Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Before the Frost




She followed him into a room full of shabby, ill-matched furniture. A torn Che Guevara poster hung on one wall, a tapestry embroidered with some words about the joys of home on another. Zacharias sat at a table with a chess set. Linda sat as far away from him as she could get.

“What do you study?” she said.

“I don’t. I play chess.”

“And you make a living from that?”

“I don’t know. I just know I can’t live any other way.”

“I don’t even know how the pieces move.”

“I can show you, if you like.”

Not a chance, Linda thought. I’m getting out of here as soon as I can.

Before the Frost
Henning Mankell



2 comments:

ejh said...

And rightly so, may I add.

The Cat Who Liked Rain is pretty good.

Tom Chivers said...

That's a pretty impressive smoke ring on the cover.