Meanwhile, elsewhere at the Cape Town Book Fair …
Relative obscurity brought solitude, and solitude brought time; and with them came a chance to look around at the other stalls, and to wonder about the nature of book fairs and book signings, and to watch my autographing pen rust.
Why was it that events dedicated to the written word and to the private, solitary pleasures of reading, so often require authors to spend so much time talking to great throngs of people? Why could one never dispel a faint sense of being somewhere agricultural? Was it the architecture, perhaps? Do steel girders and neon lighting tap into that primal part of ourselves that wants to lasso a paperback writer, spray worm-killer into the inside of his cheek, and brand his buttocks with a cheerful motto, something like “Please do not write any more”? Could any of those people, nodding so delightedly to the Celtic whimsy of Marian Keyes, understand any more than I could, or was she simply reciting “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” over and over again, and leaving her accent, the dodgy amplifiers and the adoration of her fans to fill in the linguistic blanks? Where were all these damned schoolgirls rushing to, and why could one hear muffled shrieks coming from somewhere beyond the Books From China stand? Had André Brink cricked his neck, and if he had, when would he make some sign to show that he was in discomfort and needed to be carried off the platform in his chair?
Indeed, the novelist had not moved for some minutes now, and to the casual observer it would have seemed that Brink was either in the throes of some terrible chiropractic emergency that required him to keep his head turned at right angles to his body, or that he was seeing what it felt like to be an Austro-Hungarian emperor posing for a coin while dictating his memoirs.
But of course neither was the case. All authors know that writing requires a great deal of careful reading; but some also know that speaking requires a great deal of careful listening, and in this mighty amphitheatre of output and performance, it was difficult to recognise immediately the simple, ancient, marvellous act of paying attention.
Another schoolgirl rushed past, anxious and agitated, plucking at her flailing woollen scarf like a stricken French fighter pilot about to flop romantically into the cordite-scented zephyrs of the Western Front.
At last, a cleared throat and the smiling face of a stranger. The autograph pen was unsheathed: a fish-moth scuttled out of the lid, flung itself off the table, sat on Jamie Oliver’s face for a moment, and disappeared.
“Hi!” she said.
“Hello. Thanks for coming.”
“Cool. Do you sell Spud?”
I did. I had. About 15 copies of Spud, and easily another 10 of Spud — The Madness Continues.
“Right over there. You can’t miss it.”
You couldn’t, really. The stack of novels, rising out of the middle of the stand, had developed its own ecosystem. Small herds of caribou grazed on its temperate lower slopes, and tiny bright streams of adulation trickled and plopped through its gentler ravines. Chamois frolicked higher up, where Spud gave way to its sequel; and up near the top, a condor described great circles above the snowline, its shadow flickering across the barcodes and ISBN numbers of this Matterhorn of fiction.
“Oh. Wow. Thanks. You know he’s signing, hey?”
“Who?”
“Spud.”
“I think he’s called John.”
“It’s over there, behind the Books From China stand.” Ah. Another French fighter pilot expired nearby.
A polite tap on the shoulder; the pen groped for.
“Hi. Can you tell me where …?”
“Right over there. Under the condor.”
He blushed. “Oh, no, sorry, I’ve already got both. I was just wondering if you knew where he’s signing.”
It wasn’t jealousy. It isn’t. Envy in this world of bookish flux — where nothing can be concretely compared to anything else, and no advantage empirically defined — is pointless. Rather, it is the despairing optimism, the bored interest, of the Amazonian canoe punter who watches the speedboat whoosh upstream past him, festooned with naked gals chopping the necks off Magnums with cavalry sabres. How strange and wonderful such a life must be, he thinks. How easy. How difficult. How close to where all things are exhilarating. How terribly far from these beautiful, familiar eddies and backwaters.
Another visitor. Yes, hi, it’s over there, and if you hurry, he’s still signing, although there might be some schoolgirls who …
“No. I want to ask you.” The familiar little books were thrust forward. The pen! The pen! Sweet Jesus, where was the pen? “Is this one better than the other one?” The pen hesitated. “Because I didn’t like the other one. But can you sign the one I’ve got? The first one? I didn’t like it, but can you sign it anyway?”