The Dogs of Babel

NINE

I’ve mentioned the books, haven’t I? The books Lexy rearranged on the day she died? Today I’m going to sit down and begin to make a list. As far as I can tell, Lexy’s work on that day was concentrated on one bookcase in particular; even though every bookshelf in the house has been changed to some degree, with a single book removed here and there and a new one put in its place, it’s only the bookcase in my den where everything is different. Every book that was there when I left that morning has been taken out, although a few of them have been put back in a different spot than they originally occupied. The rest of the space has been filled with books from other places in the house. I begin to type the titles into my laptop, in the order she placed them, making notes about the subject matter and their history in our lives, as well as noting which books were hers and which are mine. So far, I can find no discernible pattern.

I get as far as the top shelf, which is arranged as follows:

Mary Had a Little Lamb: Language Acquisition in Early Childhood (Mine.)

I Was George Washington (Lexy’s. A book about past-life regression. She always had a weakness for that kind of thing.)

Love in the Known World (Hers. A critically acclaimed novel that was later made into a truly awful movie.)

But That’s Not a Duck! (Mine. A book of jokes I bought for an academic paper I was writing about punch lines.)

That’s Not Where I Left It Yesterday (Hers. A coming-of-age story about a girl in 1950s Brooklyn.)

What You Need to Know to Be a Game Show Contestant (Mine. I never did get to be on a game show, but I always thought I’d be good at it.)

I Wish I May, I Wish I Might (Hers. A book of childhood folklore and customs from around the world.)

Know Your Rhodesian Ridgeback (Hers, although I’ve consulted it quite a few times lately.)

Didn’t You Used to Be Someone? Stars of Yesterday and Where They Are Today (Hers.)

I’d Rather Be Parsing: The Linguistics of Bumper Stickers, Buttons, and T-shirt Slogans (Mine.)

Have You Never Been Mellow? The World’s Worst Music (Mine. A joke gift from Lexy, who always insisted that I had terrible taste in music.)

How to Buy a Used Car Without Getting Taken for a Ride (Hers.)

As I said, this is only the top shelf. As soon as I’ve written down the last title, I begin to question my actions. What exactly do I think I’m looking for, a message from beyond the grave, arranged neatly in my study? I have a sudden memory of the eerie excitement I felt as a kid when the Beatles’ “Paul is dead” clues started to surface. I was thirteen the year that story broke, and I was thrilled by it, the goose-bumpy feeling of hearing backwards messages, the uncanny idea of secret clues hidden in plain sight. My friend Paul Muzzey, with whom I shared not only a first name but also the small excitement of being a namesake to the corpse in this conspiracy, kept a long list of all the clues published in music magazines and broadcast over the radio. He called me up one afternoon and said, “You’ve got to play ‘A Day in the Life’ right now. Go do it while I’m still on the phone.”

“Backwards?” I asked.

“No, just listen to it the right way. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

So I put the phone down and walked over to the hi-fi in the living room. I pulled Sergeant Pepper out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable. My parents weren’t home, so I turned it up as loud as it went, then picked up the phone again.

“Okay,” I said as the familiar chords began.

“Okay,” he said. “Just close your eyes and listen.”

I sat with my eyes closed, the phone to my ear, and listened to the song I’d heard a hundred times before. I heard nothing new. The first verse came to an end with “Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords,” and Paul said, “Did you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“He said ‘house of Paul.’”

“No way,” I said. “It’s ‘House of Lords.’ ‘Lords’ doesn’t even sound like ‘Paul.’”

“Play it again and listen for it. He says ‘Paul.’”

So I picked up the needle and dropped it back at the beginning of the song. And I heard it clear as day, my own name. “Nobody was really sure if he was from the house of Paul.” A chill went through me.

“Oh, man,” I breathed. “He does say ‘Paul.’”

Paul and I sat there on opposite ends of the line and listened to the rest of the song in silence. It was a holy moment, a moment weighted down by the truth we had found. The house of Paul. It was really true.

Of course, it came out soon afterward that the whole conspiracy thing was a hoax and that Paul McCartney was very much alive. But to this day, I can’t hear that song without hearing “house of Paul.” I believe that what I learned that afternoon was true. I would swear it on any pile of books you gave me.

Thirty years later, I’m still searching for hidden meanings in the ordinary objects that fill my life. Only now, I don’t have a nation of DJs and keen-eyed teenaged fans to help me. I’m all alone in this. All I have is forty-nine books arranged on a shelf. And what do I think they mean? Something. Or nothing at all.