Left at the Mango Tree by Stephanie Siciarz Read Free Book Online Page B

what a modern housewife with the market place a hundred meters away and a pearl-handled sewing basket could have to escape from. Even less could he imagine how one could escape from whatever there was needed escaping from into the brittle world of those colorless pages. It smacked somewhat of magic, and if there’s one thing a man who takes thingsat face value the way Raoul did cannot tolerate, it’s that. Which is why, when Emma Patrice skied off that day and Raoul was left to raise Edda alone, he quietly removed his missing wife’s books from the house, stirred by the strange but sure sensation that the bound nuisances had in some way contributed to her disappearance.
    But don’t infer from Raoul’s boycotting of books that he wasn’t smart or clever. In an old-fashioned sort of way he was. He worked hard, had a headful of common sense, followed complicated orders with ease and efficiency, and kept matters in pineapple-pie order, or at least looking like they were, which is sometimes even more important. In fact, he built quite a Customs career for himself with this handful of bricks, a feat smacking somewhat of magic itself.
    All the same, there came a time when Raoul’s disdain for the less-than-obvious gave way. There were things his daughter Edda wanted him to teach her. And though Raoul had seen his wife bake a million cakes and pies, when he showed Edda how to mix the sugar and the butter and the eggs, what they drew out of the oven at the end of the lesson was lumpy or greasy or crumbly. So it was that Raoul set out one day for the Pritchard T. Lullo Public Library on the island’s east end to find a recipe for fritters. He would work his way up to cake.
    The library was housed in a square stuccoed building of lime green. An open, welcoming porch with two low steps and thin white columns wrapped in bud-dotted vines announced double wooden doors, whose colored panes gave a reverential glow to the single room on the other side. There, bathed in natural light, dark wooden bookshelves lined the four white walls and kept watch over the six-drawered altar of Miss Lila Partridge, head librarian, positioned squarely in the center. A book-fearing man with no knowledge ofcard catalogs or Dewey decimals, Raoul couldn’t ease his way into a hardback the way Emma Patrice could, the secrets between the covers urging every page that was turned. No, he needed help, and thus his first discoveries—in the shade of the Cookery shelf—were under the guidance of Miss Lila. Miss Lila showed Raoul all the ways to fry and manipulate dough, from fritters to crullers to buns. But she did so much more than that! Her offerings lured him back to the library again and again, and from behind her eyeglasses she watched the slow process of seduction the demanding pages exerted on him. From cookbooks to almanacs to memoirs and more, he set about exploring every fold in the library’s soft skins and found what he needed there to fill the void in his head and his heart. He found solace and science and knowledge and, yes, escape. Before he knew it (or maybe without ever really knowing it at all) he had become something of a philosopher, one who takes things at face value, but backs up what he sees with books.
    Typically Raoul did his exploring on Tuesdays. Miss Lila would show him the week’s new arrivals, if there were any, and he would acquaint himself with them at a table in the corner, with who-dunnits, biologies, biographies, tragicomedies, and poems. On the Tuesday that I’m going to tell you about, however, he wasn’t reading for philosophy or fun. He was far too pressed for that.
This
Tuesday Raoul was there on business, the business of debunking his least favorite thing.
    Magic.

    Raoul’s atypical Tuesday (the second in as many weeks) had started off badly. Seeing as how it
was
Tuesday, he should haveslept in until 10:25, awoken to his breakfast of coffee-milk-and-oatmeal, donned his favorite blue shirt with the stripes, and