In the kitchen, a jar of coffee, bottles of wine, a few pots and pans, dishes in the sink, cat bowls on the floor, also Sandburg and Safire.
In the dining room, a long table of tiger maple, three Duncan Phyfe chairs, a book of Tarot, both Agatha Christie and Simenon, chatting quietly with Chas. Finch, Arturo Perez-Reverte, and Alan Bradley.
In the sitting room with the corner fireplace, now gas, a Portuguese mirror remembering centuries, silhouettes from the Jazz Age, an old trunk from the Far East, and Ishiguru, all alone.
In the east room, two leather chairs from an old inn, a daybed from a spinster aunt who remembered the Titanic going down, also Faulkner, Borges, Lightman, and in the shadows of the shelves a motley crew, drinking cocktails, coffee, beer — Irving, Poe, Churchill, countless poets, a few artists and historians, some young, some old, da Vinci muttering to himself, various lady novelists, a few hikers and gardeners, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Rash, Patchett, a few Irishmen, god knows who else — enjoying themselves though, in the small room, either laughing, in earnest, or distracted.
In the bedroom, dead relatives dim and quiet on the walls, cats sleeping on a bed — and in the far corner, Jefferson, Umberto Eco, Cavafy, and Kalinsky, wondering how they came to be together on the same small table under a lamp.
