The Bookseller

There is no music in the bookshop, although I don’t notice this detail immediately because to begin with, I’m too relieved to find a second-hand bookshop open on a Sunday at all. I’m trying to trade in the stack of paperbacks I have accumulated during my stay in the city. I have about eight of them, lovingly hoarded over the months. Normally, I should be able to exchange them for at least four other paperbacks but today, I only want one, preferably something slim for the plane journey home, where a luggage limit wins out against my hoarding instinct. Eight books for one is a favourable exchange rate for any bookshop, but almost all the ones I find seem to be closed today.
I don’t see the name of this particular bookshop, but find it located next to a musty looking antiques store with a window display of Disney memorabilia and irate looking Buddhas.
There are probably better bookshops in town: this one is over-lit and under-stocked. The front half is carpeted with a frayed grey rug bunching up beneath the metal-rack shelving, while stained, yellowing linoleum covers the rest. The rows of shelves face off across the narrow room, each with too many titles facing outwards, plugging the spaces that in other bookshops would be crammed with further spines.
Only the paperback section seems clogged full, but thanks to some quirk of the shop’s layout, this only occupies the two shelving racks near the door, with further soft-cover books wedged horizontally in the gaps between the rows, while the shelves filling the rest of the shop floor seem empty by comparison as though they are being saved for bigger, better, more colourful stock.
The place smells a little dusty, a little damp: that second-hand smell of neglected pages reverting slowly to pulp.
And there’s no music, no tasteful background radio tinkling in the background, no budget-priced classical CDs spinning in rickety stereos. Only the hum of an air conditioning unit which seems to get louder and more oppressive the longer I remain in the shop, neck craned at an angle in the traditional bookshop-browsing manner.
At first, I seem to have the shop to myself – even the counter by the door is unattended. The door at the back of the shop is open, and presumably the staff are all back there somewhere in the stock room, juggling stock, making cups of tea or whatever it is that second-hand bookshop employees do when not reading or selling books on a Sunday. But before long, I hear padding footsteps on the linoleum behind me as someone – presumably having heard the bell above the door sound as I entered – comes in to see if I am buying, browsing or stealing.
I don’t look round – I’m still scanning the books on the shelves, trying to find something of interest, something not too taxing which will eat away at my upcoming twenty-four hour-or-so flight. When I do eventually turn – I see that a man has appeared, dressed in a red-brown jersey over a white shirt. But he is not sitting behind the counter as I might have expected him to be, he is kneeling on the carpet just behind me.
And that’s all he’s doing: Kneeling, nothing else. There is nothing in front of him that he might be kneeling down to reach, no low bookshelves which might need stacking, no spilt coffee to mop up, no broken mugs or glasses to be picked out of the carpet. No, he’s just kneeling in the middle of the carpet, staring in my direction, but not looking at me. He is kneeling upright, like someone praying in church, his expression slightly blank: his face in neutral gear.
I turn away again, instinctively pretending not to have noticed and concentrate so fiercely on the bookshelf in front of me that I momentarily forget how to read. The air conditioning clutters and splutters to itself and I find myself holding my breath, listening for movement behind me, half-tensed to make a run for the door, scanning the bookshelves for some hefty-looking hardback crime novel which might double as a weapon should the need arise.
But still, there is no noise at all save for the air conditioning. The man himself makes no movement behind me and all I hear from him is the sound of someone consciously remaining silent, the sound of someone staring at something dead ahead.
I don’t know why I don’t just leave straight away. I have a bag full of books which I have to get rid of before I fly home. I need something for the flight. Anything. So if anything, it’s probably stubbornness which keeps me there. I found this bloody shop, I tell myself, It’s my last chance before my flight. I’m not leaving without something to read.
But I’m not concentrating any more.
It’s as though my decision has been made harder by the knowledge that this kneeling figure is still behind me, still staring in my direction. The bookshelf has become a jumble of meaningless spines. The pressure to choose has increased, the ability to do so has abandoned me.
Then – thank god – someone else comes into the shop. The bell above the door jangles in surprise and a movement behind me sounds like someone getting to their feet hastily. There are other sounds, new footsteps on the linoleum making their way towards the counter briskly.
I stare back at the shelves in front of me and the titles curl back into focus. There, dead ahead of me, three shelves from the bottom, is something, a book which looks of interest, and without thinking any further, I grab for it. As I turn to the counter, the newcomer – a crop-headed man in a leather jacket - turns and leaves the shop again, pulling his coat around him with a frown.
There is a woman standing now behind the counter, and although it might be argued that she bares some resemblance to the man I saw before, kneeling on the floor, it is almost certainly a different person – their clothing alone is different enough that it could not be confused at a glance. The woman’s blouse is brightly coloured, gaudily designed. A pair of glasses hang on a lanyard around her neck.
The man – the kneeling man – is now nowhere to be seen.
“Can I take that?” the woman asks, indicating the book in my hand.
I’m not really paying attention, I’m looking at the spot of carpet where the man had been kneeling as though it might reveal a trap-door of some sort, or at least evidence that he was actually there. There were footsteps, I think, one set of footsteps coming from the back room to the front of the shop. The door at the back remains open, no movement at all behind it.
“Hello?” the woman says.
“Sorry.”
I hand over the paperback and – pleased to be distracted - start rummaging in my bag for the books I wanted to exchange.
When I surface, stacking my spoils on the counter, the woman is still holding the paperback in her hands and frowning at it, ever-so slightly.
“Is everything alright?” I ask.
She nods, puts the book down and smiles.
“Oh yes.” She says, “It’s Nothing. Nothing at all.”
She smiles again, as though correcting the one which has slipped, and she hands the book back to me.
“Have you read it?” she asks, her levity sounding a little forced.
“No.” I say, “Not yet.”
I hesitate.
“It’s for a plane.” I add, suddenly feeling the need to explain myself.
“Oh, it’s very good.” She says, “Very good.”
She gathers my stack of books towards her, but it is she who now seems distracted and so I thank her briefly and I leave, the bell on the door signalling my exit. I don’t look back through the windows at the shop, now empty again, but instead head on down the street, into the wind.
Later, when I get home, I unpack my bag and out of curiosity, flick through the first few pages of the new book. I’m not sure why I chose it now. It is a bulky looking murder mystery by a Turkish author whose books I have read and enjoyed before, but whom I’m not entirely convinced would be fun, undemanding company on a long haul flight.
On the title page, in blue-black ink, an inscription has been written which I had previously overlooked. A two-year-old date, and one pair of initials dedicated to another.
With love. It says.
It’s probably nothing, I decide. Probably nothing at all.