“Open Sesame!”

On Adeline Street at Harmon, just on the southern edge of Berkeley, there is a cave of wonders called People’s Bazaar; their website beckons the shopper in with the words Open Sesame!  For years as a student, and later, on Christmas visits to town, I would stare at those windows full of oddments and wonder what in the world was inside.  Finally, two Christmases ago, Robin and I first took the plunge and went in, and last weekend we did again, both times finding all we were looking for, and more besides.  It is one of those rare places when reality beggars imagination.

Narrow lanes are made by rows of antique furniture topped and flanked by lamps and filled to bursting with crystal, silver, china, pottery on which are heaps of opera glasses or vintage cameras...  The lanes are lined with framed pictures, several layers deep:  paintings of all sorts, embroidery… and more are on the high walls above, along with faded tinted photographs of instant ancestors under curved glass.  Looking up, you notice suddenly that from all points of the ceiling hang chandeliers, looking down you find a pile of boxes -- cigar boxes, music boxes – and there by the cash register are pegs filled with brass keys of every description.  There are masks and figurines, fabulous pieces of brilliant-cut glass, silverware and jewelry, all tucked away among other things like an I-Spy puzzle: hundreds of things with thousands of stories to tell.

Two people are in charge of this treasure trove, Rabia and Sam, as interesting and mysterious as their cave:  she stooped over and beturbaned, sharp and witty, testing her customers for worthiness to carry away her prizes; he quiet, deft and handy, gently extracting delicate, precious things from a press of other delicate, precious things, making everything shine and everything work that can.  If you know what to look for and know how to ask, you will find whatever strange thing your heart desires. 

I am sitting at a window that looks out over the San Francisco Bay and lets in the roar of Highway 24 traffic as it races up the slope towards the tunnel that will take it beyond the coastal range into the less-hurried world of Orinda and Walnut Creek.  Out there are the huge Trojan-Horse cranes of the Port of Oakland, the sweep of the Bay Bridge, the blue-green Bay itself and its necklace of cities, San Francisco queen among them.  All day here, things are building, moving, being invented, and at night it is a sparking fairyland of lights: an Ali Baba cave of wonders.  We have said our Open Sesame:  let the magic commence!