The Crow's Nest 2-7

2-7

            Alice turned her fierce yet wispy stance away from me, vanquished her assertive glower and walked to the front hall with its stairway to the attic.  I followed.  At the base of the stairs she said politely “Go on up.  The captain will be there to speak to you”.

            I did as told.  I went up the stairs alone, confronted the closed doors alone, opened the proper not blocked doorway alone, stepped into the attic world alone and… stood there alone.  The dusty blank space that yesterday held the mother’s rubbish glowed as emptiness in the window light.  The remaining mounds of …rubbish… surrounding this empty space stood undisturbed.  The one window was still open.  The tea table was still there.  The tankard was still on top of it.  Quickly looking around to confirm that no one, including a “captain”, was there, I walked over to the tea table.

            After touring the antiquarian gold of the first floor this jewel of classic New England Colonial furniture… hidden in the attic… elevated in fact to the probable supreme inclusion in the estate.  Sure, for example, the… flat topped… highboy on the first floor, with its old surface and dangling original hardware… but long… long, long separated into two pieces of furniture… in two different rooms… with the bottom in the sun by a window and the top in the back of the front hallway darkness… was a “good” but… not a “great”.  The tea table was a perfect antiquarian gold nugget to my eye; a singular career discovery of perfection… in an attic… “untouched”.  I walked over to it.

            I took the tankard off of its top and set it on the floor.  I picked up the table and bent the top in toward my lap as I stood holding it.  I peered at the underside of the table.  Darkened patina and age toned wood with matching glue blocks showed an undisturbed old realm of “as it should be” antiquarian surface perfection.  A small rectangular slip of old paper was pasted to this surface.  I saw the old paper’s edges.  I saw the printing on the paper.  It was a label.  An old label.  An old maker’s label.  I twisted the underside of the table toward the window light and bent further to see the label.  I could read it.  The printing said “This piece was HAND MADE in the workshop of Charak Furniture Co., Boston, Mass.  It is numbered 266.  Made in Year 1931”.

            The tea table was a FAKE.  It was a high quality hand made REPRODUCTION now darkened, age toned, dust covered, soiled and attic hidden away… that I was holding in my hands.  I peered at the label again.  I read the label again.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, holding, thinking and:  I set the table back down.  I stood there looking at the top with its dust ring where the tankard had sat.  I picked up the tankard, looked at it quickly.  The tankard was real.  No question.  I set it back on the table.  I stood looking down on them both.  THE TABLE WAS A FAKE.  IN THIS ATTIC!  I couldn’t believe this.  I looked around the whole attic.  “It’s fake.” I heard myself say.