It looked as if a medium-sized and very specific earthquake had wreaked havoc in there.
One of the tall bookshelves had fallen over, and books, maps, engravings, and folio volumes covered the floor like a sea of paper. Steven saw the eighteenth-century book on chess that he had only just bought; someone had slit the leather spine lengthwise. A dirty footprint left by a boot adorned the dramas of Molière; other books had come apart entirely, and their pages were crumpled or torn out. A gust of wind whirled a few ragged pages up in the air like withered leaves. The mahogany table in the backroom of the shop was the only piece of furniture still in place. The scene was so appalling, so unreal, that Steven stood there for a long time as if turned to stone, staring into his shop. It was the thought of a single book that brought him back to life.
Oh God, not the Grimm. Not the Grimms’ Children’s and Household Tales.
Taking no notice of the onlookers, he stumbled to the door and unlocked it. He tried to make his way into the shop but was prevented by the pile of books pressing against the inside of the door. For a while the people outside watched, spellbound, as Steven fought a desperate battle against a mass of printed paper and parchment. He continued these useless efforts until someone placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Is this your shop?”
The female police officer in front of him was still young, maybe in her midtwenties, and she looked genuinely concerned. Her older male colleague was waiting, with a bored expression, in the police car parked at the curb with its blue light switched on.
As Steven nodded silently, the police officer went on calmly. “We’ll have to investigate this break-in, although it looks more like a few young hooligans out to make trouble than anything else.”
Or like Frau Schultheiss, who just can’t wait to open her fashion boutique, thought Steven.
Would she really go that far? Had she hired a few thugs to hurry things along and make sure Steven moved out?
He was so deep in thought that at first he failed to hear the police officer’s next question.
“Can you tell us if there’s anything missing?” she repeated gently. “Money? Valuable items?” She took out a notepad.
Steven looked at the chaotic muddle of torn, dirty, soiled, and slashed books, and heard himself laugh quietly.
“Sorry, silly question,” said the young woman sympathetically. “We’ll just record details of the scene and report back to police HQ, and then you’ll probably want to start cleaning up.”
She patted him on the shoulder, then went over, notepad in hand, to her colleague, who was dispersing the crowd of onlookers in a loud, official voice.
Steven said nothing, just went on staring at his wrecked shop. He corrected his earlier impression: this was not just the lousiest day of the year; it looked more like one of the lousiest days of his entire life.
3
“ARE YOU OPEN?”
Steven paused his tidying up, and looked at the broken pane of the display window, which he had sketchily and temporarily mended with sticky tape. It was evening, and an unpleasantly cold wind whistled through the cracks and kept sending torn pages flying about.
The face of a young woman peeked through the network of black strips of tape. She had dark hair and was wearing a bright green headscarf and a pair of black-framed 1950s sunglasses that made her look remarkably like Audrey Hepburn. Steven had always admired that delicately built movie star, but right now he simply was not in the mood to make polite conversation to anyone, not even her double.
“Closed for now,” he growled, and went on putting any books still intact back on the shelves. A heap of torn copies on the counter had grown larger and larger over the last few hours. Actually, the damage had turned out to be not quite as disastrous as Steven had feared at first—but it was certainly bad enough to be depressing. The restoration of old books was very expensive. Steven knew that he would never be able to scrape together the money to have approximately forty damaged volumes restored to their original condition. At least the Grimm had survived. He had found it lying under an overturned bookshelf, slightly crumpled, but otherwise unharmed.
“Stock-taking?” the woman asked curiously, pointing to the pile of books that he hadn’t looked at yet.
Steven sighed. “If you really want to know, someone broke in. And I’m just trying to get my ruined shop back into some kind of order. Thanks for asking. Goodbye.”
“Oh,” Audrey Hepburn said. After a moment, she asked, “Was anything stolen?”
“I really don’t know what business that is of yours.”
His tone was far harsher than he had intended, but he was worn out. Hours of dealing with damaged books had hit him harder than he liked to admit. Curiously enough, as far as he could tell, only one book was actually missing. It was a volume of German ballads that had not been especially valuable. Perhaps he just hadn’t found it yet. Which was why he had said at the precinct house that afternoon that nothing was missing. The duty officer told him in friendly but detached tones that they would be looking into the crime committed by a person or persons unknown, and sent him back to his shop, where he had been clearing up and brooding ever since.