The Storyteller Read Online Free PDF Page A

a bread knife while your back is turned.”
    “I’ve never heard of him,” I murmur.
    “That’s because you live under a rock,” Mary says.
    “Or in a kitchen.” When you sleep all day and work all night, you don’t have time for things like newspapers or television. It was three days before I heard that Osama bin Laden had been killed.
    “Good night.” She gives me a quick hug. “Josef’s harmless. Really. The worst he could do is talk you to death.”
    I watch her open the rear door of the bakery. She ducks at the onslaught of driving rain and waves without looking back. I close the door behind her and lock it.
    By the time I return to the bakery’s dining room, Mr. Weber’s mug is empty and the dog is on his lap. “Sorry,” I say. “Work stuff.”
    “You don’t have to entertain me. I know you have much to do.”
    I have a hundred loaves to shape, bagels to boil, bialys to fill. Yes, you could say I’m busy. But to my surprise I hear myself say, “It can wait a few minutes.”
    Mr. Weber gestures to the chair Mary had occupied. “Then please. Sit.”
    I do, but I check my watch. My timer will go off in three minutes, then I will have to go back into the kitchen. “So,” I say. “I guess we’re in for some weather.”
    “We are always in for some weather,” Mr. Weber replies. His wordssound as if he is biting them off a string: precise, clipped. “Tonight however we are in for some bad weather.” He glances up at me. “What brought you to the grief group?”
    My gaze locks on his. There is a rule that, at group, we are not pressed to share if we’re not ready. Certainly Mr. Weber hasn’t been ready; it seems rude that he’d ask someone else to do what he himself isn’t willing to do. But then again, we aren’t at group.
    “My mother,” I say, and tell him what I’ve told everyone else there. “Cancer.”
    He nods in sympathy. “I am sorry for your loss,” he says stiffly.
    “And you?” I ask.
    He shakes his head. “Too many to count.”
    I don’t even know how to respond to that. My grandma is always talking about how at her age, her friends are dropping like flies. I imagine for Mr. Weber, the same is true.
    “You have been a baker long?”
    “A few years,” I answer.
    “It is an odd profession for a young woman. Not very social.”
    Has he seen what I look like? “It suits me.”
    “You are very good at what you do.”
    “Anyone can bake bread,” I say.
    “But not everyone can do it well.”
    From the kitchen comes the sound of the timer buzzing; it wakes up Eva, who begins to bark. Almost simultaneously there is a sweep of approaching lights through the glass windows of the bakery as the Advanced Transit bus slows at its corner stop. “Thank you for letting me stay a bit,” he says.
    “No problem, Mr. Weber.”
    His face softens. “Please. Call me Josef.”
    I watch him tuck Eva into his coat and open his umbrella. “Come back soon,” I say, because I know Mary would want me to.
    “Tomorrow,” he announces, as if we have set a date. As he walks out of the bakery he squints into the bright beams of the bus.
    In spite of what I have told Mary, I go to collect his dirty mug andplate, only to notice that Mr. Weber—Josef—has left behind the little black book he is always writing in when he sits here. It is banded with elastic.
    I grab it and run into the storm. I step right into a gigantic puddle, which soaks my clog. “Josef,” I call out, my hair plastered to my head. He turns, Eva’s beady little eyes poking out from between the folds of his raincoat. “You left this.”
    I hold up the black book and walk toward him. “Thank you,” he says, safely slipping it into his pocket. “I don’t know what I would have done without it.” He tips his umbrella, so that it shelters me as well.
    “Your Great American Novel?” I guess. Ever since Mary installed free WiFi at Our Daily Bread, the place has been crawling with people who intend to be published.
    He