M agwitch The week I started at Malynowsky''s, in June 1996, was the same that the newspapers carried the headings: "Majority of Britons no longer believe in God," and "God is dead: Nietzsche. Nietzsche is dead: God." The British Humanist Association had just conducted a MORI poll and discovered that, while 67 percent of the populace considered themselves religious, only 43 percent believed in a God. Not only this, but it rained and rained interminably. Mr. Malynowsky was undeterred. "The rain is a wonderful sign, Kala," he told me as he handed me an antiquarian specimen with a binding like brie rind, "The rain is a symbol of knowledge, like this book. It comes from Chokmah, the sphere of Wisdom on the Tree of Life; it is God''s thoughts descending on Malkuth, the Earth plane.
Yes, the rain falls effortlessly from the unfathomable mind of God, fertilising all that it touches, even in these ancient city streets! The trick is to make ourselves a vessel for this Chokmahrain, so that we can collect and hold God''s wisdom." "That''s a lovely way of looking at it!" I said, putting this weather immunity down to his Polish origins as much as to the mystic bent. Britons, as well as not believing in God, complain endlessly about the rain, and then bitterly rebuke the sun for being too hot when he occasionally shows his face. Atmospheric intolerance and atheism seem to go hand in hand. "Not just lovely-also true!" announced my new employer, his blue eyes dancing with merriment beneath salt-and-pepper eyebrows. "All of life is an analogy of the mind of God-magick teaches us this. There is no such thing as bad weather, only a bad attitude to God''s many moods!" I looked through the dusty, darkened windows at the silver streaks outside, and felt that pleasure which can only come when the rain is pummeling on the roof and flags, a cold wind weaving in and out of the liquid columns or blowing them sideways into wet explosions on passersby, and one is warm and snug inside. A shiver of contentment passed through me.
"Yes, we are like a capsule, floating on the river," remarked Mr. Malynowsky, a phrase which was soon to become familiar to my ears. "A bubble which many might like to burst. But we shan''t let them, shall we, my dear?" I looked at him, surprised. "What do you mean?" I ventured. "Ah, my dear, so young, so much to learn. The first thing you must know is that every action has its equal and opposite reaction. For every good thing we believe and do, there will spring up an adverse reaction.
You and I belong to the Pillar of Mercy, but there are just as many adherents to the Pillar of Severity. Not a bad thing; we need the balance. But then we have the flip-side . " "Flip-?" "Yes, I''m afraid we do. The Klippoth. The husks or harlots , as we call them. These are the spirits of evil, and there are just as many in Oxford as anywhere else, Kala, or possibly more. But I do not wish to alarm you, my dear, though forewarned is forearmed, as they say.
You will learn a lot working here; it is a focalpoint for many energies, as you will see." Had Mr. Malynowsky not been so gentlemanly, well-educated, and respected, I might have been deterred at this point. Actually, that''s a lie. I might have felt I ought to be deterred, but the lure of the shop, with its wondrous rows of tomes and spectral nooks and the fact that my boss was merely vocalising what I already thought-but was unaccustomed to hearing said out loud-far outweighed my desire to be sensible. I smiled at him with genuine confidence. "I can''t wait," I said. I did not have to.
Two minutes later, a blur of brown Barbour coat crashed through the door, shedding silver beads of God''s wisdom from its waxy surface, and generous streams of Chokmahic insight from the numerous bags clutched in the red hands of its breathless owner. The pigskin carpet* all around his feet was soon as sodden as the gentleman''s beard, over which he stared bespectacled. His eyes were large and rather frantic, and as they met Mr. Malynowsky''s, the man, who was in his mid-forties I estimated, flushed like a teenager. "I''ll just put my bags down, if I may," he exhaled, depositing at the foot of the mahogany counter seven or eight extremely heavylooking carriers from Blackwell''s and the Oxford University Press Bookshops. "Certainly, Sir," nodded Mr. Malynowsky mildly. "And how may we help you?" The man looked at us both, and then swept the shop with his eyes.
They nearly bulged, and he began to hyperventilate again. "I just want to look around and buy some books, if that''s all right." As he spoke, the man headed for the fine bindings shelf, his hands shaking-with the strain of his shed load, or with something else? He grabbed two or three beauties from the middle, then hurried to the next section, the incunabula, and pulled off the fattest specimens, piling them all up in his arms. "You might like to put those on the counter, Sir, where you can study your selection," ventured Mr. Malynowsky, visibly concerned for the welfare of his books. Each was like a child to him; he knew its history, he had nurtured and tended it through the traumas of sympathetic renewal and meticulous cleaning; he had interacted with its inner essence. The customer, however, seemed reluctant to put his prizes down. "I''m used to carrying heavy weights!" he announced, his eyes hungrily scanning the aisles and displays like a competitive child on a treasure hunt.
He lunged for the next shelf, a row of historical tomes written in French. This was too much for Mr. Malynowsky, who jumped to his well-polished feet and was at the gentleman''s side in a flash, remarkably agile for a septuagenarian, I thought. "Please, dear Sir, allow me," he cajoled, gently edging some of the pricier specimens from the man''s damp and vice-like grip. Our customer did not know whither to look; at the articles rent from him, or at the others waiting to be seized. "Don''t put them back!" he cried in my direction. "I want to take them all!" Mr. Malynowsky caught my eye and raised an eloquent eyebrow.
"Study him," it said. Was this our first case of clinical bibliomania, I wondered? The customer, however, was quick to complete his business, arriving at the till with two more armloads of eclectic texts and requiring that they be totted up, all within five minutes. Nervously, I put the books through the till. The words "That will be three thousand and fifty-four pounds, please," did not slip as easily off my tongue as I would have liked them to. The man, still flushed and shaking and breathing like a fox just ahead of the hunt, put his hand inside the Barbour jacket and withdrew a pile of fifty-pound notes the size of a loaf. I looked at Mr. Malynowsky, unsure as to whether to accept them or not, and then remembered the pen we keep on the till to check whether notes are genuine or not. The man flicked sixtyone of his notes from the mass like a croupier, and placed them on the till with a flourish.
I tested each with the pen, as swiftly as possible, trying not to blush. Mr. Malynowsky kept him talking all the while. "So, you are a polymath, Sir?" he asked pleasantly. "What a rare quality that is nowadays!" "Well, a polyglot, anyway!" gushed our customer. "I went to Oxford many years ago-studied Classics-ah, is that a Euripides folio there in the cabinet?" "It is indeed, Mr.-?" "Magwitch. Paul Magwitch," he smiled.
Mr. Malynowsky held out his hand, and as they touched, I saw a flash of perception pass across the face of my new employer. Magwitch tried to converse politely, but he was clearly agitated by the desire to extract the Euripides from behind its glass. Mr. Malynowsky nodded at me to pass the key, which I did, sending a fifty-pound note zig-zagging onto the pig-hide carpet. I retrieved it with a sense of money being rather like leaves on an autumn breeze. Magwitch''s ideas must be catching. "It''s eighteenth-century diced Russia*," intoned Mr.
Malynowsky, lovingly identifying the relevant faded backstrip. "Look at this gilt back-beautiful, is it not?-and we find within, engraved portraits of Euripides, and Joshua Barnes, the publisher." Mr. Magwitch could not wait to get his hands on the specimen. He clutched it to his chest, not even looking inside, as if his very life depended on it. Within moments he had deposited a further ten of his red notes on the counter. I wrapped the books as carefully as possible, considering their quantity and the speed of the transaction, while my boss tried to extract conversation from our unusual customer. The latter was soon so flustered that the ancient man of magick had to give up his till-side stool to the hefty younger man.
"Thanks," breathed Magwitch, undoing his waterproof for the first time. Beneath it I glimpsed a very fine tie of.