Posts Tagged ‘The Outsider’
Finding Albert
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
The shopfront is crooked and narrow, seemingly not much wider than the door itself. It stands cramped between the buildings either side like a fugitive teenage gymnast between a couple of burly KGB henchmen. In the tiny dusty window a jumble of books crawl to the top of piles and slither down again.
The inside is as narrow and disordered. The endless sound of Buenos Aires traffic fades into a dull hive-hum as the door crawls shut behind me. Everything in here speaks of age and use. Stacks of books totter uneasily either side of the entranceway, some flaunting their spines like brazen salesmen, others turning them demurely away from prying eyes. Down the back, safe within a fort of hardcovers, the Argentine owner soaks in a pool of yellow lamplight. A mass of frizzy black hair haloes his head, and he doesn’t even look up as the little brass bell rings. He is absorbed in his work.
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