Joey climbed the hill to his car, complaining to the slope as he strived to conquer it. He cursed his keys before he rolled the Rambler to the street — they never fit the first time — and weaved his way to Woodbine. Miriam would be shocked at what he’d done to himself, but also curious and solicitous. While he drove he rehearsed his story, divided nicely into edifying anecdotes: prestos with adagios after them, bright panels companioned by pastels more suitable on pajamas.
21
For a fake, this is an utter flop, Miss Moss said with a smile that suggested she would be happy to help Joseph improve the quality of his counterfeit — at the least raise its grade from an F to a gentleman’s C. Because this, she said, holding the offending document by the tweezering tips of her nails, is the license of a loser.
The Bumbler and its presumptuous driver had suffered some near misses over the weekend when Skizzen had driven it to Woodbine in what had become his routine line of duty. He had nearly rear-ended an Amish wagon while cresting a hill, and the scare had opened him like a tin. Later, Joseph had taken a turn too fast and found himself riding the berm. It prepared him to confess his crimes and face jail. Luckily, the expulsion of Portho, a shabby instrument of Satan, from their run-down Eden, as Miss Moss, in inflated tones, preferred to describe the encounter, had apparently made “the dweller in the cellar” more approachable, though Joseph thought Portho’s departure was scarcely sun enough to soften her. Whatever her reasons, Miss Moss had evidently decided to let Joseph admire how her deft fingers flew when she made some basic book repairs; and it was during these demonstrations that he had complained of the car’s erratic behavior and mentioned his fear of being pulled over by the state police, whose eye for the flimsy fob-off driver’s license he carried (and a “permission” they would surely demand he produce) might be sharper than any of the more casual cops from town. Miss Moss had asked to see the offending document whose clumsiness richly amused her. It was a state that Joseph had rarely seen. However, here, in her workroom, she no longer seemed to be a skittish spinster; rather she resembled a competent craftsman, diagnosing difficulties, choosing treatments, dabbing on glues with confident swipes, or even sewing up spinal wounds with surprising dexterity, applying healing oils, and squeezing books in padded vises as though they were patients instead, needing traction.
Although Urichstown’s little library had only the most rudimentary equipment, Miss Moss seemed familiar with the miracles performed in places of wealth and regard — institutions that consequently had fancy restoration and preservation departments. She singled out the Library of Congress where she had seen sulfurous compounds harmlessly leached from brittle papers, and tears mended that seemed beyond a surgeon’s skills. If Joseph’s little secret had slipped out, so had the information that Miss Moss had once been the head of their modest library and had, during her tenure, made more than one visit to the Folger as well as to the Library of Congress. On one most memorable visit to the capital, she had been honored by a tour of its magical laboratories. As she spoke, she held the plasticized card high in the air at the end of a wavering arm. I understand the passport people use a kind of blue light that brightens the ink on a genuine document and forces any falsified design to disappear. Joseph didn’t dare ask about the historic upheaval that had plucked her from the front desk and sent her to this small basement room with its odd inadequate lamps, few tools, and scarred workbench; nevertheless it was a hideaway, and out of all beck and most calls. Although Miss Moss still resented the Major as well as her own continued subservience to an upstart, she had happily adjusted to “debasement,” a condition for which she had several other similar names. I hang about here like a bat in a cave, she said, making a boast of her banishment. I am the Keller Madchen. You are like a bottle of fine wine, Joseph suggested. Dusty from lying a-round, Miss Moss amended, but he could see that she was pleased.
We shall have to start fresh and see if we can re-place this dimestore dickydoo with one worth at least a quarter. For Miss Moss, repeatedly ridiculing Joseph’s so far single foray into forgery was a convoluted form of acceptance, even affection. She produced a camera from a cardboard box otherwise so full of gray rags the Polaroid could not at first be located, although Miss Moss’s dithering search for it was like a performance put on to tease a child whose birthday present momentarily cannot be found: Is it here? no? where could it be? In order to position him against the one white wall that was unobstructed by steel shelves, Miss Moss was forced to shove Joseph’s shoulders into squareness. Then, from a compact slipped from her purse like a tip to be discreetly offered, she patted powder on one of his shining cheeks — There now, that’s better — before she suddenly flashed him full in the face.
He who has lived and thought can never … look on mankind without dis-dain, Miss Moss said firmly, as if speaking about the photo she’d just taken.
I don’t drive anymore — since the twenty days — but we can still use my license as a model. In fact, she said after a moment of apparently efficient thought, we may be able to do more. We can update and alter mine to achieve yours. Joseph protested that by no means could he allow … there was no circumstance that might possibly permit … but Miss Moss was not to be deterred by wholehearted protests, not to mention Joseph’s halfhearted ones, and in a thrice her card was firmly positioned beneath a large rectangular magnifying glass whose surface she repeatedly sprayed with cleanser because each wipe of the cloth seemed to soak up the ammonia while otherwise smearing the lens. A curse upon all this in-competent equipment, she said, as if she were alone.
After a few minutes of swift adjustments that did not acknowledge his existence, Joseph was allowed to reenter Miss Moss’s world, where she became an enthusiastic instructor in inks and alterations. Here, this is a slow zone, I mustn’t hurry, but I’ve been hasty, she said aloud, yet again as though alone. Against the outside wall, where bottle-glass windows let in a grime-gray light, stood a photo stand made of card table, drafting board, and ingeniously twisted coat-hanger wire. Two rather long-legged flashlights were suspended over the board and a covering piece of poorly wiped heavy glass that had been dented or chipped as if it had suffered the fall of at least one of them. The license was moved to this makeshift mechanism where another fusty old camera had been hung from a clamp affixed to a pole, its barrel nose-down through the hanger’s hook. The entire arrangement appeared perilous.
Every Christmas someone asks me to copy a page they’ve picked, or an illustration they fancy, so I just keep this camera in its place. I think they paste the photos in special homemade greetings. Anyway, they want them for holidays … nearly always … you can imagine … and for valentines. My services don’t come free. Film is not cheap, you know, and people don’t usually want to wait until I’ve finished a roll. Could be months. On your behalf I shall demand a day off for good deeds, Joseph promised. Miss Moss felt obliged to giggle.