Savage Love by Douglas Glover

Author:Douglas Glover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 2013-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

A Paranormal Romance

Everything Starts at a Bookstore

I was supposed to meet Zoe for dinner at a chic Parisian restaurant she had discovered on the Internet, a crucial rendezvous during which I intended to propose marriage. But I was running late. A fierce, cold rain lashed down as I bounded up the metro steps, rain as I had never experienced before. It drove me back into the underground, where dozens of African Parisians discussed the weather in languages other than French. I glanced at my watch and leaped up the stairs again, blinded by the torrents of rain.

Wind whipped the leafless plane trees along the avenue. I spotted a flower shop and ducked in, thinking to buy a bouquet for my love. But I must have slipped through the wrong door, for I found myself in a neat, closet-like second-hand bookstore with dark oak shelves marching back toward an ancient desk fortified with parapets of leather-bound tomes. I hovered, dripping, in the doorway, loath to enter and perhaps spatter valuable books with water but also reluctant to dive back into the deluge. I wiped rainwater off my watch face, frantic with vexation and indecision. I naturally blamed all my troubles on the Parisians, their precious City of Light, and Zoe’s love of travel, which I did not share.

At length, an elderly gnome, about three feet high, with white braids wrapped like wheels at the sides of her head, shuffled from behind the desk in what looked like wooden clogs. Everything smelled of dust, mildew, and creosote. Her skin was the colour of ash. The high ceiling seemed wreathed in smoke. She dragged anciently toward me, taking hours it seemed, with a small book clutched in two veined and corded hands the colour of mahogany. She extended her arms, offering the book to me, almost toppling over as she held it out, her blue lips working wordlessly, foam at the corners of her mouth. But her watery blue eyes darted intelligently, anxious and beneficent.

A folded slip of paper fell from the book as I reached for it. Then I had to grasp the old crone by the shoulders to prevent her from falling as she vainly tried to catch the escaped sheet before it landed on the damp floor. I could already see the blue cursive letters soaking through the yellowing page. I snatched it up by a corner and flung it open, hoping to preserve the message, but the letters were beginning to run. The penmanship was bold, what used to be called copperplate; the words were, surprisingly, in English. They disappeared as I read them. “I adore you. I belong to you for eternity. It doesn’t matter what you have done. I take your sins for my own. I will suffer the punishment and happily wait for you in the Afterlife. But, my heart, if I could just see you once more before I go, it would be so much easier to bear. At the Gare at seven under the clock.

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