She goes to the front – nothing. Cars swish past on the wet road. She checks the door and finds it securely locked. But slipped under the door is a large gold envelope with her name handwritten in a neat blue script. No address, no stamp. Is that what made her start, the sender shuffling at the door? She is about to open it, when Simkin appears and taps on the window with the handle of his umbrella. Pressing the envelope to her breasts, she opens for the old tailor, with his familiar measuring tape around his neck. As they walk to the back room, he inspects the shop, darting glances from under eyebrows well overdue for a trim. At their first meeting he informed Sonya that he preferred to deal directly with his tenants, rather than relying on agents, who more often than not did very little to justify their commission. And so at six, on the sixth of each month, he came not just to collect the rent, but to judge for himself the state of his tenant’s business. Sonya recently exercised her option and signed a new lease for a further three years, though not before Simkin interrogated her at length about her ability to meet commitments. Times were bad, he said. Businesses were closing all over the place. Things would get worse. He had seen it before in his fifty years since coming to this country from Bulgaria. Business was like musical chairs: while people were running around, happily wheeling and dealing, there was a seat for all. But when bankers and politicians pulled the plug and the music stopped, people found themselves not only without a chair, but without trousers and backsides. He had been burnt a couple of times himself: a tenant’s once-thriving business fails, they declare themselves bankrupt, and the poor landlord is left with an empty building and a lease not worth the paper it is written on.
They sit in front of the fire and exchange small talk about winter’s sudden onset. They have missed out on autumn this year, says Simkin, playing with the end of the measuring tape. It is his favourite season. The sound of maple leaves scuttling over bitumen reminds him of Bulgaria. As a child in Sofia before the Second World War he would run through the quilted blanket of poplar leaves covering the cobbled streets. From their numerous chats, Sonya has learnt that Lev Simkin was born in Sofia, where his father and grandfather, who had originally come from Salonika, were also tailors. His ancestors, Spanish Jews, or Sephardic Jews as they were more commonly called, had been forced by the Inquisition to leave Catalonia. Knowing of their talents as craftsmen, merchants and scholars, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid the Second invited the refugees to settle throughout the Turkish empire. His grandfather had a prosperous business in Salonika, making fezzes for Jews, Muslims and Christians. In those days if men wanted to advance in their trade or profession, they had to show their loyally to the sultan, which meant wearing a fez with a black tassel. The fez-making business declined with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. When the Turks were driven from Salonika in 1912, grandfather Simkin moved the family and settled in Sofia. He must have had a sixth sense of what would happen thirty years later. In 1943 the large Jewish population of Salonika was rounded up by the Nazis and sent to the concentration camps. For some reason the Bulgarian government, an ally of the Germans, interceded on behalf of its Jewish citizens and saved them from the gas chambers. When the fascists were defeated and the communists took control of Bulgaria, the Simkins left for France, from where, with only a bundle under his arm, the twenty-year-old Lev Simkin came here.
The springs squeal as he sits more upright. And business? he asks in a deeper tone. Are books selling? They are moving, Sonya replies, giving him the rent. He licks a finger and flicks deftly through the notes. The envelope on her lap, Sonya studies the handwriting, but is unable to put a face to it. Simkin’s eyebrows fall, his lower lip glistens. The rent is short. She is quick to apologise. She will make it up next month, or tomorrow if he prefers. He frowns. A calendar month is a long time in business. Anything could happen in this uncertain climate. Would he like a few books instead? Simkin closes his eyes and raises his chin. Is business really all right? he asks, twisting the ends of his eyebrows. Her right palm raised to the fire, Sonya swears that books are moving, not as well as she would like, but enough for the outgoings. Simkin nods and reminds her of his losses from the accountant. Sonya tells him that her takings have suffered a setback due to other bookshops opening in the area. They will not last long, she assures him. They are nothing more than fly-by-nights. He nods, unconvinced. How is your business faring? she continues. He points out that times of recession benefit him. People cannot afford new clothes so they alter and mend what they have. Not only this, the young people now moving into the area are very fond of buying recycled clothes, which of course require mending and alteration. Our businesses are similar, says Sonya. You clothe the body and I clothe the soul with ideas. He muses a moment, then takes out a receipt book, scribbles a few things, tears out a page and extends it to her. The shortfall? It can wait until next month, he says, standing. At the front door he wishes her good night, with the hope for a better month to come. She clicks the lock, checks it several times, turns off the lights in the front of the shop, and hurries to the back room.
Opening the envelope with a paper knife, Sonya counts nine handwritten sheets. On the first, in capitals executed by a hand sure in the use of a fountain pen, she reads, THE FIRST DIALOGUE. She turns quickly to the last page – neither an author’s name nor an explanatory note. Perplexed, she sits and prods the fire. The textured pages are unlined, but the writing sits perfectly horizontal; the words have a gentle forward slope, while the spacing between them is uniform. At arm’s length the script might easily be mistaken for the work of a computer – a printout of an italicized font. Examining the first page under the bare overhead bulb, she can discern the texture of ink in each letter, the movement of the nib, the slight tremor (revealing as a fingerprint) in the hand of the anonymous author. It suddenly strikes Sonya that the writing is so meticulous the author could not possibly have produced more than one copy. But why send the original? And in such a way that it might easily be irretrievably lost? A serious writer would have used a word processor and sent a printout, or at least a photocopy. Has the author mistakenly sent the original in place of the copy? Will he or she realise the mistake and come to the shop first thing in the morning? Enough speculation. She lights a cigarette, draws deeply, and blows the smoke aside. The answer to the mystery might lie in the work itself. And suddenly she feels the familiar tingle of excitement at the knowledge that the front door is locked and she is deliciously alone, without commitment, free at last to enjoy the voluptuous pleasure of reading, to surrender fully to the body of the text resting on her lap.
[…]