“Are you looking for a book?”

Yashim lifted his head from the page he was reading and looked around. For a moment he was puzzled; he had been far away with Benjamin Constant, a French writer whose single slim novella laid bare the agonies of love unfulfilled. Adjusting his gaze, Yashim found himself in the familiar cubbyhole in the Grand Bazaar, with the walls lined with books from floor to ceiling, the dim lamp and Goulandris himself, the bookseller, in a dirty gray fez, cross-legged on his stool behind a Frankish desk. Yashim smiled. He was not going to buy this book, Adolphe. He closed it softly and slid it back into its place on the shelf.

Yashim bowed, one hand to his chest. He liked this place, this little cave of books: you never knew what you might find. Goulandris, he suspected, had no idea himself: he doubted if he could do more than read and write in Greek. And today, hugger-mugger with the Frankish textbooks on ballistics, the old imperial scrolls bearing a sultan’s beautiful calligraphic tugra, the impenetrable Greek religious tracts, the smattering of French novels Yashim so enjoyed-there, bizarre as it was, a treasure that caught his eye. It had not been there last month. It might not be there the next.

Half smiling to himself, Yashim slid the book out; then he carefully reached up and took down Adolphe again. He hesitated a little over his third choice, choosing-at random-something French, all the while feeling Goulandris’s eye fixed firmly on his movements. Slightly too casually, he hoped, he slipped it to the bottom of the pile as he placed the books on the desk.

Goulandris sucked his lips. He did not haggle or offer arguments. He suggested prices. Yashim failed to suppress a flicker of disappointment as Goulandris solemnly priced the third book just a shade beyond his reach. Left with two, he put out a hand and picked up Adolphe. The bookseller glanced suspiciously from the book in Yashim’s hand to the book on the desk.