winter. I was sitting with a hot cocoa in my robe and pajamas and slippers a cozy morning, when all of a sudden in it fell and exploded out the cold ashes. But since I hadn’t yet got to putting new logs on the grate, lucky seagull. Luckier yet, it didn’t get stuck. Gulls are large birds. People don’t always realize that. It took me nearly an hour to chase it out.”

“Well, Bethany, very nice to meet you. I’ll do things correctly next time.”

“Any more questions? About the library, I mean.”

I hesitated, then said, “On the phone you mentioned my being a private person, but how did you come to that conclusion? We’d never met. I hadn’t been in the library before today.”

“I regretted saying that the moment I said it. Naturally, us being on the telephone, I couldn’t see your face, but I somehow knew what I’d said had put you off. Now that you ask, everybody in Port Medway talks about everybody else. Like they say, the mail route’s a gossip route. Besides, we’ve got your first novel on our shelf, and when I heard you’d moved here, I read it, to familiarize, in case someone inquired. Also, we read the newspaper here in Port Medway, and your family tragedy, and the movie, has been…”