Back to SherlockPeoria front page    June 16, 2002    Back to The Maniac Collector's Archives

I Am Still Waiting

I have been waiting on my Agra Treasure to arrive. Waiting, waiting, and I am still waiting. Why has my postman been like that dog in the nighttime? This is one of the drawbacks of international book dealing. The snail-paced rate of delivery is most likely in the waiting person's mind than the actual chronological wait but hey, it's still frustrating.

One treasure I have been waiting on for a long, long time is an Uzbek copy of The Canon. This particular wait began in January 2001. It started with search of the Internet for sites related to Azerbaijani. This is one of the translated languages listed in De Waal. I found a promising WebPage from Sherzod Mamatkulov at Utica College of Syracuse University. He was from Azerbaijan and said he owned a copy in his native tongue, of course it was not with him here in The United States.

The message I had simply said, "Thanx for visiting my homepage =). As I am a big fan of Arthur Conan Doyle, I'll try to help you. I myself have one ["Stories about Sherlock Holmes"] back home, but I'll try to connect my friends and ask if they could find some for sale. Do you want to buy one or what?"

Did I want to buy one? He obviously had never heard of The Maniac Collector. I sent him back a reply in the positive and thus the wait began. In February 2001, I had my next reply. "Hi, I've been still trying to connect with my friends back in Tashkent with no luck yet. Probably it'll take some time to do that. I'll try to e-mail you with the results soon." More waiting. Little did I know Sherzod and dropped out of school and moved to Uzbekistan.

I had just about given up when in July I had another message. "Dear Don, sorry I've been absent for a long time. Now I'm in Uzbekistan and I have Uzbek translation of "Stories about Sherlock Holmes". Let me know if you want it, I don't have Azerbaijani translations." Okay, let's see; lose on prospect for a translation in Azerbaijani for one in Uzbek. This sounded equitable to me.

I wrote to Sherzod to find out how to get a payment to him. His answer was not the one I expected. "Do you remember an old soap opera (?) or movie called Dallas? We've been watching the Uzbek translation of it again, for more than a year now I guess. So I'm bragging to people that I have a friend in Dallas who knows Ewing family. How's that? =))." That was the extent of his message. It was now September and my hopes grew dim.

When I finally heard back from Sherzod it was November. The message was thus, "Dear Don, how's everything. …Sorry (as usual) it got me long to reply. I'm not coming to the city often now, I'm doing a temp job somewhere in my town. ….Now, the book. It was published in 1989 in Tashkent (city), "Yulduzcha" press (that means "little star"). Its in Uzbek (Cyrillic). It has 18 stories, some of them are: "Five orange seeds", "Last work of Holmes", "The second stain", "Black Peter", "Empty hHouse", etc. These are of course my translations from Uzbek, they might be named different in originals. Don't be surprised if I don't reply soon."

Small steps are better than no steps. In December, Sherzod gave me a mailing address in Uzbekistan and I send him a letter with the payment packed securely inside. In January 2002, the letter is returned to me marked "Address Unknown" or something very much like that. It was written in Uzbek. I can't read Uzbek, I just waiting on Sherlock Holmes in Uzbek. I sent another e-mail to Sherzod pleading for a better address but not really knowing what had happened him.

Finally I heard form him. The April 2002 message was simple enough, "Dear Don, Here is my new address. I regularly receive mail here without any problems. Let's try it again…..I began working for a company recently, I'm a computer department manager. As I had mentioned, I have a friend in Azerbaijan. I'll try to contact him and see if he can help. I'm sure you'll get the Azerbaijani version someday. …Your friend, Sherzod"

I am still waiting.

Happy collecting!!!