The Geographer's Library

Jon Fasman
knows what else, and cabinet after cabinet of coins, nothing but money
money money—sort of a Jew’s paradise, I should expect. The owner
introduced himself to us as “Hank,” which was every bit as much of a
contrivance as his cousin’s “Sam.” He and Riley naturally got on like
the proverbial house on fire.
I really can’t see how you can place so much trust in someone like
Riley/Abulfaz/whatever other name suits his current purpose: he has no
identity or personality; he is a human palimpsest sustained by his endless
barrage of questions and a constant influx of useless information.
Someone like him—someone always escaping from himself, playing
dress-up in Mummy’s coat closet with accents and passports—would of
course take to this miserable, cacophonous, mongrel nation.
I have the shop owner’s business card next to me as I write this letter:
“FOREST HILLS COIN SHOP, Hank Tonchailov, Numismatist and Collector
Specializing in the USSR, Open Sunday–Friday Regular Hours
and at Other Times by Appointment Only.” Of course he makes himself
sound much grander than he actually is. In fact, Tonchailov is a grubby
junk dealer who takes from his own people the last trinkets they have
brought with them from their homelands: he’s an Americaniser, in
other words. I even started to ask him how he could possibly barter and
sell his people’s memories (and I use “his people” quite loosely), but he
mistook my tone and grew quite aggressive. Riley attempted to smooth
things over between us; fortunately for the minuscule Tonchailov, he
physically restrained me from teaching the obstreporous little Yid the
lesson he needed.
Such an education would have been entirely superfluous, as we were
to be Tonchailov’s last customers. Riley bought the coins from him for
$7,300, which he counted out meticulously as the shopkeeper’s eyes grew
larger with each hundred-dollar bill placed before him. The deal complete,
Tonchailov extended his hand to Riley (I had been banished to a
chair in the corner of the shop, where bad children wait for their daddies
to finish their grown-up business), who shook it with one hand and
with the other withdrew a sapper and delivered a fantastic crack to the
back of his head. Tonchailov collapsed as though someone had simply
258