The Secret of Lost Things

CHAPTER FOUR

The Arcade existed according to a logic all its own, governed by a set of arbitrary rules invented and maintained by George Pike. Paperbacks were never shelved. As the poor relations of hardcovers, they were heaped without order upon tables near the store’s entrance and priced identically—one dollar and fifty cents—whether fiction or history, a thousand pages or barely more than a hundred.

Pike was unimpressed by innovation. Any “new” book (one published within the past two years and hardbound) would never cross his oak table but was immediately sent to a vast, low-ceilinged basement, to be priced by Walter Geist. These books Pike cared nothing for, although he received a daily accounting of their acquisition, at one-quarter of the publisher’s list price, and subsequent sale, at one-half of that same price. So if a reviewer brought in a book that the publisher listed at sixteen dollars, Geist would give him a quarter of that, four dollars, and the book would go on the Arcade’s shelf in the basement priced at eight dollars.

Every other hardcover book in the Arcade, Pike had held in his hands at one time, remembering more of them than seemed humanly possible.

Pike employed a considerable number of eccentric individuals, Geist aside, and it remained a mystery why he had employed me. I was not eccentric, unless being an eighteen-year-old orphan from Tasmania made me so. As well, a number of the Arcade’s employees had rather dramatic aspirations. They were variously failed writers, poets, musicians, singers, and were marked with the clerkish frustration of the unacknowledged, the unpublished. The Arcade’s thousands of volumes mocked, in particular, literary aspirations. The out-of-print status of most of the stock was further proof of the futile dream of publication. As a monument to literature, the Arcade had an air of the tombstone about it.

“You will work this morning with Oscar Jarno in Nonfiction,” Geist directed, my first morning. “You will follow his orders.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Walter,” Oscar said, his voice mild and confident.

He had approached us soundlessly. He smiled then and touched my arm, almost imperceptibly. I was struck by his appearance, and moved by his gesture, the first indication of kindness since my arrival. Oscar’s extraordinary eyes were brass-colored and large; warm as the sun that never reached the Arcade’s interior.

“Don’t mind Walter,” Oscar confided, steering me away from the manager and toward the rear of the store, my elbow cupped in his hand. His touch left me a little breathless; eager to catch every word he spoke.

“He really can’t help his officious manner,” Oscar went on. “It’s important to Walter that he appear in charge. Obviously, he requires all sorts of allowances.”

Immediately then, I imagined Oscar Jarno took me into his confidence. He released my elbow once we reached the Nonfiction section, and ran his hand over his pale brow, leaving it to rest at his temple, as if he had a slight headache.

“Your blouse, Rosemary, is made from a type of polished cotton not commonly available in this country. I am interested to see how well it takes the dye.”

He fingered my sleeve gently and I thought in that moment that I’d do anything to keep his attention.

“Lovely,” he said into my face. “A type of faille.”

Oscar was slightly taller than me, and handsome in a poetic sort of way. His head was perfectly shaped, as if sculpted, and the contrast of his golden eyes against the pallor of his skin was dramatic. There was little else dramatic about him—he was soft-spoken, articulate—but there was a magnetism to his face: in the smooth planes of his cheekbones, the wide brow above rich eyes.

When I met him, Oscar had been at the Arcade for five years, and because he was quiet and reliable, Pike had come to accept that he worked only in the Nonfiction section and that whatever Oscar was doing in that suburb of twelve tall stacks would be accomplished with a minimum of fuss. More than a few customers were devoted to him. Oscar passed most of his day seated on a stool, writing in a black notebook, exempt from the loading and unloading of heavy boxes of books. No one questioned his special status.

He knew a great deal about many subjects, but his personal interest was cloth. His mother had been a dressmaker and had introduced him to fabrics—their names and properties.

Pike had occasional use for Oscar’s knowledge; he’d ask him to check rare bindings and speculate on their provenance or even how they might best be repaired. Oscar had had some experience with restoration, and with arcane materials like vellum. I witnessed his value to the Arcade during the first days he was training me. Pike called for Oscar from his platform, and I followed as he hurried to respond (the only time Oscar moved quickly).

“Ah, Oscar,” Pike said sharply, gesturing to a customer at the base of his platform who held an old volume in his hands.

“We have here Old Court Life in France, which should be on its way to the Rare Book Room for repair but has been kidnapped by this fellow. At the risk of encouraging such practices, please examine.”

Customers were always trying to snatch books before Pike had appraised them, before they had been allocated a value and destination. No doubt they wanted to believe that they had discovered something of greater worth than Pike would have reckoned.

As I watched, Oscar took the book gently in his hands, turning over the tattered binding, a smile cornering his mouth. Oscar was thin. His skin was so fine and dry it made a slight rustle when his hand moved across his brow, in an anxious sweep. His dark hair receded in a way I quickly loved, revealing, as it did, more of his remarkable face.

“This volume is bound in Chardonnet silk,” Oscar said, his voice soft, authoritative. “A fabric named for the French chemist who invented a process to produce it.”

Pike’s eyes narrowed appreciatively, pleased at the opportunity to overprice the shabby volume based on Oscar’s remarks.

“Chardonnet silk was first commercially produced in France in 1891,” Oscar added unnecessarily, as the customer was already removing it from his hands in a proprietary way.

“Thank you, Oscar,” Pike said, dismissing him.

Pike stretched down from his platform and took the volume from the customer. He then unconsciously proceeded through his ritual gestures—he flipped to the title page, scanned the copyright, his thumb fanned the edges of the entire book, he closed the volume, reopened it at the first page, took a pencil from behind his ear—and marked a reassessed price. He handed it down to the customer.

“But this is outrageous, Pike!” said the man, furiously. “Nothing short of robbery!”

“Rosemary,” Oscar whispered, as we returned to his section. “Do you know what the common name for Chardonnet silk is?”

“No,” I said cautiously. “I’ve no idea.”

“Rayon,” he said, stifling a small chuckle. “Made from extruded wood pulp. Not silk at all, of course. Remind me to tell you the history of silk.”

He covered his mouth with his fine, long hand and, sitting up on his tall stool, took out a black notebook and began to write in it rapidly.

Oscar’s face appeared composed of layers of papier-mâché, and this quality made his face seem expressionless as he wrote. He gave the impression of a man-sized marionette: his head large and shaped upon a soft, slight body. When Oscar looked at me, his round eyes glowed as if they reflected light, but over time I came to understand that this was a trick of their splendid color. The irises were actually golden.

It was something of a trick also that Oscar often sought to engage in conversation by expressing an interest in clothing. He was reserved by nature, phlegmatic, but knew well that an interest in another’s clothes flattered the wearer. I imagined this something his mother, the dressmaker, had taught him.

Oscar was sought after by regular customers looking for an insider watchful on their behalf, a staff person willing to perform special favors and engage in secret confidences. Oscar always played for both sides.

The Arcade was frequented daily by several bibliophiles who obsessively searched for fresh inventory; books that were stacked to be shelved after Pike had priced them. Oscar was especially favored by two competing Civil War buffs, both of whom bought his consideration with morning coffee, the occasional lunch. Small cloth-wrapped bundles (like Japanese favors) would appear at intervals, bribes for withholding books from sale. Oscar wasn’t particularly interested in the Civil War, except for the uniforms, but he was knowledgeable about the volumes in his section and managed to conduct intense conversations with collectors in diverse subjects—history, biography, philosophy, anthropology, science.

I consciously chose to emulate him. Oscar was quick, and remembered most of what he’d heard or read. He wrote everything down. Impressionable as I was, I took to carrying a small notebook, determined to assume for myself Oscar’s observant style.

It is through my own notebook that I recall these days, my first months in the city, my apprenticeship. And through my clear recollection of that girl who was so raw, so avid, that she ate up every detail, absorbing into her body whatever might later be needed as provision, whatever might sustain her should it all, once more, disappear.

At the Martha Washington, I befriended Lillian slowly, in increments, for she was prickly.

“What are you watching there, Lillian?”

“I am not watching, Rosemary,” she answered, her eyes flickering from the television screen for an instant.

“It looks like you’re watching,” I ventured.

“Everything not how it looks. Especially not here. I am not watching, but I am thinking. Watching help me to think, and sometimes not to think.”

“I don’t know how you can think with that thing in your ears and the sound turned up so loud.”

“I need that noise. I don’t hear so well. But I’m thinking all the same,” she said.

“What do you think about, Lillian?” I asked, wanting to know her, needing a friend. She was a little older than Mother, but younger than Chaps. She was the only person I knew outside the Arcade, and really the first person I met in New York.

Lillian heaved an enormous sigh, and closed her eyes against the tears that had filled them.

“I cannot say what I think of,” she answered, thickly.

I couldn’t understand what I had provoked with my question. Confused and embarrassed that I’d been unwittingly careless, that I’d upset her, I was about to apologize. But Lillian visibly collected herself, focused instead on the television, her expression changing rapidly into one of disdain.

“Well,” she said, sniffing. “One thing I think from this television is that Americans are stupid!” She waved her hand at the small screen.

“Oh, I don’t think Americans are stupid,” I said, thinking of Pike, of Oscar, “I have a job now, at an enormous bookstore, and it’s full of brilliant Americans. Readers!”

“Pah,” Lillian said, smiling, recovered by the change in subject, by her sense of humor. “You only think they are brilliant,” she imitated my accent, “because you are a child.”

“Lillian, I’m eighteen years old,” I said, indignant.

She nodded as if to say, “Exactly—you are a child.”

“They have Spanish books in that store where you work?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but I’ll look for you. I think you can find anything in the world at the Arcade.”

“You can’t find what I’m looking for,” she said, darkly. “But bring me Spanish books if you have. I will pay you for them. I maybe should be trying to read again. And to forget about these idiots.”

Before she replaced the earpiece and turned her attention back to the television screen, she handed me a letter.

“This come for you,” she said. “From your country.”

“Thank you, Lillian.”

The letter was from Chaps. I hurried to my room eager to read my first letter in America. It was disappointingly short.

July 5

Dearest Rosemary,

Thank you for your card. Tasmania is a lonely place without you, without your mother, but, as I like to say, loneliness is good practice for eternity.

I was heartened to hear from you and thrilled that you would so soon have found yourself employed—and in a bookshop! I couldn’t wish a better occupation for you, my dear Rosemary. My own little shop has given me a dignified, ethical life, and work I believe meaningful. Selling books provided shape to my life, and reading them, a shape to my mind that I doubt I could have formed otherwise. That you are employed in such an extraordinary place gives me great satisfaction. (Perhaps I was training you all along!) The difference, though, is that you are also immersed in experience, and not just taken up with lines on a page.

You will find interesting people, you will read, you will be able to live the way you want. I have heard of the Arcade, of course, but never imagined you would find your way there.

I’m sure your mother is with you always, but her absence is perhaps at times unendurable. For me it is. Don’t be frightened to love. Look for it. I want you to have the life I did not choose. Take it, Rosemary dear.

With all my love, I am your own

Esther Chapman

P. S. Have you opened the package yet? Remember, a book is always a gift.

George Pike was not a demonstrative man. As he worked on his platform in a reverie of pricing, his gestures were reverential, ritualistic. His intention was that he remain inaccessible, above us all. Geist was his foil and henchman. Pike had a deep love of books, but his motivation for maintaining the Arcade was not esoteric. His chief inducement was evident: Pike loved money.

In slow moments—when gathered together awaiting a shipment, or lining up on Fridays to receive our meager pay from Geist—the staff liked to pick over rumors of Pike’s legendary wealth, his frugality, his stinginess. Each secondhand book passed through his elegant hands because he trusted no one but himself to assess its value. No one else could, the value being weighed not only against some actual market notion but against his very personal assessment of the book’s worth to him: what it cost him to acquire, and what the volume’s sale would put in his pocket. The margins and his profit were tabulated instantly, the result of years of obsessive deliberation, an abacus in his head shifting beads back and forth in a silent, urgent reconciliation.

That Pike was exceedingly rational didn’t mean that his notion of value wasn’t arbitrary. It was particular and absolute, almost adolescent in its despotic insistence.

At intervals throughout the day and at closing time, Pike would momentarily replace Pearl, the Arcade’s rather arresting cashier, then a preoperative transsexual, at the single register. Pike would remove larger bills, checks, and credit-card receipts, then disappear up the broken wooden stairs to the office at the back, reappearing (as in a conjurer’s trick) moments later upon his platform, behind his table, a book in his hand, a pencil behind his left ear, his meditative pricing resumed. Pike shrunk considerably whenever he left his platform, only to attain his previous consequence once he returned to the stage.