The Next Chapter

Tanya waited in the bookshop, her elbow leaning on the cashier’s dusty glass countertop while her other arm clutched several books.

Jacob the old, Polish shopkeeper, seemed to always get lost in his labyrinth of books and was often not seen at all.

More than once Tanya had simply left cash on the counter for him hoping it was enough, and after glancing at the spindle-handed clock on the wall she figured she would need to do so again.

She put the books on the countertop and began rifling through her bag. As she clasped her wallet she heard the irregular shuffle of Jacob, who came around the corner slightly out of breath.

“Ah, Tanya, sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, smiling with his crooked aged teeth. He had a smell to him that was slightly acidic, though it wasn’t unpleasant. Like sourdough, Tanya decided.

“I’ve been digging through my warehouse, I’m trying to tidy it up,” he said. “Less to do later.”

Tanya paused as she opened her wallet.

“What do you mean?”

Jacob let out a deflating sigh, his gaze shifting from the floorboards up to the towering alleys of full, wooden shelves. The sunlight drifted in from the front window revealing thousands of glinting specks of dust dancing slowly, as though time moved differently for them.

“I’m afraid, Tanya, that I will need to close up shop soon,” Jacob said, the words plunking to the floor like heavy rain. “An electrician came in to fix that flickering light upstairs and found the whole building is filled with faulty wiring. To replace it all, to take down the walls and redo everything… it would ruin me. I’m going to try to sell off my stock and get a half-decent price for the building.”

After he spoke Jacob looked robbed, like a hermit crab without its shell.

“What?” Tanya said, “Jacob, you can’t! The neighbourhood loves you, you must be able to fundraise or get a loan or something!”

Jacob gave her a half-hearted smile, his droopy, red-rimmed eyes sparkling behind old wireframe glasses.

“Tanya that is kind, but I’m too old for all of that. Maybe it’s meant to be.”

Before she could protest he cut her off, grabbing her books.

“Ah, a good selection. That will be $5.00, you left me too much last time.”

Tanya didn’t know what to say as he took her books and slipped them into a paper bag; the air suddenly felt too thin. Nowicki’s Books had been her only real home, her only consistency through her adolescence as she’d been shuffled through foster homes.

Jacob had become a grandfather figure to her; giving her a blanket and some hot borscht when she came in soaking wet from the rain, teaching her about famous authors, and telling her stories of his youth while they sat in the old plush chairs in the store’s upper level and drank strong black coffee.

Tears stung Tanya’s eyes. She bit her lip to keep them at bay.

“Where will you go?” she mustered.

Jacob had always spoken of staying in the store for the rest of his life, of simply disappearing amongst the shelves. His home was in the back portion of the store, small and simple but enough for a solitary, wizened book warden.

Jacob shrugged.

“Things will go as they’re supposed to go. I came to own this building by chance, I suppose I’ll lose it that way, too.”

Tanya had heard the story many times—the whole town had heard the story many times. Jacob was a freshly-arrived immigrant no older than 18 when he rolled into town carrying only a sack of clothes and not speaking four words of English.

At the time their town had been more prominent thanks to the affluent Devonshire family, which owned the region’s supporting steel mill. During the Second World War steel was in high demand, so the town became a lighthouse for unemployed Americans and immigrant workers alike. The family’s youngest daughter, Louisa Devonshire, was then an ambitious — if not slightly eccentric — debutante known for her public displays of philanthropy.

After the war she decided she wanted to help people in her community and one of her ideas was to give away a prominent downtown building in a lottery-style event.

Jacob, who had been used to long, snaking bread lines in Poland, thought he was simply waiting for food. He was dumbfounded when he finally got to the end only to receive a ticket stub. His stomach rumbled as he turned the ticket over in his hand, numbered 0808. He started: it was the same number inked into his forearm.

Immediately he knew he was fated to win the building. This sense was so strong that it would push him through the fear and hatred the locals presented when a foreign teenager won the crown jewel of the downtown strip. With grit, perseverance and kindness Jacob soon won them over, fulfilling his dream of providing books to a free land where the words wouldn’t be burned.

Jacob burst Tanya’s train of thought.

“Hey Tanya, I found this in the back. I thought you might like it, maybe you can use it to start writing your first book.”

He held up a small black notebook, bound by a long leather string. He tucked it into the brown paper bag along with the other books.

Tanya started to protest. She hated getting gifts —mostly because she was too broke to ever give anything back— but Jacob cut her off.

“I’m sorry to be rude, but I’ve got much to do,” he said as he turned back towards his chasm of books. He always did this: abruptly changing the topic and refusing to say goodbye. Tanya believed it was a remnant of being stripped of his family without a proper farewell, an experience they both shared. “Go enjoy yourself, I’ll see you soon.”

He shuffled away leaving Tanya stunned and clutching her books. When she finally turned and left the shop the usual tinkle of the bell above the door rang like a knell.

***

That day Tanya skipped her classes and campaigned for Nowicki’s Books at the other dozen stores still open on the strip. While many felt sympathetic for old Jacob, most were in the pits of the recent economic plunge and simply couldn’t help.

Tanya approached the bank’s manager, Laura, who was also a frequent shopper at Nowicki’s. Her face dropped, followed by her voice when she heard the news and explained that any kind of loan would need to be applied for by Jacob directly.

Exhausted, Tanya sat down on a curb, her thoughts storming in her skull so forcefully it almost hurt. She instinctively rummaged through her bag searching for the means to the only life raft she could rely on: her writing.

She grabbed her pen and the black notebook Jacob had given her and unwound the leather cord. The spine cracked as she opened it, revealing yellowed pages which smelled of old glue, leather and dust. Heavenly.

As she lay the book flat on her lap, she noticed neat cursive writing on the first page:

“The end of one chapter is the start of another.”

“I suppose so,” Tanya mumbled.

She glanced through the pages but the rest were blank. She began to write.

Tanya thought of her future. She was graduating high school this year and had no real family, no money and no goals. She’d only known this town. She’d only known books and writing. Part of her told her to focus on these glaring problems but her heart drifted to Jacob.

As she scribbled further along, the ink trailing her stream of consciousness, her pen caught an edge and punctured a small hole in the page. Puzzled, Tanya ironed over the page with her hand and found a thin, flat lump through the pages. She flipped through until she came to a small, folded piece of paper.

Tanya’s breath caught as she unfolded it: a cheque. The yellowed slip was not dated nor written out to anyone. However, it was made out to a sum of $20,000 from the account of Louisa Devonshire III. The memo on the note read “For your next chapter.”

Tanya froze. She looked up around her to make sure the rest of the world was still there. She folded and unfolded the piece of paper again, hands shaking. Could this be real? If so it would be decades old… Would the cheque still work? Was Louisa Devonshire even still alive?

She quickly got up, stuffing her bag and turning several directions before deciding on the bank.

She burst through the front doors, startling Laura and the other teller.

“Are you alright?” Laura asked.

Tanya nodded, prying her tongue from her the roof of her mouth.

“Is Louisa Devonshire still alive?” she blurted.

Laura raised her eyebrows.

“I believe so, though she must be in her 90s—”

“Would this cheque still work?” Tanya asked, slamming it onto the counter more forcefully than she had meant to. “I found it in an old book.”

Laura leaned in, sucking in a lungful of air.

“It’s possible,” she said with an exhale. “If she has kept that account open. She has been known to do this kind of thing…”

“I need to deposit it in Jacob’s account.”

Laura shook her head.

“We need him to deposit it, he has to be here in person.”

Tanya couldn’t bear to disappoint him if the cheque turned out to be nothing—she couldn’t make him lose the shop twice.

“Can we try putting it in my account then?” she said.

Laura sighed, looking skeptical and glancing around the room before catching Tanya’s eye. She smiled.

“We can try.”

***

Two days passed and Tanya hadn’t seen Jacob nor heard from Laura. She had gone by the shop several times but the only indication of Jacob’s presence was a continually shifting pile of boxes.

Tanya decided she would try a third time, and had just rounded the corner when she nearly collided with Laura.

Breathless and beaming, Laura’s round face flushed as she caught Tanya’s eye. The streetscape fell silent, birds stopped flying and even the wind stopped blowing. Finally, Laura burst.

“It went through!”

Tanya bolted.

***

As she burst through the bookshop’s door the bell heralded her arrival.

“Jacob!”

The building was still.

She wandered around the shop, not surprised that he wasn’t standing at the counter. She ran through the corridors, checked each reading nook and looked in the storage area to make sure nothing had collapsed on him. Lastly, she went upstairs to the old reading chairs the two had spent countless hours in.

Jacob was not there, but on her seat was a large black notebook with a small piece of paper pinned to the outside.

Tanya detached it and turned it over: a faded ticket stub, numbered 0808 with an inscription in Jacob’s shaky handwriting, “Tanya, for your next chapter.”

She opened the book and pulled out a thick wad of documents: Nowicki’s business license, Nowicki’s property insurance, Nowicki’s deed… Her eyes caught on something familiar, yet out of place: her name. Her very own name. On every page.

Tanya felt her pulse in her skull and a clamp on her chest, the air hummed around her. She followed the sound and realized it was the perfectly functioning light above her—the upstairs light Jacob had said was acting up. She stared at it and somehow knew there’d never been anything wrong with it.

She almost moved to search through the building once more, but stopped as that same instinct told her that Jacob wouldn’t be found.

She looked around, golden dust drifting onto the shelves as the subtle smell of sourdough bread wafted through the air. Tanya knew that, for the last time, Jacob had gone roaming through his books and disappeared amongst the shelves.