Chapter 11 Thirteen Reasons Why
Thirteen Reasons Why
The man, in his early forties, wore a sharp brown suit and lingered near the window, darting furtive glances toward the avenue.
The woman, who wore black trousers, a blouse and a large pair of square-framed glasses that covered half of her face, approached the counter and asked, in a near-whisper, for a copy of Thirteen Reasons Why.
“My daughter’s been going through a difficult time,” she explained with timid politeness. “I’m trying to find a way to connect with her.”
Jay Asher’s novel, Mitch recalled, had caused quite a stir when it was first published. It told the story of a teenage girl who, shortly before taking her own life, sent cassette tapes to the people closest to her explaining the part each of them had played in her decision.
Mitch had no doubt the book had ended up on the forbidden list. Still, as a formality, he opened the drawer behind the counter, consulted his old copy of the list, and apologized: the book was unavailable for sale. The woman stared at him, bewildered.
“But I just saw it yesterday! A receptionist at our hotel had a copy. She’s the one who suggested that I read it.”
Mitch absorbed this information in silence, wondering if the receptionist in question was one of the students who had frequented his clandestine meetings before his arrest. A sudden wave of paranoia swept over him. Could this couple be a pair of undercover public safety inspectors?
“She may have found a copy somewhere, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t sell you one.”
“Why not?” The woman’s tone was sharp. “Do I not look trustworthy or something?”
“Of course not – it isn’t that…” Mitch stammered.
The woman continued to stare at him with the puzzled look common among people who don’t have a wide range of expressions. The man, whose jaw had tightened, approached them and thumped his fist on the counter.
“Look,” he said, “if you didn’t have the book, you’d have said so right away. I’d happily go and buy it elsewhere but our train’s leaving in less than an hour, and we need that book. I’ll even pay you three times the price, how’s that?” He pulled a fat wad of cash from his pocket.
A tense silence fell. Mitch looked from the cash to the couple, scrutinizing their faces. The whole thing felt like an obvious trap. That two government agents would play a sick game like this on the very day he reopened the shop filled him with a cold fury.
“The answer is no,” he said icily. “I know what kind of people you are. Get out, now. And don’t come back.”
The woman squared her shoulders, her jaw quivering. She looked like she was gearing up to say something terrible, until her husband grabbed her arm.
“Don’t waste your breath,” he muttered, steering her toward the door. “Guy’s just another right-wing asshole.”
* * *
Two hours later, Mitch was still shaken.
No other customers had come in to break the tension.
Maybe he needed a fresh perspective. Since his release from prison, he’d been living like a recluse, shuttling between the shop and his apartment, trying to put himself back together.
It was time to become reacquainted with the outside world.
At lunchtime he headed to a nearby café and was surprised to see a newspaper other than the Lighthouse lying on the counter – and even more surprised to hear his fellow diners openly debating the government’s current reforms.
Eavesdropping on the conversations around him, Mitch pieced together that there had just been a change in government.
His heart thumped. Approaching the nearest group of people, he apologized for butting in, explaining that he’d just come back from a long trip.
They told him that the governor had been ousted earlier that summer.
An election had been held immediately after, and the woman who had won it had restored the nation’s freedoms.
The news should have filled Mitch with joy, but it had the opposite effect. He was furious: he’d served his full sentence for something that hadn’t even been a crime for the past three months. They’d just left him there, forgotten in his cell, as if his life meant nothing to anyone.
He paid the bill and stormed out of the café, taking deep breaths of fresh air, trying to calm himself down, but it was no use.
By the time he got back to the bookshop, his anger had hardened into rage. Tears filled his eyes. In one sweeping motion he sent a stack of books flying off the table.
“What on earth’s got into you? Have you lost your mind?” A stunned older woman had just walked through the door, and was staring at Mitch in astonishment.
“Madame Bergol?”
“Good lord, Mitch? Where have you been all this time?”
She rummaged in her purse and handed him a handkerchief. “Love troubles?” she asked.
“Self-love,” Mitch replied dryly.
“Ah, well, that’s more complicated.”
“What makes it complicated?”
“It’s much harder to make peace with yourself than with others. Anyway – where were you?”
“As if you didn’t know,” he muttered.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking,” she snapped. “I was in the hospital when you vanished. For two months. Two terrible months. The doctors did their best, but the food was vile. The kitchen staff must assume everyone’s about to die anyway.”
She rubbed her chin and grimaced.
“Where was I? Oh right – so, as soon as I was discharged, I rushed straight here, and I had my reasons for doing it, believe me – but the whole place was dark. Couldn’t see much through the window, but I thought maybe you’d taken a vacation.
I kept coming back, every day for weeks, but when the shop stayed closed I finally figured you’d gone out of business.
Just my luck. So where were you, all this time? ”
Mitch was silent. The old lady stared at him.
“I’m back now,” he said at last. “The rest doesn’t matter. I’m glad my absence didn’t worry you for too long.”
She drew herself up, hands on her hips. “What about my absence? While I was getting carved up in surgery – did that worry you?”
“I had no idea you were in the hospital.”
“And I had no idea you’d upped sticks and left! I suppose we’re even.”
Mitch coughed. Slowly, he flipped a blank page in his empty order book, then looked back up at her.
“Is your health better now?” he asked, reluctantly.
“You’re not very observant, are you?” she said, amused. “Now, hand me that copy of Womanlight on the table over there. I’ll take it.”
Arms folded, Madame Bergol stared at Mitch. At last, taking pity on him, she leaned closer, widening her eyes until they were big as saucers.
“While they were removing bits of my stomach and intestines, I thought I’d get the cataracts done too.
I’d thought my vision loss was just another degenerative issue; I’ve got quite the list going already.
Hips, for starters. Anyway, if I’d gone to the doctor sooner, I’d have known it wasn’t that.
But I’ve always hated going to the doctor.
As long as I didn’t go, I could pretend everything was fine.
And for the record, since you’re suddenly so concerned about my health – the surgeries went very well. ”
“I’m sincerely delighted to hear that,” Mitch said.
“Well, you can knock off the sarcasm,” Madame Bergol snapped.
“I don’t actually give a damn that you’re having a bad day.
In fact, if you hadn’t been so kind in the past, I’d have walked out of here already and bought my book somewhere else.
And judging by your current lack of customers, you’d have missed your only sale of the day.
Now, are you going to tell me what’s wrong? ”
It was an order, not a question. She grabbed the bookshop’s stepladder, dragged it over to the counter, and perched on the third rung.
“I’ve got all the time in the world,” she said.
So Mitch told her. About his arrest, the trial, the prison sentence that had cost him five years of his life – a life he was only just beginning to rebuild.
But Madame Bergol’s curiosity was still far from satisfied, so he also told her about what he’d found out at lunch, and the anger that had followed.
“I understand,” she said, sinking into deep thought for a moment, then coming back to herself with a shake of her head. “Actually, no – I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“Do you have even the slightest idea of what happened while you were in that cell?”
He shrugged. All he knew was what he’d found out in that café half an hour ago.
“The repression only got worse. You weren’t the only one thrown in prison.
They arrested so many people. Former journalists, writers, filmmakers, musicians, teachers they deemed too progressive, researchers judged to be too far ahead of their time, students, even women accused of having had abortions after they were made illegal.
“Life became unbearable. Everyone was scared out of their minds. Resigned acceptance wasn’t enough anymore. Last year, the economy collapsed, and people got even angrier. Then the protest movement began. It was relatively low-profile at first, until the scandal broke.
“The governor threw this big banquet for a bunch of oligarchs, and promised them he’d eliminate the last of the environmental regulations in exchange for a few million in his party’s pockets.
Nothing new as far as corruption goes, except that the people he’d made these promises to were from a foreign oil consortium.
That really pushed people over the edge.
“People took to the streets. Shut everything down. And for once the police couldn’t stop them. The governor had become so unpopular that his own people panicked and forced him to call an election.”
“That was the impression I got at the café.” Mitch nodded.
“Well then, stop sulking and drop this self-absorbed nonsense!”
Mitch sat up straight on his stool, like a schoolboy being scolded.
“They released hundreds of incarcerated people,” she went on. “You can’t have been held with the other political prisoners – that’s why they forgot about you. But you’re free now, aren’t you? And when I say free, I mean actually free!”
“You’re probably right,” Mitch conceded.
“I don’t recall ever being wrong. And now that we’re in agreement, I have a confession to make. I’ve really missed being read to by you.”
“Sounds like you don’t need me anymore.” Mitch smiled.
“Well, you and I don’t have the same literary taste,” she grinned, “but it was more about the company. Five years is a long time at my age.”
“At mine, too. Especially behind bars.” He paused for a beat. “So, no one told you about the police raiding the shop? Or about the trial? No one at all?”
“Lord, you’re obstinate! Like a dog with a bone!
No one tells us lonely old ladies anything!
There wasn’t any sort of sign hung on your front door, and frankly, one bookseller’s troubles didn’t seem any more tragic than anyone else’s.
Let me be blunt: you’re taking your anger out on the wrong target here. ”
Mitch wondered where she was going with this.
“Blame the people who put you in prison, not the ones who forgot to get you out. You probably don’t want my advice, but I’ll give it anyway. Don’t waste your time dwelling on the past. Focus on the future. You’re lucky to have one.”
The old lady clambered down from her perch, opened her purse, paid for the Romain Gary novel, and tucked it into her bag. Mitch got up to walk her to the door.
“You’re limping?” she asked.
“No.”
“Yes, you are! You’re limping! I’ll come back to see you soon,” she promised, and took her leave.
There were no other customers that day. Mitch spent the afternoon pondering Madame Bergol’s morality lesson. Maybe she was right. Maybe the best thing he could do for himself right now was to start rebuilding, and stop looking back.
* * *
At six o’clock, after lowering the metal shutter, he decided to go for a walk by the river before catching his train home.
As he passed the front of the courthouse, he stopped dead in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat.
Just ten metres away was a face he would never forget.
It was Prosecutor Salinas, the man who’d pushed for the maximum sentence during Mitch’s rushed sham of a trial, the man who’d been determined to make an example out of him.
He was chatting casually with a colleague, wearing the affable look of a man telling a joke, confident in his punch line.
The full meaning of Madame Bergol’s advice now dawned on him in full force. He’d been directing his anger at the wrong target. Though it wasn’t anger he was feeling now, rather a deep and irrepressible desire for revenge.