Bernhard

by Jacob Kline

I questioned the bookseller about Thomas Bernhard, the late Austrian whose first editions I had been looking for for quite some time, because of Jessica’s so-called scratchy throat, I can’t speak for you she said, not today, not with this scratch in my throat, and the bookseller replied that he didn’t have any German editions here, no obscure German editions here he said, Austrian I said, no, obscure Austrian editions here. he said, but if I were interested in literature in translation he said he did have several English editions back at his shop, not hard to find, not particularly collectible he said, the title, what is it, the concrete something he said, concrete I said, one word, concrete, yes he said, concrete, I have two paperback copies at my shop in Nooksack, a good writer though, a good European postmodernist, he said when I said nothing else, not particularly valuable to a collector he said, nothing out there you can’t find online, which I guessed meant me personally, that is, I, myself, alone, find online rather than trudge through the rain down to Seattle Center to the Seattle Center Pavilion to his stall to seek out paperback editions he would gladly sell me were we in Nooksack and not at the 2007 Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair & Book Arts Show (pamphlet), the Seattle Book Fair (awning), the Seattle Book Center Sale (front desk) or that I could readily find via my preferred online bookseller, that is via the worldwide web which if based on all prior knowledge now meant that this man must be my enemy and so I asked him about the first edition V. sitting there in his bookcase, what about that first edition V . in your display case there on the second row I said knowing full well I had no intention of buying the first edition V . because I had a perfectly serviceable paperback edition sitting on my bookshelf at home and did not need the first edition because even if I didn’t have the perfectly serviceable paperback at home I could find a perfectly serviceable paperback edition at Twice Sold Tales on John or Bailey/Coy on Broadway or Half Price Books on Olive, all within short walking distance of my house, and because I saw the same first edition V. with the same protective cover displayed prominently atop the glass display case of Phillip J. Pirage, Rare Books ABAA who specialized in rare books, bindings, illuminated MSS material, and private press books but who was not actually at the booth at the time, that is to say nowhere near the first edition V. displayed atop the glass display case when Jessica and I arrived as opposed to on the bottom shelf inside the glass display case as PBO Books, Nonfiction, University Press, Out of Print, Vintage Paperbacks had done until just now when he pushed it toward me in what I suspect was some kind of secret handshake, some silent bookseller code to go ahead and finger the object in question, to testify to its worth...