Know-it-all?

Emma has a prologue:

She knew better, or should have known better. Should have known better because she knew she had a problem. A very serious problem. A problem that could develop into, or already was, an illness, a disease, an addiction, a cause for stress and distress. She wasn't sure, but she knew, oh she knew. She should have known. She was lost. If we had known, we might have been able to stop her. We didn't know.

Emma has a plot, or a plan:

She had heard about the event that took place in Galicia every May 17. They didn't do things like that back where she was from. Where she was from they never celebrated books. Unless it was the local library, which organized the Week of Banned Books every year although she never knew when that was, because for her there were no such things as banned books. Absurd. Something only the lonely had time to do, ban books. Go listen to Roy Orbison, she thought. For non-readers, there was music. Emma always said: I've got better things to do.

The event, such as it is, and was, for Emma:

It was definitely a big deal. Once a year people swarmed the streets in search of things to read that they might not ever read but could always give to somebody - suspecting or unsuspecting - as a gift. Like a plant or chocolates. People liked to be seen at this type of event. It made them look like intellectuals or at least like book lovers. Like readers, even.

It was the Day of Galician Letters, O Día das Letras Galegas, and every year a writer who'd been in heaven or some place else was honored. They had to have been gone for at least twenty years, to prevent favoritisms when the writer was selected, logically, because that can happen if you're not careful. Some favorites could be awful writers. 

Anyway, this was the day booksellers set up stands in different cities and perhaps even a few towns and sold books. Apparently it was easier to cart all the books and other materials a few feet away from the shops, maybe brave bad weather, and try to sell. Which they did. All of those things.

Emma was in Coruña seeing the sights and needed a fix. (Addiction?) She knew the worst place for it was a book celebration. Bars are the worst places for some people to go. Restaurants are the worst for others. Bookstores are, were, the worst for her. She knew she had to go, however. This year she happened to be in Coruña, a city by the sea, so she had already inquired where the abyss was going to be set up: by the Gardens of Méndez Núñez. Méndez Núñez seemed to have been famous for something a long time ago, but apparently it wasn't fbecause he had written anything. Now he was famous for his gardens by the sea, that he most likely never saw or planted.

It was important for her to go to such an event with very little money, given her affliction or addiction. Allow herself to be distracted by the people - not the pages - around her. Stroll around, examine the roses and myrtles, find a bench, and be vigilant, avoiding temptation. Until, of course, she couldn't do that any more.

After all, there was nothing illegal about what she did, what she liked to do, or her condition. It just wasn't healthy. Or normal. And it was always possible that war might break out somewhere, in the Middle East, in the Pacific, or in Emma. 

She should have stayed home, but the scents, sights, and sounds insisted. She also was ravenous. When she felt that way, nothing could stop her. Still, she felt she was ready. Felt she could handle it. Had to. She had friends who might have been able to stop her, if she had told them, or us, about her plan. Or maybe she couldn't have been stopped. Nobody knows. Anyway, she didn't tell them. She didn't tell us. She was on a mission. A secret mission, perhaps.

Casto Secundino and Emma:

Sometimes people lose their last names and sometimes they lose their first names. Emma had made a point to discover the first names Méndez Núñez had lost, and thought of him as Casto. Great name for a man and a soldier, or rather a naval officer. She used her first name relationship with him as a reason to go sit on a bench in his gardens in Coruña, but also so she could watch the stands, the customers, and most of all, the books. He had been brave (or stupid), wounded nine times in the Battle of Callao (she'd read that somewhere) and could help her. She sort of liked his valiant attitude in the face of danger: "Spain, the Queen and I prefer honor without ships than ships without honor." Not the part about Spain and the queen, but the part about ships and honor.

However, Emma had a different target, and told herself: "I prefer death without books over books without me." Whatever that meant. She did wonder, though, if the coruñeses knew why the man had earned himself those nice gardens smack in the center of the city. She thought about asking them, if she had time.

Emma in the Gardens:

May 17 had begun timidly, hunched over a bit in a misty old cape it had acquired from the store of the sea. That did not bode well to Emma, who was "from away," as they say in Maine. A forasteira. Maybe I'll never have a home, she thought, then shook the thought away like it was a black fly, the monsters that plague people from her part of the world. She knew she had to go to the big event, come hell or high water, or both. She would accept whatever happened.

Fortunately, as those who were not from away knew, the silty mist had lifted and the sun had come out. By ten A.M., all the vendors had opened for business and people were trickling past, like droplets. If ten didn't purchase a thing, there were two more who did, and so it continued, until noon (which is still considered morning there). Emma from away watched every single one, every human droplet with the courage - like Méndez Núñez - to stand up to the books and even purchase a few. They were people without problems, evidently. The fortunate ones.

However, the itching started, not caused by black flies or mosquitoes, not by fleas or no-see-ums (of which Coruña has none, she thought). It was the lust, or let's call it the addiction, the "problem." Emma could not stay away. She was forced to abandon her bench in the gardens, abandon Casto Secundino, abandon everything but her goal, her fate, her need, because it was probably never going to abandon her. She slowly inserted herself into the crowd flowing past the stands, hoping nobody would notice.

She was alone, nobody noticed. There was a reason she had not told her friends. The only thing she had brought was money, although she didn't know exactly how much she had with her. There might be some in her wallet, in her jacket pockets, in the back pocket of her jeans, inside one of her shoes. Even in places we won't mention. The point was, she had not come unarmed. She had no ships or cannons, but she did have euros. Maybe if she had known how many she actually had, she would have left some at home. Maybe things would have been different if she had, but we'll never know.

Emma unwinds, or unravels:

She walked, slowly, even respectfully, toward the long line of book stands along the sidewalk, trying not to rubberneck and failing, miserably. She went up to the first one, her hands deep in her pockets, telling herself she'd go all the way down the line of about twenty vendors before selecting a book. It would be just one, she said, just one. Or maybe two. There was only the slightest chance she'd buy three. Four would be way too many, and she'd never buy more than the fingers she had on one hand. Five was one of her lucky numbers, though.

We've forgotten to mention that Emma had, in addition to a large purse, one of those backpacks that have straps you can put your arms through, of course, but which also have concealed wheels and a handle that can be pulled out so the backpack works as a carry-on for flying. Those are great, because they are very light and hold a lot. They even have a secret zipper that allows the user to expand them the way some larger suitcases do.

The backpack was not so great for her. The five (not one, two, three, or four) books she soon acquired - let's not worry about the titles, because they weren't in English - were tucked away at the bottom and they bounced a bit on her lower back. That meant they weren't crammed inside and had room to breathe. That also meant there was room for more. Don't even go there, she told herself. She went there, though.

Soon the backpack was rolling along the sidewalk, weaving among the other buyers and non-buyers, begging to be filled. That's what Emma thought, anyway. She told it to shut up, hoping nobody noticed she was talking to a backpack that was filling itself up with books, out of control. She was also hoping none of her very caring, concerned friends would come along and stop her because she was by now deep inside her problem and - you might say - the brakes were off. The backpack on wheels was steering her where it wanted.

She sighed, and followed it. And followed it. Then followed some more. (The bench and Casto's gardens were long forgotten. The euros had not yet run out. She shouldn't have brought them. Although some of the booksellers took credit cards, true. When was the event going to be over?)

Emma's Plan B:

All of us know what it's like to have to shift gears, find another way to accomplish something, to reach a goal. She was no different. She had crossed the line, fallen off the wagon - had she ever really been on it? - by going to the big celebration of Galician Letters, its fragrant old pages and faded colors, its orphans with their puchos furados (Galician for caps that have holes worn in them, and a line from some poem), its vertical and horizontal rectangles that called out "Read me, I'm yours!" There was only one thing to do now, since the backpack, now on wheels, now stuffed to the gills like a Thanksgiving turkey or a pig in a barbecue pit, would never fit in her luggage that would be checked at the airport. Even if she paid an excess baggage fee, there wasn't room enough.

She was not about to leave the books behind, however. So, Plan B. Emma struggled with her load of acquisitions over to a bench in the Praza de María Pita. She thought, or we think she thought, that the brave woman who fought to defend her city from corsairs and other bullies, might serve as a source of inspiration. That may actually be what she planned to do, although it's unlikely we'll ever know for sure. Unlikely, because we've lost track of Emma since she headed for María Pita. We know she never made it back to Compostela and we know she never got on the plane that would take her back home. Nobody ever saw her again in Maine.

We have a theory, however, and it might be useful to share it, in case it's right and in case it can help other people in the future. People who could benefit from Emma's story which in a way no longer exists because of where it has gone. We don't need to lose more people to books or words or other addictions. Books like plagues - we refuse to speak of pandemics, because we've had enough of those - can do irreparable damage if they get out of control.

Poor soul.

Our theory is that Emma, faced with leaving her books, pages and covers, her paper and words, became desperate. She must have said to herself crawl inside, must have let them devour her. In that way she would have let them take her home instead of trying to take them herself. After all, there were enough books from the Day of Galician Letters in her backpack for her to fit inside them - hands, feet, head, belly, all of her. The logistics of not being flat she must have worked out somehow. Maybe she oozed onto the pages, or fused herself like steam, or let them absorb her like sponges do water from the faucet. The point is, she figured it out, because she's gone and the books aren't. 

She did that because she cared and because she had that "problem" we mentioned at the beginning. 

If you don't believe that was possible, do you know where she is now?

Moral of the story, which it really doesn't have:

Home is where the heart is, and always, always, where the books are. 

Where Emma might be, if we could find her.

She's home, though. You can count on that.