Mr Mankopf's Shop of Curiosities

by Jim Parker Dixon

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  Mr Mankopf’s Shop of Curiosities

  By Jim Parker Dixon

  Copyright 2013 Jim Parker Dixon

  ISBN: 9781301151370

  There, a shop. Somewhat out of sorts it was; the window was dusty, the paintwork drab, the furnishings were fusty and in need of love. And up above, a painted sign was seen upon which were painted words which, when read over, read: SHOP (OF CURIOSITIES).

  On the inside of the Shop (of Curiosities) was a chair, and a desk in a mess, and an unlit lamp, and a man, and countless other things besides were crammed inside the cramped insides of the Shop (of Curiosities).

  If in that shop there was a space to be found then a thing could be found placed there. Where, in any other shop, the walls would have been seen, instead, one found, wound and proud, ranks of clocks. Their movements oiled and numbered faces fixed, they ticked and rang out the time according to their clockwork will. Some kept well, some lost, some gained, but none could agree precisely upon the hour. And when the hours came around, a fine old din would clatter out as each clock took its chance to tell the time.

  Teapots, plates, paintings, grates, watches (gold and silver plated), walking canes, ladies’ fans, toy trains and planes and boats and books, glassy jewels, lamps and stamps, pots and pans and spats and hats and old bed springs: and so it was that things beyond number lay muddled and littered and cluttered and stuffed into every conceivable corner of the Shop (of Curiosities).

  The shop, as it was, looked less like a shop and was, in fact, not unlike the mighty mouth of a monstrous dog who, lying bored for a hundred years or more on his threadbare bed, was chewing his way through everything that there ever was in the livelong history of the world.

  The aforementioned man who sat upon the aforementioned chair was the man whose aforementioned shop this was. And the name by which he was known was Mr Mankopf. His old bent back bent over the desk high-piled up with a hotchpotch of this and that and assorted bric-a-brac. The two thumbs and eight fine fingers of his two thin hands fidgeted and held and turned around the things that were held inside the Shop (of Curiosities).

  On the top of Mr Mankopf was Mr Mankopf’s head. And buried therein – where the eyes reside – were two darkish peering glassy things (I mean eyes of course) which poured curiosity down and into and onto the many, many, many things that were heaped inside the inside of the Shop (of Curiosities).

  And the lids that lay heavily and readily upon the outermost outsides of the peering eyes were heavy and tired and red, as if tears of old age and loneliness were held in there and were ready to flow and fall at any moment. For perhaps it was that old man Mankopf had not a friend in the world.

  But you would be right wrong about this, for there was nothing of such sadness in the man. (Well, at least no more and no less than other men of this age and occupation). For even now, a boy, his grandson, lay fast asleep in bed upstairs and the two of them lived happily enough in the Shop of Curiosities.

  On a certain day, as the day slowed into the evening quiet, Mr Mankopf had a chance to set about a rather special task. While the gathering shadows piled upon the piles of curious things, his glassy eyes squinted and strained all the more the better to see and mark and wonder at a marvel that had found its way to his little Shop of Curiosities.

  As the light of the day departed, he struck a match and lit the lamp and he wiped the damp that gathered in his eyes with a striped handkerchief. And likewise he took the little wiry spectacles through which he peered (and that somehow stayed fixed in place by pinching the tip of the aforesaid nose) and he wiped them too.

  For all his concentration was summoned to this marvellous little thing. So much so that his gravely drawn face came youthfully alive. And in the yellow smoky glow of the now burning lamp, you would have seen a man that burned with curiosity.

  Moving faster now, his hands (more old bones than hands they were) took out slender tools from a worn leather bag. With grace and measure he tinkered and tailored and soldered and nailed, and patient hour after patient hour, the night and his labours increased.

  As the clocks, in their various ways, counted out the hours, there came a point when no more could be done. The curious thing – that so caught and captivated – was tidied and tightened and polished and finished and ready.

  In the morning, bright and blue it was, the boy, a boy of 8 or so, bumped sleepily down the stairs and weaved his way to where old Mr Mankopf had nodded off. Before he had a chance to think he noticed the curiously beautiful thing that sat quietly in its clearing on the desk. Around it all the other things seemed as nothing. Now wonder struck him dumb, and trembling his finger traced the corners and curves of the curious thing.

  “How marvellous it is”, he whispered to himself. “So it is.” Mr Mankopf had woken. “I worked all night, to put it right, and now it’s as done as it can be. And though I say it myself, ‘tis well done.”

  “Whatever shall be done with it?” asked the boy. “What a treasure you have found.” He paused to look at it some little while. “Perhaps we could keep it here?”

  “Truth to tell, I think not my boy,” Mankopf said, “for our duty is to buy and sell and thus make our daily bread. This wondrous thing must be placed in pride of place in the window there. And it should turn for us a goodly price if someone was good enough to notice it and step inside. It’s sad, I know, but each of these curious things is set to go if some customer decides it so. Still,” he smiled, “I’ll leave you and it together a while. Take it, and learn what you can learn from it.”

  And so the boy, now alone, turned the curious thing about. He had his grandfather’s instinct for all things mechanical, and he found himself at ease at once with this magical little box. He flipped a catch, released a ratchet, tripped a hidden spinning wheel that sent strange mechanical music through its frame. It stirred and raced: the contraption lived as if alive.

  But what was this thing? Might it be that the darkest craft had made it what it was, and something of the maker’s mind was trapped inside its workings and design? Perhaps, for those that knew its language, it foretold the paths of the vagrant, bright burning stars? Or might it speak with spirits? A shudder, cold, ran through him when he thought of all the lifetimes it had passed through to find him.

  Returning it quickly to its casket, a jewelled lacquer of the richest red, a wish began to spread throughout his soul that this ancient thing, a toy of some king or king’s magician was his to have and should not leave his possession.

  Just then, a tiny piece of the curious thing, a perfectly shaped, five-pointed star, came loose and fell into his palm. He looked at it for a moment. It seemed to be a kind of key that set the mechanism in motion. Quicker than his conscience could oppose, unseen, his hand closed around the tiny thing and he thrust both key and hand inside his pocket.

  “It’s time I think”, the moment broke as old Mr Mankopf reappeared and he took the curious thing and, with the greatest care and respect, placed it in the window of the Shop (of Curiosities).

  The boy watched them go and when his grandfather’s back was turned, he scampered back up the stairs with the star held tightly in his hand. And when he reached his room he closed the door and bringing out the little piece of sky-fallen beauty, as rare as love, looked long and lovingly upon it.

  2

  The curious thing sat proudly in the window for a day or two until blustering in came a red-faced man, a coat of animal skin, with damson coloured trim, was thrown over his broad back. In haste he passed his attention about the shop. He turned up his nose at what it had to offer then he angled in on where Mr Mankopf sat. He was hard at work, bent over at his desk. In the socket of his eye he
had pressed his watchmaker’s magnifying glass. Through it he peered at a fat bronze coin that was struck with the commanding face of a Roman Emperor.

  The red-faced man snorted out: “My word there’s some trash in here.” Mr Mankopf, whose old ears had heard such words as these before and knew well of these heavy mannered men, let them pass without comment.

  “How may I help you sir? Perhaps sir is looking for something in particular?”

  The customer shifted on his feet: “That thing in the window. It caught my eye. It has a certain something, and besides I’m in something of a hurry. Wrap it up for me my good man.”

  “As you wish”, smiled Mr Mankopf. “It’s a fine piece, I do declare. It is hard to know the date or purpose of its invention…” The red-faced man interrupted: “Spare me the history lesson old man. If I need anything else I’ll ask for it.” Nothing more was said.

  So it was that the curious thing, wrapped up tight in brown paper and string, was placed in the back of a large, black car that growled across town until it came to a halt at a towering house whose floors were laid thick with fine carpets and whose walls were filled with painting of fleet sailing ships and horses.

  The door of the towering house flung open as the man, with the parcel under his arm, approached.