HOW TO HAGGLE WITH A SOCIALIST
by
DAVID SOLWAY
______________________________
David
Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist (Random Walks)
and author of The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism, and
Identity and Hear, O Israel! (Mantua Books). His
editorials appear regularly in PJ
Media. His monograph, Global Warning: The Trials of
an Unsettled Science (Freedom Press Canada) was launched
at the National Archives in Ottawa in September, 2012. His debut
album, Blood
Guitar, is now available, as is his latest
book, Reflections
on Music, Poetry and Politics.
I don’t
make a habit of visiting used or rare bookshops – the
print museums of our digital age – but I have occasionally
enjoyed book-hunting in an out-of-the-way bibliotheca, most
memorably when I was living in Greece a few years ago. I had
wandered in, quite by chance, to the Karaghiozis Emporium in
the warrens of the Plaka – the neighbourhood at the base
of the Acropolis. Despite its impressive moniker the Emporium
was actually a decrepit little hovel, its name borrowed from
the celebrated Turk-Greek shadow puppet-theater character –
an uneducated, unemployed trickster given to risqué jokes
and sharp social satire – who has delighted Greek audiences
for generations. The place struck me as a kind of bookend, so
to speak, to the Karaghiozis Museum in the posh Athenian suburb
of Maroussi, thus bracketing the vast social disparities in
Greek society while at the same time accentuating its cultural
and historical unity.
The
Karaghiozis Emporium was nothing more than a literal hole in
the wall, a gap in a stone façade fringed by a pelmet
of aluminum shutters. It was not so much a used bookstore or
a rare bookstore as a rarely used bookstore. The only occupant
when I entered the premises was the affentiko (proprietor,
from the Turkish effendi), a grizzled dwarf who seemed
a dead ringer for the rogue puppet himself. He was seated on
a rather high tripod, sipping a turkiko (Greek coffee,
adopted from the Turkish occupation) which he poured from a
battered briki and scanning a much crumpled newspaper,
which turned out to be the popular left wing Eleftherotypia,
favoured by trade unionists, diehard communists and prospective
terrorists.
He
scarcely troubled to notice me as I cast a skeptical eye over
the mouldering copies of socialist tracts, translations of various
French anarchists, a prominently displayed Franz Fanon and,
of course, the obligatory pile of Communist Manifestos and
Das Kapitals, all looking distinctly worse for the
machinations of that ruthless free market enterprise, Time.
There was also a saucer of milk and the scattered heads of maridhes
(smelt) on the dirt floor laid out for the feral cats that would
slink in for a brief repast. The affentiko obviously
had a soft spot for the proletarians among the scavenging classes.
As
he had not bothered to acknowledge me and as I could see nothing
of interest among his wares, I was about to leave when I noticed,
at the top of a corded bundle by the cave-like entrance, a cat-eared
copy of Yannis Ritsos’ Epitaphios, the radical
poet’s 1936 threnody for a worker assassinated during
the Salonika general strike. This was indeed a rare find. Receiving
permission to untie the parcel – permission consisted
of an abrupt lowering of the head, the Greek gesture for assent
– I also discovered the 1967 edition of Dinos Christianopoulos’
Poiimata (Poems) and a loose-sheet copy, collected
between cardboard panels, of Eleni Vasileiou’s Appolonia,
which I’d vaguely heard of but had never come across.
I couldn’t
believe my luck and immediately began the process of negotiation.
Notwithstanding the advice of bookseller and author David Mason
in his charming pamphlet The Protocols of Used Bookstores
– “Do not ask for a discount” and “It
is not nice to lecture the proprietor on how and why you know
that the price of his book is ludicrous” – I knew
that bargaining is expected and pro forma in a traditional Levantine
or Greek marketplace, which the Karaghiozis Emporium manifestly
was. Now the affentiko deigned to address me and pointed
to a tiny stool at the edge of the cluttered table where I could
make myself uncomfortable. And so the haggling began, amid the
yowls of cats, the incessant hammering from the adjacent metal
shop and the whorls of black smoke wafting in from the passing
trikiklos (3-wheeled motorized carts).
Socialism
may be anti-capitalist, but socialists often make the best capitalists.
So with my interlocutor. His political disposition was no impediment
to his shrewd and sinuous bargaining methods, which included
claiming that the rarity of the books was akin to “triremes
that fly over the trees at sunset,” quoting one of Ritsos’
better lines from “The Dead House.” This impressed
me greatly, far more than another used bookseller I had dealt
with in Montreal, who quoted only prices. He then described
his strenuous and costly odyssey to obtain these coveted tomes
in the scriptorium of a monastery on Mount Athos – a most
unlikely repository for a cache of leftist volumes – and
expressed unwillingness to part with them except to someone
worthy of so precious and exquisite an intellectual treasure.
Sensing that he was attempting to compensate for his unusually
short stature with an unreasonably tall price, I feigned a weary
indifference, assuring him I was mainly interested in the books
as a sentimental token of my visit to the Plaka.
Moreover,
I affected to have little leisure, letting it be known that
I had to stop by the shoe shop across the alleyway for a pair
of sandals before rushing to Pireaus to catch the ferry back
to the island where I was living. This was, I soon realized,
too clumsy and transparent a ploy to be effective, but I partially
recovered lost ground by matching his Ritsos quote with one
from Giorgos Seferis’ signature poem, “In the Manner
of G.S.”: “Ships whistle now as night falls on Pireaus.”
This earned me an involuntary grunt of approval and an apparent
willingness to bend on price. To press my advantage, I glanced
frequently and conspicuously at my watch. He sipped his turkiko
and grumbled beneath his breath, peering closely at the books
as if he were about to cut diamonds. It didn’t look like
we were making much progress. Then came his crowning maneuver.
He slipped from his perch behind the table and made as if to
replace the books in the corner where I had found them. My face
fell, rather too visibly. That was his cue.
Suddenly
appearing to change his mind, he smiled benignly, as if taking
pity on the poor foreigner who had belatedly understood the
immense spiritual value of the antiquarian gift he was about
to forfeit, and stated the final price, the best he could do
considering his daily expenses, the stray cats he had to feed,
the exorbitant rent for this spilaion (cave), and the
three daughters he had to build prika (dowry) houses
for. My daughters, he said, quoting Ritsos again, are “at
the windows, hidden behind their dreams.” Despite the
poetry and my growing respect for the man – which I don’t
grant lightly to socialists – I resisted the urge to capitulate.
But eventually, after due consideration of the bookseller’s
dignity as well as my pocketbook, I agreed to a price that was
a little higher than I’d budgeted for, and a little lower
than he’d initially demanded. Like the characters in a
Karaghiozis-orchestrated triumph, everyone was happy. The bookseller
got his adjusted price, I luxuriated in my trove, the cats had
their maridhes and the daughters, no doubt, could look
forward to their prika.
But,
of course, since the shoe shop was in full view directly across
the way and I couldn’t honourably renege on my weak transactional
strategy, it also cost me a pair of sandals.
