SKETCH MAP OF THE NABOKOV LANDS IN THE ST. PETERSBURB REGIONOn the evening of Wednesday April 21st 2010, I entered the Strand bookstore with a thirst for a specific manual. Completely fallen in that moment of my profound uncertainty for what I would find upon touching the book, with a feeling as if a great discovery was about to be revealed to me, furiously engaged thinking of emotions that could not be explained or understood by anyone but only by a heart of same thirst as mine, I approached the girl with the long bright yellow curls and the thick black glasses. Her look was playfully allowing me to think that her eyes are framed so carefully within that pair of glasses in order to look only at me.
Can I help you? She said
Yes. I am looking for a memoir. It’s written by Vladimir Nabokov, I specified, pronouncing the letter “a” in my thick accent as if it was “hai”. Nabokov she replied, with that very sharp “a” that had made an exit from her mouth as a paper cutter with a mission to rip off my voice chords who were fool in their own ignorance to pronounce the writers’ name incorrectly.
I love Nabokov she said with a smile. Follow me.
At that moment, upon the sound of the words “I love”, I managed to let go all the defenses and allow myself to follow her lead. Obviously she knew what I was talking about and it was recognizable in the confidence of her speech that she had a more personal affair with V.N. and his writing than I had up to that day.
The V.N. section was all the way at the back left side of the main bookstore floor. We hid there in a small corner among thousands of books, millions of words and trillions of ideas. I could sense a feeling of happiness and ease in her posture when we arrived at the section. Maybe because that little corner wasn’t simply another section of the bookstore for her, but it was her own secret library which at that specific moment-such that could have been an eternity for me- she wanted to share solely with me.
His writing is very dear to me she said. You will also love him. How does she know that I will love him too, I wondered? That’s a very intimate assumption.
While both our heads were looking up towards the ceiling in admiration of the upper levels of the bookcase where Nabokov’s books were patiently waiting, she asked;Which book are you looking for? The book, Speak, Memory, I answered.
She frowned her eyes in such a way that I could see her eyebrows forming one thin line underneath the glasses. A type of line expressing wonder or even suprise, probably because she was not aware of this book.
There it is! she said, I can see it third from the left side on the fifth shelf. I will go bring the ladder. She came back within a second, got up to reach the book and gave it to me.
I touched the book. Then looked at her trying to meet her eyes under the glass, which has now become a veil that I wanted to uncover in order to see her raw beauty same way a lover sees it in the morning phases on a Monday, and I realized that Vladimir Nabokov was in my hands in the fullest silence and glory of his autobiography Speak, Memory while I was facing his own beloved, Lolita.
- Garia August
