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BURIED TREASURES

It was quiet in the library, quiet but for the monotonous ticking of the old clock, perched high above the door. The old repository was empty save the two ageing librarians, shuffling about their station, and the solitary a white haired old man, sitting at the centre table and poring over a large volume. The old man read on and on, indifferent to the whispered exchange of the librarians and he made occasional notes on his pad. Outside the grey drizzle had turned to a sharp downpour and the canopy of colourful umbrellas moved shuffled along the pavement.

Slowly, the front door opened and an old woman, clad in plastic rain-hood and raincoat dragged her shopping trolley towards the table. “They’ve cancelled the 10.40!” she said to no one in particular.
“Shush!” ordered the librarians simultaneously.
She dragged her trolley towards the centre table, propped her walking stick against a chair and shook the rainwater off. “They’ve cancelled the 10.40 into town.” she informed the reader.
He looked up and smiled at her.
“Next bus is at 11.40!” she volunteered with an edge of disgust, “and it’s perishing cold in that bus station, and there’s nowhere to sit down!”
He smiled again as she divested herself of her raincoat, hood and top coat to reveal a thick cardigan and tweed skirt.
“Thought I might as well sit in here for an hour, at least it’s nice and warm.”
He smiled and nodded again as she lowered herself into a plastic chair.

She might have browsed the shelves or magazine rack for something to read to fill her hour long wait......... but she didn’t.
“It’s pouring outside,” she informed him, “cold and nasty.  Nice and warm in here!”
“Please.” he begged and pointed to his book.
“Is it any good?” She inquired completely ignoring his plea. “I ain’t read a book in years, can’t remember when I last went into a lib’ry. My eyes aren’t what they used to be and I ought to get some new specs. I only come here in today cos it’s cold and wet outside and they cancelled the bus.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied, “but I’m trying to get this project finished. It’s quite a complicated task.” and he returned to his book.
“Is it any good?” She persisted, “I do like a story with a bit of action in it. Can’t stand those daft French things where nothing happens for ages. Is it a love story or an adventure or something exciting like that?”

He sighed then, his peace invaded and his concentration lost. He flipped the book closed and said with an impatience that was quite lost on her, “It’s the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I’m writing a dissertation about it for my O.U. degree.”
She looked at him with a blankness which suggested that he might have spoken in a foreign tongue and she hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.
“Is it a war story?” she continued,” Some of them war stories are really good. I loved that one with Trevor Howard, oh you know, the one when they were chasing that fat bloke, Harry Lime, through the sewers, in, oh where what is now?”
“It’s a poetry book.” He informed her, with an edge of impatience. “A translation by an English writer named Edward FitzGerald, of the poetry of an 11th century Persian scholar and poet.”
“Poetry?” she parroted with a grimace, “Persian poetry? Is it any good, it doesn’t sound very interesting to me.”
“Some people think it’s one of the most interesting books ever written. A series of four line verses, it is a beautiful work, loosely and cleverly translated into English and dozens of other languages. The wisdom, wit and the philosophy of the Rubaiyat has appealed to many different groups people over the years. It has.................!
“But does it tell a story?” she demanded, “Or is it all flowery and fancy? You can’t beat a good old fashioned love story you know, something like Brief Encounter, oh there was a lovely film......”
“It has plenty of love and romance,” he offered, “ but you have to read it carefully and know where to look. It is subtle and gentle, often melancholy, with the deeper meanings, sometimes hidden or disguised as........”
“Casablanca or My Fair Lady, oh they were lovely films, they were. I saw My Fair Lady a dozen times, it did make me laugh. Has it got anything like that in it?”

He sighed again and wondered why he was wasting his time discussing ancient Persian poetry and Victorian translations on someone so ill-read, someone so easily entertained by the shallowness of popular cinema. He was about to pick up the book and his pad and call it a day when, unexpectedly, she asked, “Will you read one of the poems to me? I’ll see if I can understand it. It’s still raining. I’ve still got nearly an hour to wait.”
He rubbed his chin and considered her request, then shrugged and flipped the book open and began to read,
‘The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
moves on, nor all your piety nor wit,’

and in the blink of an eye, she interrupted him with,
‘shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
nor all your tears wash out a word of it’
.
He gasped. “You are familiar with Fitzgerald?” he asked with some disbelief.
“Who?” she asked.
“Edward FitzGerald, the original translator. Are you familiar with the work?”
She shook her head.
“But you just recited the second part of the poem.”
She shrugged her shoulders, unable to offer an explanation.

He tried again,
’Here, with a little bread beneath the bough,’
And without a pause she recited,
‘a flask of wine, a book of verse and thou,
Beside me singing in the wilderness,
And wilderness is paradise enow.’

He raised his eyes, spread his hands and waited for her to answer.
 “I dunno!” she relied, with near indifference.
“At school perhaps? You learned it at school.” he suggested.
“None of my schools taught that sort of stuff!”
He tried again,
”Think, in this batter’d caravanserai,”
Again she butted in with,
“Whose doorways are alternate night and day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp,
Abode his hour or two and went his way.”

They stared at each other in astonishment and at length he inquired, “Was your father perhaps poetic?” he inquired.
“Ha ha, my father was an infantry sergeant. Poetry? I don’t think so!”
They looked at each other for some time, confused and mystified by her dormant knowledge.
“I wonder where you learned...............” he began.
“Captain Bellamy!” she suddenly declared, “it was Captain Bellamy!”
“Who was Captain Bellamy.................?”

She had a faraway look in her eye, as if she had suddenly been transported back to a bygone age. She frowned as she tried to recapture the moment, long passed, then she puckered her brow, grimaced and slowly, a thin smile spread across her face.
“It was on a troopship, coming home from India after the war. There were about a hundred of us kids, we’d been shuffled about for five years and our schooling had been hit and miss. They weren’t going to let us run amok on the ship for six weeks so they put us into classes and we had Captain Bellamy as our form teacher. We were rowdy and unruly but he soon knocked into line and every day, we had lessons in the morning, games after lunch and poetry before tea.” She smiled, warmly, recalling her rosy memories. “We all had to learn some poems and recite them standing on deck. But we had great fun too, concerts, deck games, sing songs. When we finally arrived in England, we all went our separate ways and our lives changed forever.  I’d forgotten the verse, until now.”

Then she paused, reflecting and stared wistfully out of the window, her hand to her mouth as if conveyed by a distant memory, back through the long decades to her childhood.