Sheridan Hay - The Secret of Lost Things

Scraps of fabric had been Oscar’s only toys, but as he grew older he became increasingly bookish. He too had an absent father, was devoted to his mother, and had never lived alone until her death. Oscar’s mother had emigrated from Poland as a girl with her parents, but had fallen out with them over Oscar’s father, who’d deserted her sometime after his son’s birth.

Although he was ten years older, I used to think that in Oscar I’d found my double, a counterpart accidentally born in America, so similar were our circumstances. I thought we matched perfectly—his eternal investigations the match to my endless curiosity. Through his mother’s instruction, he’d learned everything important—how to read, how to live an orderly life, and the value of remembering as much as possible. Which is how he’d come to always keep a notebook; his mother had had a dressmaker’s book, filled with the measurements and particularities of her customers. He had imitated her, as I copied him, inscribing a life from fragmentary items.

If I’d been older, or really a grown woman at all, I might not have been so moved by Oscar’s life, by his story, by our resemblances and correspondences. I might not have clutched the idea of him to me as if it were a secret leaf fallen from a lover’s book. But then, my heart escaped me.

George Pike had employed Robert Mitchell for forty years, but their long collaboration had done little to improve an essentially antagonistic relationship. That Mr. Mitchell worked four floors above Pike made their professional interaction possible. Pike himself limited their contact to frequent telephone exchanges, often petty squabbles over money and, in particular, the costs of repairing extremely old volumes and collections of papers, whose fragility found a devoted champion in Mr. Mitchell. The care he took over damaged volumes seemed an extension of the interest he took in the well-being of the motley staff, who gladly rode the cranky elevator up to his own small store-within-a-store. It was a task we bickered over. His presence filled the Rare Book Room with gentility, a trait I now associate with the enveloping reek of a pipe.

Accompanying customers up to the Rare Book Room on the store’s fifth floor was my favorite task, once I was actually floating. It was an opportunity for conversation with collectors about their particular tastes and obsessions, and I learned something from every encounter. A trip to the Rare Book Room meant I could visit with Mr. Mitchell and breathe in the vanilla scent of his pipe. I adored him.

The first time I escorted a client up to the Rare Book Room, struggling with the elevator cage, Mr. Mitchell was waiting. Pike had called ahead of our arrival to clear the customer I accompanied for credit approval.

“What a pleasure, young lady! You must be our antipodean newcomer. Rosemary for remembrance, if I’m not mistaken. I am Robert Mitchell,” he said with a courtly reach of his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

In his late sixties, with vertical peaks of snowy hair, he had the complexion of a man who didn’t manage his blood pressure. He was large and seemed professorial in a saggy, postathletic way. Tall, with an enormous belly that sloped from his breastbone and disappeared into his high-belted trousers; his face reminded me of an amiable bird’s. I was at once struck by the odd happenstance that he resembled a type of cockatoo I’d long wished to own (but which Mother had refused me on account of its noise, its mess). This bird too was large, pink and white, but native to Australia and coincidentally named after an historical personage, some early dignitary, a certain Major Mitchell.

“Oscar told me I would enjoy meeting you,” I told him, far more comfortable in the Rare Book Room than four floors below. The contrast with the belligerent paperback fellows, Jack and Bruno, couldn’t have been more stark.

“Oscar told me the same thing, my dear. And also that you are very far from home. Van Diemen’s Land, no less. A rare and beautiful place, I understand. A wild island. We must be sure to make you welcome,” he said, and repeated. “We must be sure to.”

The warmth in his voice spread through me like the melancholy I carefully, daily, kept at bay. And perhaps because Mr. Mitchell caught me on a particularly homesick day, or because my own lost father could not in my imagination have been more kindly disposed to me, or simply because unexpected kindness exactly locates one’s well of sadness, tears itched the corners of my eyes.

“Indeed, Rosemary, you are very far from home,” Mr. Mitchell said again, noticing my upset, “but you must feel welcome here. And safe.” He took my hand inside his and patted it affectionately. I had to turn away.

“Now, then, who has accompanied you to my aerie?” he asked in a businesslike way, leaving me to compose myself. “Who has come to see the infinite riches in my little room?” He knew perfectly well, of course.

The customer cleared his throat, impatient to be attended to.

“Ah, Mr. Gosford! Yes, the Beckett first edition, if I’m not mistaken? I’ve been waiting for you to pick it up.”

Mr. Mitchell and the collector, Gosford, moved from the elevator into the first of several rare rooms, crowded with volumes and folios.

“Where are we— Whoroscope ?” he called, and reached toward a shelf to the right of his desk.

“Rosemary, are you interested in an opportunity for instruction?” Mr. Mitchell inquired, still trying to locate the book.

Oscar had prepared me. One of Mr. Mitchell’s favorite things to do was teach. (Oscar had said “lecture.”) He never waited for assent from the prospective student, but would go on, searching for the volume, chatting all the while.

“Let me see, Whoroscope, Whoroscope . You are very lucky, Mr. Gosford,” he said, finally finding the book. “Now, Rosemary, perhaps you are not aware that this,” he ran on excitedly, “that this, Beckett’s first published poem, was composed in a single night! He wanted to win a thousand francs in a competition which called for submissions of no more than one hundred lines. Yes, that’s right. A poem on the subject of Time.” He paused thoughtfully. “Time, you see? He won, evidently. Ah, there we are.”

He handed the book to Mr. Gosford like his own prize, a reward for his patience. The little book had brick-red wrappers and a white band, printed with a note from the publisher. It was incidental to me that it was a book by Beckett, with whom I was unfamiliar. What struck me was that it was a small, beautiful object, and that both men wanted it.

“One of a hundred signed by Beckett, Mr. Gosford. A bit dusty, slight fading at the top edge, no foxing, and otherwise a fine copy. A steal at ten thousand dollars. I’ve spoken to Pike and your credit is excellent. The bill will be forthcoming.”

He leaned away from Gosford, in a perfectly timed motion, as if to better appreciate the moment. He paused.

“Rosemary, no need for you to wait,” he took up after a minute. “Mr. Gosford is good for it, I assure you.”

I left him to secure the signature. It was the practice of the Rare Book Room that a customer who’d selected and wanted to purchase a book had to be accompanied down to the main floor of the Arcade and straight to Pearl at the register. The potential for theft was the obvious reason for this ritual; but in the case of extremely valuable items, approval was often granted in advance. Customers like Mr. Gosford were billed monthly, so frequent and so large were their acquisitions.

This first visit I rode the elevator down alone, but I was to welcome any opportunity to visit Mr. Mitchell and be warmed by his affection, his information; to be at once reminded of my loneliness and comforted by its acknowledgment.