Bibliography

I sat by his bed as I had done many times before, his wrinkled hand weakly grasping my wrist. His eyes searched out mine as he whispered, ‘I am ready to go. Allah has called me.’ ‘Inshallah’ was my quiet respectful reply. In that moment he shared a prayer with me and his hopes of Paradise to come. He was at peace and I was glad for him.

His scholar’s mind, once filled with clarity and imagination had of late become chaotic and illogical. Anxiety lined his face as he picked through the shreds of memory. But in this moment lucidity returned, if only briefly, and his face shone.

That moment came back to me as I sat alone in his room a few weeks later. An unbeliever fervently hoping that he had taken his place in Paradise. I was the interloper who had married and carried off his daughter many years previously but he had always called me ‘my son’.

I looked round the small, over-stuffed room. The untidy wardrobe of unremarkable clothes from Marks & Spencer. He was not concerned with outward appearances. Some were decades old, all were of unremarkable grey and beige hues. Practical and unassuming, suitable for a professor concerned with other matters.

Family photographs in an eclectic range of frames covered the chimney breast, some propped on the mantlepiece. In them, small children smiled or pulled faces. A few were monochrome, others were fading to orange. Sons, daughter, nephews and nieces, now grown and barely recognisable today. Their children and his grandchildren in newer photographs, in brighter colours.

A few pieces of equipment, meant to improve and his support daily life. A small television which he rarely watched. A radio, also silent, gathering dust. A hand torch kept by his bed for emergencies, the batteries checked weekly just in case, but never needed. An alarm clock, unalarmed. He lived to his own timetable, embedded by habit. He did not need external reminders.

Nothing remarkable in this room, you might say. A place where memory and life faded away. But this is the room of a scholar, the physical vault of a man’s profound mind. Books lined the walls, rising to the ceiling. Not an ordered library but rickety shelves rescued from forgotten places, piled one upon the other. Above and along his bed are shelves screwed uncertainly to the wall, piled with books and papers. Along the mantlepiece, on every available space, on the floor, books teetered in towers.

They say that libraries should be tidy, with elaborate codes to define how books are ordered and where they are to be placed on the shelves. That is only for the student who, seeking knowledge, needs to know where to look. For our professor, the logical order was in his head. He knew where every book could be found and what it contained. To arrange them as material objects was an unnecessary chore.

Dusting was also anathema. What damage might be caused by constantly attacking them with feather dusters? Is not dust part of the book, even a preservative? Let them rest in peace, if they are not moved the dust merely settles.

Many of the books were as old as the professor himself, acquired when he was a student. Cheap paperback editions in which texts and ideas were as valuable as if they were bound in leather. Perhaps more valuable because his books were well-read with broken spines and loose pages, releasing the ideas from their binding to be analysed,  tasted, relished.

Others were more venerable editions, cloth-bound without their dust covers, probably found in second-hand bookshops. Some were inscribed with the names of previous owners, now lost to history. The author, perhaps once the protagonist of this or that controversial concept, now forgotten as time moved on and the world changed. Philosophy was once the forum for those who looked for fundamental truths but truth was no longer considered an ideal.

Every volume carried the evidence that he had read it. A true scholar, he did not simply read but responded to the words. With a pencil he underlined words and phrases, showing his intrigue. A question mark signalled his disagreement, or perhaps a desire for further explanation. A turned corner marked a page he might return to. Never an angry exclamation mark. He was polite, and what was the point?

His room was to be emptied and my task was to sort his library. I could not do it. This was not just books. It represented his whole existence, his inner life, the life of a scholar. How could I remove even a single volume without bringing the whole edifice down. I stood up, left the room and closed the door. I never returned.