Sale Books

An imposingly tall, wide man with an austere face, long white hair and a black beret is promenading outside the shop. His expression is one of critical surveillance, cool, composed, impassive. I would guess he is some sort of academic and so am especially curious, and slightly anxious, to know what has caught his attention in our humble sale-book suitcase. He glances up. I bet he thinks the selection is pitiful. He looks into the case again. I bet he is judging me. Ah shit. He’s coming inside. Now I’ll have to explain myself, account for the copies of Beaches and Single White Female disgracing the noble halls of this hallowed arcade. Unless he’s seen Zola’s Germinal. Or the Ibsen collection. They’d redeem me. I bet he’s coming in to get a better look at the Shakespeare anthology in the window. He’s seen that the loftier books are inside and, thank god, doesn’t think I’m such a trumped up bullshit peddler after all. 

 

I care so much about what snooty, elderly academic types think of me. I still have flashbacks of the old professory-looking man who roared at me for charging ten dollars for a dog-eared Genet. That is a disgrace! How can you justify such a price? You ought to be ashamed! Of course I was too overcome with girlish horror to tell my ancient abuser that if he liked Genet so much he should have just pocketed it. 

 

The tall man finishes looking in our suitcase. I can’t read his expression. Is it satisfaction at the range of titles or grim acceptance that society has finally deteriorated? He crosses the thresh hold. I take a breath. He scans the shop, arms held behind his back in that dramatic way pompous men attempt to appear open and benign. Before I can ease into a gentle ‘hello’, he is straight down to business. 

 

“Ahh theess ull uv thee books yoo hev?” 

 

He is eastern European. I could have guessed that too. Of course he’s Russian or Ukrainian or Belorussian or of some other fierce and mighty old oppression-enduring-and-crushing-and-enduring race. 

 

“Yes, they are,” I say quietly, with a smile, in the pleasantly intelligent voice I have reserved for these occasions. It softens my Strine into something more palatable for the foreign ear. He nods in gruff, staccatoed understanding. That’s it. I’m finished. He is disgusted by my predictable wares and my pathetic airs and he has had enough. How on earth did I think he’d be impressed by a shitty, newish Collected Works of Shakespeare? He probably smuggled a gold-leafed pocket edition in his shoes in the Gulag. He probably knew Bulgakov and debated with Nabakov and translated Gogol into Chinese. Jesus. I feel like such a dumb shit. 

 

His blue eyes pierce my inferiority like a laser through the ice of his glasses, magnificent mind a star burning purely in a perfect galaxy my polluted solar system could never fathom. 

 

“Ken yoo tell mee then, “ he thunders, the history of human thought and endeavour rumbling through the catacombs of his veins, “how motch iss your copy off Misster Tickle?”