A City Dreaming by Daniel Polansky Page B

to meet each other. She was not at all his sort, and he not hers.
    The basement of the Classon Avenue Episcopalian Church was the size of a basement, but the goblin market taking place inside it was much larger. A packed mass of scenesters and slumming Manhattanites walked past slowly, perusing the offered wares, a mob of natives speckled with the occasional tourist, three-eyed or six-legged or otherwise inhuman. All matter of treasures were on offer, mixed up so only the most discerning or luckyindividual could determine which was which—matchless Babylonian artifacts sharing space with catchpenny handicrafts, tasteless woolen gloves, hats and sweatshirts and sweatpants and many other articles of clothing all with BROOKLYN written on them in block letters, just in case you needed reminding of the borough’s existence. It smelled of wet wool and mulling cinnamon and wood smoke. It was warm and toasty. It was not at all the worst place a person could be on a winter evening.
    The liquor tent was a circle of wood surrounded by a square of colored canvas, with a handful of wooden tables at the perimeters. Ibis stood at the butt end of a line leading to an overworked bartender, four hands moving in unison, decanting a bottle of wine with one pair and ladling punch with the other. M grabbed some space for them at the distant end of a bench. Salome took the seat next to Anais and farthest from M, an arrangement which boded ill for hopes of future progeny.
    But Anais was a classic lost-causer, tramping forward against all odds. “Salome’s in a book club,” she announced. “M isn’t much of a joiner, but he’s always giving me things to read.”
    â€œNot anymore,” M muttered quietly.
    â€œI love to read,” Salome admitted.
    Though it was M’s experience that this was the sort of thing that only people who did not actually like to read were apt to say, and indeed when pressed, Salome admitted that her favorite book (which M had not read) had just been made into a movie (which M would not see), and the conversation died unmourned.
    Ibis arrived as salvation a moment later, having barely managed to carry over their drinks. “Bottoms up.”
    â€œWhat is this, exactly?” Salome asked, sniffing at the steam rising from her copper mug.
    â€œElixir of Cassonade,” Ibis said. “Specialty of the house.”
    â€œIt’s like being kicked in the head by an anthropomorphic caramel cream,” M explained, his smile hidden by thick foam. “But in a good way.”
    â€œM, you’ve got something on your . . .”
    â€œThank you,” M said, smearing it off.
    Salome looked at the froth on M’s forearm, then raised her cup gingerly.“It’s a bit creamy,” she said after having a taste.
    â€œI don’t mind drinking the rest of yours, if you want something else.”
    â€œThat seems clear.”
    Anais laughed awkwardly.
    They wandered up from the table and back down the length of stalls, past an Acadian in a beaver-skin hat hawking the furs of long-extinct mammals, past an old woman selling glass beads, past a plastic table with plastic crates of plastic records, mostly Bulgarian field music and Nu Disco. Ibis spent a moment trying to persuade himself that he needed to spend eighty American dollars (or forty-seven Hanseatic Thaler) on a David Bowie 45 that had been released by an underground GDR label swiftly shut down by the Stasi but proved ultimately unsuccessful. They skirted the boutique of a Javanese puppeteer, rows of parti-colored humanoids hanging limply, hardwood faces just within the boundaries of the uncanny valley. Anais stopped at a large Dutch oven manned by a chubby hob with green skin and cherry cheeks, and bought a hot cross bun thick with sugar.
    â€œWho wants a bite?”
    Ibis obliged her, but as a rule M did not mix alcohol with desert, and Salome did not maintain her figure by indulging richly in