Impressions of an old man and his books
When my wife and I were in university, thirty-five years ago, we lived in an apartment in a building that had been grand in the nineteen thirties, sixty years earlier. It still had the same grand art deco gas stove, and the same grand solid wood panels above the doorways.
It had the same tall guillotine windows that overlooked the once well-tended inner courtyard. Most of the counterweights in the windows had long fallen into the walls when the ropes that held on to them had frayed. The few that still worked had to be pried open or closed each time against the unfathomable thickness of paint on their frames. It was a nice place for a couple of undergrads.
The superintendent and his wife were old beyond reckoning, and the tenants helped them with most of their tasks, since the faceless landlords never did. I often carried the big garbage bags from our floor down the stairs for him, because they didn’t fit in the tiny art deco elevator at the back, and no one used it anyway, because it was just plain scary.
There was a guy with a German first name downstairs who played his music way too loud during the day. But I would let him know whenever I was working nights, and he would abstain. He was a nice guy, about our age at the time. He died of brain cancer a bit later.
There was an old man who lived down on the ground floor who always wore a suit, but not a very nice one. I often saw him walking around campus, and I remember wondering whether he was a professor, and if he was, why he would be living in our undergrad slum. I thought maybe he’d lived there already when it was grand, and had just never moved out as it fell to pieces around him.
There was a young woman who lived on the second floor, maybe a few years older than us, who hung out with the old man a lot. She did his food shopping. She always wore a long pleated skirt and a bowler hat above her round face. Whenever the weather was nice, she would spend her days sitting on the front steps, reading and chatting with whoever came in and out of the building.
One day, for no reason I can discern, she asked me if I wanted to see the old man’s books. He had a lot of books, she said. He was related to the founder of one of the libraries at the university.
I could never determine how true that second statement was, but he certainly had a lot of books. She walked with me to the door of his ground floor apartment. She knocked. He opened, and she went back to the front steps.
It was dark in there, and there was a strong musty smell. The books were piled all over the floor and furniture, about as high as my shoulders, so about up to his nose. He could barely see above the piles. There was a narrow passageway between the piles so that you could get to the different rooms.
He stood there in his doorway, looking a bit dazed. I said hi. I introduced myself. I asked him if he was a professor. He turned and walked into his cavern. I followed him. He showed me some amazing books that day, just sitting there on top of his piles. I can’t imagine what he could have shown me if he had actually dug in, or if we’d been able to access some of the piles beyond the first wall of books.
I don’t know if she knew that I am a book lover, or how she did if she knew. I don’t know whether he knew. I don’t know why I was elected. I’m just glad that I was.
I spent a good while in there. Felt like the better part of the afternoon. He told me all about these books of his. He never answered one of my questions. When it seemed he was done, I thanked him and went back upstairs. I saw him a lot after that, in the neighbourhood, on campus, in the building. I never exchanged another word with him, not even hello.