The Path of the Bookseller

They came up the escalator together: a very tall man, with grey hair and an expensive-looking coat, and a much smaller woman, also grey-haired, but with a coat that, if equally expensive, didn’t seem designed to say anything about the wearer. When I asked them if I could help them find anything, they spoke simultaneously. I think she said something about Mozart operas; he, much more loudly, said, “No, we don’t need anything. She’s sleep-deprived.”

Hearing the two speak at the same time short-circuited my linguistic handling (much like when I hear something over my headset when talking to a customer: what comes over the headset often doesn’t even register as language), so I asked again. He sighed heavily and looked condescendingly at her as she asked if we had Mozart operas on CD.

I took them right over to the discs and asked which they wanted. I think she may have said something, but he jovially bellowed, “Oh, you know, the usual top four.” I pointed out recordings of The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, La Clemenza de Tito, Cosi Fan Tutte, and Zaide. The woman picked up the Don Giovanni, but the man said, “No, you already have this,” then, to me, “I’m sorry, she’s sleep-deprived.”

She scowled at him. “We have highlights of Don Giovanni. This is the whole thing.” He took it from her, glanced at it, and chucked it back down in the bin. “This looks cheap. None of these are the major singers.” It actually was cheap, and probably a lousy item, since it was one of those tacky packagings of European broadcasts that have come out of copyright. But, from what I recall, at least one of the singers was a known star.

“I think we have more,” I said, and brought them to the locked cases.

“Oh,”, he said, “so this is where you hide the good stuff.”

“Well, what’s in here tends to be more expensive, but it’s a bit arbitrary. Almost all our Mahler that isn’t in jewel cases is in here, for example, since that gets stolen a lot if it isn’t.” I unlocked the lower case and pulled out one box. “Here’s a good Don Giovanni.”

“Why is it this only $35? It can’t be that good.”

“It’s an EMI reissue, and from what I can tell, it should be good.”

“I don’t know these names,” he snorted.

“Well, Bernard Haitink’s reputable as a conductor, and Thomas Allen should be a good Giovanni.”

“So you’re, like, the classical genius around here.”

“Well, it’s my section.”

“So I wouldn’t ask you any weird rock and roll questions, then.”

“Actually, I’d probably be able to handle those, too. But officially, I’m the classical guy.”

“So if I were to ask you what’s the absolute best Don Giovanni, what would you say?”

“Well, I’m kind of an atypical classical guy. I pretty much like everything. I can show you the guides to classical recordings, each of which might have suggestions.”

“So what’s the absolute best record guide?”

“Penguin’s quite good. I tend to check the Gramophone guide first, and the NPR and All Music guides are good, too. Once you have dealt with them awhile, you’ll start to get a sense of which match your tastes.”

“So they have online sites to look things up.” He said this as a statement, not a question.

“They might, but for these, the books are the way to go. I can show you where they are–”

“So if I google for Gramophone, it will give me their book online.”

“I don’t know–”

“Then the, what was it, the Penguin is there.”

“If you’re going to check online, the one sure thing is the All-Music Guide, though they tend to be kind of negative and cranky about things.”

The woman spoke up. “Yes, where are those books?”

“Sorry,” the man said. “She’s sleep-deprived. So where are they online? We’re with the UN, and we’re here for a week and a half, and we have high-speed broadband.”

“The All Music Guide is online, though I’m not exactly sure of the URL. I think it’s allmusic.com, but googling on All Music Guide should find it.”

“So that’s the best guide online.”

I shrugged. “It’s a good guide.”

“Where are the architecture books?” the woman asked.

“We’re going back to the hotel,” he said. “She’s sleep-deprived. UN, you know.”

“Well, to some of us it feels like jetlag is a lifestyle,” I said.

“This is serious jetlag. I’m on Kabul time. She’s on Kosovo time. Sleep-deprived. We’re going back to the hotel. We’ll look things up online and we’ll be sure to come back and buy things here.”

He took her by the hand and led her toward the escalator. Apparently, she won out, though, for a while; I saw them a few minutes later in the architecture section, where she was looking at a small book (possibly A Pattern Language) while he flipped through a larger photo book. When I went back to that section at the end of the night, her book was neatly back in place, while his was dumped, still open and threatening to slide to the floor, on top of a messy stack of similar books.

I sighed and put the books back on the shelf. There’s little else to do with them, and no way to argue effectively with the customers. Especially when the schedules have us so sleep-deprived.