The Book of Air and Shadows

by Michael Gruber

  Several days later, according to my diary, Ms. Maldonado put through a call; I had alerted her to its possibility and stressed the importance thereof. The voice was young, pleasant, somewhat throaty. You know what this is about then, eh? The aboot and the terminal syllable marked her as a Canadian. Foreign-nearby, as the ads used to say. I found it immediately attractive, and I invited her to drop by the office, but she demurred. She’d rather meet me in a neutral place, for reasons she would explain when we met. Where, then? She was working, she said, in the New York Public Library, in the Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room of the Rare Books Division. I said I had some things to clear up, but that I could meet her there at four. She said she looked forward to meeting me.

  I resumed my task of the day, which was suing some poor slob of an artist on behalf of a giant corporation. This is the daily bread of the IP lawyer. Someone had appropriated the logo of a national chain to comment on the madness of consumerism. The original logo is a little risqué (tits), and the artist had made it more so, and it had shown up on popular posters and T-shirts and the corporation was not amused. I can do cease-and-desist orders of this type in my sleep, or on this occasion, with my mind on my coming date with the mysterious heiress of Bulstrode, whose name I now knew was Miranda Kellogg.

  Omar dropped me off at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the great beaux arts pile of the library at a quarter to four. The two stone lions, Patience and Fortitude, who according to New York lore are supposed to roar when a virgin ascends the steps, were mum. I took the elevator to the third floor and arranged admission to the locked Astor room, just off the main reading room. Memories here: I spent a significant portion of my middle-school years sitting at those long wooden tables. I would subway up from Brooklyn and stay the whole day, supposedly researching a school paper (this was before the Internet, of course, and before Mrs. Polansky struck) but mainly enjoying the anonymity, the company of strangers and scholars, and the utter un-Mishkinity of the place. My first really adult experience.

  I spotted her right away, at a long table in one corner. Apart from a gentleman manning the official desk, she was alone in the richly paneled room. Her hair was blond, worked into two miniature braids pinned up over the ears. Amalie wore her hair that way when we were courting, and absurd as it is I have always been a sucker for that style. Her neck was bared and deliciously vulnerable; women’s necks are, in my view, the most underrated secondary sexual characteristic in our culture, and one that always gets me in the vitals. I stood there for minutes just watching her turn pages. Then, in the mysterious way that has never been successfully explained to me, she became conscious of my stare and turned abruptly. Our eyes met. I nodded. She smiled dazzlingly and rose and came toward me. She didn’t really look like the young Amalie, not feature by feature, but she had that same leonine grace; somewhat shorter than average, she wore a short gray skirt and a beautiful glowing pink silk blouse. Dark stockings, elegant ankles. She held out her hand and I grasped it. She had grape green eyes, just like Amalie’s. She said You must be Mr. Mishkin. I’m Miranda Kellogg. I couldn’t speak for a moment. Electricity ran up my arm and I am afraid I held the grip a little too long. This is ridiculous, I recall thinking.

  THE BRACEGIRDLE LETTER (5)

  As I neared my house that even I hearde the noyse of womans cryes & entering therein I found my father laying harde upon my poore mothere with his sticke, which I had never seen before now nor ever thought to see. The case was this: Margaret the mayde had founde in my motheres presse a papiste crucifixe & beades & brought them straightways to my father, & hym thinkynge all these yeares he had tabeled & bedded a secrete papiste grew mad with it & stroke oute in a furie, my mothere protestynge that such kickshows were alle she hadde of her mother mere keep-sakes, yet it availed naught. And though I knew my father was in his rights I could not beare it & made to stay his arm saying have mercie she is your wyfe: but he cryed she is no wyfe to me anie more & stroke at mee too & at that I coulde not holpe but presse hym away & he felle harde upon the floor. Wee two-I mean my mother & mee then kneelt to aide him if we could: in truth he was not hurt sore but in his pryde & he cried plague take you both, you shalnot stoppe a night more in my house, I have not wyfe nor sonne no more.

  So weeping both full bitterlie I left with my mother & a few thynges of our own, me hyring a barrow to carry these fornitures, she near dieing for shame. Now by chaunce I had the gold from the Ordnance that payed for the gonnes £68 12s. so wee were not paupered & could hyre a room for the night in an inn the Iron Man in Hart Lane by the old Crutchedfriars, 3d. the night & keep. The next morn leavyng some smalle monnaie with my mother I took boat to Gravesend & then back to Titchfield as I had come up. My maistre was well-pleazed his gonnes had assaied well but frowned harde when I told hym what had come to pass at my fatheres house & harder stille when I sayde I had uzed his gold to keep us the night & my mother some daies after: & promised I would paye it back everie pennie, & pleadeth the necessitie. But he gave me the lie saying I had gamed or drunk it up & hoped to gull hym with this tayle of papistes: in short, we fought, me not able I feare to keep Christian forebearance as I should nor honor my maistre as I should, for I could not beare his cantings hym being hymselfe a greate liar & keeping a whore besydes. Which I tolde oute to the whole house & his wyfe there too & was greate dissensioun in that house after. Next day I was dismissed with but the clothes on my backe & no ticket of leave neither.

  Titchfield being 65 Englishe myles from London it ben some tyme for me to walk back, slaepyng under hedges & stealing fruit & egges may God forgive my sinne. Arrivyng late at the Iron Man I found my mother well enow being kept goode compagnie by a faire young mayde the master’s daughter of the house, which wase you my Nan from what connexion we first met & afterward loved, as thou knowest. But mayhap oure sonne grown to a knowinge age, which may the good Lord allow, knows it not so I tell it heere.

  Now had I to earn oure bread & keepe, mee a lad not 16 years & I thought mee of the Tower & those I had met there & would they give me werke & so I repaired there straightway & asked for Mr Hastynges: he cometh, I tell him alle oure lamentable plight as I have heere tolde & he scries me close saying, well, lad, we can have no papistes nor yet puritans in the Tower, one it would be my head to doe & the other I cannot beare to have around mee, for I sit but one sermon in the weeke & that o’ Sunday & need not prayeres & canting other daies. Where-upon I sayde I too was done with them. Then Mr Keane hearing this sayeth Hastynges we must trye him like a gonne, ho to Southwark. So over-bridge went wee, & drank much sacke (which I never did before) & saw bear-baytes & dogge-baytes, lewde shews, &c.: and they carried me to the stewes & bought me a punk but God be thanked I spewed & was soe sick I mounted her but scarce enow to count a sinne & they laughed much & made bawdry jestes upon me, but Mr Keane sware I wase no puritan withal but a mere two-pounder falconet, could spew little shotte well enow but did not burst my breech & so wast proved.

  6

  Crosetti, bearing the rolled and wrapped maybe-invaluable manuscript under his arm, waited out on the deserted street for nearly half an hour, which he thought excessive. What was she doing in there? Although he had occasionally waited as long for women to get ready to go out. Although they weren’t going to the prom. He looked at his watch and paced and felt the craziness pluck at his mind.

  She emerged wearing one of her black outfits, as if going to Glaser’s to work, and he wondered why. Maybe Bulstrode insisted on a certain formality, in which case he would be disappointed in Crosetti, who needed a bath and a shave and was wearing a T-shirt from a Springsteen concert, grubby jeans, and Nikes. He did not, however, complain to her about the waiting.

  Nor did she apologize. Instead, she nodded at him casually and started off. He did not ask any questions about their destination, resolving to play it cool. He could be an international man of mystery too. They walked to Van Dyke and took the 77 bus to the Smith Street station, where they boarded the F train and rode noisily in silence to Manha
ttan. At Houston Street she got up and trotted from the car, and when he caught up with her he could not resist asking her about where they were going. Crosetti was not at heart cool.

  “Mermelstein’s,” she answered. “They’re the last wholesaler of fine binding leather in the city.”

  “They’ll sell you retail?”

  “Mr. Mermelstein likes me.”

  “Really. Does he…?” Crosetti made a pawing gesture. They were walking on the station steps, and she stopped abruptly and said, “He does not. You know, I’m really sorry I told you that about Sidney. Are you going to trot it out every time I mention a business connection with a man?”

  “It’s erased from my mind as of this very minute,” said Crosetti, genuinely abashed, but also feeling a little manipulated. He also wondered why she was going to a wholesaler. Everyone in the old book trade in New York knew that the center of the bookbinding business was in Brooklyn, in Borough Park. He was about to ask her that but then stopped and figured it out for himself. Book dealers and major collectors had contacts among the regular bookbinders. If one of them were offered a Churchill Voyages at a fire-sale price, he’d check around with the bookbinder trade to see if the book had been doctored. It would not occur to any collector to imagine that the seller had done it solo, from raw materials. He was rather pleased with himself for having figured this out, any penetration of Rolly’s deviousness being to the good.

  They walked east on Houston to an old commercial building near Second Avenue, where, in a pungent loft containing perhaps an acre of various animal skins, Crosetti leaned against a bale of the stuff and watched Rolly negotiate for a considerable time with an elderly man in a skullcap, a rusty black suit, and carpet slippers. They seemed to be having a good time, and Crosetti noticed with interest that Rolly had subtly changed her delivery. She smiled more with Mermelstein, actually laughed a time or two, and in general seemed a louder, more aggressive person than the one he knew, more…dare he think it?…more Jewish? Her speech had also taken on the pace and accent of the outer boroughs.

  He remarked on this as they left with a small roll of fine calf wrapped in brown paper.

  “Everybody does it,” she replied lightly. “You talk to someone, you take on a little of their shtick, their affect. Don’t you?”

  “I guess,” he said, but thought, Yeah, but I’m something to begin with, and what, my sweet, are you? He rehearsed this line, thought about voicing it, declined. Instead he said, “So, where to now?”

  “Take the F to Fourteenth Street and the Broadway train up to Columbia. We have an appointment with Dr. Bulstrode in forty-five minutes.”

  “Can we get something to eat first? I haven’t had anything to eat since last night.”

  “You ate all my cookies.”

  “Oh, right, sorry. Your elderly cookies. Carolyn, what is going on with you? Why don’t you live like a regular person, with furniture and food in the house and pictures on the wall?”

  She started walking toward the subway entrance. “I told you. I’m poor.”

  He hurried to catch up with her. “You’re not that poor. You have a job. You make more than I do. Where does it go?”

  “I don’t have a mother I can live with,” she said tightly.

  “Thank you. That puts me in my place.”

  “That’s right. I’m not sure you understand. I am completely alone in the world, with no backup at all. No brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, godfathers. I have a clerk’s salary with no benefits. If I got sick I’d be on the street. I’ve been on the street, and I’m not going to go back.”

  “When were you on the street?”

  “That’s none of your business. Why are you always so snoopy? It gets on my nerves.”

  The train came and they boarded it. When they were under way and in the zone of privacy generated by the subway’s roar, he said, “I’m sorry. I get it from my mother. She sits down next to someone on the subway and in two stops they’re spilling their life’s story. You know, Carolyn, most people like to talk about themselves.”

  “I know and I think it’s a waste of time, people blathering on about their hard luck. Or fishing for compliments. Oh, no, Gloria, you’re not really that fat. Oh, your son’s at Colgate? How proud you must be!”

  “But that’s what people do. I mean what else do you talk about? Books? Bookbinding?”

  “For starters. I told you I wasn’t a very interesting person, but you don’t seem to want to believe it.”

  “You’re a fascinating person, in my opinion.”

  “Don’t be stupid! I have a very dull life. I go to my job, I come home, I work at my craft, I count the days until I can get to a place where I can really learn what I’m interested in.”

  “Movies,” said Crosetti. “We could talk about movies. What’s your favorite movie?”

  “I don’t have one. I can’t afford to go to movies. And as you obviously know, I don’t own a television.”

  “Come on, girl! Everybody has a favorite movie. You must have gone to movies in your hometown.” This got no response. He added, “Which was where?”

  “Okay, what’s your favorite movie?” she asked without much interest, after a pause.

  “Chinatown. You’re not going to tell me where you come from?”

  “No place special. What’s it about?”

  “What’s it about? You never saw Chinatown?”

  “No.”

  “Carolyn, everybody saw Chinatown. People who weren’t born when it came out saw Chinatown. There are movie houses in…in Mogadishu for crying out loud, that ran it for weeks. Best original screenplay ever written, won an Oscar for that, nominated for eleven other awards…how can you not have seen it? It’s a cultural monument.”

  “Not of my culture, obviously. This is our stop.”

  The train screamed to a halt at 116th Street and they left the car. She took off with her characteristic impatient stride, and he trotted after her, thinking that his initial impression of Carolyn Rolly as a vampire or some other sort of unearthly creature had been fairly accurate, if she really hadn’t seen Chinatown.

  They arose from the underground and walked through the noble gates into the Columbia campus. Crosetti had occasionally come up here to catch movies at film society showings and always felt, as he now did, a vague sense of regret. At age twelve his mother had brought him up to the campus and shown him around. She’d received her library science degree here, and he knew she had wanted him to attend. But he was not the kind of grind who could get the grades necessary for a white New Yorker to win a scholarship, and paying cash for an undergraduate degree on a cop’s pension and a librarian’s salary was out of the question. So he’d gone to Queens College, “a perfectly good school,” as his mother often loyally remarked, and also, “if you’re a success nobody cares where you went to college.” It did not rankle a lot, but it rankled; and on the occasions when he had to come up to the campus, he found himself studying the faces of the undergraduates and listening to snatches of their conversation to see if he could observe a major gap between their supposed Ivy-level smarts and his own. Which he could not.

  Carolyn Rolly, he knew, had attended Barnard, just across the street. He knew because he was the filing system at Sidney Glaser Rare Books and had used this position to examine her résumé in detail. He did not at the moment think much of a Barnard education, since it had failed in her case to provide a familiarity with Chinatown. This was why she was so stuck-up, a Seven Sisters girl, after all, and probably brilliant too, since she said she was poor and clearly she hadn’t failed to get a scholarship.

  In a mood to needle, he said, “So…back at the old campus, hey, Carolyn? I guess it brings those dear old Ivy League college days back. Look, if there’re any special customs like not walking on a particular plaque or bowing to a statue or something, you’ll let me know-I wouldn’t want to embarrass you or anything.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You and your college da
ys. Class of ’99, right? Barnard?”

  “You think I went to Barnard?”

  “Yeah, it was…” Here he stuck, but she instantly understood the reason.

  “You little spy! You read my résumé!”

  “Well, yeah. I told you I was interested. I went through your underwear drawer too while you were sleeping.”

  At this he thought he noticed a look of real fear whip across her features, but it was gone in a flash, replaced by one of amused contempt. “I doubt that,” she said, “but for your information I didn’t go to Barnard.”

  “You lied on your application?”

  “Of course I lied. I wanted the job, and I knew Glaser was a Columbia alumnus and his wife went to Barnard, so it seemed like a good idea. I came up here, picked up some of the talk, learned the geography, audited a couple of classes, studied the catalogs. They never check résumés. You could say you went to Harvard. If you had, I bet Glaser would be paying you a lot more money.”