Titchfield being 65 Englishe myles from London it ben some tyme for me to walk back, slaepyng under hedges & stealing fruit & egges may God forgive my sinne. Arrivyng late at the Iron Man I found my mother well enow being kept goode compagnie by a faire young mayde the master’s daughter of the house, which wase you my Nan from what connexion we first met & afterward loved, as thou knowest. But mayhap oure sonne grown to a knowinge age, which may the good Lord allow, knows it not so I tell it heere.

Now had I to earn oure bread & keepe, mee a lad not 16 years & I thought mee of the Tower & those I had met there & would they give me werke & so I repaired there straightway & asked for Mr Hastynges: he cometh, I tell him alle oure lamentable plight as I have heere tolde & he scries me close saying, well, lad, we can have no papistes nor yet puritans in the Tower, one it would be my head to doe & the other I cannot beare to have around mee, for I sit but one sermon in the weeke & that o’ Sunday & need not prayeres & canting other daies. Where-upon I sayde I too was done with them. Then Mr Keane hearing this sayeth Hastynges we must trye him like a gonne, ho to Southwark. So over-bridge went wee, & drank much sacke (which I never did before) & saw bear-baytes & dogge-baytes, lewde shews, &c.: and they carried me to the stewes & bought me a punk but God be thanked I spewed & was soe sick I mounted her but scarce enow to count a sinne & they laughed much & made bawdry jestes upon me, but Mr Keane sware I wase no puritan withal but a mere two-pounder falconet, could spew little shotte well enow but did not burst my breech & so wast proved.

6

Crosetti, bearing the rolled and wrapped maybe-invaluable manuscript under his arm, waited out on the deserted street for nearly half an hour, which he thought excessive. What was she doing in there? Although he had occasionally waited as long for women to get ready to go out. Although they weren’t going to the prom. He looked at his watch and paced and felt the craziness pluck at his mind.

She emerged wearing one of her black outfits, as if going to Glaser’s to work, and he wondered why. Maybe Bulstrode insisted on a certain formality, in which case he would be disappointed in Crosetti, who needed a bath and a shave and was wearing a T-shirt from a Springsteen concert, grubby jeans, and Nikes. He did not, however, complain to her about the waiting.

Nor did she apologize. Instead, she nodded at him casually and started off. He did not ask any questions about their destination, resolving to play it cool. He could be an international man of mystery too. They walked to Van Dyke and took the 77 bus to the Smith Street station, where they boarded the F train and rode noisily in silence to Manhattan. At Houston Street she got up and trotted from the car, and when he caught up with her he could not resist asking her about where they were going. Crosetti was not at heart cool.

“Mermelstein’s,” she answered. “They’re the last wholesaler of fine binding leather in the city.”

“They’ll sell you retail?”

“Mr. Mermelstein likes me.”

“Really. Does he…?” Crosetti made a pawing gesture. They were walking on the station steps, and she stopped abruptly and said, “He does not. You know, I’m really sorry I told you that about Sidney. Are you going to trot it out every time I mention a business connection with a man?”

“It’s erased from my mind as of this very minute,” said Crosetti, genuinely abashed, but also feeling a little manipulated. He also wondered why she was going to a wholesaler. Everyone in the old book trade in New York knew that the center of the bookbinding business was in Brooklyn, in Borough Park. He was about to ask her that but then stopped and figured it out for himself. Book dealers and major collectors had contacts among the regular bookbinders. If one of them were offered a Churchill Voyages at a fire-sale price, he’d check around with the bookbinder trade to see if the book had been doctored. It would not occur to any collector to imagine that the seller had done it solo, from raw materials. He was rather pleased with himself for having figured this out, any penetration of Rolly’s deviousness being to the good.

They walked east on Houston to an old commercial building near Second Avenue, where, in a pungent loft containing perhaps an acre of various animal skins, Crosetti leaned against a bale of the stuff and watched Rolly negotiate for a considerable time with an elderly man in a skullcap, a rusty black suit, and carpet slippers. They seemed to be having a good time, and Crosetti noticed with interest that Rolly had subtly changed her delivery. She smiled more with Mermelstein, actually laughed a time or two, and in general seemed a louder, more aggressive person than the one he knew, more…dare he think it?…more Jewish? Her speech had also taken on the pace and accent of the outer boroughs.

He remarked on this as they left with a small roll of fine calf wrapped in brown paper.

“Everybody does it,” she replied lightly. “You talk to someone, you take on a little of their shtick, their affect. Don’t you?”

“I guess,” he said, but thought, Yeah, but I’m something to begin with, and what, my sweet, are you? He rehearsed this line, thought about voicing it, declined. Instead he said, “So, where to now?”

“Take the F to Fourteenth Street and the Broadway train up to Columbia. We have an appointment with Dr. Bulstrode in forty-five minutes.”

“Can we get something to eat first? I haven’t had anything to eat since last night.”

“You ate all my cookies.”

“Oh, right, sorry. Your elderly cookies. Carolyn, what is going on with you? Why don’t you live like a regular person, with furniture and food in the house and pictures on the wall?”

She started walking toward the subway entrance. “I told you. I’m poor.”

He hurried to catch up with her. “You’re not that poor. You have a job. You make more than I do. Where does it go?”

“I don’t have a mother I can live with,” she said tightly.

“Thank you. That puts me in my place.”

“That’s right. I’m not sure you understand. I am completely alone in the world, with no backup at all. No brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, godfathers. I have a clerk’s salary with no benefits. If I got sick I’d be on the street. I’ve been on the street, and I’m not going to go back.”

“When were you on the street?”

“That’s none of your business. Why are you always so snoopy? It gets on my nerves.”

The train came and they boarded it. When they were under way and in the zone of privacy generated by the subway’s roar, he said, “I’m sorry. I get it from my mother. She sits down next to someone on the subway and in two stops they’re spilling their life’s story. You know, Carolyn, most people like to talk about themselves.”

“I know and I think it’s a waste of time, people blathering on about their hard luck. Or fishing for compliments. Oh, no, Gloria, you’re not really that fat. Oh, your son’s at Colgate? How proud you must be!”

“But that’s what people do. I mean what else do you talk about? Books? Bookbinding?”

“For starters. I told you I wasn’t a very interesting person, but you don’t seem to want to believe it.”

“You’re a fascinating person, in my opinion.”

“Don’t be stupid! I have a very dull life. I go to my job, I come home, I work at my craft, I count the days until I can get to a place where I can really learn what I’m interested in.”

“Movies,” said Crosetti. “We could talk about movies. What’s your favorite movie?”

“I don’t have one. I can’t afford to go to movies. And as you obviously know, I don’t own a television.”

“Come on, girl! Everybody has a favorite movie. You must have gone to movies in your hometown.” This got no response. He added, “Which was where?”