The Book of Air and Shadows

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