The middle one is behind the merchandise. The proprietor, who declined to be photographed despite this blog's immense journalistic credentials, spends a lot of time rearranging the various items on his two tables. Between each item and the next there is about 1/8 of an inch, (2mm), making it very difficult to pick anything up.
"It slows down the thievery." he smiles. Anything you are interested in seeing closer up, he will withdraw for you. So the carved Madonna, made of some heavy wood and stained with something I didn't recognize, rose up out of the jumble without touching either the snake-covered Medusa or the blackened box with the rose-shaped designs and was placed in my hands. He puts it in your hands as if you have already bought it. There, this is yours now. That's the feeling I got and, because you could not possibly put the thing back on the table by yourself, you feel impelled to keep it. I tried to think of some excuse.
"The eyes don't seem right to me."
"That's to give you something to think about while you are looking at her.
I gave him a doubtful look, he tried the historic perspective.
"She comes, I think, from Silesia, maybe from Croatia, maybe from the wars there. I think she likes you. You like her?"
I handed her back to him as a reply. He shrugged and with a single movement placed her back in her cramped spot on the table.
1 comment:
This is New York.
Or is it Toronto?
It's New York.
The doors make it.
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