Just as a certain perfume can bring back memories, so can the words to a song. The other day, I found myself humming the words "Santiago de Cuba," which is the very repetitious refrain to a Spanish song I have forgotten. It was played often, and loudly, in a bar I used to frequent in Ogicubo in Tokyo. I thought at the time that the words referred to a drink but, apparently, Santiago de Cuba is a good-sized town some miles from Havana. Who knew?  

Anyway, this Japanese bar, The Library, traded used books. My friends and I used to go there after a day of teaching English and sip Tequila Sunrises and gulp down some Hemingway. The Library’s owner was a half-crazed Texan. If you caught him in a good mood, you could sometimes get cheese quesadillas. If they were a little burned, you didn’t dare complain. I like to think my fascination with used books began in that tiny lilac-painted walk-up, where the top shelf was always dusty and necessitated a ladder and a person who didn’t mind spiders.

The other choice in Tokyo for books was the giant Kinokunia: a kind of Barnes & Noble, which, though awesome in terms of choice, often caused expats to choke in horror at the cost of imported English language books. My friend Yukiko worked at this bookstore, in the accounts department, and told us wonderful stories about customers: such as the girl who thought English was the native language of Switzerland; or the man who requested a Washington State map so he could climb Mount Everest. Once, she said, a woman called and asked the clerk to run upstairs to an advertising firm, which happened to be in the same building, and tell a certain accounts executive that his mother wanted him to buy "The Bridges of Madison County" for her!  

Though I traded most of my books at The Library, when I left Japan I still had three large boxes I could not bear, as Churchill would have said, with which to part. I can still feel the heat on the 115-degree day that I loaded them onto a hand cart and trudged thirteen blocks to the post office, where they were sent on a six-month journey to America. What was so important at the time? I have long since forgotten, though I do remember packing "The 47 Ronin Story," a Japanese classic I’d bought in a Shinagawa temple, plus a dozen novels by Mary Wesley, an English author who began writing at the age of 70. I think the complete "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" was in there, printed on cheap paper and purchased in New Delhi, along with the most battered copy of "The Hobbit" in existence. By the way, it’s an extremely comforting book to have when you are far from home. Nil desperandum!  

Now, more than a decade later, I find myself working in a used and new bookstore, an independent of course. Not only do I need the employee discount to support my habit, but I can send my friend Yukiko my own stories. No matter what their nationality, people who love books never seem to tire of stories.  

Like the one about the woman who was convinced that Curious George was a real monkey. Or the fellow who conducted a lengthy and learned discussion of George Elliot, only to betray at the end his conviction that “George” was a man. Or the woman who was caught on tape slitting the spine of one of our hardbacked biographies of George Washington and slipping a baggie of marijuana inside. She was then going to buy the doctored book and have us send it to her son in jail. She got arrested of course. But that’s another story.   

Author's Biography

Holly Chase Williams lives in Spokane, Washington, where she can be recognized by the fact that she has a book of some type permanently glued to the end of her nose. 

Her first published short story is scheduled to appear in the March 2004 issue of Zyzzyva: The Last Word: West Coast Writers & Artists.

E-mail Holly at travelbug87@msn.com  

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