Robert's Bookstore

I'm not sure this bookstore is really there. I think it's like the travel bureau in OF MISSING PERSONS by Jack Finney. My advice is the same. "Walk in as if it were an ordinary bookstore..."



There is a door, old, weathered, painted white. It's hidden between a curio shop and a bakery, just around the corner from the main street full of buisinesses in downtown Lewisburg. Push open the door and walk in and you'll find a dimly lit alleyway lined, floor to ceiling, with shelves brimmed with books. The floor slants a bit and the shelves take your breath, but that's momentary. They're checking you out. Books lean forward or cringe and shrug back, depending on your nature, on their nature. Some want to belong to you, others won't open to you for all your money -- don't bother buying them, they won't tell you anything.

Slide down that narrow passageway as if you're being born. The space gets wider; there is light and air. A man of indeterminate age sits under a cowboy hat (on some days), perched on a ladderback chair (perhaps), in front of a platform (watch your step). This is the second room. Go there.

Look to  the right for novels,  to the left for poetry. Step over the boxes of newer books and search the shelves. Don't read the tiltles. Let your gaze slide across them. There is a book for you somewhere in the store.  If the book didn't find you among the specialized non-fiction along the narrow corridor or behind the vinyl offerings before you entered the second room, it will find you here.

Don't be fooled. There is something going on in Robert's bookstore. A book that seems full of mystery may not be, may be only paper and ink once you leave that room. If you choose with logic, this may happen. You will hold the book reverently. It has feathered edges and leather binding. Its title promises, or the words you read when you flip to the center make your pulse quicken. Don't be fooled.

Let your eyes glide across the shelves. The  right book will pick you. If it picks you and the price is more than you have, it's a sorry time. The book will not forgive you. It may not wait for you, but will, for spite, choose another. It won't wait, even if you hide it behind another book on the lowest shelf obscured by boxes. The empty space will leer at you when you come back with the money in hand.

If you must be money conscious, look first to the prices, before you let the title claim you, before you drink the words in the center pages, before you turn to the back cover. Especially before you are charmed by the opening line.

If price is an option, open books at random, prices are handwritten on slips of paper, stuck inside, against the flyleaf. The book may cost a dollar or $40, there is no telling, no way to know, to judge. It doesn't do to fall in love with the words and find that the price is more than what you have allotted for books. If this  conquering book takes the money you set aside for bread or ale, then so be it. The book must come first.

But only if the book has chosen you, and not if you have done the choosing.

Today, the title called me. The price tag enticed me. The words just inside the cover:

Dear (   )
The manuscript, assembled finally in the second and third years of the Last Quarter and edited under Leo's double moons, was initially typed by (     ) and is dedicated to my first friend, teacher, map maker, lanscape aide,
Mama (     )
who in 1948, having come upon me daydreaming in the middle of the kitchen floor, mopped around me.

sealed the deal.

The book is THE SALT EATERS by Toni Cade Bambara