The Silence of the Wave by Gianrico Carofiglio

and the shelves, browsing, selecting, going to the cashier, or else leaning against a bookcase, sitting down on a little sofa, and reading for a long time as if this was a library. The sight of these people reading without paying at last managed to relax him. If nobody was paying any attention to them—and nobody was, not even the assistants—then nobody would pay any attention to him.
    He started focusing on the microcosm around him. Up until that moment he had been aware only of masses, some colorful, some dusty, and individuals moving between those masses.
    There was a group of men in gray suits and loose ties; a boy photographing the cover and a few pages of a book with his mobile phone; an elderly lady examining the crime section with a professional demeanor; two girls talking nonstop, apparently completely uninterested in books or anything else apart from their conversation; a man with a beard like an Alpine officer, looking at history books and every now and again sniffing and loudly clearing his throat.
    After wandering for a few minutes in the middle of all this humanity, as if in an aquarium, Roberto asked an assistant to point out the section for theaterbooks. Maybe, he thought, he’d find something there that would give him a few ideas for what to talk to Emma about. But none of the titles he looked through seemed suitable. There were plenty of plays, of course. Roberto pulled out a volume of Beckett, read a page, and emerged feeling anxious. Then there were volumes about the theater with titles like
For a Shamanistic Theater
or
The Empty Space
. He tried leafing through these too, and again gave up quickly.
    Next to the theater books was a section of books about writing, and among these Roberto was drawn to a manual entitled
How to Write the Story of Your Life
.
    As he leafed through it, he noticed a fat man in a dark baggy raincoat looking at him furtively. He had a book in his hand and a rucksack on his back—which seemed tiny on that bulk—and as is often the case with fat people he was of indeterminate age. After a few seconds, he put the book back on the shelf and approached Roberto.
    “May I ask you a question? You might think it’s indiscreet, and you can just tell me it’s none of my business, I’ll apologize, and that’ll be the end of it.”
    “Go on.”
    “You don’t spend much time in bookstores, do you?”
    Roberto felt a twinge of annoyance, and for a moment thought of telling him that it genuinely wasn’t any of his business. “Is it that obvious?”
    “Actually, yes.”
    Then he held out his hand and introduced himself. He said he was a journalist, and was supposed to be writing a series of pieces on people who frequented bookstores. The regulars and the occasional ones. Roberto had immediately struck him as an interesting subject.
    “Do you mind if I ask you why you came in here today?”
    Explaining everything, Roberto thought, could be a little complicated.
    “I met a woman who loves the theater,” he said. “I’d like to buy her a book, but I have no idea what to get.”
    It was a lie, but as he said it Roberto had the impression he had discovered the real reason he had ended up in here.
    “Buy
The World’s a Stage
,” the man said, taking a book with an orange cover from a table and handing it to Roberto. “It’s a very good book about Shakespeare and his period, entertaining and serious at the same time. It’ll impress your lady friend, even if she’s already read it. In fact, maybe even more so if she’s already read it.”
    Just at that moment, a scruffy-looking woman approached, holding a volume with a dark blue cover, and asked the fat man if he could sign it for her. The man smiled, said yes, took out a cheap pen that looked small in his hand, and wrote something on the first page. The lady thanked him, apologized for the interruption, and went back to a friend who was waiting for her about ten feet away.
    “I sometimes write books too,” the man said in a