There, in a jar: a pickling eye. Looking glassy. Over there, quick lemons in a bowl, sharpening the dust. A telephone directory lists numbers for one to peruse, whilst a yellowfaded globe maps the crisscrossing borders of collapsed territories and faded empires. A taxidermy pigeon stretches out crisp wings through ghostly incense and breathless shade, while an incarcerated parrot stands quietly asleep. Wonder what it's like to… Awake from their slumber, one hundred books nestle in pairs, cosy and mute, unread and derivative, filled with unnecessary letters and bookish tales, and pages upon pages of words cutting trees at their roots. Prolix trash. And as metal chandeliers and dripping pipes drop loud and aggressive from the ceiling, polished knick-knacks, trinkets and objet d'art discarded avant-garde upon tabletop and floor, shelf and drawer, guard the nooks and crannies in slow, aging despair. It was all thoroughly and irrefutably terrific in disaster.
Outside the shop, a kneeling frame, wrapped in a red dress and bearing a gold crown beckons weary patrons to her door. A woman, whose silent lips whisper. Come come.
Boatmanu left Tom and the old man ashore. Left them for a white-throated halcyon that hovered just out of reach. Beyond the bombastic promises of the floating market that screamed hell for a new life, the halcyon peeled open a velvety dream sky with a flutter of wet wings. I do not know what drew Boatmanu to the bird, but he could hardly refuse; a fisherman returning to his King. And as he drifted away, the foreigners, left unsure, filtered through the market like sand through fingers. The place was catastrophic. Biting smells skipped around the maypole, through nose and larynx, through soft supple skin housing sweet tender meats, and white-silken dresses swaying bright and joyful peace; the wares catapulted from hand to hands gripping tight folded money in creases. It was a reverie of greed and missed fortune. A bustling of lives lived livelily to the rhythm of tomorrow. Thunderous nothingness cradled in tumult and angst.
The shop.
It broke through the chaos. Hum. Drum. Door ajar. Tom led his companion towards the entrance.
Inside, tinkling bells announced their arrival. Pling-dr-ling. And as the door closed, the symphony of market forces sizzled to nothing. The latch key click: silence. Turning through the cluttered space, the old man and boy inched stepwise down a single aisle that parted reluctantly before them. A smoky interior gripped their cheeks. Paper price tags leant towards them. From every angle and every plane, Petri dishes, cutlery and oil paints awaited the Westerners' moneyed gaze. They could hardly move for their bodies stroking a lamp or their heads worrying some hanging herbs.
On the far wall stood a mirror, reflecting. The old man and Tom: Tom and man. Old, the mirror was scratched and pitted in places, but returned, nonetheless, their dirty, fatigued faces back to themselves. There's was one of peeling exhaustion.
To the right, a desk, whose bandy legs triumphed over a set of grinning Buddhas. From behind the desk emerged the curator.
‘How can I help?’ His glasses stabilised.
‘We're looking for a phone. Do you have one? Artemis. That's the company,’ Tom's confidence emerged from behind his tongue.
‘Phones. We have phones. Over there. Maybe you want radio too. Look look.’ This shop is not like the shops at home.
At the back corner, a row of five phones sat in situ. The old man waded towards them and lifted each in turn, inspecting their livery: dark, jaundice casing, stripped of logos, bearing little resemblance to his own.
‘Do you have any more?’
‘You want phone? These phones very good.’
‘Do you have any more of them?’
‘Very good phone.’
Tom took one from the pensioner.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘No-no. No questions. You buy or you go,’ glasses quivering, they refracted the coarse, medallion light that clattered upon the floor.
‘We'll buy the phone, if you tell us where you got it from.’
‘No questions. You buy or you go.’
Tom gave back the phone and whispered to the old man: ‘They're not from here. They're foreign.’
‘Mm.’ The old man turned about, reached into deep pockets, and retrieved a wad of waxen notes. A flotsam, flaccid bribe dropped onto a silk dress that lay disused across the desk.
The merchant ogled the paper.
‘That's too much,’ said Tom.
‘Where did you get these phones?’ The aurulent air. The beggared shelves. The market cries and heavy boots trading through cracks in the glass. The inventive sin of it all.
The curator grabbed the money from the table, ‘I buy phones from here. Only best phones. Bad phones I don't buy. Here you find best phones,’ the scribbling address soaked ink into a scrap of jotter.
‘Thank you,’ said the old man.
‘That was too much,’ said Tom.
‘Everything in this world can be endured,’ the old man walked slowly to the exit.
‘Go now. Get out,’ the curator's wrists ushered them away.
Before the closing door, Tom turned back to the mirror and peered at his eyes. Ablata at alba. A jar a dress a way.