basement of somebody’s house. A poor student’s cheap room. Wood-burning stove and all. No proper storage space, just a couple of ridiculous cupboards. Nowhere decent for coffee mugs, glasses, and so on. And then I came across a couple of bits of particle board in the shed, and with those and a few bricks I knocked together a sort of a shelf-extension to the zinc countertop.”
I open the glass case carefully. The books give off an overpowering smell of old paper—the smell’s somewhat like an outdoor wood-saw after rain—and it’s a good special effect in Ecke’s story.
“Came summer, a long hot summer, and those boards by the sink must have been drenched countless times when I was doing the dishes. One morning, after spending too long in a beer garden the night before, I got up with a bit of a hangover, went into the kitchen for a drink of water and simply let out a yell.”
Tickled, I turn and look at Ecke. He’s raising his hands, a sheepish look on his face.
“The particle board’s growing mushrooms about six inches high. Pale violet-gray and revolting. Broad caps, gills, the lot.”
I give a snort of incredulous laughter.
“Mushrooms. On your counters.”
“Mushrooms. A . . . a type who was there with me at the time lewdly suggested I make a mushroom omelette for breakfast. But, retching away, I chucked out the whole contraption. Underneath it had become pure compost.”
I pull a face. “Straight out of a surrealist film.”
“Peter Greenaway, of course. New masterpiece: Nature Strikes Back. A tale of the wild wood stealthily insinuating itself into the hygienic life of urban dwellers who suspect no evil. Scene Two: a mother’s tampon box grows a fir-tree cone.”
My laugh’s a bit false as I turn to examine the books again. Straight away, my fingers light on an antiquated-looking volume, and I pull it out.
I take a deep breath.
Gustaf Eurén, The Wild Beasts of Finland, Illustrated in Color.
“That’s from 1854,” Ecke says. He’s suddenly behind me.
I turn to him: “Lend me this.”
ECKE
Angel looks shockingly beautiful standing there with the Eurén book in his hand, so beautiful my hand pauses, my hand that was just about to go to his shoulders and draw him down toward me, with his blond shock of hair. He’s pressing the Gustaf Eurén, a rare antiquarian piece, a pearl of great price, against his naked chest.
“It’s terribly old. And terribly expensive.” I can’t help feeling how sordid I’m sounding. Suddenly I’m a miserly, penny-pinching old skinflint hanging on to his merchandise, who can’t let a single dusty item slip through his claws.
“I’d really like to read this, an awful lot.”
I look at Angel desperately. I can see from the look in his eye how he’s sizing me up. How far am I willing to go because he’s gifted and successful and beautiful and hellishly sexy, and as far above me as a free-running lynx above a soon-to-be-skinned mink crouching in its cage with no weapons but its slipperiness and small but sharp teeth.
“And I’d really like an awful lot for nothing to happen to this. There are very few of them around in Finland.”
“Well, bound to be so.”
“I don’t normally lend my books. But, well, here, at my place . . . you can read them as much as you like.”
I know at once how it sounds. Why not come into my lair, young man? Come, and let me entangle you in my web, so you’ll never find your way out again.
Angel has a very serious look. He thrusts the Eurén towards me like a goodbye letter.
“Okay. No, then. I understand. This must be a thing you really value.”
And his tone of voice throws down the glove: if this book’s valuable, then how valuable am I then?
“You’d not believe its list price.”
Angel turns, sighs, and pretends to put the book back in the case. And I know just as well as he does that it’s an act, that he’s giving me an opportunity. And I pick up the cue: I seize Angel’s wrist—the golden swell of those wrist bones,
I open the glass case carefully. The books give off an overpowering smell of old paper—the smell’s somewhat like an outdoor wood-saw after rain—and it’s a good special effect in Ecke’s story.
“Came summer, a long hot summer, and those boards by the sink must have been drenched countless times when I was doing the dishes. One morning, after spending too long in a beer garden the night before, I got up with a bit of a hangover, went into the kitchen for a drink of water and simply let out a yell.”
Tickled, I turn and look at Ecke. He’s raising his hands, a sheepish look on his face.
“The particle board’s growing mushrooms about six inches high. Pale violet-gray and revolting. Broad caps, gills, the lot.”
I give a snort of incredulous laughter.
“Mushrooms. On your counters.”
“Mushrooms. A . . . a type who was there with me at the time lewdly suggested I make a mushroom omelette for breakfast. But, retching away, I chucked out the whole contraption. Underneath it had become pure compost.”
I pull a face. “Straight out of a surrealist film.”
“Peter Greenaway, of course. New masterpiece: Nature Strikes Back. A tale of the wild wood stealthily insinuating itself into the hygienic life of urban dwellers who suspect no evil. Scene Two: a mother’s tampon box grows a fir-tree cone.”
My laugh’s a bit false as I turn to examine the books again. Straight away, my fingers light on an antiquated-looking volume, and I pull it out.
I take a deep breath.
Gustaf Eurén, The Wild Beasts of Finland, Illustrated in Color.
“That’s from 1854,” Ecke says. He’s suddenly behind me.
I turn to him: “Lend me this.”
ECKE
Angel looks shockingly beautiful standing there with the Eurén book in his hand, so beautiful my hand pauses, my hand that was just about to go to his shoulders and draw him down toward me, with his blond shock of hair. He’s pressing the Gustaf Eurén, a rare antiquarian piece, a pearl of great price, against his naked chest.
“It’s terribly old. And terribly expensive.” I can’t help feeling how sordid I’m sounding. Suddenly I’m a miserly, penny-pinching old skinflint hanging on to his merchandise, who can’t let a single dusty item slip through his claws.
“I’d really like to read this, an awful lot.”
I look at Angel desperately. I can see from the look in his eye how he’s sizing me up. How far am I willing to go because he’s gifted and successful and beautiful and hellishly sexy, and as far above me as a free-running lynx above a soon-to-be-skinned mink crouching in its cage with no weapons but its slipperiness and small but sharp teeth.
“And I’d really like an awful lot for nothing to happen to this. There are very few of them around in Finland.”
“Well, bound to be so.”
“I don’t normally lend my books. But, well, here, at my place . . . you can read them as much as you like.”
I know at once how it sounds. Why not come into my lair, young man? Come, and let me entangle you in my web, so you’ll never find your way out again.
Angel has a very serious look. He thrusts the Eurén towards me like a goodbye letter.
“Okay. No, then. I understand. This must be a thing you really value.”
And his tone of voice throws down the glove: if this book’s valuable, then how valuable am I then?
“You’d not believe its list price.”
Angel turns, sighs, and pretends to put the book back in the case. And I know just as well as he does that it’s an act, that he’s giving me an opportunity. And I pick up the cue: I seize Angel’s wrist—the golden swell of those wrist bones,
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