October 25, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey
“We have a visitor,” Zlatno said and seconds later Calvado heard someone yell, “Hello?” from the store; just as she had done. “He’s not from around here,” Zlatno added after the ‘Hello’ sailed through the kitchen. “Can you get that for me, miss? My legs,” he said and rubbed his thigh.
“Sure, but I don’t speak Turkish,” Calvado said.
“Neither does he,” Zlatno responded. “Remember,” he added as Calvado got to her feet, putting the cat gently on the floor. “Sell expensive stuff.” Then, mumbling to himself, “We need the money.” Calvado nodded and left the kitchen for the front store.
“Two? In one day?” Nina said.
“It’s a miracle,” Zlatno responded sarcastically as he closed his eyes and rested his chin on his chest.
Nina hurried into the store.
“Let me know what happens,” Zlatno said, eyes closed and breathing heavily.
“Yes?” Calvado asked the young Japanese man standing in front of her with an iPod in his hand.
Hiroshi was awed. The woman was definitely the most beautiful woman he had ever seen: tall, not too thin, shortish hair that looked like she was trying to grow it longer and a body... a perfect body. But there was something about her that made him think she was more than just beautiful; he couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something.
“You... you’re the owner?” the man asked.
“No, no. Uh, can I help you?”
“There’s a book in the window,” Hiroshi said. “I want to know, uh, how, uh...”
Well, Calvado thought to herself, he isn’t staring at my boobs. “You want to know the price?” she helped.
“And the age. It looks very old,” Hiroshi said.
“All the books in this store are old,” the man behind the cash register said. Hiroshi looked but didn’t see anyone.
“Yeah,” Calvado said and picked up a nearby book. “This one was printed in 1522.”
“By Fusto-Shoeffer!” the man behind the counter yelled. Calvado was getting irritated and wanted the man to either come out from behind the cash register or be quiet.
“1522? Wow,” Hiroshi said and looked through the book. It was in Latin and he couldn’t read a word, but he liked the font design. And the paper. “Nice paper.”
“It ain't paper. It's vellum,” the man shouted.
“Do you want to come out here and help?” Calvado yelled with one hand on her hip.
“I don’t deal with tourists,” the man shouted as if tourists were the worst of a bad breed of human.
“Hey,” Calvado said. “I’m a tourist.”
There was silence from behind the cash register but Nina strolled patiently into the store and rubbed his back against Hiroshi’s leg.
“Nice cat,” Hiroshi said.
“Which book were you interested in?” Calvado asked.
“It’s...” Hiroshi moved toward the window and looked around. “It’s in here. It’s a bit bigger than...”
Nina jumped up in the window and sat on a thick book in the corner to watch Hiroshi search the books for the one that attracted his attention.
“That’s odd...”
“What?” Calvado asked.
“It was here...but it’s gone.”
“What did it look like?”
“Big. Old. The title was in Japanese.”
“Really? In Japanese? I was just looking through those books just a few minutes ago and I didn’t see any book with Japanese. That’s odd, indeed. Here, help.”
Calvado started moving books around, staking them up in one side of the window, next to Nina. Hiroshi placed books where Calvado could reach them. He picked up a psalm book printed by Fuch-Shoeffler in 1503 and a bible by Sacco-Vanzetti in 1792. He saw a book titled Il Milione but didn’t read Italian, so he passed it over to Calvado without looking at the printer’s mark which said it was printed in 1789 in Venice. As Calvado bent over, Hiroshi tried not to look down her t-shirt but failed.
“Lose something?” Zlatno asked.
“Oh, you scared me,” Calvado said.
Hiroshi looked up to see an old man with a long beard dressed in a dress-like smock of dark green. He looked like a cheap Turkish amateur version of Angus Dumbledore.
“This is the owner,” Calvado said to Hiroshi. To Zlatno she said, “This young man is looking for a book that’s disappeared.”
“Sell it to him and give him an empty box, eh, eh,” Zlatno laughed. “And buy your invisible book, too, eh, eh,” he laughed. “Books seem to be disappearing left and right here today, eh?” His eyes sparkled with laughter and a mix of devious snarking.
“Books?” Hiroshi asked.
“The book I came in here to buy seems to have disappeared, too.”
“That’s odd.”
“Very.”
“All in due time,” Zlatno said, “all in due time. Would you like some coffee?” he asked Hiroshi, who looked at Calvado, who nodded so Hiroshi nodded, too. “We’re all in agreement, then, eh? How about you?” Zlatno asked Nina as he napped on top of a first edition of “Tristram Shandy” by Laurence Stern. Nina stretched and jumped out of the window display and followed Calvado, Zlatno, and Hiroshi into the back room.
“Do you believe in history?” Zlatno asked over his shoulder to Hiroshi.
“Believe? In history? I don’t understand,” he replied.
“Do you believe history is... mysterious,” Zlatno said.
“Well,” Hiroshi said. “It’s certainly important.”
“But do you believe?” Zlatno insisted.
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Next: The Priests of Hiroshima
