Page 1 of The Bookshop of Forbidden Books

Chapter 1

Mitch

He stood at the wooden table, back slightly hunched so he could fill his glass without spilling. The radio was playing a tune from a faraway place: a blend of rap and bossa nova, as much a hybrid as the alley cat that had made its home in the small courtyard behind the bookshop. Mitch had discovered the cat on his return from prison about a month earlier; it must have moved in while he was serving his sentence. In the five years he’d been away, a thick layer of dust had settled over every surface inside the shop, and the scrawny-looking cat had taken up residence outside. Since nothing had been stolen in all that time, Mitch, who’d always been a bit of a dreamer, decided the cat must have kept watch in his absence, scaring off any would-be intruders. That alone was enough reason to earn his loyalty and Mitch had begun feeding the little guy every night before shutting up shop. The cat, wary at first, had eventually allowed Mitch to get closer. Even so, despite all the bookseller’s efforts, the cat never once stepped inside, not even on the nights when it was pouring with rain.

Mitch’s real name was Michel. His parents had chosen it long before he was even born. But his mother, a bookbinder and avid film noir buff, had always called him Mitch. His father, a self-educated factory worker, had started out in a printing press at fifteen and stayed there until his accidental death at fifty-one, when the safety catch on one of the rotary presses failed during a routine maintenance job, pulling Mitch’s father between its rollers with a terrible crunch. A cruel end for a man whose only indulgence in life had been books.

Father and son had been close in their own way, tinkering in the garage for hours, playing chess on rainy Sundays and kicking a ball around when the weather permitted. But being quiet types, they had never truly opened up to one another.

They had concealed their own lives behind those of the characters in the novels they read, values handed down covertly in their conversations about the loves and hopes, the wanderings, loneliness and euphoria of fictional characters.

It wasn’t until a year after his father’s death that Mitch truly began to understand the legacy he had left behind. There he was, each time Mitch opened a book. He found traces of him tucked between the pages or hidden in the margins. He would hear his father’s voice, often in supporting roles, in the works of Hemingway, Yates, Bowles, and so many others. Phrases and expressions the man had made his own. Simple words, just the way he liked them. When, as a teenager, Mitch had asked him if God existed, his father had answered, “Scepticism starts when you’re sitting in church between a cop and a nun and suddenly you realize your wallet’s gone.” And another time, when Mitch was complaining about his teachers, his father had said, to comfort him: “Look at me. I survive, I endure,” – here he’d paused for a beat before adding – “and I keep control of the situation.” And, faced with his wife’s constant worry over making ends meet, he would often repeat: “Don’t worry, okay? Everything’ll work out fine.”

Both at the printing press and in their neighbourhood, people had regarded Mitch’s father’s way of speaking with amusement, surprise and occasionally suspicion. Ultimately, Mitch had probably been the one who understood him best, even if he’d never been able to figure out whether his old man’s moods – for, his work having taken a heavy toll on him, he had grown old before his time – were borrowed from a work of fiction or not.

Three weeks after the fatal accident, Mitch’s mother sold the family home and moved to a seaside cottage. As for Mitch, a notary handed him a very different kind of inheritance: a modest sum tucked away in a savings account, left to him in his father’s will. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough to buy a small studio apartment, and to give his father a tombstone – a resting place more dignified than the plain patch of grass where he was first buried. Mitch then spent every last cent building a temple in his father’s memory: a charming little bookshop, just a stone’s throw from the train station. He hadn’t chosen the location by accident: commuter trains had eaten up a good portion of his father’s life. Two hours every morning, and the same again in the evening, all of it spent reading. He would sometimes even miss his stop, too deep in a novel to notice the world outside. Thousands of sunrises and sunsets swallowed through the train window, seated on a hard bench that was far from the comfort of a living room armchair. But as he liked to say, The books travel with me.

“The books travel with me.” Mitch still hadn’t identified the source of that quote.

* * *

On that cloudless spring evening, Mitch knocked back the glass of gin he’d just poured. The burn caught in his throat and made him cough. He wasn’t much of a drinker; he had one occasionally to clear his throat after a long and dusty cleaning session.

Since being released from prison, he’d spent his days scrubbing tables, sanding and revarnishing the counter, polishing the wooden floors until they shone, and dusting the bookshelves, carefully wiping down every single book with a dry cloth to bring their spines and covers back to life. Tomorrow, Sunday, he’d apply the finishing touches, and once the windows were clean enough to see through again he’d allow himself an afternoon of rest. Monday was the bookshop’s official reopening, at last.

Thanks to the fact that he already owned both the shop and his little studio apartment in the suburbs, Mitch could just about afford to keep his business afloat – as long as he was careful, and as long as the customers came back. Thankfully, the judge hadn’t imposed a fine or seized his assets; he must have decided that taking away five years of his life was punishment enough. Even the publishers, for once, had let the debts slide. No one had come to reclaim the books left on consignment. Some of his stock was a bit out of date now, but the classics never went out of style, the children’s section still felt fresh, and stationery didn’t age.

Armed with patience and stubborn optimism, Mitch had decided to pick up the threads of his previous life.

He poured kibble into a dish, picked it up, turned out the lights, set the alarm and went out into the courtyard to feed his loyal night watchman, who hurried toward him, purring. As he did every night since his release from prison, Mitch darted a glance at the door of the old coal hatch that led down to the cellar. He still hadn’t found the courage to go back down there. Every time he got close, the memories came flooding back. Maybe one day. But not yet. It was still too soon. Still too painful.

He had ten minutes to catch his train. It was the last one of the day, and he couldn’t miss it if he wanted to sleep in his own bed tonight. The station wasn’t far; even with his bad leg, he’d make it in time.

He said goodnight to the cat and set off down the street.

Chapter 2

HB 1467

Five and a half years earlier

Someone had been inside the storeroom, Mitch was sure of it. But why? There was nothing of real value here, or at least nothing most people would consider valuable, and nothing seemed to be missing. Mitch knew his lair like the back of his hand, and all it took was a single thing out of place to alert him. One book wasn’t stacked quite right on top of the others, as if someone had picked it up and put it back down, but not exactly where they’d found it. Even stranger, Mitch was sure he’d left a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale on top of that pile, but he was now staring at Stendhal’s The Red and the Black instead. The lock on the door leading to the courtyard out back was untouched; the rug covering the trapdoor hadn’t been moved. Mitch had bought the rug at a flea market one rainy Tuesday two weeks after the House Bill 1467 had been passed – the one that had changed his life. Mitch pushed the memory aside. He needed to focus. There was no way anyone had come in through the front during closing hours – the alarm would have gone off. So how had the intruder got in, and, more importantly, what had they been looking for?

He scanned the room, thoughtful and uneasy.

If his hunch was right, he needed to find a safe space for his treasure, and fast. But moving 150 kilos of merchandise seemed impossible, and asking anyone for help invited questions he couldn’t afford to answer.

Maybe it was the sheer difficulty of the situation at hand that made him consider another, more comforting possibility: a rat. One well-timed leap could’ve nudged the paperback. After all, The Red and the Black couldn’t weigh more than a couple hundred grams.

The thought comforted him. He put the book back where it belonged, gave the room one last careful sweep, and returned to his seat behind the counter.

But Mitch should have listened to his gut. Taking the easy road would one day turn him into a criminal.

* * *

As he did every morning, Mitch alighted from his train at the central station at 7:45 a.m. He wore navy blue trousers, a white shirt, a raincoat and a baseball cap. As he did every morning, he stopped at the station café for a quick coffee, which he drank at the counter, idly skimming the headlines of a newspaper someone had left behind. He sighed wearily. Since the election, the governor’s allies had kept the press on a tight leash. Not a single editorial dared criticize the government anymore. Mitch left a few coins on his saucer, nodded to the owner and headed out into the day.

At eight o’clock sharp, he turned down the little side street to his shop. It was the start of a crisp autumn day – the kind of bright, orderly morning he loved most. Mitch liked routine. In fact he needed it. Running a bookshop with no employees required iron discipline and a methodical approach. Every day, he had to unpack the new shipments, write blurbs to tempt customers, curate table displays, manage the accounts (which he did on Mondays when business was slow), dust the shelves (a job reserved for Tuesday and Friday mornings before opening) and, of course, greet every customer with a smile. But he always looked forward to Thursday the most, because Thursday meant deliveries. Somewhere inside those boxes might be a hidden treasure waiting to join his collection.