Page 46 of The Bookshop of Forbidden Books

“Who are you, Anna?”

“I asked you the same question, and you couldn’t answer. So don’t expect me to.”

He tried to help her clean up, but she waved him away, telling him to sit down. The kitchen was her domain. When everything was neatly put away, she washed her hands, took off her apron, and turned to face him.

“I haven’t told you everything. But since we promised to be honest…”

She touched his arm – a gesture so intimate it said more than any words could. So whatever confession was coming – unless she was about to tell him she was married – Mitch didn’t care.

“I killed a man,” she said, as simply as if she were telling him she’d left an ingredient out of a recipe.

“The trouble you and José—?”

“Yes,” Anna cut in. “It’s why I left the country. Now, unless you’ve changed your mind, let’s go back to my place. You already know where I live. You were staring at me the other day, from a train window.”

Chapter 19

To Kind of Kill

Mitch’s love life hadn’t been particularly extensive, but Anna was the most selfless woman he’d ever known. In the early hours of the morning, while she still slept deeply beside him, her leg curled softly around his, he wouldn’t have moved for anything in the world. Gazing at the ceiling, he found himself wondering if any of this was real. To reassure himself, he breathed in the scent of Anna’s skin, realizing in that moment that being intoxicated by a woman’s scent while she sleeps was already love.

“The workers aren’t coming in today,” she grumbled, half asleep.

“Sorry to hear that,” he replied, though he wasn’t sorry at all.

“It’s some religious holiday. Don’t ask me which one.”

“So we can spend the day together?”

“What about the shop?”

“Closed for religious reasons.”

“You’re getting better at the little white lies.”

“There’s a pretty lake about ten kilometres north of here. We could rent a rowboat.”

“About ten kilometres south, there’s my restaurant. We could put up the wall sconces in the dining room, deep-clean the kitchen equipment…”

Making Anna happy made Mitch happy, so to him it sounded like a perfect day.

* * *

He held the drill in one hand, a pencil clamped between his teeth to mark the places where the holes would go, while Anna held the sconce against the wall to make sure it was perfectly straight. When it was mounted and lit, both Mitch and Anna felt as if they’d crossed some kind of threshold. Anyone watching them would have been struck by their obvious ease and intimacy, and no one would have believed they’d spent only a single night together.

Some time later, Mitch was planing the pantry door (Anna had insisted, while putting dishes away in the china cabinet, that it rubbed at the top of the frame) when she suddenly froze, a sauceboat suspended mid-air.

“Don’t you want to know why?” she asked.

“Why the gravy boat should be on the lowest shelf?”

“Why I killed a man.”

“Only if you want to tell me.”

“I’d rather not, actually. But if you ask me, I will.”

Mitch turned the planer back on and continued shaving down the door. “Was it an accident?” he asked, over the noise.