Books and Curiosities, est. 1899.
The bookshop sat a little back from the main street, a bakery on one side emitting warm wafts of yeast and spices, and on the other an antiques shop, all three shops older than any of the antiques within, timber-framed first and second floors atop dirty orange brickwork. Windows haphazard, no two oak beams forming a neat angle any more, the building twisted with age.
I had heard of this shop, somewhere. Its curious name stood out to me, and the more I read about it, the more I wanted to visit, and to bring along my friend Mercy. She was interested in books, I was interested in spending time alone with her. She was beautiful, dark eyed, sensual, voice overflowing with intelligence and wit, every movement a dance. I found it hard to tear my eyes from her.
Through the doorway of the shop we entered a sepia world of stories, research, images, adventures and fantasies. The weight of knowledge pressed down on the foundations of the shop, the scarred oak beams dipping low in the room, forcing me to stoop, Mercy moving on unhindered.
Browsing the shelves it appeared that there was no real order to the shop. Geography next to film, next to an improbably large section on mending clocks. Books in every language, some too old to handle, some outlawed years past, many out of print, some that felt like they were the only copies left in the world. An eccentric shop, though some weak effort had been made to alphabetise. But this isn't the kind of place you go to find something specific. You are here to discover.
We moved about the shop, picking through dusty shelves by weak sunlight that filtered through lace curtains of cobwebs on grubby windows, or from the glow of a few dim light bulbs that could have been Edison's originals. Sometimes separating, sometimes browsing the same shelves, brushing against one another in the narrow passages of the shop, we explored the avenues of books, heads tilted to one side, reading faded letters on worn spines.
But there was more than just books here. Old records, soviet propaganda posters, maps, dozens of old cameras, typewriters. There seemed to be some overspill from the shops on either side; a cosy warmth from the bakery, random piles of junk from the antique shop.
Narrow, steep stairways, unlit, led to the floor above. Each step a different height from the next, we groped our way up into more books, more stuff, less light, fewer signs that this place had been disturbed in decades. As we scouted and scoured, each alone, I could hear her progress through the shop. Soft footsteps on creaking wood, pauses as she knelt down, knees on rough oak, to lift a book from a bottom shelf, skirt lifting slightly... It was hard to concentrate when she was anywhere near.
After about an hour, we met up in a dark corner of the second floor. The lightbulb above us fizzed noisily, floorboards moaning softly below. We had met nobody else on our exploration, but we each had an armload of books and we would have to find somebody to pay, but for now, up here, alone. We surveyed the shelves about us, and found we were in the erotic literature and art section. Eyebrows arched, Mercy reached for a well thumbed book, and we giggled like teenagers at archaic descriptions of sex and intimacy, and at how some things had changed, and some things hadn't from one century to the next.
To the right of the shelf was a tall, wide cupboard, recessed into the wall, a door a little way up the wall. It had a small brass handle, which we turned, expecting it to be locked, but the door swung open, grating hinges, hollow inside, filled almost entirely by a dark bulk dully reflecting the limited light.
In tarnished silver, the rough shape of a torso sat within. Thin, overlapping plates allowed it limited articulated movement, the model was that of a complete man, from knees up to shoulders. Above the shoulders, where you would expect a head, was an orb like a Van de Graaff generator, and below the knees was a wooden box, into which the automaton was set. The whole thing was relatively featureless, as if detail was unnecessary, that this was functional rather than a work of art. The only indication that the automaton was a man, not a woman, was a rather more detailed silver penis, erect.
Mercy reached out to touch the automaton. She told me it felt cold and heavy, but smooth. The black tarnish like age spots, though the smooth 'skin' gave the automaton a look of energetic youth.
Mercy withdrew her hand from the silver automaton and spun to face me, her dark hair swirled before settling about her face. She looking up at me, mock coquette, a spark of mischief in her eyes.
