About this story
In a library housed in a deconsecrated church, where the catalogue files theology between agriculture and umbrellas, the librarian lays out an old newspaper folded to the notice of your death, your wife among those accepting condolences. He wants the record corrected. Instead he clears a row of blank cards, and you begin with the day you left town meaning not to return.
Who you’ll meet
Adriana Paleari, the lodging-house daughter waiting at the end of the borrowed life, seen close and large from a high gallery rail, with Don Eligio Pellegrinotto the priest-librarian small below her at the lending desk where a man's own death notice is being filed.
How it opens
Don Eligio PellegrinottoDust moves whenever the pigeons cross our former church.
Don Eligio PellegrinottoDonors arranged these shelves without subject or sense.
Don Eligio PellegrinottoMattia, the catalogue says theology is between agriculture and umbrellas.
The librarian held three cards and the patient despair of an orderly man.
Leave it there. No reader has objected in twenty years.
Don Eligio PellegrinottoNo reader has found anything in twenty years.