Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

“Well, you speak very good English.”

“Instructed in tutorial fashion by late the Oliver Blunt-Piggot, disgarbed shaman of a Christian fane in Poona.” He lifted the heavy board cover of a very heavy volume.

“When was this?”

“Ago.” He set down the cover, slowly turned the huge, thick pages. “Perceive, barbarians in native costume, bringing tribute.” Charley had definite ideas as to what was polite, expected. He might not be able to, could hardly expect to buy. But it was only decent to act as though he could. Only thus could he show interest. And so, again, ask he did.

Again, the bookman’s pale slim fingers sought the tag. “Ah, mm. The price of this one is one mummified simurgh enwrapped in six bolts of pale brocade, an hundred measures of finest musk in boxes of granulated goldwork and a viper of Persia pickled in Venetian treacle.” He replaced the pages, set back the cover and set to rewrapping.

Charley, after some thought, asked if all the books had prices like that. “Akk, yes. All these books have such prices, which are the carefully calculated evaluations established by my ancestors in the High Vale of Lhom-bhya — formerly the Crossroads of the World, before the earthquake buried most of the passes, thus diverting trade to Lhasa, Samarkand and such places. So.”

A question that had gradually been taking the shape of a wrinkle now found verbal expression. “But couldn’t you just sell them for money? ”

The bookman touched the tip of his nose with the tip of his middle finger. “For money? Let me have thought… Ah! Here is The Book of Macaws, Egrets and Francolins, in the Five Colors, for only eighty-three gold mohurs from the mint of Baber Mogul and one silver dirhem of Aaron the Righteous… You call him Aaron the Righteous? Not. Pardon. Harun al-Rashid. A bargain.”

Charley shook his head. “No, I mean, just ordinary money.”

The bookdealer bowed and shook his own head. “Neighboring sir,” he said, “I have not twenty-seven times risked my life nor suffered pangs and pains innumerable, merely to sell for ordinary money these treasures handed down from my progenitors, nor ignore their noble standards of value. Oh, nay.” And he restored to its container The Book of Macaws, Egrets and Francolins . In the Five Colors.

A certain stubbornness crept over Charley. “Well, then, what is the cheapest one you’ve got, then?” he demanded.

The scion of the High Vale of Lhom-bhya shrugged, fingered his lower lip, looked here and there, uttered a slight and soft exclamation and took from the last cabinet in the far corner an immense scroll. It had rollers of chalcedony with ivory finials and a case of scented samal-wood lacquered in vermillion and picked with gold; its cord weights were of banded agate.

“This is a mere diversion for the idle moments of a prince. In abridged form, its title reads, Book of Precious Secrets on How to Make Silver and Gold from Dust, Dung and Bran; Also How to Obtain the Affections; Plus One Hundred and Thirty-Eight Attitudes for Carnal Conjuction and Sixty Recipes for Substances Guaranteed to Maintain the Stance as Well as Tasting Good: by a Sage. ” He opened the scroll and slowly began to unwind it over the length of the table.

The pictures were of the most exquisitely detailed workmanship and brilliant of color on which crushed gold quartz had been sprinkled while the glorious pigments were as yet still wet. Charley’s heart gave a great bound, then sank. “No, I said the cheapest one—”

His host stifled a very slight yawn. “This is the cheapest,” he said, indifferent, almost. “What is cheaper than lust or of less value than alchemy or aphrodisiacs? The price…the price,” he said, examining the tag, which was of ebony inlaid with jasper. “The price is the crushed head of a sandal merchant of Babylon, with a red, red rose between his teeth: a trifle. The precise utility of that escapes me, but it is of no matter. My only task is to obtain the price as established — that and, of course, to act as your host until the stars turn pale.”

Charley rose. “I guess I’ll be going, anyway,” he said. “I certainly want to thank you for showing me all this. Maybe I’ll be back tomorrow for something, if they haven’t all been sold by then.” His heart knew what his heart desired, his head knew the impossibility of any of it, but his lips at least maintained a proper politeness even at the last.

He went down the stairs, his mind filled with odd thoughts, half enjoyable, half despairing. Heavy footsteps sounded coming up; who was it but Mungo. “I thought you said you lived on the second floor,” he said. “No use lying to me ; come on, dumbell, I need you. Earn your goddamn money for a change. My funking car’s got a flat; move it, I tell you, spithead; when I say move it, you move it!” And he jabbed his thick, stiff fingers into Charley’s kidneys and, ignoring his employee’s cry of pain, half guided, half goaded him along the empty block lined with closed warehouses where, indeed, an automobile stood, somewhat sagging to one side.

“Get the goddamn jack up; what’re you dreaming about? Quit stumbling over your goddamn feet, for cry-sake; you think I got nothing better to do? You think I do nothing but sell greasy stoves to greaseballs? Move it, nipplehead! I want you to know that I also own the biggest goddamn shoe store in Babylon, Long Island. Pick up that tire iron!”

When I was fourteen, I lived with my father, Avram Davidson, in the town of Richmond, California. I picked up his copy of Ellery Queen, and read the Edgar-nominated story “Crazy Old Lady.” As was often the case when I read his stories, I didn’t quite understand the ending, so he explained it to me.

At that time, Richmond was a boring, lower-middle-class suburb. Avram shared a house with a blind man.

Avram liked to move every few months, and I became accustomed to living with all sorts of people. Most of these people had something unusual about them. In this case, it was a physical disability. Others had psychological problems. One was even a crazy old lady. Even when he lived alone, he sometimes brought in homeless derelicts or confused young people. Avram was sometimes irritable. But he often also displayed quite a bit of compassion.

Eighteen years have passed. The number of people who are poor, elderly, and live in bad neighborhoods has increased tremendously. Richmond today is a violent, crime-infested slum town. Toward the end of his life, Avram found himself living in another slum. This one was in Bremerton, Washington. He was robbed in his home by two men who must have seen him as eccentric and very vulnerable, much like the woman in this story.

The story provides no real answers. It does provide a vivid and insightful description of the problem. This, it seems to me, can only help. As Avram might have said, “Could it hoyt?”

BEFORE SHE BECAME THE Crazy Old Lady she had been merely the Old Lady and before that Old Lady Nelson and before that (long long before that) she had been Mrs. Nelson. At one time there had also been a Mr. Nelson, but all that was left of him were the war souvenirs lined up on the cluttered mantelpiece which was never dusted now — the model battleship, the enemy helmet, the enemy grenade, the enemy knife, and some odd bits and pieces that had been enemy badges and buttons.

The enemy had seemed a lot farther away in those days.

But the shopping had been a lot closer.

Of course it was still the same in miles — well, blocks, really — it just seemed like miles now. It had been such a nice walk, such a few blocks’ walk, under the pleasant old trees, past the pleasant old family homes, and down to the pleasant old family stores. Now not much was left of the way it had been.