Found, in a cellar in Brooklyn

THE pawn shop doesn’t open until ten. She’s been outside since six-twenty; fifteen minutes and one cup of coffee since the hostel turned her out.

She sits on the old suitcase. It makes a great barrier between her backside and the frozen sidewalk, and her bird-like frame is in no danger of damaging it, or its contents.

It’s a sturdy case, the old fashioned kind, brown leather all dried out, scuffed up. Like her. Dull leather guards on the corners. Initials stamped beneath the handle which is secured to a brass fixing with a brown shoelace. She guesses it was a good case at some point. Maybe still worth something today, even in this state. Maybe a couple of nights in the hostel.

The pawnbroker, fat, short, encased in a thick black overcoat, the edges of which dapple the puddles in the sidewalk as he walks. Copy of The Times is rolled in his pocket, like a truncheon. He wears a thick black leather hat, lined in grey sheepskin; the kind with the flaps that cover the ears.

He stops next to the woman, bends down, puts his coffee on the sidewalk, rummages in his pocket for keys. She looks at him as he twists the key in the lock at the side of the great steel grill covering the entire storefront. Then he bends down and with a loud huff hauls the grill up, half way. Another huff and it clatters all the up into the housing above the window. Then he pulls the bunch of keys from the lock and unlocks the shop door.

“You open now?” she asks. The pawn broker looks down at her, startled to be addressed; like he’s only just noticed the presence of this old homeless woman sat on an old suitcase in front of his store.

“Huh?”

“Are. You. Open?”

The pawnbroker peels back the cuff of his overcoat and peers at his watch.

“No I ain't. Fifteen minutes.”

“Uh. Okay. My next appointment isn’t until 11.30. I can wait.”

The pawnbroker takes one step into the store, then hesitates and pulls his head back out into the stream of icy wind blowing down Eighth Avenue.

“You wanna come in, come in.”

The woman pushes the flat of her palms down on her bony knees and lifts herself off the suitcase. She looks at the pawnbroker and points to the case.

“This kind of thing? You buy ‘em?”

The pawnbroker looks at the suitcase. Looks at the woman. Looks at the case. He shrugs. Maybe.

“Bring it in. Let’s take a look.”

*************

He flicks on the lights and a bank of flourescent tubes in the low ceiling stutter to life.

She looks around, appreciating the warmth inside, out of the wind. The store is a horseshoe of glass cabinet shelving, an alladdin’s cave of late 90s technology. A couple of early Playstations. SLR Camera bodies and lenses. Kodak slide carousels. Stacks of CDs. Stacks of lumpy VCRs. A basket full of miniDisc players. A set of walkie-talkies. A stubby blue telescope on a tripod. A lot of stuff. No suitcases.

“You got a lot of stuff,” she says.

“Lot of junk,” he says, lifting a hatch and squeezing himself through the opening to get to the brown leather stool behind his counter. The counter is piled high with old copies of The Times, some collector’s magazines, a telephone book and an accounts pad covered with biro doodling. The chewed butt of a fat cigar balances in the groove of a large square glass ashtray that needed emptying about six cigars ago.

“You want a cup of coffee?” He points to the styrofoam cup he brought with him. “It’s my third this morning. Ain’t touched it. My daughter tells me I need to cut down. So, you know, if you want it…”

The woman smiles in acknowledgement of the gesture. He seems like a nice man. Let’s see how nice.

“Thanks. I’m okay.” She heaves the suitcase up on to the counter and pushes it into the space the pawnbroker is making for it amid the papers. The effort leaves her breathless. She waits until she can catch it again, then fixes the pawnbroker with an expressionless gaze. Business time. “How much?”

The pawnbroker laughs. “How much. How much.” He runs his hand across the edge of the case. It’s small. More of a large valise than a suitcase. Old, too. Maybe 1920s? Once upon a time it would have been a top-end purchase. But now. It’s worth less than the price of the coffee.

Sensing his lack of interest, the woman points under the handle. “It’s all initialled. Fancy like.”

She pulls the handle up, for him to take a look. The pawnbroker looks at her, wearily. Then he pulls his reading glasses from the pocket of his overcoat. Only now does he take off his hat. His hair is thick and snowy white. He puts on the glasses and peers down at the case. Three initials that were once gilded are just about visible in the leather.

“Uh-huh. Lemme see. E.M….H.” He glances up at her and creases his forehead. “Anything inside?”

She turns the case around so the handle faces her, and pulls at the two clasps, their mechanisms needing some encouragement before they open with a crunch. She opens the lid up and turns it around for the pawnbroker to see. The smell of very old paper rose from the case. The pawnbroker pushes his reading glasses back up over the bridge of his nose and runs his fingers over the contents. Then he lifts a single sheet of paper from the top of the pile. It’s translucent-thin and yellow. Like dead skin.

“What is this?” He looks at the woman over his spectacles. She shrugs.

“Stories. I guess. Looks like old typewriter paper to me. Some got pencil marks on them. Changed the words and crossed stuff out. Paper’s so thin it’ll crumble away to dust.”

The pawnbroker rubs the corner of the paper between his thumb and forefinger. He smiles.

“Paper’s old all right, but it’s strong enough. Onion paper’s what it’s called. Don’t see it so much these days. Everything’s on that cheap photocopy stuff these days.” He gestures towards a old printer blinking some coded fault in the corner of the store, below a sign: _5c a Page_ “People even write letters on the stuff. If they write letters, I mean.”

The pawnbroker pulls another sheet from the pile. His eyes scan the lines of words with increasing pace. His forehead creases. He puts it to one side and pulls another, then another. Then, slowly with two hands, he pulls out a thick sheaf of papers and places it carefully to the side of the case. He stares down into the case, the way a man might stare for a moment at a bar of gold he just uncovered beneath a pile of autumn leaves. His hands move back into the case. He lifts a book. A black notebook, dog-eared, and plump with use. He lifts it clear from the bottom of the case. Holding it in the air above the suitcase, he gestures to the woman, who is transfixed by the performance unfolding before her. It reminds her of the way a priest handles the host.

The pawnbroker nods to the case. “Close the case. Please.” He speaks softly but urgently, and the woman cranes forward to him, unable to make him out. Louder: “The lid of the case. Close it. So I can put this down.”

“Hey, calm down.” She pushes the case lid away from her, towards the pawnbroker. It falls shut with a clump. A rush of dust-smelling air wafts up between them.

Now she’s nervous. She glances around her. When you’ve lived on the street as long as she has, it doesn’t take much to alarm you. Your radar is always tuned in; the unexpected is to be feared. Nothing much good happens. Plenty of bad.

This guy's acting like he’s holding the Holy Grail in his hands. It’s starting to freak her out. She takes a half step backwards. The pawnbroker sets the notebook down on top of the closed suitcase. Then he lifts the black cover. The woman stares at the first page of the notebook, blank except for a name and a date, written in an elegant, rounded cursive script, blue ink, faded.

The pawnbroker lets go. The notebook cover falls shut. He takes a half step backwards too.

“Lady. Where do you get this?”

She hears an accusation. It’s a familiar tone.

“I didn’t steal it. I found it.”

“I didn’t say you stole it. Where’d ya find it lady?”

Long time since someone called her lady.

“What do you care. What’s it worth?”

“Who are you? What is this? Some sort of scam?”

She takes another step backwards towards the door. She’s shaking. She’s about to run. Then the pawnbroker says:

“Look me in the eyes. Tell me this isn’t some set-up.”

She looks at him, and then senses something. He’s scared. Of her.

“What is it? Is it worth something?”

“Swear to me. You’re on the level. You found this.”

“I found it.”

“Where? I got to know. I got to know or you can take it and walk right out.”

She figures she’s got nothing to lose. She found it somewhere she wasn’t meant to be. Found it? Stole it? Depends how you look at it.

“A brownstone in Brooklyn. Due for demolition. I slept there the other night. There’s a way in through the back. The builders have gone bust, on account of the economy. It’s empty, pretty much. There’s a cellar. It was there. Look mister, whoever it belonged to is long dead. It was either I took it, or it went in a dumpster. I figured an old suitcase it might be worth something. People like vintage. Right?”

“In Brooklyn? That’s where you found this.”

“Didn't I just tell you.”

“Okay.” He sits, almost falls, back onto his stool. She notices his forehead is beading up with sweat. She takes a step forward.

“So?”

“Those initials. E.M.H.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Ernest Miller Hemingway.”

She holds her breath for a moment. Then breathes again.

“The Hemingway?”

“1922, Hemingway was in Europe. His wife, Hadley was her name, she took a train from Paris to meet him in for a skiing trip. He asked her to bring his stories to work on. She brought everything, notebooks, carbons, everything.”

He pauses.

“Train stops on the way, she gets off for air. Comes back. No case. Never seen again.”

The pawnbroker pushes the notebook a hundred and eighty degrees, so it faces the woman. She places her hands either side of the counter and leans in. He lifts the edge of the notebook, revealing the opening page. This time she can read what’s written there, no trouble. Rolling script, handsome, fountain pen ink smudged slightly, like whoever wrote it turned the page before it had dried.

Ernest Hemingway, Paris. June 1920.

“You’re trying to make a fool of me.”

“Lady, you brought this thing here. I don’t know how this coulda got from Paris to Brooklyn. But if it was going to turn up anywhere, then Brooklyn's as good a place as any.”

A long silence passes as the measure each other and the words they just exchanged.

“So?” She asks. “What’s it worth?”

He lifts a single sheaf of the onion paper and lets it hang between his finger and thumb in the space between them.

“This one page? I don’t know.” He blows at the paper, making it billow gently. “You got hundreds of ‘em here. Each single page? I honestly don’t know."

"Guess."

"Twenty grand?”