No Time Like the Gift

I stayed a few weeks in Auteuil, a place where it is very easy to buy shoes. One evening I saw a small crowd in front of the  Les Cyclades bookstore, a sign announced the launch of "Fables" by Gabriel Nemes-Plisk. I joined and sat on a chair in the back: Gabriel, tall slim with long black hair walked in and started to read.

The first poem was about a large male bovine managing a convenience store in downtown Beijing. It was called "The Bull in the Chinese Shop" and it was quite amusing. The next piece called "The Escape Goat", dealt with family in suburban Tegucigalpa frantically searching for their la cabra was equally cute. A piece about a slim, fast and strong feline predator always getting off at the same bus-station was called, predictably, "The Leopard Cannot Change its Stops" and was less funny but more philosophical. The applause made him "reluctantly" read another, a botanical story about an inept arborist who compares Maples and Orange trees. Then, people lined up to have their book signed, Gabriel chatting pleasantly. I stood aside and snagged a glass of very decent Gamay off the tray of a passing waiter. Later, when the crowd thinned out I congratulated the poet on the successful launch and praised his craft, the clever use of jeu de mot, giving new unexpected meanings by changing just one or two letters. Gabriel looked puzzled: "I'm sure I don't know what you mean". I asked how he got into writing. It turned out he never knew his father and was raised by his mother and her friend, a professor of literature name of Appfelbaum who instilled in him the passion for writing, he was his literary father. I said "So you didn't fall far from that tree, did you?", he gave me the same puzzled look and asked if I cared for another glass of wine. I excused myself mumbling that I had to sort some shoes and hurried out the door.