Page 7 of The Bookshop of Forbidden Books

“Bit late, isn’t it? I think we’re past that point. And my answer is yes.”

“Yes to the book?”

“Yes to the drink. You owe me an explanation.”

“But – I didn’t do anything – you’re the one who—”

“Oh, come on.” As though he were the one being unreasonable. “That whole mysterious act of yours – don’t tell me it was all to hand me a book.”

“Well, yes – I mean, no – I wanted to talk to you about—”

She stared at him as he continued to babble, fascinated – and somewhat pleased – by his discomfort.

“Okay, so you have secrets to tell me. But I’m hungry, so let’s go get some dinner. On you, I assume, since I’m the customer. Right?”

“Right.” Mitch sighed, grabbing his keys from beneath the counter. He took his jacket from its hook and moved toward the switch that operated the shop’s metal shutter.

Mathilde was delighted by anything even the slightest bit out of the ordinary. This included leaving via the bookshop’s back courtyard, which to her felt like using the stage door at a theatre. Mitch punched the alarm code into the keypad near the back door and stepped aside to let her go first.

The dim light in the courtyard lent a sinister quality to the place, which might have been why Mathilde took Mitch’s arm – though she continued to cling to it as they walked up the bright, pedestrian-filled avenue. She guided him down one side street, then another, bypassing the train station and stopping at a hole-in-the-wall place Mitch would never have considered going into.

The restaurant’s décor turned out to be as eclectic as the Middle Eastern pop mix crackling out of an old speaker hung from the ceiling. Orange Formica tables were bolted to the walls. Behind a counter of questionable cleanliness, two women were busy at work: one slicing kebab meat from a greasy electric rotisserie, the other stuffing pitas. Mathilde must have been a regular customer, since the woman with the knife greeted her warmly and the other gave Mitch a quick once-over before winking at Mathilde and returning to her pitas.

“This will be perfect.” Mathilde beamed, perching on a lime-green stool at one of the orange tables.

Mitch took a seat on the stool across from her, this one canary yellow.

“Don’t worry. No one will hear us here.”

Mitch glanced up at the speaker above his head. “I don’t doubt it.”

Mathilde slid off her stool and went to the counter, returning with two glasses full of a steaming, cloudy beverage.

“Assam and cardamom tea. One hundred percent organic.”

Mitch had serious doubts, but Mathilde brought her glass to her lips, motioning for him to drink. It wasn’t just tea; there was quite a lot of alcohol in it, too. But it was surprisingly drinkable.

The two owners were a couple, Mathilde explained. They’d fled Iran, where homosexuality was punishable by hanging. They’d travelled a long way for their freedom. Now their place was a haven for outsiders, and they often fed the homeless people in the area.

“They’ve had terrible luck, though.” She sighed.

“Why?” Mitch asked, already imagining a suspicious number of food poisonings.

“Why?” she echoed incredulously. “Why do you think? This country was a different place when they first came here. Now… well, we might not be a police state yet, but the way things are going… gay people are constantly being harassed, even at the university. What the hell’s happened to make people so intolerant and hateful?”

“People close to power took over the media, for one thing. TV, radio, the Lighthouse. All that propaganda soaked into people’s minds.”

“Then they never had minds to begin with,” Mathilde said bitterly. “Just hay for brains.”

“Which leads us to the very thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Weren’t you just denying you had any secrets to share?” Mathilde teased. She licked her fingers and looked at Mitch, as hungry for him as she had been for her kebab.

He shook his head – he was not on the menu, thank you very much.

“That’s rare,” she said coolly. “Classy. Almost beautiful.”

Mitch turned to scan the room. “What is?” he asked.