The Whole Megillah by Howard Engel Read Free Book Online

hand-written texts. Printed seventeenth-century folios of Shakespeare and early copies of Shelley and Keats may be rare, but every decent library has some. So these are rare books, but they are numbered at least in the hundreds. The megillah, on the other hand, is special: only one copy escaped destruction when books in Hebrew were burned in Italy and elsewhere from the end of the fifteenth century down to our own time. This single copy had somehow been hidden or lost, thus protecting it from the bonfires of the righteous of one generation after another. Another factor in the value of the book was that it was a completely executed copy: the pictures and initial letters were fully coloured and gilded. I read that in most editions, such decoration might only have been sketched in.
    When I came up for air, I noticed that the pale young man who had been straightening books in the room had been exchanged for a tidy young woman who asked if I’d like a cup of tea. I accepted, and soon we were talking about rare books, a subject that she—Alison--knew quite a bit about. From books, we moved on to the personality of the late Tony Moore, who was, according to Alison, a wonderfully clever man, very shrewd in business. She described two dealings in which he had beaten out the other competitors. In each case, he used a device that might have been invented by a cunning conjuror or magician. At the critical moment, he managed to deflect the other dealers’ attention so that they missed the vital manoeuvre. As Alison went back to her computer terminal, I reflected on what that meant about Moore’s untimely death. I was thinking about this when I walked down the stairs past my painted friend in the bowler and out into Bloor Street.
    The pavement was drying in what sunlight was able to push through holes in the clouds. The sidewalk smelled as sweet as Bloor Street ever smells. It was not the smell of a country lane after the benediction of the rain, but it was close.
    I was wondering whether or not to return to Brunswick Avenue, when I saw Honour Griffin walking on the other side of the street. She was coming out of a store called The Yarn Mill. She looked both ways, as though to see whether or not she was being followed, and then crossed the street to my side. I pretended to be examining the books under the plastic sheets covering the Book City bargain bins. She didn’t notice me. The widow of Tony Moore went up the steps into a vegetarian restaurant called the Renaissance, a name I couldn’t figure out. Whatever Raphael’s and Tintoretto’s the sixteenth-century Italian dukes admired, I imagined them eating a Spartan fare, tearing off the wings of roasted fowl and gnawing on marrow bones.
    I crossed Borden Street and ordered coffee at Dooney’s. While waiting for it to come, I settled the question of why Honour Griffin was looking over her shoulder. Through the window of Dooney’s, on the terrace, I could see, in addition to the Renaissance Cafe, Wells Dalton talking to two young men in T-shirts. Both had heavily tattooed arms. I’d seen better designs on the walls of pay telephone booths.
    In forty-five minutes, Honour Griffin came out of the Renaissance, now in company with a solidly built man in a tan suit. He had shoulders like a fullback and a wide stride. Dalton was taking this in as well, and ducked behind a newspaper when Honour turned back to inspect the terrace. The man gave Honour a quick hug and they separated on the corner. When they walked in opposite directions, I decided to follow him. Meanwhile, Dalton and the tattooed young men had their heads together as though oblivious to the passing parade.
    Honour crossed the street in front of Dooney’s, looking neither to the right nor left and cutting through the traffic like a bullfighter braves the horns of the approaching bull. Through the rubber plant in the window I watched her tidy shape disappear up the street. I paid my bill