صحافی

The Bookbinder

Once upon a time, there was a bookbinder called Aldus Caraméz, who was such a master of his craft that the queen of the Underground Kingdom entrusted him to bind all the books for her famous crystal library. Caraméz’s whole life was contained in those volumes, as he had been very young—still a boy—when the queen asked him to bind the first book for her, which was a volume that contained drawings by her mother.

The bookbinder still remembered how his hands had trembled as he spread the delicate portraits of fairies, ogres, and dwarves on his workbench; of toads (whom the queen mother had a special affection for), dragonflies, and of moths nesting in the tree roots that covered the ceilings of the palace like curtains of breathing lace. For the binding, Caraméz had chosen the skin of an eyeless lizard, whose scales reflected candlelight almost as lushly as silver. These lizards were fierce creatures, but the king’s hunters slayed one from time to time when they tried to prey on the queen’s peacocks, and Caraméz always claimed their skin for his craft, imagining he’d give them eyes by making them into books—quite a naive idea, but he liked it.

The queen loved the first book he had bound for her so much that she kept it on her bedside table, along with a volume Caraméz had bound for her daughter, Moanna, just a few weeks before she disappeared. Caraméz had created a whole library for the lost princess, and it held hundreds of the most richly illustrated books about the animals of the Underground Kingdom, its fabulous creatures and often miraculous plants, its vast underground landscapes, and all its different peoples and rulers.

Moanna had just turned seven—oh yes, Caraméz remembered those days very well—when she requested a book about the Upper Kingdom. “What tales do they tell their children up there, Aldus?” she had asked. “What does the moon look like? Someone told me it hangs like a huge lantern in the sky. What about the sun? Is it true it’s a huge fireball swimming in an ocean of blue skies? And the stars . . . do they really resemble fireflies?” Caraméz remembered the sharp pain that had pierced his heart when the young princess had asked those questions. Many years before, his older brother had asked these same questions and a year later, he had disappeared, never to come back. When the bookbinder shared his concerns with the queen, she replied: “Create and bind her the book she asks for, Caraméz. Make sure it contains everything she wants to know, for that way she won’t try to see the moon and the sun with her own eyes.” But the king didn’t agree with his wife. He forbade Caraméz to fulfill his daughter’s wish, and the queen decided to not fight his decision, as she had to admit that her daughter’s request troubled her as well.

Princess Moanna, though, kept asking her questions.

“Who told you about the Upper Kingdom, my princess?” Caraméz asked when she once again visited his workshop, requesting that he at least make her a small book about the birds of the Upper Kingdom. Moanna had never seen a bird. Bats were the only flying creatures in the Underground Kingdom. And fairies.

The princess answered Caraméz’s question by handing him a book. Of course! Her parents’ library! Libraries don’t keep secrets; they reveal them. The book Moanna handed the bookbinder contained reports from her mother’s ancestors who had traveled extensively in the Upper Kingdom.

“Keep it,” Moanna said, when Caraméz hid the book hastily behind his back. “I don’t need the book. I’ll just listen to the roots of the trees. They know everything about the Upper Kingdom!” It was the last time the bookbinder talked to the princess before she disappeared. Caraméz still remembered her voice, though there were days when he couldn’t recall her face. From time to time he still caught himself making a book for Moanna filled with tales the fairies told him or with stories whispering in the skins of the eyeless lizards.

Maybe the Faun had heard about those books. He usually didn’t come to Caraméz’s workshop. The Faun didn’t believe in books. He was much older than the oldest manuscripts in the queen’s library and could rightfully claim that he knew so much more about the world than all their yellowed pages. But one day he suddenly stood in the door of the bookbinder’s workshop. Caraméz was slightly afraid of the Faun. He was never sure whether he could trust those pale blue eyes. In fact, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Fauns eat bookbinders.

“I need you to bind a book for me, Caraméz,” the Faun said softly. His voice could be as soft as velvet or as sharp as a lizard’s fangs.

“What kind of book, my horned lord?” Caraméz asked with a respectful bow.

“A book that contains everything I know but will only show what I tell it to reveal.” Caraméz frowned. He was not sure he liked the idea of such a book.

“This book will help Princess Moanna find her way back,” the Faun added.

Of course. He knew how fond Caraméz was of the lost princess. The Faun knew everything.

“I will do my best,” the bookbinder replied.

The Faun nodded his horned head, as if that was all he asked for, and handed him a bundle of pages.

Caraméz eyed them with surprise.

“But these pages are empty!” he said.

“No, they aren’t,” the Faun replied with a mysterious smile. “This paper was made from the clothes Princess Moanna left behind, and the added glue contains all the knowledge I have of the Upper Kingdom.” He reached up with his clawed fingers and plucked a roll of brown leather out of the thin air.

“This leather,” he said, “was cut from the skin of a beast that fed on truth and many fearless men. I want you to use it for the cover of the book. That way the leather will give the princess courage whenever she touches it.” Caraméz unrolled the leather on his workbench and rubbed the empty pages between his fingers. Both materials were of the very best quality. They would make a beautiful book, even though the paper still looked empty to him.

“Go to work immediately,” the Faun ordered. “I just learned I may need the book very soon.” Caraméz obeyed. He went to work straightaway. But he added one ingredient he didn’t tell the Faun about: he mixed a few of his tears into the glue for the binding, for he was sure the princess would need not just courage and knowledge to guide her way back, but also love.